THEME: "NO. CLUE" (47D: "Haven't the foggiest!" ... or, when the first two letters are put at the end, an essential part of seven answers in this puzzle) — Seven answers can only be made sense of if you add the CLUE NO. to the front of the answers:
Theme answers:
[17] AGAIN (17A: 2009 fantasy rom-com starring Zac Efron)
[7]-ELEVEN (7D: Popular store chain with a green, red and orange logo)
[8] MILE (8D: 2002 film that earned Eminem two MTV Movie Awards)
[27] DRESSES (27D: 2008 rom-com starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden)
"[30] ROCK" (30D: NBC comedy series starring Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin)
[39] STEPS (39D: 1935 Hitchcock thriller, with "The")
[50] CENT (50D: Rapper Curtis Jackson, more familiarly)
Word of the Day: [50] CENT (50D) —
Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, television producer, and businessman. Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 2000, when he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records; however, days before the planned release, he was shot, and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the mixtape Guess Who's Back? he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
Piece of cake, and pretty fun, though the number answers themselves were an odd set, oddly dispersed. Four movies! Out of only seven themers total? Seems like you're *this* close to figuring out how to make this a movie theme as well as a number theme. I actually thought the theme was going to be strictly movie-related early on, right after I got [27] DRESSES ... but then I remembered I'd already gotten [7]-ELEVEN, which is not a movie (yet — if you're a brand, I assume you'll eventually have a movie, those appear to be the rules now. Look for [7]-ELEVEN, starring a middle-aged Zac Efron, in IMAX, summer 2030!) (Hmmm ... there's definitely a script here and if this movie ever gets made remember it's my idea mine pay me). Four movies is a lot of movies for a non-movie theme. The themers were also weirdly placed, by which I mean, obviously the answers had to go where the numbers were, but only one of those answers was Across, whereas six (!) were Down. This isn't a flaw, just a wacky feature. The theme draws heavily (almost exclusively) from pop culture, which may have left some people in the dark at times, as pop culture-heavy themes often do. I was lucky enough to know all these titles, even if I couldn't have told you a thing about [17] AGAIN or [27] DRESSES (really missed that '00s rom-com phenom, I guess) (not "FEE-nom" but "fuh-NOM," it has to rhyme, please play along). In a perfect world, this grid probably wouldn't have actual written-out numbers in it (see TEN-FOUR)—kinda clashes with the "missing number" vibe; but the world is imperfect and I don't think the obtrusive numbers are that obtrusive. There was very little difficulty in this puzzle, and the theme's trickiness was not very tricky, so I was feeling that lack of Thursday thorniness and trickiness. Felt a little flat for what is supposed to be the Trickiest Day of the Week. But conceptually, the gimmick is definitely Thursday-worthy, and I enjoyed the overall solving experience.
There were a couple of cute clue pairings in this puzzle. Cute because not cross-referenced (i.e. no [See 14-Across] or whatever), but just ... playful. First, there's the obvious one, the JAM / JAR cross in the NE (10A: Preserves, maybe / 10D: Preserves preserver). It's a nice little decoration. Brightens up an otherwise potentially drab corner. Then there's the long-range "O" echo, where the puzzle starts (in the NW) with an "O" clue (1A: Follower of November = OSCAR, the "O" in the NATO phonetic alphabet), and then ends (or nearly ends, in the SE) with another "O", also an Across, also in five letters (68A: The first "O" of O/O = OWNER, as in "owner-operator," an abbr. most closely associated with the trucking industry). Less appealing were things like RANDR (That's "R & R" i.e. "rest and relaxation") (5D: Vacation time, informally). The puzzle has dramatically reduced its reliance on ampersandwiches over the years; feels like it, anyway—you used to see them all the time: RANDB, BANDB, SANDL ... CANDW, even (one appearance, 2007)). I almost like RANDR as a kind of retro-chic answer, but ... no, I think it's still not great. Now it just looks like the name of an app—an app for meeting randos? Why would you want that?
This puzzle made me remember Dennis RODMAN, so that's a demerit, for sure. Also, SAND CAT? (56A: Desert feline). Are you making that up? That was the one answer where I just inferred it and hoped for the best. "Sure, the desert ... has sand ... so why not? SAND CAT." [Peeps] are FAM because all the small marshmallow chicks are part of one big happy FAMily (actually, your "peeps" are your "people," i.e. your FAMily). I'm off to make the coffee. See you tomorrow, FAM. Hmm, no ... "FAM" sounds wrong in my mouth. Not my slang at all. How about, "See you tomorrow, SAND CATs!" Yes, yes, that's better.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Update: SAND CATs are real and omg so cute. Kitty!!
P.P.S. found another clue pairing that I like. The revealer, NO CLUE, neatly parallels NO HOPE (6D: Zero chance of a good result). Seems like the puzzle is taunting or trash-talking the solver, but I don't mind.
A very cool Thursday gimmick; fun to solve and a nice "aha".
I pat myself on the back if I can solve for the cycle (all seven days with no Googling). And here you go getting published for the cycle. Mazel tov, Mr. Cheng. Quite the accomplishment!
Very easy, but also a huge upgrade over yesterday—so that's fine. My only quibble is with FAM: I feel like "peeps" is interchangeable with "folks," whereas "fam" is more intimate ("fam" can also be used to address a singular person).
@Rex: Your idea for a 7-ELEVEN movie has no chance. OTOH, you should copyright (or even code) your RANDR app idea. We've seen RANDR a few times and it has tripped me up every time. Not that I type something wrong, just that it takes a while to recognize how five spaces can fit the clue.
Got the theme at 7-ELEVEN, but I didn't know or didn't remember any of the movies. At 8D, I thought it odd that Eminem was in the movie MILk. That E was my last letter; I was surprised when the happy music played and then I thought he might have been in a movie called MILE. I got 17 AGAIN, 27 DRESSES and 39 STEPS from crosses.
In my defense, 1935 would have been very early Hitchcock and I thought maybe he'd made a movie called THE STEPS sometime before I was born.
My only other overwrites were kin before FAM at 32D and the kealoa AlOt before ATON at 33A, quickly corrected by ETNA.
Thought briefly that the noted head turner might be Olive OyL.
Pretty much sailed thru this one; didn't really pay attention to the theme, altho knew something was up at ROCK.
Had fun post-solve tracking down all the numbers preceding the themers. Couldn't find anything that connected them all together, tho.
Anyhoo, nice adventure! :)
Played the NYT newest game: 'Connections' yd. I think it'll be a winner. ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
This puzzle was a little easy for a Thursday, in my opinion, but overall enjoyable. One issue: SANDCAT crossing INDOOR, clued as "Like some cats and plumbing" (emphasis mine).
Even though I caught the number theme early, somehow even after solving I didn’t make the connection with 7-ELEVEN. I just figured there was some retail chain called ELEVEN that I’d never heard of.
