Constructor: Natan Last and the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: POTHOLES (56A: Obstacles for a driver ... or what this puzzle's circled squares represent) — four circled squares function as POTHOLES, i.e. they contain the word "POT," and they interrupt Down answers that mean "road" (in the Across answers, the letters "POT" function normally):
Theme answers:
RO[POT]AD / SEE SPOT RUN ((3D: Either of two diverging in a Robert Frost poem / 15A: Classic line from the Dick and Jane series)
BO[POT]ULEVARD / NEPOTISM (9D: Sunset in the West? / 16A: Hiring practice at a family business, say)
AVE[POT]NUE / MESOPOTAMIA (22D: Way / 32A: Land whose name meant "between two rivers")
STRE[POT]ET / MAPO TOFU (38D: Word with clothes or cleaner / 55A: Sichuan bean curd dish)
Word of the Day: ACT UP (44A: Advocacy org. that gained prominence in 1980s New York City) —
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, and working to change legislation and public policies.
ACT UP was formed on March 12, 1987, at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York City. Co-founder Larry Kramer was asked to speak as part of a rotating speaker series, and his well-attended speech focused on action to fight AIDS. Kramer spoke out against the state of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which he perceived as politically impotent. Kramer had co-founded the GMHC but had resigned from its board of directors in 1983. According to Douglas Crimp, Kramer posed a question to the audience: "Do we want to start a new organization devoted to political action?" The answer was "a resounding yes." Approximately 300 people met two days later to form ACT UP.
At the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, in October 1987, ACT UP New York made their debut on the national stage, as an active and visible presence in both the march, the main rally, and at the civil disobedience at the United States Supreme Court Building the following day. Inspired by this new approach to radical, direct action, other participants in these events returned home to multiple cities and formed local ACT UP chapters in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Rhode Island, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other locations. ACT UP spread internationally. In many countries separate movements arose based on the American model. For example, the famous gay rights activist Rosa von Praunheim co-founded ACT UP in Germany. (wikipedia)
• • •
I thought this was a nifty little puzzle, with the one downside being that the revealer came as a huge anticlimax. You can see that those squares are "POTHOLES" as soon as figure out the rebus, which for me came at "SEE SPOT RUN." Once I saw that the cross was ROAD, and that the "POT" square disrupted ROAD (rather than being an actual part of the answer), I got it—the rebus squares are actual "POTHOLES." I don't know if it's possible to do the revealer any differently; that is, what else is it going to be but POTHOLES? But anyway, by the time I got to the bottom of the grid, POTHOLES was telling me something I already knew. Since the puzzle doesn't need a revealer in order to make sense of the theme, maybe there's some (as yet unconceived) answer out there that could have come at the concept obliquely. Something like BUMP IN THE ROAD (except not that, because "road" is already one of the answers). Anyway, POTHOLES felt superfluous. Like a sign saying "tree" next to a "tree." Like, yes, I see that that is a tree. That is obviously a tree. But leaving the problem of the revealer aside, the core concept here was lovely. Four different road types, all disrupted by "POT" holes. I love that "POT" doesn't work in the Downs. It's jarring, the way POTHOLES are jarring. And the "POT"s are all handled very nicely in the Acrosses. Those "POT" answers are all really interesting in their own right, and in none of them is "POT" actually a standlone word, i.e. the "POT" is well and truly "buried" in each answer (what I mean is that if one of the crosses was TEA POT, that would be less interesting/elegant than what we have here, which his "POT" hidden inside other words / phrases every time). The puzzle was too easy for a Thursday, but when the concept really works (as this one does), I don't mind the lack of challenge so much. I should add that the grid was very smooth overall, and had some nice non-theme answers, including "DREAM ON!" and "COME UNDONE." The J.A.S.A. Crossword Class puzzles are always really polished. You'd think puzzle-by-committee might get clunky, but nope. Reliably good stuff, every time.
There was only one answer I didn't know today, and that was MOMO (54D: Steamed dumpling in Tibetan cuisine). No Tibetan restaurants where I live. I know there's (at least) one in Minneapolis, where I visit frequently. I've driven past it a bunch. Maybe I'll make my best friends take me there next time I visit. This is a debut for MOMO ... at least as a food product. It last appeared in 1973, as an [Owl of Guam] (!?!?!?!?!). Wow ... I mean, wow. I'm kind of in awe of how obscure that is. Like, even the Gods of Crosswordese were like, "pass." First trotted out in 1942 ([Short-eared owl.]), then ... thirty-one years passed ... then [Owl of guam] ... then fifty-two years passed, and here we are, eating Tibetan food. I feel like this is a real story of perseverance and triumph. Instead of caterpillar-to-butterfly, we get owl-to-dumpling. All things are possible through crosswords.
Normally I would tell you where I struggled, but I struggled nowhere today. There will be many who (understandably) don't know who E.C. SEGAR, but I teach a course on Comics, so that's a name I know well (you see both ECSEGAR and SEGAR from time to time in puzzles) (the "E" stands for ELZIE, in case that's ever relevant ... which it has been, three times in NYTXW history). Bob ROSS, ETHAN Frome, Hall & Oates' "MANEATER," the Latin phrase DE NOVO—all these things are right over the plate for me. I'm guessing that for a lot of people, this will be among the fastest rebus puzzles they've ever completed—maybe not a record Thursday, as it's always a little time-consuming and fussy to enter the damned rebus squares, but still, I'm scanning the grid for real trouble areas and not seeing them.
[35D: Hall & Oates hit with the opening lyric "She'll only come out at night"]
Bullets:
21D: ___ chips, snack from Hawaii (TARO) — so much tasty food in this one.
28A: Bee-dazzler? (PETAL) — is it the PETALs that dazzle? I guess so. Bees are drawn to color. I just like that this clue references a ridiculous As Seen On TV product from the '90s:
47A: Laura of "Jurassic Park" (DERN) — there have been lots of tributes written in the past week for the late, great David Lynch, but Laura DERN's (which I just read today) is probably my favorite. Well worth your time.
Easy. I got the POT rebus part of theme early but didn’t realize the downs were all thoroughfares until I finished and went back over the grid, so unlike @Rex I had a delightful aha moment.
No erasures and I did not know ROSS, MOMO (hi @Red) and MAPOTOFU.
EC SEGAR I knew from xwords past (one of those things you commit to memory about the third time you see it).
I find myself wondering whether this would have been doable without the circles--that would have made it more insteresting/slighly tougher to figure out. As it was, it was Tuesday easy. Fun puzzle, great concept, over a bit too fast! Thanks to Natan and the entire class!!!! : )
Medium Thursday for me (but I'm no fan of rebus puzzles). It did help that all of the rebus answers were [POT] across and [] down.
Overwrites: 52D: eveS before AFTS 56D: app before PDF
WOEs: Only remembered part of E. C. SEGAR (11D), --S-G-R. The initials could have been anything and each of the last two unknowns could have been A or E. ROSS at 40A @Rex MOMO at 54D MA[POT]OFU at 55A
I thought that the MAN in maneater followed for the downs. Like Ro (man) road. But Bo(man) Boulevard? Also started with manholes before potholes which added to the confusion.
Needed one cheat to get DOTAGE/TARO cross (I had "dog age"). Caught on to the "POT" theme quickly, but took a long time to recognize that the downs were all passageways. Sunset BOULEVARD was a devilish clue that made me wince (but it was reasonable).
