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Danish shoe designer Jacobsen / SUN 10-8-23 / TV patriarch Stark / Connectors in K'Nex / Ancient inhabitants of modern-day Tabasco / Film enthusiast's creative interpretation / Game in which one player tries to glean information from the other players without being caught
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Constructor: Sid Sivakumar
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY (25A: Special moment exemplified by 24-Across) => word containing a "gold N" that means "opportunity" => CHANCE (24A: One of three spaces on a Monopoly board)
- RED-EYE FLIGHT (36A: Air travel option exemplified by 34-Across) => word containing a "red I" that means "flight" => AVIATION (34A: The Wright stuff?)
- BROWNIE MIX (58A: Baking aisle purchase exemplified by 56-Across) => word containing a "brown E" that means "mix" => BLEND (56A: This and that)
- GRAVY BOATS (72A: Thanksgiving table sights exemplified by 68-Across) => word containing a "gray V" that means "boat" => VESSELS (68A: Containers)
- PINKY PROMISE (91A: Agreement exemplified by 88-Across) => word containing a "pink E" that means "promise" => PLEDGE (88A: Sister-to-be, say)
A fan edit is a version of a film modified by a viewer, that removes, reorders, or adds material in order to create a new interpretation of the source material. This includes the removal of scenes or dialogue, replacement of audio and/or visual elements, and adding material from sources such as deleted scenes or even other films. // In their most common form, fan edits resemble the work done by professional editors when creating a director's or extended cut of a film, although fan edits are usually limited by the footage already made available to the public with the official home video release of a film, while professional editors working for a film studio have access to more and higher quality footage and elements. In addition to re-editing films, some fan edits feature basic corrections, such as colors or framing, that maintain or restore consistency within the film, such as the Star Wars fan-restoration Harmy's Despecialized Edition, which aims at restoring the Star Wars Original Trilogy to its original, pre-Special Edition form. Other types of fan edits, such as Cosmogony, Bateman Begins: An American Psycho and Memories Alone, merge footage from various films into an entirely different production. While many fan edits are viewed as reactionary to perceived weaknesses in the original films, one film scholar at the University of Kansas has argued that such edits allow fans to creatively reimagine films instead of merely attempting to fix such works. (wikipedia)
• • •
I have no idea how difficult the puzzle was, because I switched solving interfaces midway. The first half I did color blind, so it felt kind of hard (I kept "getting" theme answers and not understanding fully what they meant). Then I moved to the properly colored interface, just so I could have a completed color grid to post here, and ... I don't know, maybe things got a little easier. The non-theme stuff wasn't too tough, except for somewhere about 2/3 of the way down the grid, when I had real trouble dropping answers into the bottom third. That SPYFALL (???) RAU (???) BOOK LIST (????) triad, yikes, couldn't get any of them. Absolutely never heard of SPYFALL (wasn't that a Bond film? ... no, wait, that's SKYFALL) (86D: Game in which one player tries to glean information from the other players without being caught); probably seen this RAU person before but forgot them (92D: Author Santha Rama ___); and I don't really get BOOK LIST in this context (82D: Librarian's offering). Do you mean, like, book recommendations? What is the list for? Librarians might "offer" you any number of "lists" depending on your needs. I tried to make BOOK RECS work. No dice. Also found APPLEPAY very very hard (despite using it regularly) (84D: iPhone charger?), which made descending into the bottom part of grid hard on the east side as well. APPLEPAY / "YO, DUDE!" / FAN EDIT may be the toughest mash-up of the grid, though I didn't find the latter two terms all that tough. All three of those answers are just recentish and / or slangy, so I can see them possibly causing some solvers problems. But beyond that, I don't see many real problem spots in this grid. If you solved on your phone or the website, and could see the colored squares from the outset, this one might even skew easy.
The fill gets real weak up top in that CAEN-CORP-singular-GALOSH section, and no one ever wants to see ST. LEO again, but overall things felt pretty smooth, and "OH GOD, YES!" gave the grid some much-needed life. No idea what a REDOX is (you can read about it here—my eyes glazed over after the first sentence) (36D: Certain chemical reaction), but I do know that RETILE and REROLL are pushing my RE-tolerance. A little. It will surprise no one that I'd never heard of the shoe designer either. The puzzle was desperate for people named ILSE, I guess. How desperate? Well, here's the ILSE line-up from the entire Shortz Era—three ILSEs, all of them different:
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| [xwordinfo] |
In Pre-Shortz Times, there was [Pianist von Alpenheim] and then dozens of ILSEs just clued as [German girl's name] or [Fraulein's name]. Oooh, back in 1948 there was [___ Marvenga, stage and screen actor]. She starred on Broadway in something called "Naughty Marietta"
Ooh, look, ILSE Marvenga paper dolls!