I also couldn’t see RANDR at all and kept trying to rework that area :-(.
I liked the revealer, and I thought there were only seven themers, all in downs. Totally missed (Seventeen) AGAIN, assuming the Zac Ephron movie was just AGAIN. As in Zac Efron AGAIN? I knew something was up with (eight) MILE, then noticed a missing numbers theme but didn’t get that they were CLUE NO.s until I got the themer.
OK, I think I am going to start today’s vociferous commenter argument. Was the concept of “zero” really developed in INDIA? From quick research, it seems like it was first employed in Mesopotamia some time BCE, then independently in Maya culture shortly after BCE became CE (formerly AD). One source said that “a full grasp of zero’s importance would not arrive until the seventh century A.D. in India.” I think there are some mathematicians here so will be interested to see their take. It is hard for us to comprehend a society not having zero.
Highlight for me was the SAND CAT, and overall enjoyed it. Kept thinking there would be a pattern to the theme clue numbers, but nope.
Yesterday's puzzle has crept into the top three for most comments on the Rex blog, and will likely make top-two once the Syndielanders weigh in. But it seems to have no chance of topping the 12/15/2022 Bruce Haight puzzle (a.k.a. "Guest blogger Christopher Adams insults the world").
Theme was lost on me because I've never heard of 4 of the 7 themers. I saw the gimmick easily at 7 ELEVEN and 30 ROCK, but didn't see 50 CENT because I got that answer entirely from downs. When the revealer indicated that there were seven themers I had NOCLUE.
Nice Thursday! Played like it had a good amount of crunch, but time was considerably less than my Thu average, just 2 seconds more than yesterday’s. (Oy, didn’t comment, but what a clunker that was!) OFL really in fine form this week; LOL’d several times reading today’s write-up.
Weird thing: I had trouble finding the last of the seven themers, which turned out to be 17 AGAIN, a movie I don’t remember ever hearing of. Since all the others were Downs, I looked for it among Downs only, and came up with (No.) 10 JAR, a perfectly reasonable answer, referencing a size of Mason jar commonly used for home-made jam. I stopped looking at that point, only to be surprised here by what was clearly intended with 17-Across. Wonder if anyone else was led similarly astray…
PS—Signed up yesterday for the fall on-line JASA x-word class. Can hardly wait for it to start in October!
I don’t get the clue for 49D - how is DNA figurative ? Isn’t DNA literally our inherent nature ? Something about that one is just zooming over my head.
I’m surprised that the grid isn’t more stressed due to the large number of theme entries (and a PPP-related theme as well), but the constructor held it together nicely, so a job well done there.
The clue for OHO (“Caught ya!”) seems too contrived - if they were stuck, maybe they should have scoured the world’s various languages to see if it means something in URDU or the like.
Easier than mostThursdays but got DNF’d by the OLeN-MeLE cross. Had difficulty with peeps clue because that’s what our family calls those little yellow-colored marshmallow chicks that are sold around Easter time. A fun association that made it hard to get FAM without the crosses. In any case, I’m still a long way from ever achieving @Joaquin’s cycle!
No comment from Rex about HOO-HA? I anticipated a tirade about hating that word and something about dumbing down women's anatomy and feminism. I certainly had a tirade playing in my own head.
The puzzle was enjoyable, but the theme got itself lost. It was uncovered almost immediately by MILE, but I missed the rest of the movie references. Never heard of 17 AGAIN or 27 DRESSES and wasn't sure about 39 STEPS (but thought maybe I had heard of it once long ago), so when the revealer said it was part of seven answers, I was quite confused. Seven? I counted four, maybe five. Huh.
Hated the clue for KARMA for being so arbitrary (replay? ramen?) but otherwise nothing offensive besides the aforementioned HOO-HA.
Finally, count me as another who came to say 7-ELEVEN is already an excellent movie called Clerks.
@Wanderlust 7:15 AM: I agree. INDIA didn't seem right to me, but it was late at night and I couldn't be bothered to look it up.
OFL sure can write an amusing review when he really likes a puzzle. OTOH, the angry screeds are kind of fun too.
@webwinger-My experience exactly looking for that last themer. 17 Again? News to me. Read the clue for SANDCAT and thought, now that's going to be SANDCAT, but there isn't such a thing. Turns out there is.
Didn't catch on until 30 Rock, and then 50 Cent made sense, as did the revealer. Elegant.
I'm still waiting for a repeat of the HOOHA discussion from the other day. Nothing yet.
Very nice Thursday indeed, FC. Finally Caught on at just the right time. always love it when that happens. Thanks for all the fun.
Fun working this one - but agree with the big guy on the difficulty level. Figured the trick with 7-11. Lots of solid fill - KARMA, NO HOPE, TEN-FOUR, SAND CAT. Another HOOHA sighting and a return of our friends the ALOU brothers.
I really struggled with 25D. When I first saw the clue, I wanted “morons” or “idiots”, or maybe even “schmucks”, but none of them fit. When I had the first letter, I realized it must be “Dumbasses”, but that didn’t fit either. Another letter got me to “DElusional”, but nope, too long. I needed a lot of crosses to find the overly benign DENIERS to describe that bunch of buffoons.
I knew SAND CAT right away because I was just reading about them recently, but I can't figure out where now.
Picked up the theme early from 7 ELEVEN and 8 MILE. Like @Webwinger I couldn't figure out where the seventh answer (17 AGAIN) was after I finished. Strange to have a single across themer.
So... Ava and Dana met with their friends OSCAR and NEMO. They had a JAM session and played a cover of KARMA police. Then they met with OLIN whose AX... ok that's all I got. And, of course, they lived happily ever after.
@Anonymous 5:38 AM - You're showing your boomers. In millennial/zoomer-speak, "fam" and "peeps" are equivalent; for example, you may "give a shoutout" to you "Instagram fam" or ask for relationship advice in a post to your "Facebook fam."
My 3 year old granddaughter LOVES the sandcats at the Buffalo Zoo and we visit them frequently…so that was a gimme for me! They look like house cats with unusually large heads.
I just wanted to comment on the tenor of the comments from yesterday. There was an overall harshness that was quite, to my mind, unnecessary. I can't tell if people are just sort of taking their cue from Rex, who had nothing nice to say about the puzzle, or if folks in general just need to vent. To me the puzzle was a very creative attempt that had some obvious flaws to it, but at the end of the day it's just a puzzle. The string of unrelenting harsh, negative comments (Lewis, NOT YOU!) had a real sour tone. But maybe that's just where America is in 2023, and this blog is just a sad microcosm of that.
Loved this one, got the theme early. My only complaint would be perhaps to have added an asterisk to the theme answers, though that did make the puzzle just a wee bit tougher. I thought it was a really clever trick, and enjoyed a Thursday more than I have in a while.
Hey All ! Nice concept, but the execution seemed clunky. And all four corners are closed off!
