THEME: "IT'S ME AGAIN!" (62A: "I'm back!" ... or a hint to 17-, 24-, 38- and 51-Across) — theme answers both have "ME" in them twice, once at the beginning and then ... again, later:
Theme answers:
MEGAMERGER (17A: Union of two major companies)
METACOMET (24A: Wampanoag chief of the 1600s also known as King Philip)
MEAT THERMOMETER (38A: Temperature measurer for turkeys and roasts)
METRONOME (51A: Ticking item that helps musicians keep time)
Word of the Day: METACOMET (24A) —
Metacom, (born c. 1638, Massachusetts—died August 12, 1676, Rhode Island), sachem (intertribal leader) of a confederation of indigenous peoples that included the Wampanoag and Narraganset. Metacom led one of the most costly wars of resistance in New Englandhistory, known as King Philip’s War (1675–76).
Metacom was the second son of Massasoit, a Wampanoag sachem who had managed to keep peace with the English colonizers of Massachusetts and Rhode Island for many decades. Upon Massasoit’s death (1661) and that of his eldest son, Wamsutta (English name Alexander), the following year, Metacom became sachem. He succeeded to the position during a period characterized by increasing exchanges of Indian land for English guns, ammunition, liquor, and blankets. He recognized that these sales threatened indigenous sovereignty and was further disconcerted by the humiliations to which he and his people were continually subjected by the colonizers. He was, for example, summoned to Taunton in 1671 and required to sign a new peace agreement that included the surrender of Indian guns.
Metacom’s dignity and steadfastness both impressed and frightened the settlers, who eventually demonized him as a menace that could not be controlled. For 13 years he kept the region’s towns and villages on edge with the fear of an Indian uprising. Finally, in June 1675, violence erupted when three Wampanoag warriors were executed by Plymouth authorities for the murder of John Sassamon, a tribal informer. Metacom’s coalition, comprising the Wampanoag, Narraganset, Abenaki, Nipmuc, and Mohawk, was at first victorious. However, after a year of savage fighting during which some 3,000 Indians and 600 colonists were killed, food became scarce, and the indigenous alliance began to disintegrate. Seeing that defeat was imminent, Metacom returned to his ancestral home at Mount Hope, where he was betrayed by an informer and killed in a final battle. He was beheaded and quartered and his head displayed on a pole for 25 years at Plymouth. (britannica.com)
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***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's currently mid-January, that's you!)*** : Hello from the first properly wintry week of the season in Central New York! It's January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. So ... 17 years ... not bad. At this time last year, I was recovering from COVID and still dealing with the very fresh grief brought on by the untimely death of my cat, Olive. I was very grateful for the blog at that point, since it grounded me in routine and gave me a place where I could lose myself in a pastime I love, and share that love with others. OK, yes, true, I don't always *love* crosswords. Sometimes it's more hate-love or love-hate or "Why are you being like this, you stupid puzzle!?" It ain't all positive vibes, as you know. But I realized last year that part of what makes this blog so fun for me, and what makes it a solace to many readers, is the sense of commiseration it provides. Sometimes the puzzle thrills you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't; and sometimes it infuriates you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't. But either way, the blog is here; it's *always* here. You get to have your feelings validated, or you get to shake your head at my errant judgment and often breathtaking ignorance, but either way, you get to share an experience that's an important part of your daily life, and maybe you learn something new. Above all, I hope you feel that there is a real person with a real life and real emotions and (very) real human flaws who's telling you what it was *really* like for him to solve the puzzle. I never wanted to be an expert, offering some kind of bloodless know-it-all advice and analysis. I wanted blood. Blood on the page. There will be blood! ... But also, music videos. And Words of the Day. And, if you hang around long enough, cat pictures. Like this one:
This is Ida (she put herself in the bin, I swear). Ida is the happy sequel to last year's grief. At the beginning of January, I was mourning. By the end of January, I was still mourning, but now I had a new companion (as did my other cat, Alfie, who *really* needed one). Why am I talking about my cats? Because they are constant, they give shape and rhythm to my day, and I love them even if they sometimes drive me crazy. Just like crossword puzzles! (See that! Segue! This is why you should pay me the big bucks!)
However much I love writing this blog (and I do, a lot), it is, in fact, a job. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for 17 years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Every day. At very ... let's say, inconvenient hours (my alarm goes off most mornings at 3:45am). Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. But that sort of thing has never felt right for me. I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way.
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):
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Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
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All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you cards, and once again those cards feature (wait for it) cats! My cats: Alfie & Ida. This year, an elegant set of five!
These really capture the combination of beauty and goofiness that I love in cats (and puzzles, frankly). I'd say "Collect All Five!" but every snail-mail contributor will get just one and (hopefully) like it! Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle...