Where was I? Oh right, shoe designer ILSE. Uh, sure. If you say so. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. thanks to everyone who helped push my friend Rachel over (way over) here initial fundraising goal for her Out of the Darkness charity walk for suicide prevention. Very generous of you.
P.P.S. I recently said I liked getting postcards and that I would post them if you sent them and I got two this week, one wishing me a happy wedding anniversary and the other offering a movie recommendation.
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| [Van Gogh, “First Steps”] |
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| [Michael Knutson, “Vertical Contracting Brackets”] [Pretty sure the artist is the postcard sender himself!] |
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90 comments:
My printer does not do color, but it hardly mattered. Finished without completely grokking the theme. I don’t know exactly why, but this wasn’t great fun for me.
Easy breezy.* Cute and clever, liked it a bunch more than @Rex did. Solving on the app was very helpful.
*except for chasing down 3 typos.
I thought this was one of the best Sundays in quite a while. The exact equivalence of the two very different expressions in each pair was impressively clever. All phrases very much “in the language”, including PINKY PROMISE, which I have heard more often than the alternative. Colored squares nicely livened up the grid.
Last to fall for me was the Great Lakes area, where I somehow could not see CACAO from the clue, and shuffled between my and Om above GOD YES before realizing it was just OH. Time ended up almost exactly my Sunday average.
This constructor usually seems to draw a lot of criticism here, but I heartily second whatever positive things @Lewis will have to say about today’s puzzle.
webwinger
Help! FLAG/LAG//LOGY? Feel free to mansplain, I need it.
Ended with "fad edit," instead of "fan edit," which gave me "redo," instead of "reno." I thought Mr. Sid was being cute and providing an anagram of "fad diet." Other than that, typical ho hum Sunday.
Small note: Santha Rama Rau was a woman, not a man!
Did it bother anyone that the colored characters don’t apply to the downs?
I thought this puzzle was very clever. This, and last week’s were a lot of fun.
Did it bother anyone that HAUL was right next to SAUL?
To “flag” is to tire. A “lag” makes things slower; i.e., it holds things up. But “logy” for sluggish? I’m as lost as you are.
I usually like Sid’s puzzles - not so much this one. It’s tough for a theme to support the big grid - I lost interest halfway through. There’s nothing wrong with the play - cute and well built but just flat.
Liked REDOX, BOOKLIST and SEÑORITA. Side eye to FREEST, LOGY and the adjacent HAUL - SAUL.
Saw the RAMONES 20 or 30 times - starting at CBGB in ‘77. They would do 20 songs in 45 minutes and a few encores - great stuff. Loved the back to back Prospect Park and Wollman Rink shows in ‘79. Favorite may have been at Club 57 - probably because it was such a cool place. Weirdest show by far was at Our Lady of Lourdes in Queens Village.
This was a bit of a slog - but it’s a beautiful morning and it’s not raining.
Captain Beefheart
Thx, Sid; goldeN! 😊
Med.
Colorful theme; most or less caught on early in the game. Came in handy, as I had ASiN and RoY, so CHANCE was hiding. Rechecked GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY and immediately CHANCEd to patch up the gaffs.
Fun adventure; liked it a lot! :)
___
Anna Stiga's Sat. Stumper was med-hard (4 x NYT Sat.). An invigorating and rewarding solve. :)
___
On to David Balton & Jane Stewart's NYT acrostic on xwordinfo.com. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I love that Sid (according to his notes) took three months to come up with this theme set because answers were hard to come by. Constructor Peter Gordon (125 NYT puzzles) once told me that the majority of theme ideas die for lack of workable answers, and for many constructors, I’m guessing today’s theme would have been cast off for that reason.
But Sid didn’t cast it off. He let it marinate. I’m guessing it was a wow-and-halleluiah moment when he found a theme pair to finish the set.
