Emphasis-providing suffix / THU 10-24-24 / Fighting fish / Stinging jellyfish / Workplace for a young Abraham Lincoln / Antioxidant-infused water brand / Block in Atlantic City / Proponents of crystal healing / Vinyl records, slangily / Marine animal with distinctive eye patches / Animated character with a Scottish accent

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Constructor: Ella Dershowitz

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging


THEME: "ANY TAKERS?" (35A: "Who's interested?" ... or, phonetically, what four answers in this puzzle are vis-à-vis the answers next to them) — take "NE" ("N" + "E" = "any!") from one answer, give it to the answer next to it:

Theme answers:
  • IMPANELING / THE ONE (i.e. impaneling / Theo) (17A: Selecting for a jury / 19A: Nickname alternative to Teddy)
  • SEA NETTLE / FAR GONE (i.e. sea nettle / Fargo) (24A: Stinging jellyfish / 26A: North Dakota's most populous city)
  • HEADS TONE / COCKNEY (i.e. headstone / cocky) (47A: Frank Sinatra's reads "The best is yet to come" / 50A: Arrogantly confident)
  • NEWAGERS / ALL I NEED (i.e. New-Agers / allied) (56A: Proponents of crystal healing / 58A: On the same side)
Word of the Day: Berry and Lincoln (1A: Workplace for a young Abraham Lincoln = BAR) —

Back before he was President, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer. And before he was a lawyer, he was something else entirely—a bartender.

Holders of the nation's highest office have often had a close relationship with booze, as George Washington established the nation's largest whiskey distillery in 1797 and Thomas Jefferson brewed his own beer. Andrew Jackson's inaugural party in 1829 was so legendary that we still drink the orange punch partygoers consumed (and you can find it on the menu at Big Jones). But Lincoln was the only president who was also a licensed bartender.

Lincoln was co-owner of Berry and Lincoln, a store/drinking establishment in New Salem, Illinois, where he lived from 1831 to 1837. [...] 

In January 1833, he partnered with his friend from his militia days, William F. Berry, to purchase a small store, which they named Berry and Lincoln. Stores could sell alcohol in quantities greater than a pint for off-premises consumption, but it was illegal to sell single drinks to consume at the store without a license. In March 1833, Berry and Lincoln were issued a tavern, or liquor, license, which cost them $7 and was taken out in Berry's name. Stores that sold liquor to consume on the premises were called groceries. (chicagoist.com)
• • •

Cone BRA (34D)
Extremely slow start because of the theme. And because of my lack of knowledge about water filter brand names. And because of my complete inability to distinguish a SIA song from a SZA song. And because even after I went looking for the themer so I could understand what was going on—and uncovered it quickly—I somehow convinced myself that there must be another revealer ... otherwise, how do you explain the missing "UR"  from SEA TURTLE (24A: Stinging jellyfish). I know, I know, a turtle is not a jellyfish! But it's aquatic! And "UR" ("you are") seemed like the kind of phonetic element you'd use for a second punny revealer. Between the trickiness of the theme and the ridiculous machinations of my crossword brain, things were very rough up top indeed. Also, I only really read half the revealer clue, so I got the "NE" extraction part, but I didn't pick up the "NE" insertion part, so while THE ONE and FAR GONE weren't exactly hard, I did hesitate, wondering why there were these extra letters tacked on to the end of the "correct" answers. ARGH. But in the bottom half of the puzzle, things went much more smoothly. I had the theme concept down pat by then, and there was no more BAI (?) or SZA waiting to trip me up. Just the very familiar ANI DiFranco and SARA Bareilles, who made finishing the puzzle much easier than starting it.

[24D: Singer with the 2023 #1 hit "Kill Bill" (warning: gun violence)]

That BAR / BAI cross was brutal for me because I assumed it was BAR but figured it was the *legal* kind of BAR, which is not an actual physical "workplace" (1A: Workplace for a young Abraham Lincoln). I mean, when you're admitted to The BAR, you aren't let in to an actual building. It's like a club. My mom was a lawyer, I should ask her. Anyway, "workplace" had me really unsure of the "B" in BAR. This is all to say that unlike much of our country, I was never much for Lincoln-olatry, never watched a movie or read a book about him. My wife is a U.S. historian, so I just picked up my knowledge of 19c. U.S. history kinda ... ambiently. People talk about Lincoln so much anyway that you feel like, you know, you get the gist. Do I really want to watch Daniel Day-Lewis doing Lincoln? I did not, and I do not—god save me from biopics, the absolute worst of all genres. Anyway, most of you probably knew that Lincoln owned a BAR, but wow, not me, not at all. That bit of info was not in my school curriculum. And BAI ... yeesh, no. I mean, I've heard of it, it's been in the puzzle before, but still ... did not come to mind (1D: Antioxidant-infused water brand). I had PUR in there for a bit (that's the three-letter water filter, alas).