• • •
Doesn't seem like a sufficiently restrictive concept. Theme answers start with "ME" ... and then "ME" appears "again," somewhere? You mean, like in MEDICINE MEN? MEANTIME? "MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS" (15!)*? There are probably a bunch more. This just doesn't seem like a very high bar, or even a very interesting lexical quirk. And it's not as if the themers are really giving you any sizzle. They're fine, but ... this seems pretty ... meager, as theme concepts go. Also, seems like the least you could do, if you're gonna make a big deal about the "ME"s in the themers, is not to have *any* other "ME"s in the grid, anywhere. But there's one in MESAS and there's another in MESSI and there's another in SMELT. It just doesn't seem like this puzzle is doing enough. Throw in the fact that the fill is something less than Just OK, with a couple of prime long Downs totally wasted on misfires, and you've got a rather listless Monday offering. It's a Meh from Me, I'm afraid. It took me a while to figure out what the basic premise was. I thought I saw a pattern developing with MEGA- then META- ... but MEAT- threw that all out of whack, and then METRONOME didn't even have two parts (at that point, I still thought METACOMET was a META-COMET ... you know, some kind of supercomet, or ... like, a comet that is commenting ironically on its own cometness, somehow—totally forgot it was a person). Figured out the double-ME thing just before the revealer. As for the revealer ... yeah, I guess people say that. Seems fine. But getting to that revealer was a pretty underwhelming experience. Easy puzzles don't have to be underwhelming, they truly don't.
I know METACOMET has nothing to do with the prefix META- but it was still somehow distracting as hell to have META in the puzzle. Felt like a dupe. DEFROSTED and STALEMATE are solid entries, but MAGIC BEAN, oof and argh, that is rough in the singular. Jack has magic beans, plural. No one ever talks about a single MAGIC BEAN. Can't believe that the wordlist couldn't cough up something better than the singular MAGIC BEAN. Similarly disappointing: STAIR STEP. You mean ... a step? Or a stair? "Watch out for that last STAIR STEP!," shouted no one. Why are you bothering to distinguish a STAIR STEP from ... other steps. Steps on a ladder? Dance steps? It's not that STAIR STEP doesn't compute, it's just clunky and redundant-feeling. I actually had ATTIC STEP in there at first, as I was solving Downs-Only. ATTIC and STAIR share two letters in the same places, and two *more* of ATTIC's letters made sense in the crosses (AREA instead of ARES, SANTA instead of SANA'A). It's only because of the undeniability of METRONOME that I didn't trip on the ATTIC STEP. The "R" cross from that last themer forced me to see the reality of STAIR. Nothing else in the Downs-only solve caused any real trouble. I had HAM & Cheese before [MACand cheese], but that's just a bad guess, and it was easily corrected. Getting every letter in METACOMET was probably the hardest task of the day, and that wasn't that hard.
This puzzle does have PANKO, which is tasty, and which I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more often. Five-letter words are so often Dullsville, and PANKO ... isn't. There's something fitting, if likely totally coincidental, about RAW appearing directly under MEAT THERMOMETER, and METRONOME crossing ON TIME, and (especially) DALI on LSD (while his paintings have certainly been likened to drug-induced hallucinations, he himself apparently didn't do drugs; his famous quote: "I don't do drugs, I am drugs!")
[Les Trois Sphinx de Bikini, 1947]
That's all, see you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*You couldn't actually do "MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS" as a theme answer today because you can't have "ME" appearing as "ME" ... but wow "MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS" is a great 15, someone should use that (again—it last appeared in 2006 ... in the 8th puzzle I ever wrote about!) (I didn't even post the finished grid back then!).
I was only vaguely aware of the theme while solving.
I hd "dats" instead of DAHS in the NE,because I forgot HALLE Berry. I also thought Jack had traded the family cow for a "magic bead" instead of a MAGICBEAN. It's the most trouble I've had on a Monday in a while, but at least I finished it without cheating.
My five favorite clues from last week (in order of appearance):
1. Heat center of the 2000s (5) 2. Less green, in a way (5) 3. Barely run (5) 4. Pillar of the superhero community (3)(4) 5. Did some shallow breathing? (9)
METACOMET seems a little out of place on a Monday (theme requirements do that to puzzles). I’m surprised we don’t see SANAA more frequently - looks like a very Xword friendly collection of vowels and the S, but maybe it’s just easier to go with SANTA when the need arises.
Solved downs-only and never heard of the Wampanoag chief, so I was astounded that META got repeated, assuming that a META-COMET is a streaking heavenly body that has some greater META meaning. The chief’s story is appalling and deserves to be more widely known.
Pretty easy downs-only, with just a few trouble spots. I wasn’t seeing STALEMATE and had a DOH moment when I got it and realized the term comes from chess. I thought a standstill was just a draw, but apparently they are slightly different things.
To your MMISL challenge, Rex, I offer this for some constructor making a punny puzzle based on old movies: “Serve me a red hot at a Cardinals game” - MEAT ME IN ST. LOUIS.
Since I usually praise a puzzle for attention to detail when they don’t do this, I should point out that there are several ME answers where the ME does not repeat: SMELT, ROME, META, MESSI, MESAS.
And yes, METACOMET is an order of magnitude more obscure than any of the other themers. Why not ‘mesmerize’ or ‘merriment’ or even ‘Melpomene’?
@Southside Johnny 6:46 - SANAA often appears in the puzzle as SANA. One or the other has appeared 72 times in the Shortz era; about three times a year.
Cute enough - saw the double ME trick with METACOMET. Just finished reading a book about Plimoth so that fell quickly. Overall fill was smooth - I’m a traditional solver and had no hang up anywhere in the grid.
Liked MAGIC BEAN, LETS ROLL and STALEMATE. Huge side eye to STAIR STEP - glad the big guy highlighted it. Hmm - KEG, ANISETTE, PANKO, IHOP - sounds like a party.