A most lovely theme at that, with its letter-play and synonyms. I continue to be amazed at the seemingly infinite faces of wordplay. Amazed and grateful, because wordplay brings me such pleasure. Always has.
I like GALOSH over WET, and HAUL by SAUL (Hi, @anon 6:52!). And oh, lots of long-O sounds in the grid, everywhere you look. For freshness, there are seven NYT debut answers, my favorite being OH GOD YES.
Sid, I love that you can make wickedly fiendish themeless puzzles as well as more approachable beauties such as today’s creation. Thank you for your persistence and for a most splendid solve.
Anonymous 1:36 - I had FAdEDIT/REdO also and somehow convinced myself it had to do with a fade, as in "faded it" like faded in or something, not that that makes any sense. Took me 15 minutes to find after completing the grid - I assumed my problem was with ILSE or LOGY.
I picked up a monster cold in Greece and spent my Saturday-and-a-half on a not quite REDEYE. I didn’t attempt the puzzle until this morning, feeling very LOGY. my heart sank when I saw the byline, as Sid’s wheelhouse and mine are in different galaxies. I didn’t get the colored letters part of the theme until I came here. I'm very happy just to have finished.
Not me
Rex asked: why is one "I" in AVIATION red and not the other?
Answer: because the “air travel option” is not “redeyeS flight.” Duh!
Thought I had a chance to drag this one over the finish line, but just couldn’t close it out. Got boxed off in that middle section in the south and just had nothing - BOOK LIST just sounded too made up (yes, I know it’s the NYT) and IROBOT was never going to happen - add in HOLI and something referred to as K’Nex and I was baked.
I’m pretty sure that if it came down to one square, I would have had to guess at the M in the OLMECS/RAIMI cross cuz they both are unknown to me. Fortunately, I enjoyed the theme more than OFL - it took a while to grok, but once I got the aha experience (I think it was RED EYE), the theme became kind of fun to discern for a change - so it must be on the easy side (make that it’s DEFINITELY on the easy side compared to some of the more cryptic schemes we’ve been subjected to in the past). All-in-all a fun outing, just wishing BOOK LIST offered a little more insight down there in the south - if so, I coulda been a contender today.
It was okay, but it didn't really do anything for me. Technically speaking, it's not the letters, i.e. characters, that are "colorful", it's the squares containing them that are. And even though the clues for each pair were sequential, it looks odd to me that some of them go left to right on the same line and others start at the right and drop down to the next level.
I loved today's Acrostic though. It was challenging, with half the words in the quotation being seven letters or longer.
Brownie mix
SID!!!
I liked this puzzle a lot. I came off a brutally busy week at work, and this puzzle was a much-needed salve. I only *really* got the theme upon reading Rex's write-up. Very clever. Rex, you know why only one "i" in AVIATION is red? - 'Cause it's a REDEYEFLIGHT, not a REDEYESFLIGHT.
Random other thoughts:
- Was a little iffy about GALOSH (who ever uses the singular?)... And in any case, I had it wrong with GOLASH - should've looked more carefully to see CAEN and CORP.
- Although I accept "In the OLDEN days", I'm wondering if "In OLDEN days" (... when glimpse of stocking was looked on as very shocking, now Heaven knows, anything goes!) would've worked better.
- REDOX is a gimme here since I study mitochondria.
- Fun to see a different way to clue ETON (37D).
- Agreed that the APPLEPAY / YODUDE / FANEDIT section was tough.
- My initial answer for 65D was incorrect: BADMOVE was a BADIDEA!
Colin
I thought this puzzle was a lot of fun! I am solving on paper and because of the inconsistencies of printing on newsprint, the color names could have been a couple things - is it yellow or gold? brown or rust? - making the themed answers a little more challenging. Thank you Sid Sivakumar for one of the most enjoyable Sunday puzzles in awhile.
Brownie Mix, Gravy Boats, Golden Opportunity pure love. Red Eye Flight was confusing with the letters I had because I've only ever referred to it as a Red Eye. Took them when the kids were Mini so they’d sleep through it. Only ever heard Pinky Swear, which always struck me as Meh. Weak digit carries no meaning of trust.