[the only "Lincoln" I truly care about is this album (They Might Be Giants, 1988)]

That "Z" in SZA is really a choice. In the end, nothing else works, but if you don't know who SZA is (and I know some of you don't), that answer must've looked nuts. Must've had you doubting your knowledge of the Greek alphabet (I'll admit, after Epsilon, I have no idea what order the letters go in). Kind of brutal that SIA is also (like SZA) a popular contemporary singer. Luckily, I know the Greek alphabet well enough to know that while IOTA is one of the letters, IETA is not. So the "I" was out and the "Z" was in. I am a little (if only a little) familiar with SZA as a musical artist, so that helped. It also helped that I knew "-ASS" was an [Emphasis-providing suffix]. It's generationally behind me, but I had a kid who was, by definition, generationally behind me, and my students are generationally behind me, so this use of "-ASS" made sense to me. But I can see how people who don't know "-ASS" as a *suffix* might reason their way to -ESS as the answer here. I mean -ESS is a recognizable suffix, so it has that going for it. "Emphasis-providing," though? Not really. It's more "feminizing." As I stumbled to put that little area together, I wondered whether there were other stumblers out there ... and whether maybe some of those stumblers actually fell all the way over and never got up. I hope not. 


Any notes? Yes:
  • 38D: Abdominal floor exercises (TOE TAPS) — my trainer has me do these sometimes, but if I didn't have a trainer, I wouldn't know what these are.
  • 6D: "Must this conversation happen again?" ("CAN WE NOT?") — ah, perfect colloquialism, easily my favorite thing in the grid. I also enjoyed the freshness of PAN SEAR (a debut) (41D: Cook until a crust forms) and the clue on SPACES (61A: Totally forgets to do something, informally) and OWLET (4D: Baby that's up all night?) and SMOKE (64A: Tip-off that you've forgotten something in the toaster).
  • 48D: Animated film character with a Scottish accent (SHREK) — because GROUNDSKEEPER WILLIE wouldn't fit


  • 60D: Block in Atlantic City (DIE) — the kind you roll when you are gambling
  • 8D: Fighting fish (BETTA) — despite encountering these things multiple times in the crossword by now, I still can't quite put the name together. When it comes to aquarium fish, after TETRA, I'm kind of at a loss. I think I remembered up to -ETTA today, but had to go to BOAST for the "B" cross (8A: Promote oneself).
See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

95 comments:

Anonymous 6:00 AM  

For a while I got hung up on IMPA(NEL)ING — kept thinking it should be EN- instead of IM-, so had (EN)PANELING.

Anonymous 6:19 AM  

Me too.

Conrad 6:25 AM  


I found it a lot easier than OFL did. I started in the NE as usual, then moved down the East side to the center. So I got IMPALING at 17A and realized that the clue was for IMPA[NE]LING, and I got 24A SEATTLE when the clue was for SEA [NE]TTLE. So I thought the theme was just dropping NEs. Then I got to the 35A revealer and realized that the NEs would pop up elsewhere. It was fairly easy after that, with one head-scratcher: It took me quite a while after I got WAGERS at 56A to see [NE]W AGERS.

Anonymous 7:07 AM  

I thought it was strange that the first two theme answers put the NE at the end, but the last two did not. I got a bit stalled with the bottom because of it.

SouthsideJohnny 7:11 AM  

I definitely struggled with it - I noticed the extra letters on FARGO, but the theme required too many steps (I.e. two - take from one word and give to another) for my feeble brain to comprehend. I was also at a disadvantage because IMPANELING and SEA NETTLE were not terms that I was familiar with - so no real chance to decipher the theme gimmick. Add to that the BAI, SZE and even WAX for records sideshow and once again, Thursday is my least favorite day of the week.

Rich Glauber 7:17 AM  

DNF with the SZE ESS mistake, but I found the puzzle clever and well executed. That's quite a feat to make real words on both sides while dropping or adding the NE. I'd call it brilliant.

Benbini 7:22 AM  

Since vulgarity is apparently OK now, I'll just note that this is another weirdly boring-ASS approach to a Thursday. This time around fill difficulty is properly late-ish week, but the puzzle conceit again feels undercooked; looking forward to something more elaborate next time.

kitshef 7:27 AM  

Lots of sea life today, with SEA (NE)TTLE, ORCA and BETTA.

Until reading Rex, I too assumed that the BAR in 1A referred to law. With 1D a complete WoE, I spent much too much time on that cross, which was my final square. Did Lincoln work on a rail CAR? Did he go to WAR? Did he go to sea as a TAR?

Lewis 7:35 AM  

Ah, a capital-P Puzzle. “Crack me!”, it taunts, until you do with great satisfaction, and say “Thank you!”

Much to crack indeed – the theme of course, some no-knows, and a wealth of thorny clues. Then, after figuring out the theme, employing it on unsolved theme answers, and that, for me, was not automatic.

This Puzzle, IMO, worked like Leonard Cohen’s lyrics: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Persistence and brain sweat opened the door and led me through.

