Early text messager / THU 1-2-25 / Flower whose name means "flame" in ancient Greek / Start of a quip by comic Steven Wright / Epic with the line "Come, friend, you too must die" / Urban addr. specification / Youngest golfer to score below his age in a P.G.A. Tour event
Thursday, January 2, 2025
Constructor: Robert Charlton
Relative difficulty: Medium
The eight "F/PH" squares:
- ALPHA / FRAYED
- IPHONE / FELTS
- PHOTO / FUTON
- PHONETICALLY / FILIPINO
- GRAPHED / "AFRAID SO"
- PHLOX / ELF
- NYMPHO / DWARF
- PHASE / HALF
Telex is a telecommunication system that allows text-based messages to be sent and received by teleprinter over telephone lines. The term "telex" may refer to the service, the network, the devices, or a message sent using these.[1] Telex emerged in the 1930s and became a major method of sending text messages electronically between businesses in the post–World War II period. Its usage declined as the fax machine grew in popularity in the 1980s.
• • •
[the moment hope left my body] |
And of course with quips, who knows what the words are going to be—the quip itself is no help most of the time, since the clue does nothing for you, so the crosses become harder because you're getting less help with them. Quip puzzles are just chores, with very little payoff. Historically, this is the case. Today, however, there's an added element. Thank god. Not that the added element was so entertaining—hunting down a bunch of F/PH squares isn't exactly my idea of a good time—but at least the puzzle is aspiring to do something beyond making me wryly chuckle at an old "quip." There's an actual thematic concept here. The quip deals with the fact that "F" and "PH" are pronounced the same way, and this fonetic fenomenon is represented by eight squares in the grid, where "PH" works in one direction, and "F" works in the other. I appreciate the way the quip actually tied to a concept, but I can't say solving the puzzle was made that much more interesting. Tougher, a little, maybe, but it was just a matter of looking for "F"s–or looking for "PH" answers that were one letter short—and filling the squares accordingly. Since most of the "F/PH" squares were shoved against the edges of the grid (top and bottom), they didn't interfere with the solve as much as they might have, and were relatively easy to find. I got so lazy with the gimmick that I neglected to see that the final "F" square (the one at the end of the quip) did *not* also contain a "PH," so I ended with an error, technically. I have "LOL" written next to that "F" square on my print-out. Guess that's my solving grade today. A wryly chuckleworthy punchline to a so-so solving experience.
It was a Top 100 name for more than half a century, hitting a high in 1931 at Number 36, but today it's nowhere near one of the most popular boy names starting with N. (nameberry.com)Number 36 is ... not that high. Don't say it's an "Average Joe's name" when it's not. And if you want to pun on "NORM," go ahead, but put a "?" on the clue then. It's only fair.
More things:
- 4D: Prefix with sexual (AMBI-) — gonna confess right here that I do not know the difference between AMBIsexual and mere (?) BIsexual. To the search engines! Aha, I don't know the difference because [drumroll] there isn't one. Wow. OK then. Moving on.
- 27A: Adjust on the timeline (REDATE) — left this one out when cataloguing grimaces. Definitely grimaced here. Not a MIASMAL-style grimace, but a grimace nonetheless. I wrote in REDRAW at first (that would work for [Adjust the timeline] but not [Adjust on the timeline])
- 32A: ___ Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama (MARIAN) — not a fact I tucked away. How deep does my knowledge of presidents and first ladies have to be? I guess she *did* live in the White House, helping raise the grandkids, and she *did* pass away very recently (just last year), so I probably should've known her name.
- 5D: Possible response to "Where are you?" ("I'M IN HERE!") — easily my favorite answer in the grid. It's got some life!
- 29D: Head liners? (HAIRS) — easily the most baffling clue in the puzzle, for me. You have HAIR on your head, not HAIRS. Not in common parlance anyway. Also, you would never say that HAIRS "line" your head, but technically, I guess it's accurate enough.