I got to give myself a Har, as I commented on YesterPuz as, "Relax, there's worse things out there" or something like that, and now today I'm griping! Ah, me.
Thought this puz would raise Rex's ire, but he seems to have liked it. I'm bad at the guessing game, apparently.
@Gill Meant to comment on your 2004 Taurus the other day. I have a 1994 Taurus SHO that's my daily driver! Also 205000 miles. 5-speed manual, which sucks in traffic, but the SHO makes it a zippy car!
"I don’t get the clue for 49D - how is DNA figurative ? Isn’t DNA literally our inherent nature ?"
Good point!
I think I had the 'D' from INCISED, so DNA quickly came to mind. Got an image of the shape/'figure' of the double-helix, and that was good enuf for me. Never gave it a second thot, until seeing your comment.
After a back-and-forth with ChatGPT, I've come to the conclusion that the constructor/editorial team would have used a question mark to denote a possible literal interpretation, rather than the metaphorical one, e.g., "it's just in their DNA". And, bc we're getting into later week clueing, the second word of the phrase, 'figuratively speaking' was omitted. Still, only Freddie (or Will & staff) knows for sure. lol
Just my 2 CENTs worth. :) ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Having ELEVEN and MILE next to each other was helpful in recognizing the gimmick early today. Easiest Thursday puzzle for me in ages, and miles better than yesterday's affair.
@Southside: I believe the constructor/editor is referring to the metaphorical use of DNA in phrases like "corporate DNA", etc., often in feel-good PSAs, annual reports and the like.
Wow what a difference a good nights sleep makes: I log on this morning and there are only 19 posts so far; last night when I returned to the blog it was approaching 250. Missed my Thursday morning rebus wake-up call, but otherwise TOUTS are in order for Freddie’s grid. Jumping to the reveal led to the most erasures of the day since “don’t no” seemed like an obvious Thursday trick—just one that didn’t get off the ground. Final entry was the D in 6-down as I was totally flummoxed by RAN?R. NO recall today of Rex’s “ ampersandwiches” though on reflection the horror of previous solving kerfuffles made clear the brilliance of that construction gambit.
Tina (8:44) -- It's referring to the answer at 47D -- NO CLUE. Put the NO at the end and it becomes CLUE NO (as in 'clue number"). And the number of the clue in the theme answers is what you need.
@B$ FWIW, it got an average rating of 1.95 over at crosswordfiend, which is the lowest I can recall, so it's not just this blog. Amy Reynaldo gave it two stars, not one star because as she explains it, "it’s not as if the theme includes HITLER and DIARRHEA", which is pretty faint praise.
I think the “sad microcosm” is the babies who cannot handle any criticism, and who demonize and disparage people simply because they have different opinions. The “only say nice things” tyranny/inanity is exhausting. I am happy that some enjoyed yesterday’s puzzle. But some of y’all really need to learn to live in a world where not everybody likes what you like. I have. People lay into my write-ups Daily. It’s (mostly) … fine?—RP
Hopefully somebody else has already mentioned this, but the legal name of the SAND CAT (soooo cute) is ... hold for dramatic pause... FELIS MARGARITA!! Not even making that up. This catapults this animal over the hippo and the orangutan on my favorite wild animal list. Wow! Such a great day. I want to take a cup of water to the desert and set it out.
Tee-Hees: In the 70s, according to certain videos I promise I did not not watch, the WOOL HOOHA reigned supreme, but the NUDE HOOHA seems to be its modern and more photogenic incarnation. I do think the NYTXW team gets a little judgy as they JAW about SLIMY HOOHA OWNERS with FAKE TANS.
I worried I'd missed an important childhood vacation game called RAN DR since I've only ever PLAYED DR. The difficult part (almost wrote "hard part") is finding anyone willing to wear the nurse costume. You have to pay extra at the hospital and my basement.
Got a pure OHO today! Take that AHA.
Uniclues:
1 Get that man a shirt. 2 Took the f-words out. 3 The history of crosswordese in America. 4 Stool pigeon enjoys pigeon. 5 Best place to ask clarifying questions about a stone massage. 6 Hangs an American flag outside an RV. (Guess what TV show is playing inside the RV.) 7 Psst, look at those smug Starbucksians.
1 DRAPE RODMAN 2 INCISED MESSAGE 3 ROUGH ETNA SAGA (~) 4 RAT EATS AWAY 5 ON PAROLE SPA 6 TOUTS ETHOS 7 MOCHA EGOS, AHEM
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Overnight rest stop where things are likely to get weird. "I'M IN" RV PARK.
A nice twist on a Thursday. I caught on at 30 ROCK, which clued me in on my missing 7-ELEVEN and 8 MILE; for the rest, I recognized 50 CENT and The 39 STEPS but had to guess at 27 DRESSES. Then, where was the seventh? Like some others above, I had trouble spotting it, first running through all of the Downs, then the Acrosses, in vain...was there NO HOPE? Rinse and repeat - then, reading aloud...17 AGAIN. OKAY! The run-throughs allowed me the entertainment of envisioning some plural groupings: like a raucous meet-up of 23 TOUTS and 25 DENIERS or a who-wore-it-best contest involving 27 DRESSES and 36 EGOS. Fun puzzle, fun morning.
Really, really clever! Who knew that so many film titles -- especially rom-com film titles -- had numbers in them? Here's one of those rare puzzles where the challenge of the construction, which must have been enormous, is equalled by the challenge posed to the solver.
I picked up the trick early at one of the non-film answers: SEVEN ELEVEN -- an easier place for me to pick it up. Only one film was really an oldie classic -- perhaps the only film I'd seen, though already I don't remember -- and that was THE 39 STEPS (I filled in STEPS and then looked up to see if it was Clue #39, and it was.) But I've heard of, say, 17 DRESSES and 8 MILE -- even though I never saw them.
This theme necessitates an awful lot of pop culture -- and you know how much I usually hate that. So now the question is: Was the theme good enough that it was worth it? Yes, I say: It was very, very, very worth it! A most ingenious puzzle!
Southeast corner sucked. HOOHA to me is a slang for a private area. As in she showed me her HOOHA. Do people know trucker slang? OWNER / operator? Jeez. The downs are ok at helping you out but the clue for OWL was cryptic and ETHOS didn't come right away. Everything else went quick but spent a good fifteen minutes in that corner.
hear, hear B$! Hack, once can critique without being utterly hostile and dismissive. the comments yesterday really did read like a buncha mean kids backing up the boss mean-kid. i thought the puzzle was creative and charming (if yes a little very easy)
Dang! What a primo coincidence -- a young juvie M&A used to cruise the local ones in a '56 SANDCAT.