And kudos to Ella for coming up with this theme, which included the perfect tie-everything-together reveal, and for forging a Puzzle that so excellently showcased it. Kudos for a clue-and-answer set with, IMO, a just-right Thursday balance of pushback and yield.

I adored [Block in Atlantic City] for DIE, and a pair of serendipities – ATE up and EDGE resting on one.

Stellar, Ella! Stellar! I loved this. Thank you for dreaming it up and bringing it to fruition!

JJK 7:43 AM  

In the write-up, Rex shows the NE’s being taken from the first word and added to the second word, but it’s the other way around. The second clue’s correct answer needs to drop the NE and the first word’s answer needs the NE to fit the clue. At first I thought there was a rebus with IM(PAN)ELING and that the next across was FARGOND ( although that seemed weird because North Dakota was in the clue) but when I eventually figured out the theme I was able to straighten things out.

I loved CANWENOT. Also, I have to put in a word for the Lincoln biopic with Daniel DL - it’s good.

ncmathsadist 7:46 AM  

No use for the theme. Arbitrary-looking gimmick.

Alice Pollard 7:57 AM  

I never sussed what SEATTLE was supposed to be and (NE)WAGERS only dawned on me after I got the happy music. Same prob w SZA that Rex had. Thought SiA for too long. Very Thursdayish puzzle, I enjoyed it and felt some satisfaction upon its completion. Thursdays are my favorites when done right. And this was. Thanks ELLA!

Judge Morgan 8:07 AM  

Needlessly complex and confusing. Not a good start to my day. Yeesh.

Dr.A 8:12 AM  

SZA is not exactly obscure. She has won 4 Grammy awards, been nominated 24 times and performed at the Grammies as well. So even for an old Deadhead like myself, she’s definitely someone I knew

Anonymous 8:22 AM  

My beef is that I believe(d) that a suffix is part of the word and the “ass” in bad-ass (and big-ass,etc) is always hyphenated so not technically a suffix. So if you’ve never heard of Sza….

Anonymous 8:24 AM  

You truly are a migraine saver x Thank you Rex (from Liverpool, UK)

Anonymous 8:41 AM  

I also fell prey to the SZA/SiA crossing ZETA/ioTA, but I feel it’s fair cause ATM FEES is undeniable. Easy fix there.

These kinds of puzzles are always easier for me on the back end (adding letters) but so hard on the front (taking letters away). Also wasn’t helped by having never heard the word IMPANELING before. Would have been better (easier) with a more recognizable word for that theme answer.

dash riprock 8:42 AM  

On straightaway dropping ATM FEES, 2d, FETE, 20a, and near all cells under ORCA, 4a, the balance of the upper (the very NW and NE) wasn't readily giving itself up--I'd 'quillS' briefly at 15d, then 'opinES' and FARGO ('hmm, what's the play here..'/head scratch/nose pick.. mind the order) at 26a with a bit completed under it. So ejected and made for the lower, filling in some of the SE with 'haughtY' briefly at 50a, then COCKNEY. Read the clue at 35a, cogitated, and determined COCKNEY wouldn't easily uncock itself without the key. So filled the center, and off ANY TAKERS, 35a, and the one completed theme answer, COCKNEY, 50a, uncorked it: 'NE' addition, COCK(NE)Y, and then presumable subtraction (..TAKERS) from the left side.

Could Rip have grokked it short the key? Maybe.. given relentlessness, likely. But not fancying a stare-down, chose the right path.

You. You, sussed entirety without the key, 35a, filling it in last.. and without even reading its clue, whilst doing a one-armed handstand and scratching your arse. Nicce. Have a cookie.

After, completed the south and the other three theme answers, then, the NE and its two themers, and then the NW, with its two. Had a short think in the NE as the recollection of Siamese fighting fish wasn't coughing up BETTA, 5d, as it should have. Still, the three-quarters through to the NE felt middle of the road Thurs.

The NW required an additional head scratch, and this section for Rip elevated the game to just north of middling for a Thurs, as I could see 1d and 24d causing some issues. But 28d, was clearly going to be ZETA, and I recalled the singer SZA, 28d. eMPA(NE)LING occurred to me first, but eMPALING, 17a, wasn't going to click, and BAI, 1d, seemed right.. whence, I dunno, as I couldn't picture the logo or ever having drunk the product.

The other notable, as I looked at a filled 24d, I thought, what the hell is SEAT-TLE, sounds like beetle, right? I guess sussing the 'sea nettle' contraction messed with me.

The city-to-phrase morph, SEATTLE/FARGO -> SEA (NE)TTLE/FAR GO(NE), nifty. As were the east-west meta links, ALL-IN WAGER, and COCK HEAD (woof!), but The Impaler was Vlad III versus One. Close enough.

This grid, easily better than the Mon or Wednes, thumbs up to the exercise. But, all trail the thus far only memorable game of the week, the Tuesday and 'cut me some slacks.' Tomorrow, I'll have forgotten this one. (Confirmed, Rip has become jaded.)

(Have yet to read/absorb The Rex dissection, will over the lunch hour.)