- 57A: Youngest golfer to score below his age in a P.G.A. Tour event (SNEAD) — one of those clues where all I see is "blah blah golfer blah blah blah." So ... some golfer. What golfers do I know in five letters? Sam SNEAD. Does he fit? He does? Great, next! (The crossword golfer Hall of Fame includes Michelle WIE, Ernie ELS, Mark O'MEARA, ARNIE Palmer, and Sam SNEAD ... oh, and ISAO AOKI, of course, can't forget him—he's Lifetime Chairman). New Zealand golfer LYDIA Ko is not only the reigning Olympic gold medalist, she is also the reigning LYDIA crossword clue (the only one used for LYDIA since 2013). So tuck that info away ... somewhere.
- 34D: Urban addr. specification (BLDG) — hard for me. Was not getting what was "urban" about the abbr. (this abbr. for "building" hasn't appeared in the NYTXW for over seven years)
Trying to get through all the leftover Holiday Pet Pics by Saturday, so ... here are some more.
Pepper patiently awaits presents...
Annabelle destroys a Christmas penguin—a story in three parts:
Benny dreams of all the kittens of the world, particularly the kittens of Paris, who form a little thought cloud above his head:
Mia says "what? nothing. I wasn't doing nothing. The presents were just *near* my face, total coincidence, not guilty."
And finally, what you've all been waiting for: a bird bench-pressing a candy cane (this is Scoop):
[Thanks, Lee] |
Annabelle destroys a Christmas penguin—a story in three parts:
[Thanks, Patrick] |
Benny dreams of all the kittens of the world, particularly the kittens of Paris, who form a little thought cloud above his head:
[Thanks, Kathleen] |
Mia says "what? nothing. I wasn't doing nothing. The presents were just *near* my face, total coincidence, not guilty."
[Thanks, Kathleen] |
And finally, what you've all been waiting for: a bird bench-pressing a candy cane (this is Scoop):
[Thanks, Susan] |
P.S. registration for the 2025 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT (Apr. 4-6) is now open, if that kind of thing interests you :)
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
111 comments:
Enjoyed it. Found it pretty easy. Fun quip. Caught on to the gimmick at 5A/6D with “I(PH/F)ONE”.
Yeah, I'll go with Medium. I tend to give downs priority when I solve, so it took a few PH/Fs to realize what was going on.
I know Ryan LOCHTE (2D) but it took three tries to get the spelling right.
@Rex MIASMic before MIASMAL at 39D. Both are abysmic.
BLDG is more of a corporate office park specification. I live in a big city (NYC); the only "specification"s I could come up with that were urban in nature were Apartment or Floor. You specify buildings in suburbs, even rural areas (1313 Mockingbird Lane). Feh. Which is how I felt about the puzzle in general. I love Stephen Wright's comedy and I enjoy seeing his one-liners in the puzzle, though.
Easy-medium for a Thursday. But then my Thursday average is less than a minute under Friday average. Put PH in the rebus squares, and it was accepted. Had ALfA before catching on to the theme. 5A/6D was where I got an inkling.
Pet pix - Scoop - sorry, the edge still goes to Clark Gable for best "Puttin' on the Ritz" performance.
I don’t know - these rebus squares are pretty popular with solvers, but I think they are more like annoying mosquitoes that you have to keep swatting while you traipse your way around the grid. The clue/answer combo involving NORM landed with a thud.
I never heard of PHLOX and I’m only peripherally familiar with TELEX, so that cross was pretty nasty. I had the same stop/start feeling with this one that I get when I’m stuck in traffic - it was difficult to get any rhythm or flow going, and I just basically wanted the trip to be over. I just don’t get along with Thursdays.
HAIRS, not hair.
Learning that Lydia Davis never gets into crosswords is depressing.
C’mon, NYT - fewer brand names and athletes, more brilliant writers please!
Didn’t quite work for me as a concept. I had most of the NW and NE filled in, but because both ALEF and FOTO are legitimate answers as clued, I did not yet know there was an F/PH thing going on. Not until way down at NYMFO did I first notice something amiss, and then at FASE realized what that something was.
In an ideal world, all the across theme answers would work ONLY with ‘ph’, and not with ‘f’.
Didn’t solve this one rebus-style. Just dropped in F’s, which was less phussy but created gibberish, which I never enjoy seeing in the grid. Not much phun. Pheh.
Also, I thought AMBI would be oMnI.