For Anonymous: I lived in Scarsdale (1958-1960) and Yorktown (Heights) (1968-1973), but neither had a restaurant called Himalaya then. How times have changed in people's tastes.
I didnt think it was easy, maybe because the theme didnt dawn on me until I got to POTHOLES and I do not think I have ever heard of 20A DOTAGE. Definitely never used it in a sentence. All in all, a fun puzzle and great construction. Squarely a Medium for me
One of those nail-biters where I hope I don’t have a misspelling or even an innocent typo. Even though I got the theme and was progressing around the grid, I shuttered to contemplate what it would be like to track down a mistake in a grid with ECSEGAR, MOMO, CENSE, MAPOTOFU, DENOVO, WIIMOTE and even trying to spell MESOPOTAMIA correctly. The theme was pretty cohesive and straightforward, which is always a huge plus on a Thursday in my book, and the grid held up well (even if some of them are a real bear to spell correctly).
I don’t know what kind of ____ologist would be an expert on the relationship between bees and plants, but I’ll take that answer on faith and assume that I learned something today. I would have thought that it was the scent that was the big attraction (which leaves me wondering why 250 million years of evolution would result in pleasant smelling flora - I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye, or nose as the case may be).
Extremely easy. I liked the theme and it’s very clever. Got the POT with SEESPOTRUN but it took a lottle longer to realize that the corresponding downs skipped the POT (HOLE). There were a few unfamiliar names but they were easy to get from crosses.
Maybe it’s just the Francophones I work with but AVECPLAISIR tripped me up, we use “à toi plaisir” (“knock yourself out”) way more frequently, so I struggled a bit on the left side trying to get that to fit
In all of Crosslandia’s major venues, this is only the second pothole-themed puzzle. The first, by Tracy Gray (10/22/15), had a different gimmick, and a terrific one at that, worth checking out.
Tracy’s lovely gimmick didn’t include the potholes interrupting traffic arteries, like today’s does – a terrific touch, IMO. I also like that the potholes are circled, because, to me at least, the tops of holes are stereotypically circular.
My fill-in was enhanced by appealing words and phrases: BARFLY, PETAL, DREAM ON, COME UNDONE. Also, sweet to see BEEGEE and TEEPEE, words made of letter sounds.
I love the idea of a group of people making a puzzle, all motivated by making it the best it can be, and guided by that ethos, brainstorming the theme, best answers, and best clues.
Every J.A.S.A. puzzle I’ve done has felt like it has been made like this. It’s a great credit not only to the talents of the students, but to the teacher, who fosters that best-it-can-be climate.
So, bravo to you all, congratulations on being published NYT constructors, and thank you for a smile-producing outing today!
Easy and elegant... once I saw that they were potholes going across and blanks going down, the lower rebus answers were gimmes. But there were so many colorful and 'tasty' selections. Never heard of EC Segar so that area needed all the crosses. Very stylish puzzle, felt like Wednesday difficulty.
@Rex 38 (!) years ago we went trekking in Nepal for our honeymoon, having quit our jobs, those were the days, and we had an *awesome* cook whose MOMOs I've never forgotten, so that was a gimme. There was a lot of Tibetan food. On that trip I also rode on top of a vehicle at some point while my new husband looked on appalled from the interior. And we weren't exactly young even then. Loved the POTHOLEs and, yep, saw them right away at SEES(POT)RUN which counts as cultural knowledge even though the school I went to used The House on Cherry Lane series with Tom, Betty, and Susan! I had ROADS going down with a side-eye at the plural but Spot took care of it. Technical DNF though at MA(POT)O_U crossing A_TS. Guess if I had run the alphabet I would have seen AFTS and maybe TOFU.
BTW, I loved the chutzpah this group of 55+ individuals showed by ironically placing DOTAGE, clued [Years of decline], in the grid of a PUBLISHED NYT PUZZLE!
Rex, you absolutely must try Himalayan Restaurant in Minneapolis. It's been our favorite for years. The momo are delicious, along with everything else. Also, Everest in St Paul in also very good. Re: the puzzle, I enjoyed it, though I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't notice that all the down crosses were roads.
@Anonymous - 6:30 AM - Regarding "A plural of an abbreviation no one uses," I disagree. It is not used in speech, but it is used in writing, as in "The group meets on Tues. afts." On a different note, @Andy Freude - 7:56 AM - The JASA class is remote, so you can sign up for it wherever you are, as long as you have Zoom.
Was this an easy Thursday? Yes, but in a very pleasing way because it had some crunch (things to learn like MAPOTOFU) for me, yet the crosses made it all doable and satisfying. Nathan Last and his class seem to always put out an excellent puzzle. I rarely click on Rex’s post offerings, but today I enjoyed a blast from the past with MANEATER. I think it came out in the early 80s, but Hall & Oates’ Abandoned Luncheonette was one of my favorite albums in college.
I think there are other things that bee-dazzle bees that has nothing to do with the petals but certain pollinators (like butterflies) are more attracted to red, trumpet shaped flowers.
Until I came here to read about OFL's experience, I didn't even see the amazing fact that the theme downs were all different types of roads. While I already liked the puzzle a lot, now I'm just amazed at how absolutely beautiful and fun the puzzle is. The intricate theme has me smiling. I just looked up Natan Last's J.A.S.A. crossword class online. Looks like it meets virtually. Has anyone here ever attended it?
Hey All ! Neat puz, in that every POT acts as a HOLE in the passage of traffic things. I'm originally from Pennsylvania, The Pothole State. The area where I'm from even has a Pothole State Park!
Lost my 30 Day Streak (albeit with look-ups every now and again, so take that streak as you will) on the cross of PETAL/WIIMOTE. Sillily had a D for PEDAL/WIIMODE. I even looked over puz quite a bit trying to find it. Ultimately gave up, and hit Check Puzzle. Dang.
Took a second to figure out the Theme. I think it was the second ROAD-type thing to realize the skipped Down POTs weren't just placed into random words. Was set to complain why a space was skipped!
Time to start a non-look-up Streak. Yeah Roo, DREAM ON. 😁
I got the trick fairly soon, given the cluing of ROAD as emphatically singular-- so I skipped over the circle, then saw it was going to have a POT in. So here is a roadway with a POThole in it, nice gimmick but it gives a lot away. I got Sunset BOULEVARD off the A, once I saw it contained a circle.
But some of the cluing was really, really strained. I mean, maybe 1% of this crowd has actually read ETHAN Frome, but many more of us know the title, so what's all this nonsense about Zeena's husband. Too cute by half.
I did love "perfume ecclesiastically," for its sheer exuberance, but one is enough. And I learned a lot about Eastern currencies and East Asian cuisine -- I' never had nor heard of MAPO TOFU, but now I'm eager to try it.
I have to question whether an ICE CAVE counts as a geological formation, though. I wanted moraine there, but was saved by the crosses.
For Lewis: I'm well past 55, but I'm in good shape...so I didn't think of DOTAGE as a synonym for "years of decline." Yes, it took chutzpah to make that assumption.
I just got the connection between DOTAGE and Dotard, which I first heard when Kim Jung Il used it to refer to DJT the first time around. Somehow, a Korean had us all reaching for dictionaries to understand his rather apt diss.