Anonymous 8:43 AM  

This is the worst unfair puzzle in a long time.

Anonymous 8:44 AM  

WHAT is sea nettle???

Anonymous 8:45 AM  

Confidently put EST for 32A ‘emphasis- providing suffix’ and had it for the longest time. I also was not thrilled with the theme.

Anonymous 8:45 AM  

>I knew "-ASS" was an [Emphasis-providing suffix]. It's generationally behind me

I see what you did there

Smith 8:53 AM  

Started out trying for a rebus with SE(ANE)TTLE because the revealer came up early and I was striving to make ANE be the ANY, so right church wrong pew. Knew it had to be FARGO so what's with the extra letters... and click, NE takers.
The only issue with this kind of puzzle is that the resultant answers are unclued leaving me feeling a little bit like my shoelaces aren't tied tight enough.

Dan A 8:54 AM  

Wonderful 👍👍 Always look forward to tricky Thursdays, and especially enjoyed this new trick!

RooMonster 8:56 AM  

Hey All !
Kind of a wacky Theme today. Took a bit to get IMPALING and SEATTLE, as unsure what the actual "NE"-ful answers were. IMPANELING, SEA NETTLE. Ah, ok.

You can conceivably call this puz wacky ASS. Interesting to see ASS clued un-ASS-ally. Weird ASS. Or, in the the words of Castiel on "Supernatural", ASS BUTT.

BRUH, had BRaH there. No Happy Music. Thought other areas were incorrect, as guessed at a few spots, so hit Check Puzzle. Crossed out the A. Put in an O. Still nothing. Finally got the U (Hi @M&A) any got the magical tune.

Stealing @Garys Uniclues for the Themers...
When Agent Smith finally shoves his hand into Neo after their epic fight? IMPALING THE ONE
When the epic earthquake that hits California goes all the way to Washington? SEATTLE FARGONE
Starts talking like a Londoner? HEADS TO COCKNEY
Gambling addicts mantra? WAGERS ALL I NEED

That's my SHOW OUT BOAST.

Hope y'all have a great Thursday!

Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV

Anonymous 9:06 AM  

This was not fun in any way. Total slog and the theme was needlessly complex and uninteresting. It forced the constructor to use some iffy answers, "NEW AGER" being the absolute worst of the bunch.

Whatsername 9:26 AM  

EST, which is a suffix providing emphasis as the clue specified, before ass which is actually a word that can be tacked onto many stand-alone expressions and which, unfortunately, seems to make regular appearances in our puzzles. I got the trick pretty quickly at 24/26 across, but found it more frustrating than fun. I think for me it was the fact that the letters were in different places within the answers. For some reason, that seemed to go against the logical processing of my brain and I struggled with it.

BlueStater 9:32 AM  

Heartily agreed. I know i say it a lot, but this shambles is another triumphant entry in the always ongoing competition for WOAT.

Anonymous 9:36 AM  

SEXES, ASS, and PPS in the same puzzle. A disgusting start to what I hoped in vain might not be a ruined morning.

Love SZA though, CTRL slaps.

Fun_CFO 9:58 AM  

Can be interpreted either way. One way, as you mentioned, to “fit” the clue. The other to complete the fill with legitimate words/phrases.

Nancy 10:06 AM  

There's hard and then there's ridiculous. There are also limits to how much suffering I'm willing to do on any given morning. So that after -- and I'm not sure exactly how -- finishing the 3/4 of the puzzle that wasn't the NW, I came back to the NW and said "No more! Please! Can't do this! Don't wanna."

I gave up and came here to learn that I wouldn't have been able to finish the NW in a million trillion years.

I thought this was a confusing mess for the solver. I'll be interested to know how many of y'all finished it. And I have this sneaking suspicion that if Ella Dershowitz hadn't constructed the puzzle but rather come to it as an innocent and unsuspecting solver, she might not have finished it herself.

Nancy 10:24 AM  

I've just scanned the comments -- and it's a humbling experience. Once again I see how many people on this blog are smarter than me. Although I did finish 3/4 of it and therefore figure I must be smarter than someone:)

pabloinnh 10:29 AM  

Another technical DNF as I have always thought it was EMPANELING and I still thinks so and BAE makes as much sense as BAI, except that BAE is usually clued as your main squeeze and it wasn't but oh well.

Randomly started at the bottom with SARA as a sure-fire toehold and worked my way up, running into the revealer in the middle which at the time made no sense but eventually became, well, the revealer. LPS for WAX forever, no help there, BETTA with the double T always looks wrong to me, and SZA is a complete unknown, not like a Rolling Stone.

Grudgingly have to admit this was a pretty cool trick but the work involved in discovering it harshed my mellow.

Nice feat of construction, ED. Exceptionally Diabolical, but thanks for a fair amount of head-scratching fun.

Beezer 10:41 AM  

Nancy, I couldn’t finish either without “check puzzle” that showed me the 4 squares I just could NOT suss out. Other people can weigh in but I think this type of puzzle is much easier to do on a puzzle app because you can experiment and delete when it just doesn’t seem right and this maintains some “order” in the grid whilst solving.