Ugh. A quip puzzle. The absolute worst type of clue/answer/theme. Even worse than fill-in-the-blanks. Just two days ago I mentioned to a fellow solver how the lack of quip puzzles has been a huge improvement in puzzle editing lately. I obviously jinxed something, so I apologize to everyone.
I don't know who this... *checks puzzle*...Steven Wright person is, but it's odd that the NYT attributes to some rando a quote that has been said by every single child as soon as they learn how to spell "phonetically." I was expecting some hilariously clever witticism, but no... It's just the fact that PH sounds like F. Mind blowing. It's a good thing we had this... *checks again*... Steven Wright to make this observation.
Steven Wright is no rando. He’s brilliant and been very successful.
Same for NORM MacDonald, who would have been a much better clue than average Joe.
(Leave the humor to the pros, eh?)
A great moment in solving crosswords for me is when I’m puzzled over a clue, then suddenly the answer hits me – and that answer makes perfect sense. I love getting gotten good like that.
Today, I was gotten good again, but in a different way – by being hit by the unexpected. After seeing [Start of a quip by comic Steven Wright], I assumed this was simply a quip puzzle.
Every quip puzzle I’ve seen has a quote to crack and nothing theme-wise beyond that. So today, when it became clear that there was something else going on – and it was related to the quip – that was a wow. Here was something new in crosswords! I just had to stop for a moment, dwell on how clever it was for Robert to come up with that, and nod with respect.
Oh, the solve gave me some lovely resistance, and had lovely touches. One that especially tickled me was [Achilles, for two], because whenever there's an [x, for two] clue, that “x” is always two items, not one, such as in [“Iliad” and “Odyssey”, for two] for EPICS. Always. That’s another crossword first in this puzzle.
Happy surprises and plenty of riddle cracking for me today, Robert. Thank you for a sweet start to the second day of the year!
Despite there being only a NONET of comments it pretty much has already been said. The most noxious for me was MIASMAL so therefore very fitting. And if you were born after 1970 (not me) I doubt one would even know who Steven Wright is. Would be happy for some one at NYT to make a NY resolution on no more Quif Fuzzles.
Or that encyclopedia, Lydia the tattooed lady!
The swimmer named Ryan and the actor named Jannings were the toughest parts for me. Also did not like seeing “OVER” in two answers. That was weird. Anyhoo, kinda cute. At least when you got the PH/F trick it helped with the Quip. Your pet pic captions are especially hilarious today! Thanks for making me laugh.
Quit yer grousin'. It's a good puzzle. Robyn Weintraub-level clues. Clever, witty, fun to solve. As for the theme, I was skeptical, starting with the fact that I did not know Steven Wright. Turns out that didn't matter. I noticed early on that F's were appearing where I would have expected Ph's, but I thought they were just alternate spellings that I was surprised were acceptable in a crossword puzzle. Meanwhile, I was piecing the quip together based on crosses and some intuition about the structure of English sentences. At some point I had 20A WHY ISN'T THE WORD. And believe it or not, I immediately thought, "Ahhh, got it!" I checked my progress on 45A and I had, as I recall, the two LL's, and that clinched it. 45A PHONETICALLY and 52A SPELLED WITH AN F fell right into place. The rest was a breeze.
¿Por qué la palabra "fonéticamente" no se escribe con F?
Ha. Apparently in Spanish it is spelled with an F.
Even though the joke was over after the first word ALFA, my brain resisted every time. "That's wrong," my brain would object. "Listen brain, LET IT GO." I was of poor succor to the injured contraption galumphing along in my noggin. Or is it galumfing?
They have BLDGs in the country too.
Propers: 9
Places: 1
Products: 5
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 74 (31%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: NYMFOmaniac.
Uniclues:
1 Pixels of the premier pup.
2 Where replacement warriors were bandaged after the regular warriors walked off the job during the whole giant horse debacle.