I just discovered MAPO TOFU this summer, and it has paid off twice in the puzzle already, as well as in real life.
I thought RP's writeup was spot on today. Glad he didn't complain that it skewed old, which I thought it did in a positive way. Keep the Beethoven clues coming:)
Easy, but a really nice Feel-Good puzzle. Nice to see all the positive comments.
(EC)SEGAR has been in crosswords numerous times. I don't recall ever seeing Elzie (Crisler), but nice to learn. MAPO TOFU was Word of the Day on Tue, Dec 3, 2024.
Never heard of the dumpling, but I know David Chang's restaurant Momofuku means "lucky peach" in Japanese (MOMO = peach), named after instant ramen inventor Momofuku Ando (1958). The More You Know.
I DETEST the current state of EVENTS, but I will DREAMON FORNOW....
Even though I’m of an age to know better, for some reason I had Sally doing the running, so I had an ally (alley is what I thought I was doing there) in the road to go with the potholes and I thought I was so clever. Until I finished the puzzle and had no music to reward me.
This was easier than most of Natan's & JASA Crossword Class puzzles (especially Natan's in the New Yorker) & a rebus I liked :) I learned ECSEGAR, MOMO, how to correctly spell MESOPOTAMIA - so a good learning experience & a fun rebus for me. Thank you :)
As Beezer said, I believe it’s the appearance of the PETAL which initially attracts the all important honey bee. Besides the bright red Trumpet Vine, they love the old-fashioned purple Morning Glory. If you plant one though, be sure you choose a variety that’s an Annual which won’t drop seeds. Otherwise you’ll have morning glories all over your lawn for years to come.
Easy once I got going, but that took quite a few nanoseconds. Looking around for a place to start and I read the "between two rivers" clue and actually thought MESOPOTAMIA and was ultimately rewarded, but not for a while. Knew Mr. SEGAR but not his initials, thought SEESPOTRUN but that didn't fit. Once the rebus became obvious everything fell into place, and then I had that nice aha! moment shared by others when the POTHOLES were all in places we drive on. How cool is that?
Way more Asian restaurants around here than there used to be, but the pleasures of MOMOs and MAPOTOFU have so far escaped me.
Very nice Thursday indeed, NL et. al. Never Lacked sizzle, and thanks for all the fun.
Of course I saw the trick immediately and I'm sure you did too. But one of the things that makes this puzzle a success is that the adorable themer -- SEE SPOT RUN -- is the one that you see first and the one that tips you off to the other not-quite-so adorable ones. I knew the revealer would be POTHOLE immediately -- and went to work filling all the POTHOLES in before going back to the rest of the puzzle.
Very easy for a Thursday, but a lot of fun. Love the way the POTHOLES are embedded in the ROAD, STREET, AVENUE and BOULEVARD. Lovely grid-work, but with fun stuff for the solver to do in order to solve.
Kudos to Natan Last for doing such cool work with his class. I bet his class is great fun and I bet he's a delightful teacher.
Here's a puzzle I'd give to two different groups: 1) newbie solvers, to introduce them to the concept of the rebus puzzle in a version they'll be able to figure out pretty easily and 2) what I shall call "rebiphobes" -- solvers who hate and resent the whole idea of the rebus puzzle. No, my dear rebiphobe, you'll love this one! All those "Aha Moments" -- moments that can't always be found in a more "normal" puzzle. Lots of fun and very well-executed.
Ah, the J.A.S.A. people are back and this time they brought us a fun little rebus. I’ve always enjoyed their class projects in the past, and this was certainly no exception. Timely because with all the snow and extreme temperatures already this winter, we’re probably looking at a bumper crop of POTHOLES this spring. ALSO very clever making us “go around” the down circles to avoid the craters that will ultimately be forming.
I didn’t struggle anywhere but did have a few write overs starting with BEATLES for BEE GEES and stubbornly stuck with it. Even briefly thinking the beloved Fab Four might been misspelled with two E’s but no, because surely no one could be that sacrilegious. Then just for grins, I threw in DÉJÀ VU for DE NOVO and really snarled that corner up before finally seeing my self-inflicted wounds. MAPO TOFU was new, but the lack of names was delightfully refreshing. Just a fun solve all around. My thanks to everyone who contributed to this excellent Thursday.
I like @PH’s description of this as a Feel-Good puzzle. I had two big hangups that are silly in retrospect. In the NE, I initially struggled to see how Dick or Jane would work in the circled box…like that was ever going to work! Very shortly, the theme was evident and the correct answer was easy. In the SE, I over-confidently filed in APP for the frequent download and for some reason ignored the theme clue that made APP impossible. Oh well, maybe another cup of coffee would have helped, but enjoyed this one nevertheless.
Nice Kealoa at 1A. Would "Tavern regular" be BARFLY or BARFer? Only crosses would tell.
I used to argue with my gang about whose mother was the most RAD. I always maintained that there was no MANEATER than mine.
I went to a French-Sichuan restaurant recently and I guess they got confused. Instead of my pot-au-feu I got MAPOTOFU. Noticing my disappointed countenance, the waiter asked, "YUAN DUCK?"
I'm kinda overwhelmed by all the "dot coms", "dot orgs" and "dot edus" I'm encounterin' on the interwebs. I guess I'm in my DOT AGE.
My friend is really into getting high and doing marathons. He's putting together a pro tour complete with TV contracts, product tie-ins and, some day, Olympic status. He SEESPOTRUNs as being the next big thing. "DREAMON" I says.
Any puzzle that can pass DETEST of being well-liked by @Rex is ok by me. Really smooth and fast. Thanks, Natan Last and the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class.
Dooood, lotta pot first thing in the morning, amirite? NYTXW runnin' an international wake and bake dispensary. 💚 They probably need a DELOUSING from their DOTAGE in their structure with smoke flaps. Really lovely to have Joel back on slush. Maybe it's Natan. Maybe it's those JASA rascals.
I seem to have a lot of cobweb decorations in my non-haunted house.
1 When you know you should've left the pub hours ago. 2 Un-Napoleon-ize. 3 Why we don't know how fast Fido is. 4 Diaries of Old My Enemies. 5 Reasonable mindedness opinion of the United States of America. 6 Where they would've been lined up and run over if disco detesters had their way. 7 How my zippers show compassion for my mental decline. 8 Put deodorant on a cannibal.
1 BARFLY COBWEB 2 DELOUSE EROICA 3 SEE SPOT RUN NEPOTISM 4 FOE DOTAGE LOGS 5 DETEST FOR NOW 6 BEEGEES STREET 7 ALSO COME UNDONE 8 CENSE MAN EATER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: One ready, willing and able to punch a baby. GOLD GLOVE OB/GYN.
I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t notice that each POTHOLE went through an actual thoroughfare, so thanks for pointing that out. And BTW, I like rebiphobe. Nice portmanteau!
Re DOTAGE -- Like @Beezer, @Bob Mills, I chuckled over DOG AGE. And it's so much better than DOTAGE -- I believe that my DOG AGE is less than 12 years old. Yay, DOG AGE!!!
Nah (and I don't think the paper is declining). Just highlighting the irony of people in their so-called dotage years creating a puzzle published in the upper echelon of Crosslandia. Like they're saying, "Take THAT, dotage."