I knew METACOMET well. I was organist for a while at First Congregational Church in Bristol Rhode Island. Founded 1675. Right after they massacred all the natives on Mount Hope to end King Philip's War, leaving them a depopulated site for a town they could 'found'. There were other interesting historical bits about the place. The British had landed in the harbor during the Revolutionary War, and asked the first person they came to where the Congregational Church was, since they had heard they were storing ammunition there. But the person they asked was a Congregationalist, so he pointed them to the Episcopal Church, which the British burned down. Then, in the 19th century there were a lot of rum distilleries around the harbor. I found a grave in the old cemetery in the center of town with the name of my music committee chair, presumably an ancestor -- date of death 1840's sometime, 'Died in Africa'. The triangle trade: Molasses to rum to slaves.
There’s a science and art to making an easy puzzle that doesn’t feel embarrassingly easy – the science of putting in answers that aren’t everyday but are crossed with answers that are; and putting in clues that solvers have to think twice about but being sure that their answers have crosses that will trigger success.
The art is that ineffable thing that makes the solver feel like their time was worthwhile.
Luke’s debut today, IMO, passed the bar on both counts, and makes me hungry to see what he comes up with next. I’m happy to hear that he has more in the queue..
Wanted SKEETS early on, but held back until the end. Having worked at a gun club in h.s., don't recall using that terminology for the clay pigeons/targets, altho, for brevity's sake it makes sense.
Fun and enjoyable solve; liked it a lot! :) ___ On to Gorski's Mon. New Yorker 🤞, with Croce's ? for tm. ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Hey All ! ME oh my. It's all about ME? @pablo, we can both get a point on this one!
Get rid of the dupe META by changing ADO to SOO, then you have METS OOH. SOO is a railroad line that's been in puzs before. Or is having two METAs meta?
Just passed one whole year of solving MonPuzs correctly! The NYT puz site says I solved 53 in a row! ME GOOD. Har.
Welp, Monday rolls around again. What am ME to do? I OWE I OWE, off to work ME go.
I never met a comet I didn't like; and I live in Boston and once walked the short, level trail to what is now NETACOMET's rock, but that must have been tough if you didn't know it.
I've never heard anyone say SKEET or SKEETS, so I looked it up. Skeet means the sport (two different launchers, varying directions), not the target.
I figured it couldn't just be 'things starting with ME' but I never figured out what
Kept trying to guess the theme and I'm with OFL on eventually saying that's it? ME? I mean, I saw all the ME's but wanted to scramble some other letters or something. Oh well.
I'm with those who've never heard SKEETS. It's SKEET. The end.
Back when I was a Boy Scout I learned Morse code and we all learned "dits" and "dahs" and acquired a lifetime disdain for those uneducated types who said "dots" and "dashes". Some people.
I think DAN should always be clued as "a little Brycream" .
Nice enough Mondectio, LKS. Let's Keep Submitting, and congrats on the debut. Thanks for some Monday fun and the shout out to ME and Roo.
I knew that METACOMET was going to be Rex's word of the day. I just knew it!
I mean, does that sound even vaguely like a Wampanoag name? We know what Native American names sound like and this isn't it.
Native American names, like Mexican, Hawaiian and Welsh names, are names you'd never buzz in on "Jeopardy" for -- well, at least I wouldn't -- because you can't pronounce them, which means you almost certainly can't remember them either. At least that's my rule of thumb.
METACOMET doesn't sound like a chief in the 1600s or at any other time. It sounds like...
1) Something really important discovered by Halley
2) A Marvel Comics Superhero who employs state-of-the-Universe weaponry
I know, I know, I'm riffing, as per usual. And I haven't really said much about the puzzle. But what did you expect? After all, IT'S ME AGAIN.
PLATO flew in from ROME on PANKO airlines. His seat MATE, I HOP, brought a ROLL of STALE RAW MEAT that SMELT like a DEFROSTED MORTAL BEAN. He asked PLATO to EXAM it...."SKEETS!" he yelled....and went into a SPASM. It was MESSI.
A THERMOMETER placed in his DOH DAHS was the BEST they could do. They had to MAKE him SNAP to. With a SEEP of ANISETTE and a LITTLE LSD, he was AGAIN on PAR. It was MAGIC.
They were supposed to arrive ON TIME but an ADO would ENSUE. A HALLE COMET was in ORB. They had to SCRAM their SLRS to make way for the BLIMPS flying in the ARES as well. The BLIMPS had been AT SEA but they now needed to ROLL back to the MESAS to MAKE room for PANKO. A MERGER of a HALLE COMET, the BLIMPS and PANKO could cause a MORTAL AXIOM to occur. They were at a STALE MATE.....
The METER was ticking AGAIN. Were the DAMS about to ROLL? Everyone on PANKO felt like a KEG of BEAN ROLL was about to SEEP. Would they have to SCRAM down the STAIR STEP to catch the METRO NOME? It was MAKE or break time......
The AREA RAMP was finally clear. Everyone made a SCRAM for the exit. They would FILE one by one like the BEST of them. It's MAGICAL ISN'T it.......
PLATO was still PLOTTED on LSD but he was able to take the METRO home and hug his wife, ETNA. She was fixing TIGER EEL that she had DEFROSTED. "I HOP you like it!" she LET out....PLATO SMELT it and then ATE it! Nary an eye ROLL nor a TINGE of STALE RAW BEAN MEAT would ENSUE. "This is the BEST" he SKEETS....I want MORE!!!!