3 Plotted Parisian pals.
4 The time in every gardner's career when they get hot for Polemoniaceae.
5 Bring a stool.
6 The government official in charge of keeping track of all 7641 islands.
7 Wanted a stick for my arse too.
8 When an author regrettably writes a character into "the only solution is death" corner.
9 Spend too long on the Forum.
1 ALFA IFONE FOTO
2 ILIAD SCAB TENT (~)
3 AMIS GRAFED
4 FLOX NYMFO FASE
5 ELF ATM ANSWER (~)
6 FRAYED FILIPINO
7 FELT SITGO ENVY
8 AFRAID SO ENDERS (~)
9 OVER STAY ITALIA
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Yahoo for Yoo-hoo. LEMON SODA TEXAN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The name of Stephen Wright's first album: "I Have a Pony."
His second, ten years later: "I Still Have a Pony."
The puzzle gets points for making me think of “Double Indemnity.” “Neff…with two ‘F’s, like in Philadelphia.”
Can anyone explain why a White Sox or Red Sox player would be called an Aler? Only answer that makes no sense to me and googling didn't help..
Can anyone explain why a White Sox or Red Sox player would be called an Aler? Only answer that makes no sense to me and googling didn't help..
ok…”aler”??? just me?
Bounced around this one to begin, had ALFA and FOTO early, saw that it was a Steven Wright quote, got the WHYISNTTHEWORD early, and filled in the rest of the quote just like that, which made me feel wicked smaht, as we say around here.
Couple of things--all the F/PH words looked OK to me, probably because of my experience with Spanish. Every F sound in Spanish is spelled with, guess what, an F. This is a vastly superior orthographic approach. Also, NORM may not be that common a name, but it was my father's, so a little respect please. Everyone called him "Bunny", another (nick)name lost in the past.
Hand up for MIASMIC, and thumbs down for either MIASMIC or MIASMAL. Yuchh.
I liked your Thursday a lot, RC. Any puzzle with a SW quote is aces with me, as he's the Rare Comedian whose take on things is always surprising and thought-provoking. Thanks for all the fun.
Hey All !
A New Year most empirical
Having an F puz a miracle!
After today's puz, can I rue?
The F finally gets it's due.
Others, please take note
The F you should promote!
No way can I utter a Dang
2025 starting with a bang!
Naturally, I just put in F in all the squares, because that worked perfectly fine! Who needs the PH in there? Much less, the PH/F Rebus that was added by the computer post solve. Pshaw!
Nice puz (otherwise than featuring the F). Had the same thoughts as Rex about the quip Theme. Tough, because it could be anything. Figured it out when I got to NYM(PH)FO, after looking back at FUTON/(PH)FOTO, let out an Aha and a shriek of delight at seeing the F raised to Theme-worthy. Went looking for the other seven.
Wanted ThreeON for MENON, obviously not fitting. NONETS weirdly tough to get. Had N_NE_S, and wanted NINERS! "But they have 11 players at a time" the ole brain said. Had ThO for TOO, further confounding me. Finally saw the correct ANSWER, NONETS. Got a chuckle out of myself.
So an actual fun quip puz that did work as a Themer/Revealer. Good start to the year. Oh, did I say that already?
Happy Thursday!
Nine F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I just entered in Fs for all of the PH/F answers, since spelling them FONETICALLY seemed to be the point of the theme. The app accepted them, so I guess I wasn’t wrong. Made for a much more pleasant solving experience than having to enter rebus answers with /s on my iPad.
Anonymous: ALer, as in the White Sox and Red Sox are in the American League. It’s crosswordese, no one has ever actually said, “ALer” or “NLer.”
@Anonymous 8:37 AM
American League-er.
It stands for American League
They are both in the American League, so ALer.
Yes, it’s…not great
American Leaguer
Missed opportunity to clue TAL as "Mikhail ____, greatest attacking chess player of all time"
American Leaguer
Abbrev for American Leaguer - in baseball it is the AL and the NL.
@Anonymous 8:38 AM American Leaguer. And I know virtually NOTHING about baseball LOL
ALer = American League ER. With both Sox teams being in that league
I think “Norm” was a reference to Norm in the Cheers sitcom if I had my guess. The average Joe not named Joe
Newbie here, but just in case these clues go into some sort of repository, the clue wasn’t “early text messenger” as indicated in the title but “early text messager,” which felt weird.
AL is American League
Caught on to the theme fairly quickly, but still got a DNF. I had "miasmic" instead of "miasmal," and that made the SW impossible. MENON is a bad answer for "bases loaded," for two reasons...you can have men on base without the bases being loaded (duh), and women play softball (and even baseball), so MENON is actually sexist.