Why can’t I accept singular Galosh as a legitimate word? Of course it is. Here’s just a bit of its etymology from Webster, “from Anglo-French & Middle French, borrowed from Old Occitan galocha, perhaps going back to Gallo-Romance *caloctium, borrowed from Greek of Massalia (Marseille) *kalóchtion, altered from *kalórtion, from Greek kâlon "wood, timber" (of uncertain origin).
You can’t make that stuff up folks.
Sid’s always fun, especially the Sundays.
I thought the theme answers were all very clever, despite Rex’s nits. They were fun to suss out. The rest was a mixture of sunday easy and WTF?!?, but overall not unenjoyable. But the themers were great!
Was 88A "sister to be, say" an intentional misdirection? I initially had "novice" because I was thinking nuns, not sororities. I laughed when I realized my error given how far a nun is from a sorority sister.
Yep, liked this one a good deal more than Rex did. The layers required by the conceit are what kicked it up a notch for me - it wasn’t just about the PINK Y but the reference answer had to be an example of what was being clued. It definitely played easy for me, but that’s okay after yesterday. Agree that there were a bit too many “non words,” though, and it wasn’t the world’s most exciting fill. Basically, a nice solid Sunday. I wish the same to all of you!
"LOGY" for sluggish is a cromulent term, but I agree it's not used often these days. It means just what it implies: a feeling of sluggishness. You'd usually see it in reference to someone coming down with a cold or similar.
@Rex, again, my friend... it is time. Time to use the software that NYT provides, IE the website. Reviewing these puzzles you so often end up not reviewing them, because you've missed a key part of the puzzle with your AcrossLite or whichever. Each and every time this happens, you end up disliking the puzzle, so it's not really a proper and fair review.
I liked this one. It was good fun.
As is often the case, the Simpsons provided the answer: https://comb.io/itkYTH
I hadn't heard of ILSE either. In fact, I've never heard of any of the ILSE's ever used. I'm surprised Will hasn't gone with one of his "Woman's name in the tranquil sewerage" clues, or the "Woman's name that makes another woman's name when you change the final vowel to the vowel preceding it alphabetically" clues.
My trouble spot wasn't any of the ones Rex talked about, but the LAG/BLEND/BRAVERY area. All of those were tough clues, I thought.
And I don't remember SPYFALL at all from solving, which would have been an unknown. Must have gotten that just from crosses.
Any time we want to retire GOT references with St. Leo you have my vote!!! And fwiw the N shows up as yellow on the ipad app so it had me a little stuck for a moment. The only thing that made me smile today was seeing HAUL and SAUL juxtaposed. Rest of it was a little meh. I don’t think I have ever heard of any one speak about 1-GALOSH. Bud I have heard of PINKYPROMISE. Never new an OBOE had 45 keys so I am well equipped for my next cocktail party. And never heard of a HOLI festival so it was nice to learn about that.
Never saw it written, but we say logo to mean sluggish while mildly ill
As is becoming the norm, Rex’s write is much more entertaining than the puzzle itself, at least on Sunday,
the only day I complete the puzzle. Today’s puzzle, like many Sundays before lacked zip, challenge, and, yes,
color, even on a day when the sub-theme was color.
I know the Times wants to keep the Sunday puzzle achievable for all levels, but in maintaining this level, the
overall quality is compromised. Here’s an idea, and I posit it seriously: Maybe, on Sunday, they can publish TWO
puzzles - an intermediate one and an challenging one. I would prefer a shorter challenge than the weekly slog.
Thoughts?
tc
Forgot to mention: liked the puzzle a lot and thought the gimmick was clever.
Also: LOGY: Sluggish; groggy
Had this clever yet joyless puzz completed except for TWaTS instead of TWITS (HOlA seemed possible as a Spanish festival of greetings.)
Liked my answer better…
Hey All !
Rex says Themers kind of thin, what with only 5 colors. But, there is ten Themers, the colored-block word, along with its corresponding "exemplifier". If you'd like to throw in the five Downs that correspond with the colored blocks, I won't stop you. 😁
Trouble spot for me was North Center. Had a DNF there. Didn't know GWEN or CAEN, so ended up with a LITRAG. Har, what in tarhooties is that?, thought I. End of puz angstness set in, I just waited for the Almost There message. Finally got the ole brain to see WETRAG. One other letter wrong, SE had REdO/FAdEDIT. Parsed it as FAdED IT, wondering what that meant. Changed it to the N, and still scratched the head on FANED IT. Had the OHO moment, finally seeing is as FAN EDIT. D'oh!