Liked the theme mcguffin. Figured out somethin themey was up, at ROCK. Didn't catch on earlier, at AGAIN, cuz never heard of that particular flick. Cute revealer clue trick, btw.
staff weeject picks: FAM-JAM-YAM. Mini theme. And they boost the puz's scrabble score up, a notch.
fave fillin: '43 FAKETAN. Never drove one of them, tho.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Cheng dude. Cool theme.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. M&A made a runtpuz inspired by yesterday's NYTPuz, but … well, I get the impression it's too soon to make folks relive that whole thing. Plus, still hopin runtpuz tech support will come to my aid, over at the runtpuz blog.
I was stuck on 32D Fam for Peeps for the longest time & shouldn't have been stuck on Ten Four. While I didn't think it was Easy, it did make me think. And anyway, who's complaining after yesterday???
I didn't comment yesterday because, well, because I was scared I'd get lost at the base of an encipherment. I'll just say that I don't think it's particularly romantic for AVA and DANA to kiss over a CREAM SODA. They should've had their first playing Spin the Bottle. Oh...we're talking about today's little fun spin. OK. First I want to say that I've never been to or have had that Balneotherapy thing. I don'r even know what they'd do to you there. But I digress. I felt like I was finding NEMO hither and yon. I particularly liked meeting up with the RAT Templeton again. I'm betting that SAND CAT would as well. TEN FOUR mate!.... An enjoyable numbers game. I got you at ELEVEN MILE.
@Roo...my Taurus isn't quite as souped up as the SHO...Mine's the SES Sedan and it has my beloved CD tray....
So many fin things to enjoy here. My only nit is that the puzzle was easy and the fun over all too soon. Such a fresh, clever and enjoyable theme. I especially enjoyed the asymmetrical theme answers caused by the constraint of the numbered squares. I marvel at the way the creative mind works. This one was pure fun.
In addition to the theme itself, I especially enjoyed some of the interesting words/phrases not often used (at least lately): INCISED, DROVE AT, TEN FOUR. Enjoyed the JAM/JAR as well as AXON crossing AXIOM. That just made such a nice little corner.
The the e itself was so fresh, clever and enjoyable that I absolutely forgive its easiness. The overall enjoyment of this work of art allows me to forgive any atom of grumpiness or disappointment I might feel that the fun was over so quickly. What fun!
@Tina I had a similar reaction to the revealer. I got the idea, but the way the clue was worded didn't seem, still doesn't seem, to work. If it said first two letters (or first word) MOVED to the end, then OK. Beast the clue number is an essential part of the answer... Agreeit was easy for a Thursday. Did not believe sand cat wa a thing, so thanks Rex for the photo
I have to echo RooMonster's comment about the corners being closed off. Even moreso, the entire puzzle can be split into two with only two overlapping squares; one in the NW and one in the SE.
NO HOPE with three of the themers (8/17/27) completely unknown, two remotely remembered (39/50), and only the last two actually familiar with.
That, coupled with a reveal with *very* convoluted wording. It wasn’t until reading Tina (8:44) that I understood that “the first two letters” meant the first two letters *of the reveal* (ie NO meaning number) and *put at the end* meant to put the number at the end of the theme answers. Geesh. With my complete befuddlement at the reveal, and not knowing most theme answers, I had NO CLUE.
Otherwise, I actually liked a lot of this puzzle. Maybe not A TON, but a lot. (But I liked yesterday’s puzzle too so go figure.)
Knew there was something up at MILE and got the puzzle’s theme at DRESSES. Like @Wanderlust 7:15 am, totally missed 17 Again as part of the themes.
Me, too, Rex, at SANDCAT, thinking, Is that a thing? Googled and found the same pic, and yes, pretty darn cute. My two cats are definitely INDOOR only and merely stare or bristle at the cats allowed to roam outside where the cute but meal-seeking bobcats are.
And thanks, @Gary Jugert 10:44 am, for the puzzling Linnaean nomenclature Felis margarita. Am wondering if the discoverer once had an adorable cat named Margarita? Was s/he sipping one at first glimpse? Would that sipper be the namer or the cat? Let’s imagine a new Mad Libs kids’ book and picture a sandcat [noun] out there sipping [verb] a mock margarita [noun] in the shade of a mesquite [adjective] tree.*
*Turns out the name is in honor of General Jean Auguste Margueritte of the French army stationed in 1850s Algeria; researchers posit a printing typo resulted in the species name becoming margarita.
Funny to me how some are complaining that this puzzle was too easy and others complaining about the corners being cut off, making it (I assume) too hard. My only complaint is that it was too just right.
weirdly, I was stuck on “Noted need turner”. for some reason, I had OyL as in Olive Oyl. Who wasn’t a head turner at all except to Popeye. So I had kind of a debate with myself then - duh - I saw OWL
This was a cute theme; not very challenging but that's okay sometimes. Got the theme at 39 STEPS, one of Hitchcock's early British suspensers and a big hit. Those 1930s movies of his, before he moved to the US, are worth a watch.
Surprised no one mentioned SAND CAT crossing INDOOR which was clued with the word "cats".
[Spelling Bee: Wed -1, missed this annoying 8er. td (Thurs) 0, last word this 4er; went pretty quick and first QB in 3 days.]
@M&A Try it now. It was configured, by default, to only let people with google accounts write comments. I have changed it so that anybody can comment. Let's see what happens.
I’m another person who didn’t know enough of popular culture to find all 7 themers. I saw three, and if I'd looked closer at 39D I would have known that one too. So about 50/50. Another forehead slapper for R AND R - we see that sort of thing sometimes.
It's a good idea for a Thursday - wonder what other options for theme answers were considered? 2 by two 4 square 24 seven 9 lives 12 apostles 20 twenty 50 states 33 rpm …
Sheer delight. I got a couple of answers and thought, "what, so we're leaving out the numbers? " It took me a while to get that they were the clue numbers. How clever! And unlike Rex, I loved TEN-FOUR, taking it as a playful from the constructor.
I also liked it that all the gimmick answers were Downs. I don't have any data to back this up, but it seems to me that the gimmicks are usually Acrosses.
Embarrassed to admit I had to come here to find out why OSCAR was a November follower. Duh!
@Anonymous 11:30 AM That’s a bit simplistic. I disagree with Rex about 98% of the time, and I’m also queer and read it as a queer teen love story, so no problems there. That being said, I hated it so much because it was just an awful little vignette, which made for a miserable solve to be stuck with it for a solid ten minutes. Just like wtf the whole way through. Nothing to do with Rex’s write-up whatsoever. I actually like some of Alex’s other puzzles. This one sounds good in theory (and I really think the Yoda t-shirt inexplicably becoming a YOGA t-shirt with a weak pun that nobody would ever bond over, probably really effed with the narrative), but it was just a swing and a miss.
I wonder what happened to ALL of yesterday's syndie comments. I can't have been the only one. Here's hoping (against NOHOPE) that we'll be included today.
I had this puppy with (8)MILE. Didn't really think it needed a revealer, but we got one--and it clunked, big time. The themed entries were fun to spot, and the puzzle as a whole held up fine.