After many MESAS had passed, PLATO and ETNA flew to TAHOE on PANKO Air for a DALI GALA. They ATE nothing. All they did was drink ANISETTE and get POTTED on LSD. I was a MEGA MAGIC ME AGAIN LETS ROLL MOMENT....PAR for the course.
Easy except for tracking down a typo. Underwhelming for me. Didn’t hate it but I agree with @Red on this one.
Did not know META COMET.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #866 was pretty easy for a Croce (less than 2 X Sat. NYT). The NW was the toughest section for me. 1a and 10a were WOEs. Good luck!
All the way through my solve, I kept thinking “this feels like a debut puzzle. sure enough. I’m with @Lewis on this one. Good theme idea with a couple hiccups. The double META even though the META in METACOMET very technically doesn’t count as a double nonetheless feels like one and that rankles a bit.
The smooth solve on a Monday (either traditionally or with downs only) is something I really enjoy. I feel it my dip of the big toe into a new week. The fair crosses today made this a lovely Monday debut (hi @Lewis!). Congrats to Luke on his debut. I am eager to see more.
@gfrPeace - I too knew METACOMET. On one side of my family tree I had an ancestor who fought in King Philip's War (wrong side). He later was accused of witchcraft and was in jail, awaiting trial at the tail end of the craziness. On the other side of my family tree was the priest who supervised most of the hangings. Sanity eventually prevailed, and it took only 230 years for the two branches to meet again.
Pretty nice Monday puzzle with a tiny bit of crunch to it. Yeah, the theme isn’t anything to write home about but the theme answers were pretty solid in a stand alone way.
The Dali clue inspired me to look up DALI again. Actually that inspiration was coupled with the fact that I watched a documentary about Mike Wallace and there was a snippet of him interviewing Dali. If I was born…I would’ve been a baby then. DALI was about as “out there” as an artist can be, but that man was a master at conveying light into his work. I remember seeing the Sacrament of the Last Supper at the National Gallery as a preteen and staring at it in amazement.
@GILL I a primo story today and you fulfilled @Carola’s wish, and then some!
Yeah. @Anoa Bob is there such a thing as a “singular of convenience” as with MAGICBEAN? Oh…yeah…SKEETS was inferable but probably not right…(hi @jberg)
Given the overall quality of the puzzle, META as a standalone answer is mindboggling to me. With some easy fixes -- CON/MENA (Suvari), METE/EDO (former Tokyo) -- this feels really careless.
Solving down clues only, I thought METACOMET must contain a mistake. Turns out my mistake was elsewhere, having TINCT* instead of TINGE. I should have known LUCE and SETP were unlikely crosses.
* I've got TINCT on the brain because it's so common in Spelling Bee. Speaking of: [Sun 0; streak 8 days! A LOT of SB "special" words yd.]
I'm confused about metacomet. Did not know about that chief and having read the write up Re posted, and not seeing the et ding on Metacom. How is that a valid answer? Enjoyed the puzzled and liked the reveal. No problem with stair step I have heard it, or read it, or maybe both often enough that it sounded fine.
@kitshef-Think you're right about the 10A mixup, which was a kealoa for me that slowed things down. Agree about the 58A/48D cross. I finished in the SW, finally. (!)
My dear astrophysicist prof/friend/acquaintence Meg never METACOMET she didn't like.
staff weeject pick: BRR. M&A is always a sucker for c-c-cool runty sound effects. fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Gem whose names comes from "upala", the Sanskrit word for "precious stone"} = OPAL.
some other faves: MAGICBEAN. LETSROLL. META & METACOMET. EXAM clue. Theme revealer. no-know zone: PANKO. METACOMET. HALLE.
Thanx for all the MonPuz ME-times, Mr. Schreiber dude. And congratz on a nice debut.
@kitshef…although CO-OP housing exists outside NYC, my fairly large city only has a handful (that I didn’t know existed until right now) so I put “flat” in until I knew it was wrong. Anyway, like @jae, I was a bit flummoxed for a bit in an otherwise easy puzzle.
Today's constructor is a senior at my alma mater, St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City. From the school's Facebook page:
Whether they realized it or not, puzzle enthusiasts in the Prep community might have started their week by reconnecting with Grand & Warren over their morning coffee... The author of today's New York Times Crossword is none other than Prep senior Luke Schreiber, '24
@Croce Solvers - Sorry about that. 10d was indeed a WOE, but 15a was what I meant to type as part of my problems in the NW. …and yes 58a and 48d were also WOES but the crosses were pretty easy except for maybe 51a.
Not sure why 18D META next door to 24A METACOMET was left in. Easy enough to fix. One option is to change META to MEND and 27A ADO to DOE. 23A COT becomes CON, 26D DOH becomes OOH and 24D MORE becomes MERE.
Got to agree with OFL that the original base phrase is MAGIC BEANS and we only get a single BEAN serving because the 3 Down slot doesn't have room for more than one. Yeah @Beezer 11:01, I would call that a classic SOC. It's singularized only for convenience and it stands out more because it's one of the longer, non-theme entries.
@GILL I., please let us know when the next GALA with an ANISETTE and LSD SEEP and THERMOMETER in the DOH DAHS is happening. I'm definitely RSVPing for that one!
The full story of the King Philip’s War is actually worse than the potted bio quoted by Rex. Towards the end of the war, a group of non- combatant Narragansett’s retreated to the Great Swamp in Rhode Island to avoid the fighting By this time they were near starvation. Yet the united New England colonial army found them and massacred them. Up to 500 men women and children. Growing up here I heard the names of a golf course, Metacomet, and a major commercial street, Metacom Avenue, along with a King Philip High School (not far from where his head was on a pole), but I never heard this history. I had to learn it all as an adult. The Thanksgiving story is repeated endlessly, but this is the true ending of it.