Pretty neat puz, that on the desktop computer NYT $50/yr puz subscription, had all the COLORs in their bright glory. The gray, however, has a green tint. Was saying, "GreenV something? What have I been missing at Thanksgiving?" Good stuff.
Did like how the color block words corresponded to the second word of the Themers. Imagine if they were just random words! Rex would've had an epic screed! (I'm sure it wouldn't have been accepted at first anyhow...)
Go ___ ! (Insert your favorite team.) 😁
Six F's (something to CROW about!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
This was a "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" Sunday puzzle. I'll explain.
I get Home Delivery of the NYT Sunday magazine on Saturday -- so it's the only day of the week I have the option of doing the puzzle a day early. But the downside of doing that is having nothing to look forward to on Sunday. There are three possibilities:
Don't even glance at the puzzle until Sunday.
Begin the puzzle the day before out of curiosity, but just do a teensy bit of it and leave myself plenty for the next day.
Begin it and find myself unable to stop.
I got home last night after a wonderful dinner with my family -- all having come into NYC from various places over the same weekend. Too keyed up to go to bed when I got home, I started the puzzle close to 10 p.m. -- and finished the whole thing. That's always a sign of an enjoyable puzzle; the dull ones I can put down anywhere.
Once again -- the first themer I got to was perhaps the easiest. RED EYE, especially running through AVIATION, was immediately apparent to me and so I knew exactly what I was looking for everywhere else. But while I didn't find the puzzle hard at all, I appreciated the playful and imaginative wordplay.
I got COLORFUL CHARACTERS from the clue alone, although I did check some crosses before writing it in. It's an absolutely perfect revealer, btw.
I have no idea what a FAN EDIT is -- are ordinary people like you and me trying to remake, say, "Casablanca"? But other than that one strange answer, this was a very smooth and diverting solve.
My wife prints the puzzle for me and mentioned colored squares, which helped immensely. Some goofy clues but overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Huh, solved the whole thing without realizing the "exemplification". Didn't get past, "oh, gold N, red I, uh huh" to the actual meaning of the example. I plead fracture brain. Ate CASHEWs while solving. Mostly liked it but it seemed l-o-o--o-ng and not in that thrilling way.
On Friday I learned that John Hiatt fell on/off a trail in Tennessee a few weeks ago and suffered "a debilitating fracture" that led to him canceling his fall tour. I'm thinking it was wrist or "upper extremity" as the orthopedists say, because if it were lower extremity he could probably still play, right?
Which led to thinking about how my dentist, and, yes, orthopedist, would be out of work for months with a wrist fracture. So it's not life threatening and it's very common, but debilitating is an excellent description.
I always hate to criticize creative endeavors, but after reading WS fawning intro to this puzzle I was expecting a really difficult solve and I found it super easy, especially for a Sunday.
Good puzzle. It's not the puzzle's fault some people don't use the actual interface with color.
Umm... Apparently I'm the only one who didn't have any colored squares on the app? Completely black and white grid for me. That made for a pretty weak theme of answers starting with colors, an anemic revealer, and of course that glaring problem of the fact that GRAVY isn't a color!
So, yeah... Technical fail made for a pretty lame puzzle for me.
The RAIMI dude is a dupe in today’s WaPo/LaT grid. I think that’s the second duplicate answer they’ve had in about a week.
I took a gander at K’Nex - it appears to be a cross between a Lego Kit and an Erector Set (all with a bunch of RODS). I’m old enough to have made my own tin soldiers (although I believe they were actually made of lead - I think because it melts at a lower temperature and I could easily pour it into the molds). Ah - the good old days. Not only could I poison myself, but that was when you could actually blow up stuff with your chemistry set as well. Anyone up for a little ammonium dichromate in their model volcano ?
I'm not one to complain (😉), but I am solving in dark mode so my GOLD is kind of FLAX, my BROWN is ORANGE, and they're spelling GRAY as GRAVY. I'll bet all of you black and white copy people are loving this solve. Ignoring this theme completely makes for a better experience.