Classy xword. Figured out the puztheme mcguffin [and predicted its revealer] at SEES[POT]RUN/ROAD. Lost some nanoseconds, tho -- due to misreadin the ROAD clue, and wantin to splatz ROADS into that there 5-square space, at first. WAM&AB.
Just a 72-worder. So answers tended toward long-ish. some faves: COBWEB. WIIMOTE. FURLONGS. COMEUNDONE. PETAL clue. BOULEVARD clue.
staff weeject pick: SLY, with its sly-ish {Vulpine} clue.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Last dude & students groovin on POT. Highly recommended.
Tried runSPOTRUN initially as Frost made RO(POT)AD theme obvious. I enjoy the Natan New Yorker Monday puzzles as an alternative to the NYT beginner friendly option to counterbalance those who loathe his esoteric approach……de gusto is…
Fun group of folks obviously in Natan’s class. Wish they could have an online audit option for we who reside in the distant time zones.
I was thinking the POTs were black (squares) so expected the revealer to be kettle related. What a nice surprise to see POTHOLES! No - I didn’t notice the roads all shared the rebus squares while solving.
A decent puzzle tarnished by the horribly clued "AFTS". Nobody has ever used "afts" to mean early afternoon times. It didn't help that it was crossing an answer most people wouldn't really know (MAPOTOFU).
Yes, a happy Thursday, easy and delightful. SPOTting the POTHOLEs in ROAD and AVENUE helped me get STREET quickly, and then, swinging around counterclockwise, cross the finish line on that wonderful long Sunset BOULEVARD. Plus, on the way we got to go through MESO[POT]ANIA. Terrific.
Do-over: Me, too, for "run" before SEE, making my lounges "rOoms" and generally fouling that section up for good while. Help from previous puzzles: yup, E.C. SEGAR.
I disagree with Rex. JASA is always super naticky and absolutely seems like it was written by committee. Also, aft being short for afternoon is unacceptable, even as common as it is.
Pretty easy theme to get but I embarrassed myself a bit... at 15 across I got my S's mixed up and decided the rebus squares were SPOTs. SEES SPOT RUN and NESPOTISM looked okay. MESOSPOTAMIA didn't look quite right. Had to redo them all by then. No other typeovers that I can recall from last night.
With the NYT's fondness for nameification (CEDARS, MAN EATER) I'm surprised they didn't clue COME UNDONE as "She's ______", 1969 hit song by the Guess Who.
Same. solved the puzzle without noticing that the down answers crossing the POTs were all kinds of roadways! So, unlike Rex's experience, I loved the revealer and the added Aha moment!
Not a bee or flower expert, but my understanding was that scent got pollinators in the neighborhood of the flower and the colors (lot of them not visible to humans) help steer the pollinators to the pollen.
Cute and well-constructed puzzle but too easy. Where’s a real trick on Thursday. Something that gives me a real aha moment. This would be a better Wednesday.
I didn't know SEE SPOT RUN, but MESO(POT)AMIA was a gimme and ROAD skipping a square was easy to see, so it didn't take long to figure out the POTHOLE theme.
For some reason, I thought 4D would be some kind of measurement related to the horse itself. I've seen BARFLY but I'm not too familiar with it, so my first instinct was BAR GUY (?), maybe BOY (??). I also didn't know what vowel went in D_TAGE. So the NW had the trickiest spots for me, but nothing else except the SW gave me any real trouble.
Marvelous puzzle! I got the POT insert with MESOPOTAMIA, of all places. Credit to my World Civ teacher, way back in 1962-63, for embedding the Tigris and Euphrates deep in my brain. Mr realization that the POThole interrupters were all thoroughfares came late and brought a nice smile. Easy for a Thursday, yes, but a delight. Well done, J.A.S.A.ers!
Alice Pollard Speaking of declining years, DOTAGE is not often used these days, but the word is well known to most of my generation (now definitely old baby boomers). I am guessing you are significantly younger than us.
Jberg To each his own I guess. I really liked the clue for ETHAN.( FWIW Despite the fact that Dickens died before he completed it, adaptations have been made of it.). But knowing the wife’s first name is almost irrelevant to getting the answer. It was to me. Automatically Frome = Ethan. Thought it was a n easy answer in an easy puzzle
Two fun days in a row. Go figure. Despite the fact that our constructors (loved that this was a collaboration and a teaching/learning experience) gave the theme away right ofd the bat, the romp through the gris was clever and entertaining.
All of this was right in my center lane. I have had several (irritating) trials DE NOVO that started as administrative hearings with no statutory authority to guide the agency which means everyone involved knows it will end up in District Court. That answer took me back to a couple really interesting trial memories.
Do kids still read Dick and Jane? Surely not! Those awful books got me in trouble in my first week in first grade. Before technology, there were (in my case the truly despised) “reading groups.” I was reading the “Nancy Drew” mysteries and knew how to use the encyclopedia and “the big dictionary on the stand in Granddad’s study” by first grade and I incorrectly assumed so could everybody else.
Mrs. Kessler, a much-honored career teacher I am certain must have earned some sort of honor just for tolerating gme was my first grade teacher. . While I was (almost) always respectful, I had been taught to converse, express opinions, and to argue issues as long as my position was based at least partly in fact. Believe me when I say that I was amazed to learn that not everyone lived in a household like mine in which education, learning and self-expression and respect were the not just the norm but were required.
Accordingly, my first day in the “Bluebirds” reading groups taught me lots more than that not everybody thought SEE SPOT RUN was “for babies,” and that upon being asked by the ever-patient Mrs. K “Carol, what makes you say that, surely babies are not expected to read are they,” I got a taste of Granddad at school! I also got expelled from the group and sent to our library corner to look up the definition of “baby” and to figure out why my comments about what I could already read made Sheryl E cry. I had to stay after school and Mrs K explained that while my reading skill was excellent, it was not something to boast about, that everyone in her class tried very hard to get along and work together vand my attitude was not particularly helpful “in that endeavor.”
That first grade parent-teacher conference at open house must have been a doozy. I became my own “reading group,” had different spelling and vocabulary words (as it turns out so did Kim F, but apparently he was not as inclined as I to show off) and we both had way more work papers than the other kids. And even Granddad got in on the program. He started giving me reading assignments from the newspapers and taking me to the downtown library to explore more about the people and places I read about.
I never forgot Mrs K, and apparently she remembered both Kim and me. At her retirement, after over 50 years of teaching, the State Assembly honored her and several other career retirees. In her remarks, she mentioned that she learned as much as she taught and hoped she challenged her students as much as they often challenged her and mentioned both me and Kim (who became a lifelong friend) by name as “among the most challenging on occasion” but also being the most curious. Thank you to all the teachers everywhere. You nurture, curate and protect our nation’s most unique and precious natural resource. Please don’t give up!