Greater Fall River Committee for Peace & Justice 10:48 AM  

My first word in was Bismark; I've never been to North Dakota but I've heard of two cities in it and FARGO didn't fit. Sigh. I work in pen, and there's a real messy black spot. Should have been even ore but I thought the word was eMPANELING and nothing suggested to me that it really begins with an 'i'.

Beezer 10:50 AM  

I go with @pabloinnh Exceptionally Diabolical rating and throw in a double dash of @Nancy. Agree with @Rex as to my favorite answer being CANWENOT…which might be somewhat telling about my overall feeling about the puzzle because “colloquialisms” are usually my least favorite part of solving a puzzle. Bottom line…brilliant but a bit of a slog for me.

Derek D 10:51 AM  

Was nobody else annoyed by "headsto" being the only non-word in the puzzle? Every other themed clue still resulted in a real word on the puzzle: impaling, the one, far gone, Seattle, Cockney, Wagers, All I need... but "headsto" just doesn't do it. This ruined an otherwise awesome puzzle--for me, anyways.

Cheers, all!

Anonymous 11:01 AM  

HEADS TO is a recognizable phrase

Janet Mandel 11:02 AM  

In more SZA news: she is a Jersey Girl and graduated from the high school where I taught before retirement, Columbia High School in Maplewood. She has since returned several times to talk to the kids and also to perform, showing her generous spirit and understanding the importance of giving back to community. We all love her!

Anonymous 11:21 AM  

ANOS in Spanish without the tilde doesn’t translate to “years” but rather places where the sun don’t shine…

Anonymous 11:32 AM  

That’s my puzzle going splat on your wall, Nancy!

Carola 11:34 AM  

I had the same questions about ABE; at least I could be sure he didn't work in a jAR.

GILL I. 11:47 AM  

AY DIOS MIO...followed by Good Gravy and Holy Mackerel......IMPALING is some sort of jury selection????? Lincoln worked in a BAR???? And then I get to SEATTLE and wondered why stinging jellyfish navigate into the unknown.....

Where do I even start? So here I am. I'm getting answers hither and yon and stared until my eyes crossed. What am I missing? I even got the ANY TAKERS reveal and still, it made no sense.

I went back to the top and looked at THE ONE for Teddy's nickname. I knew it was THEO so I figured ONE was some sort of surprise. I had FARGONE so there's that ONE again. That's it...That's my question. Go sniffing for some ONE's. Failure.

So I finished but I didn't. The theme went waaaaay over my head. The NE never entered my muddled mind. I want to dance with @Nancy....I feel so stoopid knowing that nearly everyone got this and found it easy and I'm still sucking my thumb in a corner with a sore ASS.

Don't even get me started with Sinatra's HEADS TO. I kept looking for NY or something. [sigh]......

So I actually finished with two cheats. BAI and BAR. I kept my error at 24D. That unknown singer turned out to be SBE crossing BETA and ESS. Wrongy dongy. At this point, I didn't care.

Now, ALL I NEED to do is sit in a BAR and SMOKE.

Carola 11:49 AM  

Medium, and fun to figure out. Starting out, I saw that something was going on with IMPANELING and SEA NETTLE, but it took me a while to understand which letters were missing and where they'd gone.. After getting the top two pairs, I decided to save the reveal line until the end, and I enjoyed the last little challenge of solving that riddle. I thought the theme answers were really good!

Do-over: PArbake before PAN SEAR. Help from previous puzzles: BRUH, SZA. No idea: BAI, BETTA. Hardest clue for me to parse: the Sinatra one.

@Ella Dershowitz, I'm in awe at your finding these theme answer pairs that can juggle the NEs and fit the dynamite reveal. Terrific Thursday puzzle!

jae 11:56 AM  

This was a tad north of medium for me but it didn’t really seem that tough. It took a while to spot the theme pairs and mentally apply the phonetic rearrangement. That said, the NE corner was actually pretty tough….BETTA was a WOE, and BOAST and ACE did not leap to mind from the clues.

…the B in BAR was my last entry…

Clever and tricky, liked it.

Liveprof 11:58 AM  

Customer: OK, what do we owe you for two beers and a corned beef on rye?
Bar Owner: That'll be one score, three eighty.
Customer: Jeez Louise Linc! Just tell me in plain English!!

egsforbreakfast 12:08 PM  

I got a great deal at an insect sale yesterday. TENANTS for a dollar.

I think some of you who didn't like this don't know a metal purse from a PANSEAR. I thought this was a great-ass puzzle. Thanks, Ella Dershowitz.

A 12:18 PM  

Wow - didn't think I'd crack this one but got mad at it and kept tilting away. Finished at the SZA ZETA cross. Had to come here to see HEADSTONE. Definitely made me grumpy but the further I get from the experience the more I like it.