American Leaguer
This was the biggest groan for me.
Googling it won’t help because no one uses the term. Both teams are in the American League - thus ALer.
American Leaguer
I had HEIRS before HAIRS. Both seem possible and not great. Otherwise not too bad.
@Gary 8:22
Actually laughing out loud at your uniclues today, thx!
Especially the ILIAD one...
Your iPad app doesn’t have a Rebus button at the bottom right?
I just took ALFA to be the first letter of the NATO alfabet and went from there. At IFONE I thought, huh. But at FOTO I wondered if the eds had read Alex Haley's Roots...NSFW they would say now. Maybe they're all a lot younger than I am.
Also, I detest quip puzzles, but this quip was so easy, what with FILIPINO kicking off the second part, that I almost forgave it.
Happy New Year!
Steven Wright is an incredibly famous comedian and one of the top standups ever. Just because you haven’t heard of a person who’s been famous for decades, doesn’t mean they’re a rando.
Hey Rex, ever heard of Tiger Woods?
National Leaguer
Filosofically, I quite enjoyed this one, but I'm not sure how it will play in Filadelfia. It might be too basic for them, but we'll never know without a f test, and you'd probably need a Fd in Chemistry to interpret it.
In my book, one Kamala is worth way more than TENDONS.
Is a baseball manager who is obsessive about loading the bases a MENONite?
My dog drives a sporty little car made in ITALIA, proving that he's an ALFA male.
What New Jersey has since the opening of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn....NONETS.
This was a wonderphul puzzle because it plays off the quip all over the place, as more eloquently explained by @Lewis. Great ephphort, Robert Charlton.
One of those puzzles on the edge for me. Unusual in that I agree with almost all @Rex’s nits/criticisms, and also appreciate the puzzle’s structure. The inclusion of PHLOX brought back pleasant memories, sitting on a porch in the summer surrounded by colorful phlox that attracted both brilliant hummingbirds and those giant brown moths that mimic hummingbirds.
I too hate quip puzzles - while I like Steven Wright’s comedy, my initial reaction seeing it was a lengthy quote was, as they say in Thailand, PHUKET!
The Thursday twist turned my phrown upside down and phunk into phun…
Times app wouldn’t accept the Rebuses but liked it when I replaced them all with Fs
I'm actually a big Steven Wright fan, master of the one-liner, surpassing (or at least equalling) the other great practitioner, Rodney Dangerfield, by finding the most twisted spin on the most ordinary of expressions. He's a word-player of the first water; of course he shows up in "quip" puzzles. Which can be fun if the quip is highly original, as Wrights usually are.
Rebus-wise, looks like someone else upthread noticed this but it's worth reposting: the online version will accept F in those squares. Kinda thought that was part of the "fonetic" joke.
Similar to my experience. Tip-off was the gimmes (for me) at 8D and 9D which said that really does have to be IPH/FONE at 5A.
Did you know Billy Joel sings that walking thru Bedstuy alone may make you think he is a maniac?
I just simply LOVE it when, by far, the hardest thing about the puzzle is figuring out what combination of letters, slashes, etc. the crossword website needs in order accept a completed puzzle.
Roo, I thought of you as I worked the puzzle and I also just put in the Fs (which works) in your honor! Happy New Year indeed!
Enjoyed this one, but then I like rebus puzzles. I don’t generally like quip puzzles, but this was pretty easy to suss out because of the F/PH situation. I didn’t remember MARIAN Robinson’s name without crosses although it was tucked away in my brain somewhere. HAIRS gave me the most trouble.
I agree that MIASMAL is truly dismal, along with REDATE.
NORM is an “average Joe” name not having to do with popularity as a name, but because it has a sort of an ordinary-guy vibe, like Mel or Sal - or Joe.
Gary, your comment above led me to a Google search. Get this : Spanish only has 5 digraphs as opposed to (drumroll) 125 for English! Um…I do think Spanish has more but I don’t THAT link included the vowel digraphs. Suffice it say, sometimes simple is better.
@Anonymous @8:30
I've seen "Double Indemnity" at least a dozen times - including a few days ago - never got the two F's joke. Sheesh. Thanks!