Agree it must be obscure. We do erase unpleasant facts from our history don’t we? Knew about Metacomet because I have spent most of my life in Rhode Island. So I was a bit surprised when I saw it Obviously the theme forced the answer.
Would anyone really complain if an urn is referred to as a dispenser of coffee. The tap is part of the urn or the keg. Anyway, it’s a clue or hint, nya definition. Close enough for crosswords.
But the heading says Metacomet. Both versions are used in the historical records Because as Nancy noted English speakers have trouble with indigenous names, the colonists usually called him King Philip. All three names are used in Rhode Island.
Metacomet appears in the heading. Rex may have left something out Metacomet as well as Metacom appear in the historical record King Philip is the name the colonists used. All three are used in Rhode Island and also Massachusetts I gather.
Bleagh. I don't know where you got your taste buds, Luke, but ANISETTE is ANYTHING BUT "sweet." And so is this puzzle.
Theme is super-contrived, as evidenced by the appearance of METACOMET on a Monday (!). And the fill is full of crossword crapola. I guess Monday's bar is low. Double-bogey.
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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***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's currently mid-January, that's you!)*** : Hello from the first properly wintry week of the season in Central New York! It's January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. So ... 17 years ... not bad. At this time last year, I was recovering from COVID and still dealing with the very fresh grief brought on by the untimely death of my cat, Olive. I was very grateful for the blog at that point, since it grounded me in routine and gave me a place where I could lose myself in a pastime I love, and share that love with others. OK, yes, true, I don't always *love* crosswords. Sometimes it's more hate-love or love-hate or "Why are you being like this, you stupid puzzle!?" It ain't all positive vibes, as you know. But I realized last year that part of what makes this blog so fun for me, and what makes it a solace to many readers, is the sense of commiseration it provides. Sometimes the puzzle thrills you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't; and sometimes it infuriates you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't. But either way, the blog is here; it's *always* here. You get to have your feelings validated, or you get to shake your head at my errant judgment and often breathtaking ignorance, but either way, you get to share an experience that's an important part of your daily life, and maybe you learn something new. Above all, I hope you feel that there is a real person with a real life and real emotions and (very) real human flaws who's telling you what it was *really* like for him to solve the puzzle. I never wanted to be an expert, offering some kind of bloodless know-it-all advice and analysis. I wanted blood. Blood on the page. There will be blood! ... But also, music videos. And Words of the Day. And, if you hang around long enough, cat pictures. Like this one:
62 comments:
Having META- as a separate answer, especially right next to METACOMET, struck me as a major gaffe.
Nothing wrong with Stairsteps
Another gridspanner ("Yes, I'm back for a third time"):
Mercy Mercy Mercy
I was only vaguely aware of the theme while solving.
I hd "dats" instead of DAHS in the NE,because I forgot HALLE Berry. I also thought Jack had traded the family cow for a "magic bead" instead of a MAGICBEAN. It's the most trouble I've had on a Monday in a while, but at least I finished it without cheating.
I always thought the plural of "skeet" was "skeet"? Does anyone really refer to clay pigeons as "SKEETS"?
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Heat center of the 2000s (5)
2. Less green, in a way (5)
3. Barely run (5)
4. Pillar of the superhero community (3)(4)
5. Did some shallow breathing? (9)
ONEAL
OLDER
STREAK
BAT POLE
SNORKELED
Surprised not to see the POC (not to say POS) entry SLRS in Rex's write-up. Srsly?
METACOMET seems a little out of place on a Monday (theme requirements do that to puzzles). I’m surprised we don’t see SANAA more frequently - looks like a very Xword friendly collection of vowels and the S, but maybe it’s just easier to go with SANTA when the need arises.
Solved downs-only and never heard of the Wampanoag chief, so I was astounded that META got repeated, assuming that a META-COMET is a streaking heavenly body that has some greater META meaning. The chief’s story is appalling and deserves to be more widely known.
Pretty easy downs-only, with just a few trouble spots. I wasn’t seeing STALEMATE and had a DOH moment when I got it and realized the term comes from chess. I thought a standstill was just a draw, but apparently they are slightly different things.
To your MMISL challenge, Rex, I offer this for some constructor making a punny puzzle based on old movies: “Serve me a red hot at a Cardinals game” - MEAT ME IN ST. LOUIS.
(Slinks out…)
Too much Japanese-food stuff.
Since I usually praise a puzzle for attention to detail when they don’t do this, I should point out that there are several ME answers where the ME does not repeat: SMELT, ROME, META, MESSI, MESAS.
And yes, METACOMET is an order of magnitude more obscure than any of the other themers. Why not ‘mesmerize’ or ‘merriment’ or even ‘Melpomene’?
@Southside Johnny 6:46 - SANAA often appears in the puzzle as SANA. One or the other has appeared 72 times in the Shortz era; about three times a year.
Croce Freestyle was medium overall, but with lots of trouble in the SE.
Cute enough - saw the double ME trick with METACOMET. Just finished reading a book about Plimoth so that fell quickly. Overall fill was smooth - I’m a traditional solver and had no hang up anywhere in the grid.