Unpleasant crosses: RAIMI / OLMEC, BLEND / LOGY and CACAO / CAEN
Had to Go-ogle GWEN. Why would anyone care what the name of a journalist is? I've never had to set my windshield, but on occasion I've set the machine that blows air on it. CHICAS is a racist trope, ugh. Is a POP SCENE a place where everyone is drinking root beer?
O HELL YES blocked out OH GOD YES for the entire time. Sigh. I ruined the tee-hee-ishness of it all.
I still has fun doing this, but I think it needed a stronger editor and they could've ditched the colors and lost nothing. And holy moly are the downs an epic collection of junk fill.
Uniclue:
1 Whoop whoop let's get this party started.
1 DEFROST BROWNIE MIX (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Boom boxes on your shoulders under a window in a movie about suburban teenage angst. ROMEO VUVUZELAS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
BAD IDEA two days in a row?? Bad Idea Jeans
Ditto on pinky promise! Unlike many Sunday puzzles which have felt like drudgery, this one felt like the slogging had payoff! Ended up really enjoying it.
No clue on ILSE. Went with IBSE and BEE instead of LEI for the cross. That left AMEE for the French pen pal, which seemed correct for someone never who never studied French. Had to come here for the correct answer.
I didn't fully understand the theme till reading Rex's explication. In retrospect, I appreciate its cleverness, but it's too clever by half if you ask me.
I think Rex's review nails it, including the thin ice around "GALOSH" et alia, but I call natick on RAIMI/OLMECS. I maybe had heard mention of this director once or twice back in the OLDEN days, but misremembered it as RAInI (get out your GALOSHes!). It's so obvious that constructors should never cross PPP answers, especially obscure ones, but no, this simple rule is ignored as often as California stop signs.
My mnemonic in case some future constructor pulls this same stunt: who else could inhabit Ol' Mex but OLMECS?
Just awful. These Sunday messes continue to worsen.
Like many others I liked this much more than @Rex…clever and fun. I did NOT get the entire conceit of the theme until I got to GRAVYBOAT and discovered the “gray vee”, D’OH!
@Roo, I ALSO had a “what in the tarhooties” moment with FANED IT and it occurred as I was putting in my last letter and the CONGRATS popped up. Then my second big D’OH of the day.
@Kishef, I hope Mrsshef is doing better. I’ve not had to endure “floaters” yet and I imagine it is NOT a pleasant experience.
I suppose I will get an earful on this comment, but I don’t think that “I’ve never heard of xxx” is a reasonable criticism. This Canadian solver has had many encounters with college teams, state capitals, and other arcana. Part of the joy of crosswording in my book. I do enjoy the curmudgeonly analysis for th most part. Thanks(giving) up here today.
Also, @Son Volt…this Midwest lady envies your CBGB days! I am the right age (drinking age) in ‘77 but was totally unaware of that then. Learned a lot in the Patti Smith autobio….(or Maplethorpe days memoir).
I have 3 pairs of Ilse Jacobsen shoes… they are that rare combo of cute and comfortable.
Did anyone notice that the colored squares spelled out NIEVE? Coincidence? Seems like it couldn't be... abandoned revealer?
Fun thing about crosswords, if you've never heard of something or the word doesn't fit the clue, you can Google them and learn something new. That's why I like Sid's puzzles.
I agree. I LOVE LOVE LOVED THIS PUZZLE!!! If Sid keeps the bar this high, he could be the next Berry or Gorsky. What a joy. Thank you.
Total Natick at OLMECS/RAIMI.
Otherwise fair. The ‘conceit’ was way too easy though.
Props for the Beach Bunny song.
It's a shame that you didn't read about Gwen Ifill when you googled her name. You would have realized how extraordinary she was. ONOH, you probably wouldn't have had to google one of the fake journalists.
Good, tight theme that is smoothly executed. I think a Sunday puzzle like this far surpasses the typical wacky puns fare we typically see on Sunday.
I’m not usually a FAN of this constructor’s puzzles, but I liked this one a lot and was surprised by how quickly I completed it once I figured out the COLORFUL theme. Also had a nice cup of green T while solving. So the day got off to a good start.
FAN EDIT of I, ROBOT: I, A.I.
Reacting to the beginning of Rex's comments.
Tedious?!!
I'm very visual so the colored squares enhanced the experience right from the start.
And the wordplay involved with the colors made the puzzle more enjoyable , not tedious.