If I was one to time myself, (I am not) this would likely be my fastest Thursday solve ever - by a long shot. That's two days in a row of fairly easy solving for me (believe me, I am generally a VERY slow solver, partly because I like to savor the experience, and partly because I'm just not that great). I generally like my mid and end week puzzles to put up a bit more fight but I can't find too much fault with this one. The fill just kept on falling for me, the first four crosses were fairly immediate and then I stalled for just a bit on SEESPOTRUN until the rebus kicked. I only noticed that they crossed with actual roadways when I came here - thank @Rex and gang! Nice layer that I didn't notice. I did kinda struggle in a couple of places - loved the cluing for BOULEVARD, but even after quickly cracking the theme and knowing there would be a "hole" in the answer, I just stared at some random letters and blank squares for a long time until it clicked. I'm not sure what triggered my brain but it took way too long. Like a couple of others, rushed to put in BEATLES for 1D and just assumed I had one of the crosses wrong. I had to go back and read the clue again to remind myself that they were referring to a 1978 movie and not the actual album. See what happens when I don't move slowly?? Starting off with BARFLY was a fun way to begin and COMEUNDONE looks classy in the grid. Got stuck for a second on that one as I had the last two letters NE, so immediately dropped in INSANE for the last part of the answer, but after a few minutes of not being able to figure out what 4 letters could possibly go before that which included the C and M I already had, the correct answer hit me. Overall, I didn't like it quite as much as @Rex did, but I thought the theme was clever and well executed and (like yesterday)did not experience any real groans. Nice job Natan and class!
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!")
.png)
87 comments:
Easy. I got the POT rebus part of theme early but didn’t realize the downs were all thoroughfares until I finished and went back over the grid, so unlike @Rex I had a delightful aha moment.
No erasures and I did not know ROSS, MOMO (hi @Red) and MAPOTOFU.
EC SEGAR I knew from xwords past (one of those things you commit to memory about the third time you see it).
Clever and amusing, liked it a bunch!
I find myself wondering whether this would have been doable without the circles--that would have made it more insteresting/slighly tougher to figure out. As it was, it was Tuesday easy. Fun puzzle, great concept, over a bit too fast! Thanks to Natan and the entire class!!!! : )
Medium Thursday for me (but I'm no fan of rebus puzzles). It did help that all of the rebus answers were [POT] across and [] down.
Overwrites:
52D: eveS before AFTS
56D: app before PDF
WOEs:
Only remembered part of E. C. SEGAR (11D), --S-G-R. The initials could have been anything and each of the last two unknowns could have been A or E.
ROSS at 40A
@Rex MOMO at 54D
MA[POT]OFU at 55A
Can anyone explain AFTS as “early p.m. times?” That’s the only answer I still don’t understand.
I was kinda pleased to see MOMO (delicious) and thought it might be a debut.
Closer to home, 2 restaurants named Himalaya in NYS, Yorktown and Scarsdale.
I thought that the MAN in maneater followed for the downs. Like Ro (man) road. But Bo(man) Boulevard? Also started with manholes before potholes which added to the confusion.
AFTernoonS. A plural of an abbreviation no one uses. I would have preferred to see see this clued in a nautical context instead.
Didn't know MAPO either and I eat a lot of TOFU
Needed one cheat to get DOTAGE/TARO cross (I had "dog age"). Caught on to the "POT" theme quickly, but took a long time to recognize that the downs were all passageways. Sunset BOULEVARD was a devilish clue that made me wince (but it was reasonable).
For Anonymous: I lived in Scarsdale (1958-1960) and Yorktown (Heights) (1968-1973), but neither had a restaurant called Himalaya then. How times have changed in people's tastes.
Is an area where no marijuana is available a “pot hole”? 😂
I didnt think it was easy, maybe because the theme didnt dawn on me until I got to POTHOLES and I do not think I have ever heard of 20A DOTAGE. Definitely never used it in a sentence. All in all, a fun puzzle and great construction. Squarely a Medium for me
One of those nail-biters where I hope I don’t have a misspelling or even an innocent typo. Even though I got the theme and was progressing around the grid, I shuttered to contemplate what it would be like to track down a mistake in a grid with ECSEGAR, MOMO, CENSE, MAPOTOFU, DENOVO, WIIMOTE and even trying to spell MESOPOTAMIA correctly. The theme was pretty cohesive and straightforward, which is always a huge plus on a Thursday in my book, and the grid held up well (even if some of them are a real bear to spell correctly).
I don’t know what kind of ____ologist would be an expert on the relationship between bees and plants, but I’ll take that answer on faith and assume that I learned something today. I would have thought that it was the scent that was the big attraction (which leaves me wondering why 250 million years of evolution would result in pleasant smelling flora - I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye, or nose as the case may be).
Extremely easy. I liked the theme and it’s very clever. Got the POT with SEESPOTRUN but it took a lottle longer to realize that the corresponding downs skipped the POT (HOLE). There were a few unfamiliar names but they were easy to get from crosses.
Had EkSEGAR and EROIkA but that was a fairly easy fix. Still made me grumble, and could have been a lot harder.
Maybe it’s just the Francophones I work with but AVECPLAISIR tripped me up, we use “à toi plaisir” (“knock yourself out”) way more frequently, so I struggled a bit on the left side trying to get that to fit
AFTS clued like a time is awful in an otherwise terrific puzzle.
On the bright side, my wife is called MOMO by our grandchildren and I will now forever call her Spicy Dumpling.
In all of Crosslandia’s major venues, this is only the second pothole-themed puzzle. The first, by Tracy Gray (10/22/15), had a different gimmick, and a terrific one at that, worth checking out.
Tracy’s lovely gimmick didn’t include the potholes interrupting traffic arteries, like today’s does – a terrific touch, IMO. I also like that the potholes are circled, because, to me at least, the tops of holes are stereotypically circular.
My fill-in was enhanced by appealing words and phrases: BARFLY, PETAL, DREAM ON, COME UNDONE. Also, sweet to see BEEGEE and TEEPEE, words made of letter sounds.
I love the idea of a group of people making a puzzle, all motivated by making it the best it can be, and guided by that ethos, brainstorming the theme, best answers, and best clues.
Every J.A.S.A. puzzle I’ve done has felt like it has been made like this. It’s a great credit not only to the talents of the students, but to the teacher, who fosters that best-it-can-be climate.
So, bravo to you all, congratulations on being published NYT constructors, and thank you for a smile-producing outing today!
Dang, if I were in the NYC area I’d sign up for that JASA class in a heartbeat!
I have a Tibetan friend who makes the most amazing MOMOs. Fabulous!
Easy and elegant... once I saw that they were potholes going across and blanks going down, the lower rebus answers were gimmes. But there were so many colorful and 'tasty' selections. Never heard of EC Segar so that area needed all the crosses. Very stylish puzzle, felt like Wednesday difficulty.
@Rex 38 (!) years ago we went trekking in Nepal for our honeymoon, having quit our jobs, those were the days, and we had an *awesome* cook whose MOMOs I've never forgotten, so that was a gimme. There was a lot of Tibetan food. On that trip I also rode on top of a vehicle at some point while my new husband looked on appalled from the interior. And we weren't exactly young even then.
Loved the POTHOLEs and, yep, saw them right away at SEES(POT)RUN which counts as cultural knowledge even though the school I went to used The House on Cherry Lane series with Tom, Betty, and Susan!
I had ROADS going down with a side-eye at the plural but Spot took care of it.
Technical DNF though at MA(POT)O_U crossing A_TS. Guess if I had run the alphabet I would have seen AFTS and maybe TOFU.
BTW, I loved the chutzpah this group of 55+ individuals showed by ironically placing DOTAGE, clued [Years of decline], in the grid of a PUBLISHED NYT PUZZLE!