One piece of fill spoiled it: the ampersandwich. The word AND stuck between an acronym. When are you guys going to quit that?
@Spacey - when there are more than 200 comments, you need to go to the "next page." When you open the comments space, at the top you can click on "newest" to get there. Good luck!!
And good luck I had with this puz, for the most part. I had its number. ;-)
Solved the puzzle but couldn’t figure out a couple of the gimmicks as they were not familiar to me. Not very elegant to have only one gimmick run across and all the others are downs.
17 AGAIN, 8 MILE and 27 DRESSES were really bad. You can’t insert stuff that nobody but hardcore fans know about that many times in a themed puzzle. I have NOCLUE how this one got past the editors.
I have got to stop making some of these Thurpuzs harder than they really are! I'm filling in answers waiting for the gimmick, trick, ruse, or misdirect to appear. Where oh where are they JAMming multiple letters, or whole words into a single square? When the penny finally dropped, I found it very JARring, indeed. Oh well, I'm sure next week's gambit will be much more devilish.
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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75 comments:
A very cool Thursday gimmick; fun to solve and a nice "aha".
I pat myself on the back if I can solve for the cycle (all seven days with no Googling). And here you go getting published for the cycle. Mazel tov, Mr. Cheng. Quite the accomplishment!
Typo that I wanted to be right - typed WAIr instead of WAIF at 28D, so had rAKETAN - sure, you're piling up leaves released by the trees. Rake tan!
Much more fun than Wednesday's puzzle. Danas: actor Andrews and St. Louis coffee purveyor Brown.
The sand cat is adorable.
Very easy, but also a huge upgrade over yesterday—so that's fine. My only quibble is with FAM: I feel like "peeps" is interchangeable with "folks," whereas "fam" is more intimate ("fam" can also be used to address a singular person).
Dana BASHed Ava’s GARDENER for letting her Great DANA get muddy paws all AVA her PERINO wool sweater.
Sorry, haven’t done today”s puzzle. Just had to cleanse the palate from yesterday.
@Rex: Your idea for a 7-ELEVEN movie has no chance. OTOH, you should copyright (or even code) your RANDR app idea. We've seen RANDR a few times and it has tripped me up every time. Not that I type something wrong, just that it takes a while to recognize how five spaces can fit the clue.
Got the theme at 7-ELEVEN, but I didn't know or didn't remember any of the movies. At 8D, I thought it odd that Eminem was in the movie MILk. That E was my last letter; I was surprised when the happy music played and then I thought he might have been in a movie called MILE. I got 17 AGAIN, 27 DRESSES and 39 STEPS from crosses.
In my defense, 1935 would have been very early Hitchcock and I thought maybe he'd made a movie called THE STEPS sometime before I was born.
My only other overwrites were kin before FAM at 32D and the kealoa AlOt before ATON at 33A, quickly corrected by ETNA.
Thought briefly that the noted head turner might be Olive OyL.
Thx, Freddie; excellent Thurs. offering! 😊
Easy-med.
Pretty much sailed thru this one; didn't really pay attention to the theme, altho knew something was up at ROCK.
Had fun post-solve tracking down all the numbers preceding the themers. Couldn't find anything that connected them all together, tho.
Anyhoo, nice adventure! :)
Played the NYT newest game: 'Connections' yd. I think it'll be a winner.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
This puzzle was a little easy for a Thursday, in my opinion, but overall enjoyable. One issue: SANDCAT crossing INDOOR, clued as "Like some cats and plumbing" (emphasis mine).
Even though I caught the number theme early, somehow even after solving I didn’t make the connection with 7-ELEVEN. I just figured there was some retail chain called ELEVEN that I’d never heard of.
I also couldn’t see RANDR at all and kept trying to rework that area :-(.
I also guessed at SAND CAT and now I want one!
I liked the revealer, and I thought there were only seven themers, all in downs. Totally missed (Seventeen) AGAIN, assuming the Zac Ephron movie was just AGAIN. As in Zac Efron AGAIN? I knew something was up with (eight) MILE, then noticed a missing numbers theme but didn’t get that they were CLUE NO.s until I got the themer.
OK, I think I am going to start today’s vociferous commenter argument. Was the concept of “zero” really developed in INDIA? From quick research, it seems like it was first employed in Mesopotamia some time BCE, then independently in Maya culture shortly after BCE became CE (formerly AD). One source said that “a full grasp of zero’s importance would not arrive until the seventh century A.D. in India.” I think there are some mathematicians here so will be interested to see their take. It is hard for us to comprehend a society not having zero.
Hilarious writeup today, Rex.
Highlight for me was the SAND CAT, and overall enjoyed it. Kept thinking there would be a pattern to the theme clue numbers, but nope.
Yesterday's puzzle has crept into the top three for most comments on the Rex blog, and will likely make top-two once the Syndielanders weigh in. But it seems to have no chance of topping the 12/15/2022 Bruce Haight puzzle (a.k.a. "Guest blogger Christopher Adams insults the world").
Theme was lost on me because I've never heard of 4 of the 7 themers. I saw the gimmick easily at 7 ELEVEN and 30 ROCK, but didn't see 50 CENT because I got that answer entirely from downs. When the revealer indicated that there were seven themers I had NOCLUE.
Never heard of a SANDCAT but anything that kills mice, I’m a fan of!
They already made a 7-ELEVEN movie called CLERKS ;-)
I came here just to say this! Did we just become best friends??
Ooh, you stole my idea! Right down to acts of violence between Ada and Dana. Nicely done
TGIF two days in a row, and it isn't even. Let's have it again tomorrow.
Nice Thursday! Played like it had a good amount of crunch, but time was considerably less than my Thu average, just 2 seconds more than yesterday’s. (Oy, didn’t comment, but what a clunker that was!) OFL really in fine form this week; LOL’d several times reading today’s write-up.
Weird thing: I had trouble finding the last of the seven themers, which turned out to be 17 AGAIN, a movie I don’t remember ever hearing of. Since all the others were Downs, I looked for it among Downs only, and came up with (No.) 10 JAR, a perfectly reasonable answer, referencing a size of Mason jar commonly used for home-made jam. I stopped looking at that point, only to be surprised here by what was clearly intended with 17-Across. Wonder if anyone else was led similarly astray…
PS—Signed up yesterday for the fall on-line JASA x-word class. Can hardly wait for it to start in October!
I don’t get the clue for 49D - how is DNA figurative ? Isn’t DNA literally our inherent nature ? Something about that one is just zooming over my head.
I’m surprised that the grid isn’t more stressed due to the large number of theme entries (and a PPP-related theme as well), but the constructor held it together nicely, so a job well done there.
The clue for OHO (“Caught ya!”) seems too contrived - if they were stuck, maybe they should have scoured the world’s various languages to see if it means something in URDU or the like.
I did not know much about Fifty Cent so that was a cool word of the day but Sand Cats! C’mon! Maybe we need two today.