Yep! Went from famed it??? To fad edit to just going thru the alphabet
@Stuart 8:05
Right on!
Perfectly good Sunday solve. I often ran into trouble of the sort I had early on in the N center. I had an ERIN/GWEN write over as well as MOI/DOI one. Not being familiar with "S.A.T.B. also led to an ASSO/ALTO write over. CAEN sat up there for awhile all by itself as I wondered how I was going to make GALOSH work. Like the rest of the puzzle it eventually became clear. WETRAG was the underwhelming green paint champion of the grid.
I don't know REDOX or SPYFALL but RAMI and RAIMI have been beaten into my head from solving. OLMEC gets a lot of use in puzzles but I'm mostly familiar with it from a lifelong interest in archeology.
Another slow down was my lingering misinterpretation of the #68 square as being black instead of gray. A pretty obvious mistake in retrospect but if it had been a tone or two lighter it would have saved some time.
LOGY is an SB classic....
yd -0, dbyd -0
Forgot tp mentions n my other beef with this fill" "Sup, man" is inexcusable misdirection for YO DUDE. "Sup, man" can only be understood as, like, "eat, guy." Since "sup" must have been intended as a slangy contraction of "what's up?" the constructor was o ligated to indicate this with correct punctuation : 'sup, man? THAT would have been fair cluing. THIS is unbelievably sloppy editing!
Solver with a color deficiency (“color blind”) here! Solved the puzzle in about average Sunday time but had to work backward from crosses to figure out the colors of the theme squares. Even so, loved the theme. PLEDGE with a pink E is a pink E promise, etc. Great double entendre for each of the themers (gray V = gravy, golden = gold N). Clever and well executed. And I usually don’t love Sid’s puzzles. Nice one.
Pinky promise isn’t a “real thing”?? Didn’t realize it was fake this whole time. Also, how is the alliteration of pinky promise not at least as snappy as pinky swear, if not snappier. Hard disagree.
Easy but fun. Just challenging enough to hold my interest, and just clever enough to be entertaining. A much better balance of the two than most Sundays. Liked it!
I haven't read the comments yet (I'm sure there are those who will say it was too easy) or Rex's write-up, but I really enjoyed this.
It was a fun Sunday solve & I thank you Sid!
As a certified Young Person, this was one of my fastest Sunday solves
I thought the theme was clever, impressive in its multi-layered structure, and engaging all the way. Though I was solving in the mag, with the bright colors easy to see, exactly what they were doing remained opaque for a while. When I wrote in AVIATION, I immediately got the RED-EYE connection but didn't understand FLIGHT as a synonym for AVIATION but rather only as an individual instance. I also failed to parse the gold N in CHANCE. Light dawned at BROWNIE MIX and blazed bright at GRAVY BOATS. The PINKY PROMISE came quickly, but my misremembering SANTHA RAMA RAo - and being sure of it - prevented my believing in COLORFUL until I absolutely had to. I enjoyed the OPPORTUNITY to go back over and appreciate all of the theme answers as well as the double meaning of CHARACTER. Really good Sunday!
@pabloinnh, @bocamp - Stumper report: I found it a struggle to get traction, but then I had good luck with some of the long answers and the dominoes began toppling quickly. Thus, overall an easier outing for me than usual. It's not rare that I can't finish one of these.
I've seen GALOSH in the NYTXW before. It's what you wear on a rainy day after putting on your trouser, short or slack.
I'm guessing that LOGY is a play on "log jam", "when trees floating in the water become entangled with other trees...or become snagged on rocks...or other objects anchored underwater (wiki)". The flow of logs going downriver to a sawmill can begin to slow down as they jam up until they stop all together. That's when intrepid log drivers have to separate the logs and restore their flow to the sawmill. Log drivers gave rise to log rolling and boom running events in Lumberjack Competitions.
I agree with @Joe D. 8:19 that it's the squares that are COLORFUL, not the CHARACTERS/letters. On the NYT app, to my eye the GOLD square was yellow, the RED and PINK squares were indistinguishable and the BROWN square was definitely mauve.
Add 107D RENO "Home makeover, informally" to the REDOX, RETILE and REFILL RE fest.