Anonymous 12:24 PM  

I’m generalizing here, but you might be the only solver on the planet to both know the name of a SZA album and care about the ‘obscenity’ in the puzzle. Congratulations! Would love to buy you a coffee.

jberg 12:28 PM  

This one was tough but rewarding. This is the kind of theme that you have to know before you can make sense of any theme answers; so at first I was wondering THEO. Then I thought the jellyfish might be a c-NETTLE, and the jury M-PANELING, only the C would fit but the M had to jut out the side of the grid. Either would be legit, but it had to be one or the other.

Then the clue for "largest city of North Dakota" seemed it would only work if I put in FARGO ND. We've had some city, state entries lately, but here North Dakota was in the clue -- so I refused to put it in, but then I got the N from TRNSTS, so I went ahead with the D, giving me 'SEXdS, which if it's slang is too contemporary even for the Times.

At that point I got ANY TAKERS and assumed it was a theme where each word could have ANY in front of it (a strange assumption, since not a single example would work that way).

But at last I got HEADS TO from crosses, reread the revealer clue, and realized that the theme answer on the right took NE from the one on the left. Brilliant! But hard to derive. (And just to make things harder for myself, I had "all in one" and "aligned" before I finally saw ALL I NEED. Whew!

I'm not sure OWLETs are up all night, any more than human infants are up all day--I suspect there are naps between feedings. And ASS as clued does not fit my idea of a suffix; it's a separate word in a two-word or hyphenated phrase. But that's minor.

No idea what a BETTA is. I'm guessing it's a fish that fights? Maybe Rex explained, I'll go see.

M and A 12:28 PM  

Somehow, I ended up fillin in the mid-puz revealer, real early in the solvequest. And somehow correctly assumed the theme would be doin tricks with NE letters. What I weren't real sure about was what "the answers next to them" meant, in the revealer's clue.

Eventually added an NE to the gimme FARGO answer, to get half of the puztheme mcguffin. Unfortunately, took many many nanoseconds to see that SEATTLE was the "next to answer", due to the followin no-knows: SZA. ATTA. And especially SEA(NE)TTLE. BRUH!

Gotta admit ... it's a clever theme with a cool revealer.

staff weeject picks: BAR/BAI. Helped let IMPA(NE)LING IMPALE my precious nanoseconds even further.

Did eventually finish up ok. But, BRUH!

some fave stuff: CANWENOT [so, perhaps CAWNOT?]. BRUH. AMALGAM. NUTS & BUTS. ASS clue.

Thanx, Ms. Dershowitz darlin. ThursPuz feisty stuff. Now IK{NE)WIT.

Masked & Anonymo4Us


**gruntz**

jberg 12:34 PM  

I've only seen it as EM-

Anon 12:34 PM  

Finished it easily, came here to find out what the theme was. Anticlimax. So many of these lately.

Anonymous 12:36 PM  

A little annoyed by "Had beef, perhaps". Okay, you don't want a generic ATE to be too easy to guess, but if you're going to throw in a specialized food, maybe connect it to the rest of the puzzle somehow? Maybe I'm just missing something, though.

jberg 12:40 PM  

I think it's a stinging jellyfish. Sea cucumbers aren't plants, either.

Anonymous 12:44 PM  

Headstone

jberg 12:45 PM  

Nancy, I did finish it, but I'm definitely not smarter than you; just more willing, on this particular morning, to keep plugging away until I saw the light.

jberg 12:48 PM  

You could certainly say HEADS TO in a sentence, but as a phrase it feels incomplete. I thought it was a stretch.

jberg 12:50 PM  

What I see reading the comments is that not everyone is looking for the same experience; some enjoy working out a complicated theme - as long as it's coherent! Sometimes they are not--while others want to get it more quickly. (I know it's really a continuum; and for me, it varies by how much time I have and what sort of mood I'm in.)

okanaganer 1:32 PM  

I managed to finish cleanly, but only because I was aware it is Thursday and I knew darn well the ND city was FARGO so I went to the revealer to help get the theme. And as @jberg said it is a tough but rewarding one. But then I likes me a tricky Thursday.

Hands up for really hesitating at: IMPALING vs EMPALING, SIA vs SZA, ESS vs ASS. Seemed to take quite a while but only 16 minutes.

Re SHREK, I remember reading that Mike Myers started off doing his lines in a colloquial Canadian accent but fortunately changed it to Scottish. So much better!

Gary Jugert 1:39 PM  

¿Algún interesado?

The south humbled me after zipping through most of this and quickly seeing the jig. If I'd ever learn to spell HAYEK, I might've had a chance, but still quite fun. Those theme answers are brilliant and the rest of the cluing is so delightful. This is one of my favorite puzzles lately.

I love the bear advice. None of it is true except the fight part. Don't hang around outside is maybe better advice.

Anytime I've ever tried the CAN WE NOT approach, it turns out we definitely can NOT not and I am stupid. And I confused my UZI with my SZA, as one does.

Propers: 6
Places: 1
Products: 2
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 16 of 78 (21%) (nice!)