Why ME
Liked MAGIC BEAN, LETS ROLL and STALEMATE. Huge side eye to STAIR STEP - glad the big guy highlighted it. Hmm - KEG, ANISETTE, PANKO, IHOP - sounds like a party.
Pleasant Monday morning solve
SKEETer
I knew METACOMET well. I was organist for a while at First Congregational Church in Bristol Rhode Island. Founded 1675. Right after they massacred all the natives on Mount Hope to end King Philip's War, leaving them a depopulated site for a town they could 'found'. There were other interesting historical bits about the place. The British had landed in the harbor during the Revolutionary War, and asked the first person they came to where the Congregational Church was, since they had heard they were storing ammunition there. But the person they asked was a Congregationalist, so he pointed them to the Episcopal Church, which the British burned down. Then, in the 19th century there were a lot of rum distilleries around the harbor. I found a grave in the old cemetery in the center of town with the name of my music committee chair, presumably an ancestor -- date of death 1840's sometime, 'Died in Africa'. The triangle trade: Molasses to rum to slaves.
There’s a science and art to making an easy puzzle that doesn’t feel embarrassingly easy – the science of putting in answers that aren’t everyday but are crossed with answers that are; and putting in clues that solvers have to think twice about but being sure that their answers have crosses that will trigger success.
The art is that ineffable thing that makes the solver feel like their time was worthwhile.
Luke’s debut today, IMO, passed the bar on both counts, and makes me hungry to see what he comes up with next. I’m happy to hear that he has more in the queue..
Lovely serendipities as well. A RAMP up. A backward PANS out. The crossing PuzzPair© of BRR and RAW. The sing-song META / MEGA / MESA. The echo of DEFROSTED right over the Frosted Flakes clue.
I figured out the ME-ME motif before uncovering the reveal, but not the reveal itself. Still, small steps on a skill I’m trying to strengthen.
Thank you, Luke for a lovely outing, and congratulations on your debut!
Thx, Luke; a fine Mon. offering! 😊
Relatively easy downs-only.
Wanted SKEETS early on, but held back until the end. Having worked at a gun club in h.s., don't recall using that terminology for the clay pigeons/targets, altho, for brevity's sake it makes sense.
Fun and enjoyable solve; liked it a lot! :)
___
On to Gorski's Mon. New Yorker 🤞, with Croce's ? for tm.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Hey All !
ME oh my. It's all about ME? @pablo, we can both get a point on this one!
Get rid of the dupe META by changing ADO to SOO, then you have METS OOH. SOO is a railroad line that's been in puzs before. Or is having two METAs meta?
Just passed one whole year of solving MonPuzs correctly! The NYT puz site says I solved 53 in a row! ME GOOD. Har.
Welp, Monday rolls around again. What am ME to do? I OWE I OWE, off to work ME go.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I'm with @conrad on the plural of skeet.
Oh, and is a keg a dispenser or a container? The tap is the dispenser, no?
I never met a comet I didn't like; and I live in Boston and once walked the short, level trail to what is now NETACOMET's rock, but that must have been tough if you didn't know it.
I've never heard anyone say SKEET or SKEETS, so I looked it up. Skeet means the sport (two different launchers, varying directions), not the target.
I figured it couldn't just be 'things starting with ME' but I never figured out what
Kept trying to guess the theme and I'm with OFL on eventually saying that's it? ME? I mean, I saw all the ME's but wanted to scramble some other letters or something. Oh well.
I'm with those who've never heard SKEETS. It's SKEET. The end.
Back when I was a Boy Scout I learned Morse code and we all learned "dits" and "dahs" and acquired a lifetime disdain for those uneducated types who said "dots" and "dashes". Some people.
I think DAN should always be clued as "a little Brycream" .
Nice enough Mondectio, LKS. Let's Keep Submitting, and congrats on the debut. Thanks for some Monday fun and the shout out to ME and Roo.
I knew that METACOMET was going to be Rex's word of the day. I just knew it!
I mean, does that sound even vaguely like a Wampanoag name? We know what Native American names sound like and this isn't it.
Native American names, like Mexican, Hawaiian and Welsh names, are names you'd never buzz in on "Jeopardy" for -- well, at least I wouldn't -- because you can't pronounce them, which means you almost certainly can't remember them either. At least that's my rule of thumb.
METACOMET doesn't sound like a chief in the 1600s or at any other time. It sounds like...
1) Something really important discovered by Halley
2) A Marvel Comics Superhero who employs state-of-the-Universe weaponry
I know, I know, I'm riffing, as per usual. And I haven't really said much about the puzzle. But what did you expect? After all, IT'S ME AGAIN.
PLATO flew in from ROME on PANKO airlines. His seat MATE, I HOP, brought a ROLL of STALE RAW MEAT that SMELT like a DEFROSTED MORTAL BEAN. He asked PLATO to EXAM it...."SKEETS!" he yelled....and went into a SPASM. It was MESSI.
A THERMOMETER placed in his DOH DAHS was the BEST they could do. They had to MAKE him SNAP to. With a SEEP of ANISETTE and a LITTLE LSD, he was AGAIN on PAR. It was MAGIC.
They were supposed to arrive ON TIME but an ADO would ENSUE. A HALLE COMET was in ORB. They had to SCRAM their SLRS to make way for the BLIMPS flying in the ARES as well. The BLIMPS had been AT SEA but they now needed to ROLL back to the MESAS to MAKE room for PANKO. A MERGER of a HALLE COMET, the BLIMPS and PANKO could cause a MORTAL AXIOM to occur. They were at a STALE MATE.....