Rex, you absolutely must try Himalayan Restaurant in Minneapolis. It's been our favorite for years. The momo are delicious, along with everything else. Also, Everest in St Paul in also very good. Re: the puzzle, I enjoyed it, though I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't notice that all the down crosses were roads.
@Anonymous - 6:30 AM - Regarding "A plural of an abbreviation no one uses," I disagree. It is not used in speech, but it is used in writing, as in "The group meets on Tues. afts." On a different note, @Andy Freude - 7:56 AM - The JASA class is remote, so you can sign up for it wherever you are, as long as you have Zoom.
Well I suspect I'm not alone, but I'm not sure what I think of a puzzle until I read Lewis. A fan, Ed
Was this an easy Thursday? Yes, but in a very pleasing way because it had some crunch (things to learn like MAPOTOFU) for me, yet the crosses made it all doable and satisfying. Nathan Last and his class seem to always put out an excellent puzzle.
I rarely click on Rex’s post offerings, but today I enjoyed a blast from the past with MANEATER. I think it came out in the early 80s, but Hall & Oates’ Abandoned Luncheonette was one of my favorite albums in college.
You made me giggle with “dog age” Bob! Since I am now close to 70, I may start referring to myself as “being in my dog age.” It has a nice ring to it.
I think there are other things that bee-dazzle bees that has nothing to do with the petals but certain pollinators (like butterflies) are more attracted to red, trumpet shaped flowers.
Until I came here to read about OFL's experience, I didn't even see the amazing fact that the theme downs were all different types of roads. While I already liked the puzzle a lot, now I'm just amazed at how absolutely beautiful and fun the puzzle is. The intricate theme has me smiling. I just looked up Natan Last's J.A.S.A. crossword class online. Looks like it meets virtually. Has anyone here ever attended it?
Hey All !
Neat puz, in that every POT acts as a HOLE in the passage of traffic things. I'm originally from Pennsylvania, The Pothole State. The area where I'm from even has a Pothole State Park!
Lost my 30 Day Streak (albeit with look-ups every now and again, so take that streak as you will) on the cross of PETAL/WIIMOTE. Sillily had a D for PEDAL/WIIMODE. I even looked over puz quite a bit trying to find it. Ultimately gave up, and hit Check Puzzle. Dang.
Took a second to figure out the Theme. I think it was the second ROAD-type thing to realize the skipped Down POTs weren't just placed into random words. Was set to complain why a space was skipped!
Time to start a non-look-up Streak. Yeah Roo, DREAM ON. 😁
Happy Thursday!
Five F's (YES!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Is that a reference to the decline of the paper?
I got the trick fairly soon, given the cluing of ROAD as emphatically singular-- so I skipped over the circle, then saw it was going to have a POT in. So here is a roadway with a POThole in it, nice gimmick but it gives a lot away. I got Sunset BOULEVARD off the A, once I saw it contained a circle.
But some of the cluing was really, really strained. I mean, maybe 1% of this crowd has actually read ETHAN Frome, but many more of us know the title, so what's all this nonsense about Zeena's husband. Too cute by half.
I did love "perfume ecclesiastically," for its sheer exuberance, but one is enough. And I learned a lot about Eastern currencies and East Asian cuisine -- I' never had nor heard of MAPO TOFU, but now I'm eager to try it.
I have to question whether an ICE CAVE counts as a geological formation, though. I wanted moraine there, but was saved by the crosses.
For Lewis: I'm well past 55, but I'm in good shape...so I didn't think of DOTAGE as a synonym for "years of decline." Yes, it took chutzpah to make that assumption.
I just got the connection between DOTAGE and Dotard, which I first heard when Kim Jung Il used it to refer to DJT the first time around. Somehow, a Korean had us all reaching for dictionaries to understand his rather apt diss.
I just discovered MAPO TOFU this summer, and it has paid off twice in the puzzle already, as well as in real life.
I thought RP's writeup was spot on today. Glad he didn't complain that it skewed old, which I thought it did in a positive way. Keep the Beethoven clues coming:)
There is the Tibetan Momo Bar in Ithaca. Just take out but they have decent momos - or did a year ago when I was last there.
Easy, but a really nice Feel-Good puzzle. Nice to see all the positive comments.
(EC)SEGAR has been in crosswords numerous times. I don't recall ever seeing Elzie (Crisler), but nice to learn. MAPO TOFU was Word of the Day on Tue, Dec 3, 2024.
Never heard of the dumpling, but I know David Chang's restaurant Momofuku means "lucky peach" in Japanese (MOMO = peach), named after instant ramen inventor Momofuku Ando (1958). The More You Know.
I DETEST the current state of EVENTS, but I will DREAMON FORNOW....
Even though I’m of an age to know better, for some reason I had Sally doing the running, so I had an ally (alley is what I thought I was doing there) in the road to go with the potholes and I thought I was so clever. Until I finished the puzzle and had no music to reward me.
This was easier than most of Natan's & JASA Crossword Class puzzles (especially Natan's in the New Yorker) & a rebus I liked :)
I learned ECSEGAR, MOMO, how to correctly spell
MESOPOTAMIA - so a good learning experience & a fun rebus for me. Thank you :)
It is almost next to Cinemapolis. Try it next time you are there.
Thanks for including Laura Dern’s memories of David Lynch. It was beautiful.
What does JASA stand for?
As Beezer said, I believe it’s the appearance of the PETAL which initially attracts the all important honey bee. Besides the bright red Trumpet Vine, they love the old-fashioned purple Morning Glory. If you plant one though, be sure you choose a variety that’s an Annual which won’t drop seeds. Otherwise you’ll have morning glories all over your lawn for years to come.
Easy once I got going, but that took quite a few nanoseconds. Looking around for a place to start and I read the "between two rivers" clue and actually thought MESOPOTAMIA and was ultimately rewarded, but not for a while. Knew Mr. SEGAR but not his initials, thought SEESPOTRUN but that didn't fit. Once the rebus became obvious everything fell into place, and then I had that nice aha! moment shared by others when the POTHOLES were all in places we drive on. How cool is that?
Way more Asian restaurants around here than there used to be, but the pleasures of MOMOs and MAPOTOFU have so far escaped me.
Very nice Thursday indeed, NL et. al. Never Lacked sizzle, and thanks for all the fun.
Of course I saw the trick immediately and I'm sure you did too. But one of the things that makes this puzzle a success is that the adorable themer -- SEE SPOT RUN -- is the one that you see first and the one that tips you off to the other not-quite-so adorable ones. I knew the revealer would be POTHOLE immediately -- and went to work filling all the POTHOLES in before going back to the rest of the puzzle.
Very easy for a Thursday, but a lot of fun. Love the way the POTHOLES are embedded in the ROAD, STREET, AVENUE and BOULEVARD. Lovely grid-work, but with fun stuff for the solver to do in order to solve.
Kudos to Natan Last for doing such cool work with his class. I bet his class is great fun and I bet he's a delightful teacher.
Here's a puzzle I'd give to two different groups: 1) newbie solvers, to introduce them to the concept of the rebus puzzle in a version they'll be able to figure out pretty easily and 2) what I shall call "rebiphobes" -- solvers who hate and resent the whole idea of the rebus puzzle. No, my dear rebiphobe, you'll love this one! All those "Aha Moments" -- moments that can't always be found in a more "normal" puzzle. Lots of fun and very well-executed.