It would be interesting to see if Tiger has shown up in an xword but, for instance, I’m sure Rex has heard of both Tiger and Jack Nicklaus but his name is probably not be crossword friendly.
One of many horrible clues in this Dumpster fire of a puzzle. "Mickey Mantle was an ALer," said no one ever. Never. Not once. Never.
Like RP, I normally loathe quip/quote puzzles but this one had a little pizzazz to make it interesting. The funny thing was the top three themers did not even register at first because I’m so used to the trend of our language being shortened and reduced to its simplest form these days. I went through the entire grid before seeing the trick, with NYMFO being the first one that really jumped out.
On the DC/Presidential front, my nose got ever so briefly out of joint at the cemetery clue with my immediate thoughts going to Arlington, which is of course in Virginia. But no such confusion with the lovely Mrs. Robinson, devoted mom and grandmother, may she rest in peace.
I'm with @Mike in Bed-Stuy: "Clever, witty, fun to solve." Starting out, I accepted ALFA and FOTO as slangy variants and I-FONE as a cheap knock-off brand. Only at the middle of the quip did I catch on to the theme, and that definitely helped me understand NYMFO, FASE, and GRAFED (I did entirely without the PH's, thinking that the F's were part of the joke). Cute idea, left me with a smile.
A "top stand-up" who comes up with such gems as "Why isn't phonetically spelled with an F?"...
Sounds like a genius.
I'm glad some of you found this easy. I had to cheat three times, and on a Thursday, yet.
My first cheat was before I had the quote. It was on Ryan LOCHTE. "Once I have the quote", I thought, "I won't have to cheat anymore." Wrong.
Because I did get the quote with the help of LOCHTE, but I still had to cheat twice more -- on the completely unknown ENDERS and on the "I know it, but I can't think of it" Trevor NOAH. I've watched him many times, for heaven's sake -- but that's what the forgetfulness of Senioritis does to you.
Despite my phrustration, I liked this crunchy puzzle a lot. Without all those names, I would have loved it.
Steven Wright’s one liners occasionally make it to the clues. One in particular that I remember was a fill in the blank to the effect that he spilled SPOT remover on his dog (and he is gone now).
I feel the same way. What frustrates me the most is that the app is not consistent in how it wants the letters put into a rebus. Ph/f or f/ph or phf or fhp? I wish there was some place where the app states the rules for entering into a rebus.
I wrote a poem too many years ago to retrieve with a title along the lines of "Ode to a Regular Fellow." Don't remember all the puns (childhood: played on the comme "see," comme "saw;" career: sold insurance, "ordinary life;" hobby: a garden that included medi-okra; etc.) But I do recall that at his life's end he did not go gently, but "ave-raged against the dying of the light."
Hand up here for MIASMAL--painful.
damn quip puzzle. I refuse to do them in the Daily News, but they have a second puzzle (mostly via Chen on Sunday). get off my lawn.
what @9:52 says. although I haven't seen him on the teeVee in ages. it's not just what he says, but the nature of his halting delivery. from memory of course, as I haven't seen him on TV in a long time.
Had the same initial reaction to ALFA that you did -- especially since the NATO alphabet, which I never have to think about at any other time, shows up so often in the NYTXW.
Ha, spent last week reading Lydia Davis essay. Why is she not better known!
Personally, thought this was a brilliant puzzle. Knew RP would loathe it (because it is an extended quotation.) Other than a few rocky clues, thought this puzzle was genius. For real.
tc
Thanks for the pet pics! I especially enjoyed Annabelle today, who appears to be waiting for the starting bell and finishes with her ears back, "But I thought that's what it was for!"
I'm surprised Rex missed the offensive and dated NYMPH/FO. It needs to join the just no list.
It never occurred to me that they were going after rebuses as advertisers use the words ALFA, FONE and FOTO routinely. I filled in the quip quickly and took it as instruction to use F instead of PH. Proper names except for LOCHTE came to me as I filled them in.
I remember when TELEX was state of the art. My company had a dedicated climate-controlled room with a trained operator.
Overall, I enjoyed it, thanks. The puzzles during these holidays have been easier than NORMal and I really appreciated that.