The METER was ticking AGAIN. Were the DAMS about to ROLL? Everyone on PANKO felt like a KEG of BEAN ROLL was about to SEEP. Would they have to SCRAM down the STAIR STEP to catch the METRO NOME? It was MAKE or break time......
The AREA RAMP was finally clear. Everyone made a SCRAM for the exit. They would FILE one by one like the BEST of them. It's MAGICAL ISN'T it.......
PLATO was still PLOTTED on LSD but he was able to take the METRO home and hug his wife, ETNA. She was fixing TIGER EEL that she had DEFROSTED. "I HOP you like it!" she LET out....PLATO SMELT it and then ATE it! Nary an eye ROLL nor a TINGE of STALE RAW BEAN MEAT would ENSUE. "This is the BEST" he SKEETS....I want MORE!!!!
After many MESAS had passed, PLATO and ETNA flew to TAHOE on PANKO Air for a DALI GALA. They ATE nothing. All they did was drink ANISETTE and get POTTED on LSD. I was a MEGA MAGIC ME AGAIN LETS ROLL MOMENT....PAR for the course.
And that's the truth...
Cute theme; appreciate learning about METACOMET.
Do-overs: cramp, AmareTTo.
Hoping GILL I. will have a story.
DAB.
Oops.
Me too for plural of SKEET is SKEET.
Thanks for the history @gfrpeaace.
Entertaining puzzle. Perfect for the ME generation.
It's inexcusable how Bro-ist the Times can be always accusing the good boys of I Eta Theta of being KEG-gists. Bombers use kegs too ya know.
Uniclues:
1 How one guy gets a yacht.
2 "Hit it."
3 Dinner time.
4 Licorice flavored flying contraptions.
5 Ate Siberian TV dinner.
1 FILE MEGAMERGER (~)
2 EDITED "LET'S ROLL"
3 ATE METRONOME (~)
4 ANISETTE BLIMPS
5 DEFROSTED TIGER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Well by golly aren't these triangles predictable? PYTHAGORIAN THEOREM AG'IN?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The entire wiki article refers to him as Metacom. Where did the -et come from?
Agree with Rex— blah puzzle.
Easy except for tracking down a typo. Underwhelming for me. Didn’t hate it but I agree with @Red on this one.
Did not know META COMET.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #866 was pretty easy for a Croce (less than 2 X Sat. NYT). The NW was the toughest section for me. 1a and 10a were WOEs. Good luck!
All the way through my solve, I kept thinking “this feels like a debut puzzle. sure enough. I’m with @Lewis on this one. Good theme idea with a couple hiccups. The double META even though the META in METACOMET very technically doesn’t count as a double nonetheless feels like one and that rankles a bit.
The smooth solve on a Monday (either traditionally or with downs only) is something I really enjoy. I feel it my dip of the big toe into a new week. The fair crosses today made this a lovely Monday debut (hi @Lewis!). Congrats to Luke on his debut. I am eager to see more.
@gfrPeace - I too knew METACOMET. On one side of my family tree I had an ancestor who fought in King Philip's War (wrong side). He later was accused of witchcraft and was in jail, awaiting trial at the tail end of the craziness. On the other side of my family tree was the priest who supervised most of the hangings. Sanity eventually prevailed, and it took only 230 years for the two branches to meet again.
Pretty nice Monday puzzle with a tiny bit of crunch to it. Yeah, the theme isn’t anything to write home about but the theme answers were pretty solid in a stand alone way.
The Dali clue inspired me to look up DALI again. Actually that inspiration was coupled with the fact that I watched a documentary about Mike Wallace and there was a snippet of him interviewing Dali. If I was born…I would’ve been a baby then. DALI was about as “out there” as an artist can be, but that man was a master at conveying light into his work. I remember seeing the Sacrament of the Last Supper at the National Gallery as a preteen and staring at it in amazement.
@GILL I a primo story today and you fulfilled @Carola’s wish, and then some!
Yeah. @Anoa Bob is there such a thing as a “singular of convenience” as with MAGICBEAN? Oh…yeah…SKEETS was inferable but probably not right…(hi @jberg)
METACOMET????
Nice Monday theme and a solid grid.
Given the overall quality of the puzzle, META as a standalone answer is mindboggling to me. With some easy fixes -- CON/MENA (Suvari), METE/EDO (former Tokyo) -- this feels really careless.
Forgive my error on my clue list -- STREAK has six letters, not (5)! And thank you to the astute observer who caught it and let me know!
Solving down clues only, I thought METACOMET must contain a mistake. Turns out my mistake was elsewhere, having TINCT* instead of TINGE. I should have known LUCE and SETP were unlikely crosses.
* I've got TINCT on the brain because it's so common in Spelling Bee. Speaking of:
[Sun 0; streak 8 days! A LOT of SB "special" words yd.]
@GILL I. 9:55 AM
I always feel like I need a seat belt for my brain when I'm reading your stories. Dangerous.
Another one where the theme had no roll in solving the puzzle
@jae - I hope you meant 10D, rather than 10A. My unknowns were 58A and 48D, hence my strife in the SE.
I'm confused about metacomet. Did not know about that chief and having read the write up Re posted, and not seeing the et ding on Metacom. How is that a valid answer?
Enjoyed the puzzled and liked the reveal.