Ah, the J.A.S.A. people are back and this time they brought us a fun little rebus. I’ve always enjoyed their class projects in the past, and this was certainly no exception. Timely because with all the snow and extreme temperatures already this winter, we’re probably looking at a bumper crop of POTHOLES this spring. ALSO very clever making us “go around” the down circles to avoid the craters that will ultimately be forming.
I didn’t struggle anywhere but did have a few write overs starting with BEATLES for BEE GEES and stubbornly stuck with it. Even briefly thinking the beloved Fab Four might been misspelled with two E’s but no, because surely no one could be that sacrilegious. Then just for grins, I threw in DÉJÀ VU for DE NOVO and really snarled that corner up before finally seeing my self-inflicted wounds. MAPO TOFU was new, but the lack of names was delightfully refreshing. Just a fun solve all around. My thanks to everyone who contributed to this excellent Thursday.
Momos and mapo tofu would make a delicious combo, but I think you'd be unlikely to find both on the same menu.
I like @PH’s description of this as a Feel-Good puzzle. I had two big hangups that are silly in retrospect. In the NE, I initially struggled to see how Dick or Jane would work in the circled box…like that was ever going to work! Very shortly, the theme was evident and the correct answer was easy. In the SE, I over-confidently filed in APP for the frequent download and for some reason ignored the theme clue that made APP impossible. Oh well, maybe another cup of coffee would have helped, but enjoyed this one nevertheless.
@Whatsername -- I also started with BEATLES instead of BEEGEES.
Nice Kealoa at 1A. Would "Tavern regular" be BARFLY or BARFer? Only crosses would tell.
I used to argue with my gang about whose mother was the most RAD. I always maintained that there was no MANEATER than mine.
I went to a French-Sichuan restaurant recently and I guess they got confused. Instead of my pot-au-feu I got MAPOTOFU. Noticing my disappointed countenance, the waiter asked, "YUAN DUCK?"
I'm kinda overwhelmed by all the "dot coms", "dot orgs" and "dot edus" I'm encounterin' on the interwebs. I guess I'm in my DOT AGE.
My friend is really into getting high and doing marathons. He's putting together a pro tour complete with TV contracts, product tie-ins and, some day, Olympic status. He SEESPOTRUNs as being the next big thing. "DREAMON" I says.
Any puzzle that can pass DETEST of being well-liked by @Rex is ok by me. Really smooth and fast. Thanks, Natan Last and the J.A.S.A. Crossword Class.
Me desmoroné mentalmente.
Dooood, lotta pot first thing in the morning, amirite? NYTXW runnin' an international wake and bake dispensary. 💚 They probably need a DELOUSING from their DOTAGE in their structure with smoke flaps. Really lovely to have Joel back on slush. Maybe it's Natan. Maybe it's those JASA rascals.
I seem to have a lot of cobweb decorations in my non-haunted house.
❤️ BARFLY.
Propers: 4
Places: 1
Products: 5
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 21 of 72 (29%)
Funnyisms: 1 🤨
Tee-Hee: (See entire puzzle.)
Uniclues:
1 When you know you should've left the pub hours ago.
2 Un-Napoleon-ize.
3 Why we don't know how fast Fido is.
4 Diaries of Old My Enemies.
5 Reasonable mindedness opinion of the United States of America.
6 Where they would've been lined up and run over if disco detesters had their way.
7 How my zippers show compassion for my mental decline.
8 Put deodorant on a cannibal.
1 BARFLY COBWEB
2 DELOUSE EROICA
3 SEE SPOT RUN NEPOTISM
4 FOE DOTAGE LOGS
5 DETEST FOR NOW
6 BEEGEES STREET
7 ALSO COME UNDONE
8 CENSE MAN EATER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: One ready, willing and able to punch a baby. GOLD GLOVE OB/GYN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The theme could've went a step further:
Use different "pots" or types of "pot" for each of the clues.
Bud, urn, wok. then Pot in the middle. Otherwise it was alright. It gave a lot away.
I’ve eaten a lot of MAPOTOFU at Mission Chinese in San Francisco and when you’re in Minneapolis, Momo Sushi in NE has some terrific momos. Fun puzzle!
I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t notice that each POTHOLE went through an actual thoroughfare, so thanks for pointing that out. And BTW, I like rebiphobe. Nice portmanteau!
Re DOTAGE -- Like @Beezer, @Bob Mills, I chuckled over DOG AGE. And it's so much better than DOTAGE -- I believe that my DOG AGE is less than 12 years old. Yay, DOG AGE!!!
But the word DOTAGE does imply decline. Not just age, but decline. To make all of you who are up there or getting up there in age, here's a YouTube video to cheer you up. One of these ladies is 85 and the other is 90. They make witty, scintillating company and would enliven any dinner party.
Sorry, but I’m pretty new here. What is a WOE? Thx.
Nah (and I don't think the paper is declining). Just highlighting the irony of people in their so-called dotage years creating a puzzle published in the upper echelon of Crosslandia. Like they're saying, "Take THAT, dotage."
Classy xword.
Figured out the puztheme mcguffin [and predicted its revealer] at SEES[POT]RUN/ROAD. Lost some nanoseconds, tho -- due to misreadin the ROAD clue, and wantin to splatz ROADS into that there 5-square space, at first. WAM&AB.
Just a 72-worder. So answers tended toward long-ish.
some faves: COBWEB. WIIMOTE. FURLONGS. COMEUNDONE. PETAL clue. BOULEVARD clue.
staff weeject pick: SLY, with its sly-ish {Vulpine} clue.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Last dude & students groovin on POT. Highly recommended.
Masked & Anonym007Us
... and then there's ...
"Space Savers" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
This was a nice fun breezy Thursday puzzle but reading Laura Dern’s letter to David Lynch was absolutely the highlight of my morning.
Tried runSPOTRUN initially as Frost made RO(POT)AD theme obvious. I enjoy the Natan New Yorker Monday puzzles as an alternative to the NYT beginner friendly option to counterbalance those who loathe his esoteric approach……de gusto is…
Fun group of folks obviously in Natan’s class. Wish they could have an online audit option for we who reside in the distant time zones.
I was thinking the POTs were black (squares) so expected the revealer to be kettle related. What a nice surprise to see POTHOLES! No - I didn’t notice the roads all shared the rebus squares while solving.
Thanks for the link to Laura Dern's tribute.
A decent puzzle tarnished by the horribly clued "AFTS". Nobody has ever used "afts" to mean early afternoon times. It didn't help that it was crossing an answer most people wouldn't really know (MAPOTOFU).
Most shots in soccer are certainly not “ON GOAL”
Most shots in soccer are most certainly not “ON GOAL”
Oh yeah! Himalayan is the best.
What On Earth?!?!
Yes, a happy Thursday, easy and delightful. SPOTting the POTHOLEs in ROAD and AVENUE helped me get STREET quickly, and then, swinging around counterclockwise, cross the finish line on that wonderful long Sunset BOULEVARD. Plus, on the way we got to go through MESO[POT]ANIA. Terrific.
Do-over: Me, too, for "run" before SEE, making my lounges "rOoms" and generally fouling that section up for good while. Help from previous puzzles: yup, E.C. SEGAR.