I feel like for a while EMIL Jannings was everywhere in the puzzle but haven’t seen it in quite some time, to my knowledge. No idea who he is besides a crossword answer though. Maybe I’ll look him up.
Not too bad for a rebus ... in fact it was doable & I liked it! Thank you, Robert :)
And LOVED Annabelle & her toy penguin - my dogs did the same thing!
Like Rex I don't care for quote themes so at first I hated this, then when I figured out the trick I kinda loved it. Then at the end it wouldn't accept my solution -- probably because I just put an F in each rebus square? Oh well, been here done that; clicked Check All Squares and sure enough... I stopped the timer and declared victory. No big deal (thanks again Across Lite (sarcasm)).
I got TELEX right away because my dad had one in his hardware store way back in the 1960s. I loved to watch and listen to it noisily crunching out the messages.
Some pretty lame answers; hands up for MIASMIC before MIASMAL which sounds like MISERABAL.
Hey, this puzzle has an ELF and a DWARF standing at the bottom and getting in on the theme... nice!
He was great at such observations. Two I remember:
Why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway
And
I was in a general store; they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.
Just hope those who revel at the inclusion of contemporary culture phigures can be tolerant of those of prior generations. Now who was the Tori Amos of the 60’s? We probably already forgot.
Bravo Egs.
When I finished I thought briefly that this was an unusually easy Thursday. Then I remembered that as soon as I got to
20 A I just cheated and filled in all lines of the quip. I have always hated quip puzzles (which were common a couple of decades ago) because usually even after I get one line I have no idea of the rest.
I did not think this "quip" was very quip worthy. I have never head of Steven Wright and was surprised to read all the comments of praise. May see if he's on you tube.
I have wonderful stands of tall white phlox in my garden. They're late blooming and brighten the garden as the days get shorter.
But I'd never heard that the name meant flame in ancient Greek.
Agree with Rex that "I'm in here" has something.
What it had for me was a reminder of how frustrating it is to hear that answer. Why can't people being called for name the room, or whatever? Why must the searcher always call "Where is here?"
Medium works for me too. It took me a while to catch on and then I tried to rebus the missing PH which I must have screwed up because it didn’t seem to work. However, putting just an F in those squares did bring the happy music. I also had aolER before TELEX.
A quote puzzle with a twist is borderline evil, liked it about as much as @Rex did and he’s right about MIASMAL.
The NW corner played a little differently for me. I got ANSWER and FRAYED, which gave me NORM, the “Cheers” guy. Looked at -M- - for “Prefix with sexual” and immediately thought oMni-. Didn’t write it in, though, as SCAB came to mind while I was wondering if there was such a thing.
Steven Wright is a personal favorite so I don’t mind a quip puzzle if it’s his quip, but it sure added a lot to have the F/ph adventure. Caught a whiphph of the trickery right ophph the bat with ALFA and IFONE.
Seeing WILSON and RANSOM in the grid reminded me of renowned phlutist RANSOM WILSON, heard here in an impressive live performance of the charming Poulenc Sonata for Flute and Piano.
As one of the more newbie crossworders here, I'll just say that this was a slog for me. So many names I didn't know and it took me awhile to catch on to the gimmick. Lot of the answers phelt phorced and a lot of things that I over complicated (CPU for bread box, VOXEL for pixel rival, AIDAS for craft kit fabrics etc. My CS and crafting background got in my own way today! Lol)
Me too. The line of heads of state. Still makes more sense to me than the plural HAIRS, tbh.
I have a rebus button but entered 'F' in each of the 'rebus' squares and got the happy music anyway.
I really liked this puzzle. I didn’t realize how much I missed quip puzzles, and this one was very elegant.
Fave Steven Wright one-liner, said with his usual dead-pan delivery: "I keep my collection of sea shells on beaches all over the world.
Like @Rex, I usually have no fun at all with quip puzzles - when there are several clues that are not really clues at all, ("beginning of quip, middle of quip, etc...) the enjoyment factor goes way down for me. Today's puzzle, however, was an exception. First, I'm a big Steven Wright fan, so I knew that the quip would likely make me chuckle (it did). Second, the second layer of PH/F added an element that most quip/quote puzzles do not, so this was fun.