Easier than mostThursdays but got DNF’d by the OLeN-MeLE cross. Had difficulty with peeps clue because that’s what our family calls those little yellow-colored marshmallow chicks that are sold around Easter time. A fun association that made it hard to get FAM without the crosses. In any case, I’m still a long way from ever achieving @Joaquin’s cycle!
No comment from Rex about HOO-HA? I anticipated a tirade about hating that word and something about dumbing down women's anatomy and feminism. I certainly had a tirade playing in my own head.
The puzzle was enjoyable, but the theme got itself lost. It was uncovered almost immediately by MILE, but I missed the rest of the movie references. Never heard of 17 AGAIN or 27 DRESSES and wasn't sure about 39 STEPS (but thought maybe I had heard of it once long ago), so when the revealer said it was part of seven answers, I was quite confused. Seven? I counted four, maybe five. Huh.
Hated the clue for KARMA for being so arbitrary (replay? ramen?) but otherwise nothing offensive besides the aforementioned HOO-HA.
Finally, count me as another who came to say 7-ELEVEN is already an excellent movie called Clerks.
@Wanderlust 7:15 AM: I agree. INDIA didn't seem right to me, but it was late at night and I couldn't be bothered to look it up.
OFL sure can write an amusing review when he really likes a puzzle. OTOH, the angry screeds are kind of fun too.
@webwinger-My experience exactly looking for that last themer. 17 Again? News to me. Read the clue for SANDCAT and thought, now that's going to be SANDCAT, but there isn't such a thing. Turns out there is.
Didn't catch on until 30 Rock, and then 50 Cent made sense, as did the revealer. Elegant.
I'm still waiting for a repeat of the HOOHA discussion from the other day. Nothing yet.
Very nice Thursday indeed, FC. Finally Caught on at just the right time. always love it when that happens. Thanks for all the fun.
Fun working this one - but agree with the big guy on the difficulty level. Figured the trick with 7-11. Lots of solid fill - KARMA, NO HOPE, TEN-FOUR, SAND CAT. Another HOOHA sighting and a return of our friends the ALOU brothers.
Pleasant Thursday morning solve.
The preacher talked with me and he smiled
I really struggled with 25D. When I first saw the clue, I wanted “morons” or “idiots”, or maybe even “schmucks”, but none of them fit. When I had the first letter, I realized it must be “Dumbasses”, but that didn’t fit either. Another letter got me to “DElusional”, but nope, too long. I needed a lot of crosses to find the overly benign DENIERS to describe that bunch of buffoons.
No comment.
I knew SAND CAT right away because I was just reading about them recently, but I can't figure out where now.
Picked up the theme early from 7 ELEVEN and 8 MILE. Like @Webwinger I couldn't figure out where the seventh answer (17 AGAIN) was after I finished. Strange to have a single across themer.
Somebody help Joni
Can someone explain to me the meaning of “first two letters put at the end?” Seven eleven for example. What first two letters were put at the end?
So... Ava and Dana met with their friends OSCAR and NEMO. They had a JAM session and played a cover of KARMA police. Then they met with OLIN whose AX... ok that's all I got. And, of course, they lived happily ever after.
Almost a PB today. Fun puzzle, quite clever.
@Anonymous 5:38 AM - You're showing your boomers. In millennial/zoomer-speak, "fam" and "peeps" are equivalent; for example, you may "give a shoutout" to you "Instagram fam" or ask for relationship advice in a post to your "Facebook fam."
@David Grenier 6:49 AM - Yeah, I had a similar problem with the two 2000s film entries, "17 Again" and "27 Dresses."
My 3 year old granddaughter LOVES the sandcats at the Buffalo Zoo and we visit them frequently…so that was a gimme for me! They look like house cats with unusually large heads.
I just wanted to comment on the tenor of the comments from yesterday. There was an overall harshness that was quite, to my mind, unnecessary. I can't tell if people are just sort of taking their cue from Rex, who had nothing nice to say about the puzzle, or if folks in general just need to vent. To me the puzzle was a very creative attempt that had some obvious flaws to it, but at the end of the day it's just a puzzle. The string of unrelenting harsh, negative comments (Lewis, NOT YOU!) had a real sour tone. But maybe that's just where America is in 2023, and this blog is just a sad microcosm of that.
Loved this one, got the theme early. My only complaint would be perhaps to have added an asterisk to the theme answers, though that did make the puzzle just a wee bit tougher. I thought it was a really clever trick, and enjoyed a Thursday more than I have in a while.
Hey All !
Nice concept, but the execution seemed clunky. And all four corners are closed off!
I got to give myself a Har, as I commented on YesterPuz as, "Relax, there's worse things out there" or something like that, and now today I'm griping! Ah, me.
Thought this puz would raise Rex's ire, but he seems to have liked it. I'm bad at the guessing game, apparently.
@Gill
Meant to comment on your 2004 Taurus the other day. I have a 1994 Taurus SHO that's my daily driver! Also 205000 miles. 5-speed manual, which sucks in traffic, but the SHO makes it a zippy car!
One more day to TGIF.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@SouthsideJohnny (7:50 AM) wrote:
"I don’t get the clue for 49D - how is DNA figurative ? Isn’t DNA literally our inherent nature ?"
Good point!
I think I had the 'D' from INCISED, so DNA quickly came to mind. Got an image of the shape/'figure' of the double-helix, and that was good enuf for me. Never gave it a second thot, until seeing your comment.
After a back-and-forth with ChatGPT, I've come to the conclusion that the constructor/editorial team would have used a question mark to denote a possible literal interpretation, rather than the metaphorical one, e.g., "it's just in their DNA". And, bc we're getting into later week clueing, the second word of the phrase, 'figuratively speaking' was omitted. Still, only Freddie (or Will & staff) knows for sure. lol
Just my 2 CENTs worth. :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Having ELEVEN and MILE next to each other was helpful in recognizing the gimmick early today. Easiest Thursday puzzle for me in ages, and miles better than yesterday's affair.
@Southside: I believe the constructor/editor is referring to the metaphorical use of DNA in phrases like "corporate DNA", etc., often in feel-good PSAs, annual reports and the like.
Wow what a difference a good nights sleep makes: I log on this morning and there are only 19 posts so far; last night when I returned to the blog it was approaching 250. Missed my Thursday morning rebus wake-up call, but otherwise TOUTS are in order for Freddie’s grid. Jumping to the reveal led to the most erasures of the day since “don’t no” seemed like an obvious Thursday trick—just one that didn’t get off the ground. Final entry was the D in 6-down as I was totally flummoxed by RAN?R. NO recall today of Rex’s “ ampersandwiches” though on reflection the horror of previous solving kerfuffles made clear the brilliance of that construction gambit.
Tina (8:44) -- It's referring to the answer at 47D -- NO CLUE. Put the NO at the end and it becomes CLUE NO (as in 'clue number"). And the number of the clue in the theme answers is what you need.