Funnyisms: Zillion 🤣 It seems like everything in this puzzle is filled with comedy on some level. Love it.

Tee-Hee: ASS! BUTS! SEXES UP BRA.

Uniclues:

1 "I could kill you with one swish."
2 Action as Brutus replies, "Yeah, buddy, me too."
3 How leftover wedding tapers get used on a hot honeymoon.
4 Where my speech patterns go after an hour on BritBox.
5 I'll bet it's whiskey, women, and burritos.
6 Who I become when I hear we're planning a dinner party.
7 The rent on time for once.
8 Imagined indoctrination chant by pro-unified-bathrooms advocates.

1 ORCA BAR BOAST (~)
2 IMPALING THE ONE
3 WHITE WAX FETE
4 HEAD TO COCKNEY
5 ALL I NEED WAGERS (~)
6 CAN WE NOT BOY
7 TENANT'S PRESENT
8 SAY, "DIE SEXES!" (~)

My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Performance at the NYTXW Christmas party celebrating the fifth grader in charge of the slush pile. STAY CLASSY SKIT.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SaronAK 1:41 PM  

Surprised at several comments saying never heard of impaneling. My only problem with it was I thought it was spelled with two l's.
When I googled and saw either spelling acceptable I was able to move on.
The 47A clue was impossible for me to parse until the answer came from crosses. It just read awkwardly as tho something were missing Or ???
Thanks Eggs for the chuckle over TENANTS. I was slower on the uptake for PANSEAR
Enjoy the theme and the puzzle in general But thought it quite easy for a Thursday. Then realized that may be because I just cheated for some names likeBAI about which I had no idea and no interest.

Did anyone know Lincoln worked in a bar?

Raymond 1:45 PM  

I thought BAR was lawerly as in "called to the bar."

old timer 1:49 PM  

ARGH! DNF here. Did not think of Lincoln working in a BAR and indeed I've never heard of his store being called a bar, even if he did have a tavern license. Never heard of the fish. Nor a SEA NETTLE. I will say that Seattle is a lovely city, and my best friend and I spent many an hour at the Athenian, which is basically a bar, solving the problems of the world over some bad beer and very good food, watching the ferries come and go to Bainbridge. They of course have very good local beer today, but in that era, the taverns had only second rate beer available to them: Rainier, Oly, or one or two long gone national brands.

Anonymous 1:53 PM  

Honestly, I could have looked at this puzzle for 100 years and NOT have figured out what the hell it was about (and in fact, I did not figure it out!).
I have the feeling that no one is editing the puzzles any more, and this was a spectacular example of that, b/c IMO the revealer did not reveal anything useful.

jb129 1:57 PM  

"Humbling experience" per @Nancy is an understatement. No fun in struggling. No fun today AT ALL. If I were a newbie, I'd never be back. I'm not - & I still feel like I may never be
back :)

Andy Freude 2:08 PM  

With these clever Thursdays I generally try to ignore the nonsensical (or semi-sensical) themers and just work the crosses. Today that backfired on me: a DNF from confusing SZA with RZA. As an old, I was happy to get that close.

Anoa Bob 2:14 PM  

Very clever theme concept and I'm sure it was a challenge to make it all work. A price to be paid for this kind of theme trickery, however, is the eight unclued theme entries hanging out there, slowly twisting in the wind. Maybe there could have been two clues for each themer, for example for 17A "Selecting for a jury/Activity for Vlad III".

Another price was the extra strain on the grid requiring 40 black squares to pull it off. We just had a run of three puzzles with 36 black squares each and those grids had a more open, flowing feel to them with noticeably less short stuff clogging things up.

I did notice that 29A ANOS, Spanish for "anuses", is next to 32A ASS.

By the way, Vlad III was also known as Vlad The Impaler.

Gary Jugert 2:29 PM  

@RooMonster 8:56 AM
Bravo! You win again! The only stab-ee I could think of was Caesar.

Gary Jugert 2:40 PM  

@jb129 1:57 PM
You'll be back. 🤗🙃😉

Niallhost 2:46 PM  

I hear a lot of complaining from those not knowing current cultural references. I'm not sure how one expects to continue to excel at crosswords without keeping a finger on the pulse of what's going on. SZA is second only to Taylor Swift in female album sales in 2024. She's not fringe. She's not niche. Perfectly fine not to be interested in pop culture, but that's not a constructor or an editor problem.

jb129 3:16 PM  

I feel redeemed. Solved Connections without any errors - first try! See you all tomorrow :)

Anonymous 3:20 PM  

Rex
The bar is a physical thing
and the area behind it genuine real estate.
Look up the etymology of passing the bar.
It’s an ancient tradition predating the US legal system by four centuries.

Anonymous 3:25 PM  

Due to the many modern lexical inventions and pop culture references, I found this puzzle rather dumbASS.

BobL 3:59 PM  

Great comment!