I thought this one had a bit less Thursday bite to it than usual but still enjoyed the ride. NW was a little sticky for me as Ryan the Olympic swimmer's last name wouldn't come to me and I also had SCAR instead of the correct SCAB for 17A (temporary cover of a sort). That was a real "DOH!" moment when I realized that scars are indeed permanent NOT temporary... Since I really was not sure about 4D, AMRI looked as good as any answer I could think of before SCAB fell and AMBI appeared.
I also had DOPEY instead of the correct DWARF at 50D. It took me way longer than it should have to let that one go.
Having grown up in New York City, I did understand 34D (Urban addr. specification) but had BLVD at first (for Boulevard). As someone mentioned, BLDG seems more relevant for a corporate urban address, but it wasn't foreign to me.
Not much to talk about re: longer answers, I kinda liked AFRAIDSO AND IMINHERE.
Unlike @Rex, I did like MENON, though at first I thought - is this a rebus theme around the number 3 (3 men on)? Or multiples of 3 as there was a 9 clue at 46D. But soon came to my senses.
So thank you Mr. Charlton for providing the very first quip puzzle that I truly enjoyed!
Congrats on so many Fs in one puzzle! You must be chuFFed about that 😊
I agree! A little more speciphicity would be appreciated 🤔
Aww, thanks. She is mine. I bring her a new toy to destroy every week. If I walk in the door with grocery bags and there is not a toy for her she is disconsolate. The mission is to get the squeaker out.
At first, even though I loathe quip puzzles, I *kind of* enjoyed the fact that the quip (after I got it) was helping me fill in some of the challenging (for me) corners. But then, I just got plain annoyed, particularly the NW corner never coming into focus. I had OMNI for 4D. So A_FO / A_PHO was looking at me for 1A. Brain wouldn't budge on the O being wrong. And 17A clue wasn't on my wavelength at all. But loved the clue/answer when I saw it here. Looking forward to no-theme Friday/Sat. :)
Same for me on all counts!
!!! Just remembering Steven Wright made this puzzle worth it. Love that guy. So funny.
F/PH part was too easy for ThursPuz fare, but the quip part did slow my solvequest down a few precious nanoseconds.
staff weeject pick: ELF/PH.
some fave stuff: ANSWER. IMINHERE. AFRAIDSO/GRAPHED. FUTON/UVEA.
MENON & REDATE ... har
Thanx, Mr. Charlton dude. Very basic [Had a high Ph readin.]
Masked & Anonymo1U [s]
... and then ...
"Head Games" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I wish the crossword tournament finals were streamed live.
Is it just me or were quip puzzles super common 10-15 years ago and almost non-existent now?
For good reason…
@Smith 9:38 AM
@Beezer 10:48 AM
Aw, thanks Smith! Good to hear from you.
Beezer, my wife is a reading education guru, and she agrees with your discovery. English has a "deep orthography," she says, and that's why it's a lot harder to learn to read than more phonetic languages.
Can someone explain OVERS for “Cricket segments”? What am I missing? Is this about the sport or the insect or something else!
Can someone explain OVERS for “cricket segments”?
Cricket as in baseball-like sport. I guessed, never checked.
Wasn’t he also a diamond dealer that wound up getting chopped up under his desk on 47th St.?
I solve in the paper they throw in front of the door, with a pen. Half the comments here seem to be about how the online rebus worked (or didn’t). I found it easy for a Thursday; I think the software got in the way for the rest of you today.
I guess I’m dating myself (but it was on the front page): https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/29/archives/body-of-diamond-broker-found-as-missing-gem-cutter-turns-up-body-of.html
I’m surprised that no one has brought up the fact that Ryan LOCHTE made up the story about being robbed at gunpoint at a gas station during the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
"Norm" means "average" It's a clever clue, just not set up quite right
My wife told me to get a hair cut but she didn't say which one!!!
Did the same, entered only F's, and the NYT Games Android app was happy with it.
I loved the puzzle, especially the quote. But I couldn’t find the slash character on the NYT iPad app (you must tap the button marked “123”). So I left the rebus squares “PHF”, which the app rejected. Really, they should be a bit more accommodating.
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