I disagree with Rex. JASA is always super naticky and absolutely seems like it was written by committee. Also, aft being short for afternoon is unacceptable, even as common as it is.
"Is that a reference to the decline of the paper? "
if you mean dead trees version about half of what it was only a few months ago, then yeah. taking bets on when even The Gra/ey Lady goes dig only.
Probably why it says "many". Just sayin'.
Pretty easy theme to get but I embarrassed myself a bit... at 15 across I got my S's mixed up and decided the rebus squares were SPOTs. SEES SPOT RUN and NESPOTISM looked okay. MESOSPOTAMIA didn't look quite right. Had to redo them all by then. No other typeovers that I can recall from last night.
With the NYT's fondness for nameification (CEDARS, MAN EATER) I'm surprised they didn't clue COME UNDONE as "She's ______", 1969 hit song by the Guess Who.
Clocked in at 7:17 on this solve. :28 off my Thursday best, so I definitely found this one on the easy side!
Same. solved the puzzle without noticing that the down answers crossing the POTs were all kinds of roadways! So, unlike Rex's experience, I loved the revealer and the added Aha moment!
Shouldn't 13D DENOVO had some indication in the clue that the answer wasn't in English? Held me up forever!
Not a bee or flower expert, but my understanding was that scent got pollinators in the neighborhood of the flower and the colors (lot of them not visible to humans) help steer the pollinators to the pollen.
Cute and well-constructed puzzle but too easy. Where’s a real trick on Thursday. Something that gives me a real aha moment. This would be a better Wednesday.
I didn't know SEE SPOT RUN, but MESO(POT)AMIA was a gimme and ROAD skipping a square was easy to see, so it didn't take long to figure out the POTHOLE theme.
For some reason, I thought 4D would be some kind of measurement related to the horse itself. I've seen BARFLY but I'm not too familiar with it, so my first instinct was BAR GUY (?), maybe BOY (??). I also didn't know what vowel went in D_TAGE. So the NW had the trickiest spots for me, but nothing else except the SW gave me any real trouble.
Marvelous puzzle! I got the POT insert with MESOPOTAMIA, of all places. Credit to my World Civ teacher, way back in 1962-63, for embedding the Tigris and Euphrates deep in my brain. Mr realization that the POThole interrupters were all thoroughfares came late and brought a nice smile. Easy for a Thursday, yes, but a delight. Well done, J.A.S.A.ers!
Number 7 is great! xD
Read the comments. A few people mentioned it is an online class.
Alice Pollard
Speaking of declining years, DOTAGE is not often used these days, but the word is well known to most of my generation (now definitely old baby boomers). I am guessing you are significantly younger than us.
Then you will always like the puzzle.
Jberg
To each his own I guess. I really liked the clue for ETHAN.( FWIW Despite the fact that Dickens died before he completed it, adaptations have been made of it.). But knowing the wife’s first name is almost irrelevant to getting the answer. It was to me. Automatically Frome = Ethan. Thought it was a n easy answer in an easy puzzle
Two fun days in a row. Go figure. Despite the fact that our constructors (loved that this was a collaboration and a teaching/learning experience) gave the theme away right ofd the bat, the romp through the gris was clever and entertaining.
All of this was right in my center lane. I have had several (irritating) trials DE NOVO that started as administrative hearings with no statutory authority to guide the agency which means everyone involved knows it will end up in District Court. That answer took me back to a couple really interesting trial memories.
Do kids still read Dick and Jane? Surely not! Those awful books got me in trouble in my first week in first grade. Before technology, there were (in my case the truly despised) “reading groups.” I was reading the “Nancy Drew” mysteries and knew how to use the encyclopedia and “the big dictionary on the stand in Granddad’s study” by first grade and I incorrectly assumed so could everybody else.
Mrs. Kessler, a much-honored career teacher I am certain must have earned some sort of honor just for tolerating gme was my first grade teacher. . While I was (almost) always respectful, I had been taught to converse, express opinions, and to argue issues as long as my position was based at least partly in fact. Believe me when I say that I was amazed to learn that not everyone lived in a household like mine in which education, learning and self-expression and respect were the not just the norm but were required.
Accordingly, my first day in the “Bluebirds” reading groups taught me lots more than that not everybody thought SEE SPOT RUN was “for babies,” and that upon being asked by the ever-patient Mrs. K “Carol, what makes you say that, surely babies are not expected to read are they,” I got a taste of Granddad at school! I also got expelled from the group and sent to our library corner to look up the definition of “baby” and to figure out why my comments about what I could already read made Sheryl E cry. I had to stay after school and Mrs K explained that while my reading skill was excellent, it was not something to boast about, that everyone in her class tried very hard to get along and work together vand my attitude was not particularly helpful “in that endeavor.”
That first grade parent-teacher conference at open house must have been a doozy. I became my own “reading group,” had different spelling and vocabulary words (as it turns out so did Kim F, but apparently he was not as inclined as I to show off) and we both had way more work papers than the other kids. And even Granddad got in on the program. He started giving me reading assignments from the newspapers and taking me to the downtown library to explore more about the people and places I read about.
I never forgot Mrs K, and apparently she remembered both Kim and me. At her retirement, after over 50 years of teaching, the State Assembly honored her and several other career retirees. In her remarks, she mentioned that she learned as much as she taught and hoped she challenged her students as much as they often challenged her and mentioned both me and Kim (who became a lifelong friend) by name as “among the most challenging on occasion” but also being the most curious. Thank you to all the teachers everywhere. You nurture, curate and protect our nation’s most unique and precious natural resource. Please don’t give up!
DOTAGE brought to mind the time when Kim Jong Un called Trump a dotard.
If I was one to time myself, (I am not) this would likely be my fastest Thursday solve ever - by a long shot. That's two days in a row of fairly easy solving for me (believe me, I am generally a VERY slow solver, partly because I like to savor the experience, and partly because I'm just not that great). I generally like my mid and end week puzzles to put up a bit more fight but I can't find too much fault with this one.
The fill just kept on falling for me, the first four crosses were fairly immediate and then I stalled for just a bit on SEESPOTRUN until the rebus kicked. I only noticed that they crossed with actual roadways when I came here - thank @Rex and gang! Nice layer that I didn't notice.
I did kinda struggle in a couple of places - loved the cluing for BOULEVARD, but even after quickly cracking the theme and knowing there would be a "hole" in the answer, I just stared at some random letters and blank squares for a long time until it clicked. I'm not sure what triggered my brain but it took way too long.
Like a couple of others, rushed to put in BEATLES for 1D and just assumed I had one of the crosses wrong. I had to go back and read the clue again to remind myself that they were referring to a 1978 movie and not the actual album. See what happens when I don't move slowly??
Starting off with BARFLY was a fun way to begin and COMEUNDONE looks classy in the grid. Got stuck for a second on that one as I had the last two letters NE, so immediately dropped in INSANE for the last part of the answer, but after a few minutes of not being able to figure out what 4 letters could possibly go before that which included the C and M I already had, the correct answer hit me.
Overall, I didn't like it quite as much as @Rex did, but I thought
the theme was clever and well executed and (like yesterday)did not experience any real groans.
Nice job Natan and class!
Also at the Ithaca Farmers Market
Post a Comment