@Tina - move NO to the end to get “clue no.” Which is an essential component of 7-Eleven for example.
@B$ FWIW, it got an average rating of 1.95 over at crosswordfiend, which is the lowest I can recall, so it's not just this blog. Amy Reynaldo gave it two stars, not one star because as she explains it, "it’s not as if the theme includes HITLER and DIARRHEA", which is pretty faint praise.
It's the first 2 letters of NOCLUE = Clue No. (#, as in 30D is 30ROCK)
Don’t you hate answers that spell out the ampersand? Like RANDR and SANDCAT.
To paraphrase an old saying, spare the RODMAN and spoil the FAM.
If Fani Willis had indicted 6 more of the schmucks, we could have had another themer: 25 DENIERS.
Better clue for DEWY would be “Partner of Cheatem and Howe.”
I’m not sure I totally get the wording of the revealer, but I got the concept and liked the puzzle. Thanks, Freddie Cheng.
Yesterday’s puzzle was a zero
I think the “sad microcosm” is the babies who cannot handle any criticism, and who demonize and disparage people simply because they have different opinions. The “only say nice things” tyranny/inanity is exhausting. I am happy that some enjoyed yesterday’s puzzle. But some of y’all really need to learn to live in a world where not everybody likes what you like. I have. People lay into my write-ups Daily. It’s (mostly) … fine?—RP
Hopefully somebody else has already mentioned this, but the legal name of the SAND CAT (soooo cute) is ... hold for dramatic pause... FELIS MARGARITA!! Not even making that up. This catapults this animal over the hippo and the orangutan on my favorite wild animal list. Wow! Such a great day. I want to take a cup of water to the desert and set it out.
Tee-Hees: In the 70s, according to certain videos I promise I did not not watch, the WOOL HOOHA reigned supreme, but the NUDE HOOHA seems to be its modern and more photogenic incarnation. I do think the NYTXW team gets a little judgy as they JAW about SLIMY HOOHA OWNERS with FAKE TANS.
I worried I'd missed an important childhood vacation game called RAN DR since I've only ever PLAYED DR. The difficult part (almost wrote "hard part") is finding anyone willing to wear the nurse costume. You have to pay extra at the hospital and my basement.
Got a pure OHO today! Take that AHA.
Uniclues:
1 Get that man a shirt.
2 Took the f-words out.
3 The history of crosswordese in America.
4 Stool pigeon enjoys pigeon.
5 Best place to ask clarifying questions about a stone massage.
6 Hangs an American flag outside an RV. (Guess what TV show is playing inside the RV.)
7 Psst, look at those smug Starbucksians.
1 DRAPE RODMAN
2 INCISED MESSAGE
3 ROUGH ETNA SAGA (~)
4 RAT EATS AWAY
5 ON PAROLE SPA
6 TOUTS ETHOS
7 MOCHA EGOS, AHEM
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Overnight rest stop where things are likely to get weird. "I'M IN" RV PARK.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A nice twist on a Thursday. I caught on at 30 ROCK, which clued me in on my missing 7-ELEVEN and 8 MILE; for the rest, I recognized 50 CENT and The 39 STEPS but had to guess at 27 DRESSES. Then, where was the seventh? Like some others above, I had trouble spotting it, first running through all of the Downs, then the Acrosses, in vain...was there NO HOPE? Rinse and repeat - then, reading aloud...17 AGAIN. OKAY! The run-throughs allowed me the entertainment of envisioning some plural groupings: like a raucous meet-up of 23 TOUTS and 25 DENIERS or a who-wore-it-best contest involving 27 DRESSES and 36 EGOS. Fun puzzle, fun morning.
Really, really clever! Who knew that so many film titles -- especially rom-com film titles -- had numbers in them? Here's one of those rare puzzles where the challenge of the construction, which must have been enormous, is equalled by the challenge posed to the solver.
I picked up the trick early at one of the non-film answers: SEVEN ELEVEN -- an easier place for me to pick it up. Only one film was really an oldie classic -- perhaps the only film I'd seen, though already I don't remember -- and that was THE 39 STEPS (I filled in STEPS and then looked up to see if it was Clue #39, and it was.) But I've heard of, say, 17 DRESSES and 8 MILE -- even though I never saw them.
This theme necessitates an awful lot of pop culture -- and you know how much I usually hate that. So now the question is: Was the theme good enough that it was worth it? Yes, I say: It was very, very, very worth it! A most ingenious puzzle!
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
It was a shite puzzle
Easy. SAND CAT was it for WOEs and no erasures. This would have been a fine Wednesday, liked it.
Southeast corner sucked. HOOHA to me is a slang for a private area. As in she showed me her HOOHA. Do people know trucker slang? OWNER / operator? Jeez. The downs are ok at helping you out but the clue for OWL was cryptic and ETHOS didn't come right away. Everything else went quick but spent a good fifteen minutes in that corner.
hear, hear B$! Hack, once can critique without being utterly hostile and dismissive. the comments yesterday really did read like a buncha mean kids backing up
the boss mean-kid. i thought the puzzle was creative and charming (if yes a little very easy)
Thanks B$. My feelings exactly.
Dang! What a primo coincidence -- a young juvie M&A used to cruise the local ones in a '56 SANDCAT.
Liked the theme mcguffin. Figured out somethin themey was up, at ROCK. Didn't catch on earlier, at AGAIN, cuz never heard of that particular flick. Cute revealer clue trick, btw.
staff weeject picks: FAM-JAM-YAM. Mini theme. And they boost the puz's scrabble score up, a notch.
fave fillin: '43 FAKETAN. Never drove one of them, tho.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Cheng dude. Cool theme.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. M&A made a runtpuz inspired by yesterday's NYTPuz, but … well, I get the impression it's too soon to make folks relive that whole thing. Plus, still hopin runtpuz tech support will come to my aid, over at the runtpuz blog.
I was stuck on 32D Fam for Peeps for the longest time & shouldn't have been stuck on Ten Four. While I didn't think it was Easy, it did make me think. And anyway, who's complaining after yesterday???
I didn't comment yesterday because, well, because I was scared I'd get lost at the base of an encipherment. I'll just say that I don't think it's particularly romantic for AVA and DANA to kiss over a CREAM SODA. They should've had their first playing Spin the Bottle.
Oh...we're talking about today's little fun spin. OK. First I want to say that I've never been to or have had that Balneotherapy thing. I don'r even know what they'd do to you there. But I digress.
I felt like I was finding NEMO hither and yon. I particularly liked meeting up with the RAT Templeton again. I'm betting that SAND CAT would as well. TEN FOUR mate!....
An enjoyable numbers game. I got you at ELEVEN MILE.
@Roo...my Taurus isn't quite as souped up as the SHO...Mine's the SES Sedan and it has my beloved CD tray....