Beezer 4:36 PM  

Same here! Time and mood.

dash riprock 6:10 PM  
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dash riprock 6:12 PM  
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dash riprock 6:20 PM  
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dash riprock 6:20 PM  
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Anonymous 7:20 PM  

Liked this puzzle quite a bit. In particular, loved how they had an answer that became a city after removing the NE (SEATTLE), and the NE attached itself to another city (FARGO) creating a new answer.

I wish the puzzle had paired the theme answers like this all the way down:
SeNEgal --> NEpal
Etc.

dash riprock 7:25 PM  

Rex Parker: Had to delete and repost two comments because a tag was awry. Please consider re-employing a PREVIEW option!

dash riprock 7:30 PM  

dash riprock 8:42 AM: Holy hell, Riprock, shudduPPP. Em. Waiting on the mizz. this a.m., hadn't apprehended the musing mutate to screed. Didn't read the nonsense? Fab. Yuo saved 10 min of your life.

The Rex: "Anyway, most of you probably knew that Lincoln owned a BAR..." Not I. Super-extrapolated the unrelated Boehner story of working family bar from age 11. Plus, it fitted. "Do I really want to watch Daniel Day-Lewis doing Lincoln?" Yes, yes you do. Because it's DDL plus because it's standout. "...very familiar ANI DiFranco..." Rocked Rip's world, still does. So, RP med-challenging.. but understood this means 8 min versus what, 5 ? Took Rip lonnnger.

Nancy 10:24 AM: 'S'not about smahtz.. at all. Plus, aren't you a constructor? Yuo're Big Time.

On skimming the comments, Rip was sure to spot veteran pissing + moaning over giving the puzzle away at 35d, "Too easy.. why does the NYT insist on spoonfeeding... I want my money back!" Surprised to find mostly the opposite (and so Riprock, not as far behind as he'd imagined).

Eggshells. It's like threading a needle of hay with you peoples. Too easy...too hard...too hard...too easy. Yo-yo. Ta me, other whinging aside, every puzzle's difficulty this week, appropriate to the day.. or near enuf.

Carola, 11:49 AM, appears the day's exception, doing it the hard way--filling the themes, and from those, sussing the key at 35d, huzzah. Rip got all theme entries applying the 'NE' musical chairs, incl. HEADSTONE (HEADS TO, and usage of a phrasal verb, not the issue for me it was for other gamers), but so intent to finish fast, I didn't stop to fully appreciate the cleverness. Reassessing, second your brava. (Still, my thus-far wk fave, unchanged.)

dash riprock 7:31 PM  

BlueStater 9:32 AM: "...but this shambles is another triumphant entry in the always ongoing competition for WOAT."

Finished the game, blip free. Seems you did not. Flip side, I have no idea what in hell WOAT is. Guessing you do. Sounds a draw.

Anonymous 7:51 PM  

Thanks in advance for letting me vent. I did not care by the time I finished this puzzle. Is a BOAST really self promotion? Is ASS really a suffix? I know people say 'big ass' for emphasis, but it is just a second noun, not a suffix in my book. Having the NE as prefix, infix and suffix, meanwhile, is just . . . stupid. I don't need this kind of cutesy BS. It's been a long day. I just want to enjoy the puzzle. Is that so much to ask for? ARGH. I did enjoy finding out Ani DiFranco was Persephone in Hades Town and I miss Seattle very much, though I'm not sure I've ever heard of a sea nettle. And ZETA was not a problem, but I've never heard of SZA. Here's hoping the weekend puzzles are much better.

Anonymous 7:57 PM  

Thx for making me lol.

Anonymous 8:02 PM  

As clued, it should’ve been empaneling. Impanel takes a direct object: “Joe was impaneled on the jury.” The act of doing this, though, is called empaneling.

Joey 8:43 PM  

“Do I really want to watch Daniel Day-Lewis doing Lincoln?”

What kind of self-described cinephile are you? Of course you do!

Anonymous 8:48 PM  

The grammar mistake in 21 Across ruined the entire enterprise for me.

Anonymous 9:10 PM  

Felt like Cone ___ was an unforced error where you have a theme answer not be a theme answer. COBRA - CONEBRA. Why not use one of the other perfectly acceptable BRA clues? I liked the puzzle and theme though.

Anonymous 9:55 PM  

I hated this puzzle. Too clever by half, but not really clever at all. Just impenetrably obscure.

68Charger 10:39 PM  

Well said!!

papa mark and mimi laura 12:03 AM  

Early on I was pretty pleased to have VOIRDIRE for jury selection. This one is going to be easier than I thought. Oh well.

Matthew 12:58 AM  

Sigh.
"Lincoln" is more political thriller than biopic. At the beginning of the movie he's more than halfway through his presidency, and there's nothing in the way of flashback.
And while we're at it, "The Shawshank Redemption" isn't really an example of the Magical Negro trope. The character Red wasn't even written to be Black, but Morgan Freeman nailed the audition. And even then, Andy in many senses helps Red more than Red helps Andy.
This concludes my movie rants.
Thank you for all that you do, Rex/Mike!

Anonymous 6:45 AM  

🙄

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