I judge a Sunday puzzle by how far I get before I jump ship. I finished this one so it gets a "liked it" rating.
yep, as per @Roo and others: Ten themers and a long revealer is pretty darn impressive. Liked almost everything about this SunPuz. If I had a slight plaint, one could maybe illustrate it as COUNT with a faintly blue U in it.
fave themer mixer: The gray V VESSEL one.
staff weeject pick: RAU. Put that on yer BOOKLIST, faneditors. Color m&e uninformed, on her works.
other fave stuff: YODUDE. OHGODYES clue. Primo choice to make at FADEDIT/REDO vs FANEDIT/RENO … as one crossin choice made more perfecter sense, each way.
Other questionably crucial stuff:
Really now wanna see a video of that there chem reaction that produces a RED OX.
Dr. Pepper is definitely M&A's fave, on the POPSCENE.
Sooo … this puz kinda just had its own MINI-HOLI festival, I reckon.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Sivakumar dude. Nice job & GOODIDEA. Color M&A green with envy, that he didn't think it up.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
my all-time signature runtpuz.
do. not. miss. out:
**gruntz**
I loved this puzzle — super clever and a fun “aha!” every single time! Thank you. :)
@Beezer 11:16a - the place was a dump but very comfortable. The lower east side in the 70s was not pretty - but it was at the intersection of Bleeker and the Bowery and around the block from the Broadway-Lafayette station so it was easy to get to at least. Saw a lot of great shows there but never felt like it would have the nostalgic staying power it does today.
Late to the party again on a Sunday, so I'll just say--
took me too long to grok the theme, which I liked a lot, and
my Mom used to say LOGY all the time when I was being slothful, so nice memory there.
Very nicely done, SS. Superior Sunday, in my book, and thanks for all the fun.
Set a new sunday record speed on this one! I enjoyed the theme quite a bit
Thought I wouldn’t get the music as several things looked wrong (“Logy”???) but apparently are slang I don’t know.
Seen logy in crosswords but never say it. Probably seen it in writing on occasion. Rang a bell anyway. The others were easy for me.
I had a dnf with fad edit/redo. That’s where I happened to finish and didn’t know fan edit at all. If I thought of reno first…. (BTW autocorrect wanted Reno as in Nevada -ha!).
Also the Times routinely does it both directions or one direction only. So this is SOP. Some people comment that they prefer it both directions but it doesn’t violate the “rules”.
I remember the name Captain Beefheart very well. But listened to a bit of the track you linked to and realized the group’s music I don’t know at all.
You and Joe Dipinto both have an amazing knowledge of popular music though yours seems to skew a little more recent than his.
We just had bad idea last week. ( clue forget about it) Bad move would have been better!
Exactly my reaction!
Just Wish I could go out and actually buy a galosh or two. Nobody's heard of them.
In the paper, the golden was definitely yellow. But it was only a minor annoyance. I got most of the long theme answers from the clues , but thought the theme was enjoyable. I really don’t get what Rex was complaining about, but then he has done many more puzzles than I.
Made the same mistake as a few others in the SE where I finished . Thought of redo and figured fad edit was the cross and then found my error here. Sigh.
Thought the puzzle was of average difficulty otherwise. Liked it.
@Carola (2:35 PM) 👍
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Loved it! Fun!
I bet I'm not the only parent of an 11-year-old for whom PINKY PROMISE is a term invoked at least once a week. I think PINKY SWEAR is last-generation. Also, oddly, LOGY was one of the first answers I thought of (and I AM last-generation, haha).
I'd prefer no color. On my monitor I have:
Yellow N
Orange I
Brown E (Hey! That works!)
Gray V (another hit)
Fuchsia E
So yeah, didn't really get it but otherwise a nice puzzle, and the paired answers still worked fine.
Interesting to see two of the most often used words down there in the southwest separated by a word which describes the act of adding fat to a roast, as those words are always used to add fat to a puzzle. Kudos for that.
Yeah, I'm doing it on Monday afternoon; had a guest yesterday to tend to. Thanks.
This should be today's puzzle in syndication, but instead they've pulled out the puzzle from April 5, 2020, titled "Double Talk", at least on the Seattle Times site. Oddly apparently last week's new Sunday puzzle was also titled "Double Talk", but it's not the same. Any idea why this got 86'd?
I bet they skipped this one in Seattle because of the colors. Thank you for posting the actual Seattle date! I was very confused seeking it out.
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