So many fin things to enjoy here. My only nit is that the puzzle was easy and the fun over all too soon. Such a fresh, clever and enjoyable theme. I especially enjoyed the asymmetrical theme answers caused by the constraint of the numbered squares. I marvel at the way the creative mind works. This one was pure fun.
In addition to the theme itself, I especially enjoyed some of the interesting words/phrases not often used (at least lately): INCISED, DROVE AT, TEN FOUR. Enjoyed the JAM/JAR as well as AXON crossing AXIOM. That just made such a nice little corner.
The the e itself was so fresh, clever and enjoyable that I absolutely forgive its easiness. The overall enjoyment of this work of art allows me to forgive any atom of grumpiness or disappointment I might feel that the fun was over so quickly. What fun!
@Tina I had a similar reaction to the revealer. I got the idea, but the way the clue was worded didn't seem, still doesn't seem, to work. If it said first two letters (or first word) MOVED to the end, then OK.
Beast the clue number is an essential part of the answer...
Agreeit was easy for a Thursday.
Did not believe sand cat wa a thing, so thanks Rex for the photo
I have to echo RooMonster's comment about the corners being closed off. Even moreso, the entire puzzle can be split into two with only two overlapping squares; one in the NW and one in the SE.
I loved the "aha moment" when I got to the revealer. A really fun puzzle!
NO HOPE with three of the themers (8/17/27) completely unknown, two remotely remembered (39/50), and only the last two actually familiar with.
That, coupled with a reveal with *very* convoluted wording. It wasn’t until reading
Tina (8:44) that I understood that “the first two letters” meant the first two letters *of the reveal* (ie NO meaning number) and *put at the end* meant to put the number at the end of the theme answers. Geesh. With my complete befuddlement at the reveal, and not knowing most theme answers, I had NO CLUE.
Otherwise, I actually liked a lot of this puzzle. Maybe not A TON, but a lot. (But I liked yesterday’s puzzle too so go figure.)
Knew there was something up at MILE and got the puzzle’s theme at DRESSES. Like @Wanderlust 7:15 am, totally missed 17 Again as part of the themes.
Me, too, Rex, at SANDCAT, thinking, Is that a thing? Googled and found the same pic, and yes, pretty darn cute. My two cats are definitely INDOOR only and merely stare or bristle at the cats allowed to roam outside where the cute but meal-seeking bobcats are.
And thanks, @Gary Jugert 10:44 am, for the puzzling Linnaean nomenclature Felis margarita. Am wondering if the discoverer once had an adorable cat named Margarita? Was s/he sipping one at first glimpse? Would that sipper be the namer or the cat? Let’s imagine a new Mad Libs kids’ book and picture a sandcat [noun] out there sipping [verb] a mock margarita [noun] in the shade of a mesquite [adjective] tree.*
*Turns out the name is in honor of General Jean Auguste Margueritte of the French army stationed in 1850s Algeria; researchers posit a printing typo resulted in the species name becoming margarita.
Funny to me how some are complaining that this puzzle was too easy and others complaining about the corners being cut off, making it (I assume) too hard. My only complaint is that it was too just right.
weirdly, I was stuck on “Noted need turner”. for some reason, I had OyL as in Olive Oyl. Who wasn’t a head turner at all except to Popeye. So I had kind of a debate with myself then - duh - I saw OWL
This was a cute theme; not very challenging but that's okay sometimes. Got the theme at 39 STEPS, one of Hitchcock's early British suspensers and a big hit. Those 1930s movies of his, before he moved to the US, are worth a watch.
Surprised no one mentioned SAND CAT crossing INDOOR which was clued with the word "cats".
[Spelling Bee: Wed -1, missed this annoying 8er.
td (Thurs) 0, last word this 4er; went pretty quick and first QB in 3 days.]
@M&A
Try it now. It was configured, by default, to only let people with google accounts write comments. I have changed it so that anybody can comment. Let's see what happens.
I’m another person who didn’t know enough of popular culture to find all 7 themers. I saw three, and if I'd looked closer at 39D I would have known that one too. So about 50/50. Another forehead slapper for R AND R - we see that sort of thing sometimes.
It's a good idea for a Thursday - wonder what other options for theme answers were considered?
2 by two
4 square
24 seven
9 lives
12 apostles
20 twenty
50 states
33 rpm …
@r.alph 3:52pm - See my "Anonymous" comment on the runtpuz blog. Still kinda a problem, tho.
Thanx,
M&A
I started with Ten .....
Sheer delight. I got a couple of answers and thought, "what, so we're leaving out the numbers? " It took me a while to get that they were the clue numbers. How clever! And unlike Rex, I loved TEN-FOUR, taking it as a playful from the constructor.
I also liked it that all the gimmick answers were Downs. I don't have any data to back this up, but it seems to me that the gimmicks are usually Acrosses.
Embarrassed to admit I had to come here to find out why OSCAR was a November follower. Duh!
@Anonymous 11:30 AM That’s a bit simplistic. I disagree with Rex about 98% of the time, and I’m also queer and read it as a queer teen love story, so no problems there. That being said, I hated it so much because it was just an awful little vignette, which made for a miserable solve to be stuck with it for a solid ten minutes. Just like wtf the whole way through. Nothing to do with Rex’s write-up whatsoever. I actually like some of Alex’s other puzzles. This one sounds good in theory (and I really think the Yoda t-shirt inexplicably becoming a YOGA t-shirt with a weak pun that nobody would ever bond over, probably really effed with the narrative), but it was just a swing and a miss.
I wonder what happened to ALL of yesterday's syndie comments. I can't have been the only one. Here's hoping (against NOHOPE) that we'll be included today.
I had this puppy with (8)MILE. Didn't really think it needed a revealer, but we got one--and it clunked, big time. The themed entries were fun to spot, and the puzzle as a whole held up fine.
One piece of fill spoiled it: the ampersandwich. The word AND stuck between an acronym. When are you guys going to quit that?
So, a mixed bag. Call it a par.
Wordle par as well.
@Spacey - when there are more than 200 comments, you need to go to the "next page." When you open the comments space, at the top you can click on "newest" to get there. Good luck!!
And good luck I had with this puz, for the most part. I had its number. ;-)
Diana, LIW
Solved the puzzle but couldn’t figure out a couple of the gimmicks as they were not familiar to me. Not very elegant to have only one gimmick run across and all the others are downs.
17 AGAIN, 8 MILE and 27 DRESSES were really bad. You can’t insert stuff that nobody but hardcore fans know about that many times in a themed puzzle. I have NOCLUE how this one got past the editors.
I have got to stop making some of these Thurpuzs harder than they really are! I'm filling in answers waiting for the gimmick, trick, ruse, or misdirect to appear. Where oh where are they JAMming multiple letters, or whole words into a single square? When the penny finally dropped, I found it very JARring, indeed. Oh well, I'm sure next week's gambit will be much more devilish.
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