No problem with stair step I have heard it, or read it, or maybe both often enough that it sounded fine.
@kitshef-Think you're right about the 10A mixup, which was a kealoa for me that slowed things down. Agree about the 58A/48D cross. I finished in the SW, finally. (!)
My dear astrophysicist prof/friend/acquaintence Meg never METACOMET she didn't like.
staff weeject pick: BRR. M&A is always a sucker for c-c-cool runty sound effects.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Gem whose names comes from "upala", the Sanskrit word for "precious stone"} = OPAL.
some other faves: MAGICBEAN. LETSROLL. META & METACOMET. EXAM clue. Theme revealer.
no-know zone: PANKO. METACOMET. HALLE.
Thanx for all the MonPuz ME-times, Mr. Schreiber dude. And congratz on a nice debut.
Masked & Anonymo1U
**gruntz**
@kitshef…although CO-OP housing exists outside NYC, my fairly large city only has a handful (that I didn’t know existed until right now) so I put “flat” in until I knew it was wrong. Anyway, like @jae, I was a bit flummoxed for a bit in an otherwise easy puzzle.
Today's constructor is a senior at my alma mater, St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City. From the school's Facebook page:
Whether they realized it or not, puzzle enthusiasts in the Prep community might have started their week by reconnecting with Grand & Warren over their morning coffee... The author of today's New York Times Crossword is none other than Prep senior Luke Schreiber, '24
@Croce Solvers - Sorry about that. 10d was indeed a WOE, but 15a was what I meant to type as part of my problems in the NW.
…and yes 58a and 48d were also WOES but the crosses were pretty easy except for maybe 51a.
Not sure why 18D META next door to 24A METACOMET was left in. Easy enough to fix. One option is to change META to MEND and 27A ADO to DOE. 23A COT becomes CON, 26D DOH becomes OOH and 24D MORE becomes MERE.
Got to agree with OFL that the original base phrase is MAGIC BEANS and we only get a single BEAN serving because the 3 Down slot doesn't have room for more than one. Yeah @Beezer 11:01, I would call that a classic SOC. It's singularized only for convenience and it stands out more because it's one of the longer, non-theme entries.
@GILL I., please let us know when the next GALA with an ANISETTE and LSD SEEP and THERMOMETER in the DOH DAHS is happening. I'm definitely RSVPing for that one!
The full story of the King Philip’s War is actually worse than the potted bio quoted by Rex. Towards the end of the war, a group of non- combatant Narragansett’s retreated to the Great Swamp in Rhode Island to avoid the fighting By this time they were near starvation. Yet the united New England colonial army found them and massacred them. Up to 500 men women and children. Growing up here I heard the names of a golf course, Metacomet, and a major commercial street, Metacom Avenue, along with a King Philip High School (not far from where his head was on a pole), but I never heard this history. I had to learn it all as an adult.
The Thanksgiving story is repeated endlessly, but this is the true ending of it.
Agree it must be obscure. We do erase unpleasant facts from our history don’t we? Knew about Metacomet because I have spent most of my life in Rhode Island. So I was a bit surprised when I saw it Obviously the theme forced the answer.
Would anyone really complain if an urn is referred to as a dispenser of coffee. The tap is part of the urn or the keg.
Anyway, it’s a clue or hint, nya definition. Close enough for crosswords.
But the heading says Metacomet. Both versions are used in the historical records Because as Nancy noted English speakers have trouble with indigenous names, the colonists usually called him King Philip. All three names are used in Rhode Island.
Metacomet appears in the heading.
Rex may have left something out
Metacomet as well as Metacom appear in the historical record
King Philip is the name the colonists used. All three are used in Rhode Island and also Massachusetts I gather.
@Anoa B 5:45. Next Monday...Stay tuned! You @Carola, @Gary J and anyone else can have front row seats....:-)
@GILL
Skip the front row seats, I'll take a martini.
@JC....HAH!....What do you think I'll be serving!... ;-)
OK 1 across ramp. 5 across cramp wow this is gonna be fun! Oops. No. Quit once I realized that wasn't it. 😞
Why would you tease 1 across ramp 5 across cramp? Why?? Am I missing something? Seriously please tell me if so. DNF out of disappointment
Pretty sure the plural of skeet is SKEET SKEET SKEET!
Didn't like SKEETS either! But it does say "informally".
How the heck would you know that 28D "Facepalm" is DOH and not DUH without using the clue for 32A? This "downs only" thing baffles me.
Duplicate META. How or why did this slip past the editor(s)?
Bleagh. I don't know where you got your taste buds, Luke, but ANISETTE is ANYTHING BUT "sweet." And so is this puzzle.
Theme is super-contrived, as evidenced by the appearance of METACOMET on a Monday (!). And the fill is full of crossword crapola. I guess Monday's bar is low. Double-bogey.
Wordle birdie.
MORE SPASM (EDICT ME)
HALLE said, "IT'SMEAGAIN,
I META buncha MORTAL men,
so LET'SROLL and MAKE IT sweet,
ya know IT'S TIME I ATE RAW MEAT."
--- OPAL ANISETTE PANKO
META DAB ADO! OWE DOH ADO DAHS day. SMELT OWE DAHS. fun with puz words.
OK theme but it won't become a MEME. HALLE is welcome any TIME.
Wordle birdie.
I love Mondays - just wish there could be two or three of them. (On Mondays.)
Guess not, eh?
Lady Di
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