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Bud after Jack, perhaps? / SUN 2-9-25 / Picture of Pluto, for instance / Bit of rasta headwear / Cylindrical Mexican pastry / Scout's container / "Like ___," rap hit fueling the Drake/Kendrick Lamar beef of 2024 / Spanish muralist whose "American Progress" is in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Center / Pink drink, for short / Toy inventor with a background in sculpture and architecture / Adam's apple locale / Head of a noted animal rescue project / Indian dish featuring potatoes and cauliflower / It's stranded in a cell
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Constructor: Rich Katz and Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Way Too Easy
Theme answers:
What was that? I solved that (just now) in about 6 or 7 minutes, *without* speeding. There were answers here and there that I didn't know straight away, I guess, but not many. The main problem, though, isn't that the puzzle's overly easy—it's that it's supremely boring. Zero laughs. OK, so you reimagine the "RE-"s as "RE:"s ... and? There should be some kind of Payoff for your gimmick, but instead, there's just a mirthless "yeah, I guess that works" vibe to every single one of the themers. Worse, the puzzle thinks it's being cute and building to some grand climax by having the final themer be all meta and self-reflexive and cutesy and winky (116A: Giddiness at completing this crossword puzzle?). This felt like the one-notiest of one-note puzzles (that note being RE ... the note between DO and MI ... a SOUR NOTE, indeed) (look, I gotta find some way to amuse myself, and the puzzle is giving me very little to work with, so dumb jokes about "notes" is what you get). One-note puzzles are OK on a weekday, in a regular 15x15 grid, if that one note is a good one, but for a Sunday, you gotta do better than this. Even if the puzzle is simple, those themers have to bring a lot more heat, a lot more chuckle fuel than this. It's not bad so much as dull, and definitely insufficiently tough. It seems that no one involved in the making of this puzzle ever thought, "yes, we *can* do this theme ... but SHOULD WE?" (75A: "So is this our plan or not?").
- SPECIAL RE: QUEST (23A: TV's "Search for the Titanic," for one?)
- MANUAL RE: COUNT (35A: Instructions for slaying Dracula?)
- SHOW RE: MORSE (51A: Broadway offering titled with dots and dashes?)
- SPEECH RE: COGNITION (70A: TED Talk about neuropsychology?)
- SPOT RE: MOVER (86A: U-Haul ad?)
- CHAIN RE: ACTION (101A: Email thread with a "Donate now!" message?)
- HIGH RE: SOLUTION (116A: Giddiness at completing this crossword puzzle?)
"Like That" is a song by American rapper Future and record producer Metro Boomin with fellow American rapper Kendrick Lamar. It was sent to US rhythmic radio through Freebandz, Boominati Worldwide, Epic Records, and Republic as the third and final single from Future and Metro's collaborative studio album, We Don't Trust You, on March 26, 2024.[...]A trap and hardcore hip hop song that is predominantly composed of lively percussions, "Like That" received acclaim from music critics, who primarily praised Lamar's performance and Metro's production. His verse, which attracted significant media coverage, is a diss aimed at fellow rappers Drake and J. Cole in response to their 2023 collaboration, "First Person Shooter." "Like That" was quickly met with commercial success, debuting atop the Billboard Hot 100, where it would spend three weeks, as well as topping the Global 200 and the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts simultaneously. It was both Future and Lamar's third number-one single on the former chart, and Metro's first as a credited artist. The song also topped the Canadian Hot 100 and peaked within the top ten of several countries in Europe and Oceania. [...]
Lyrically, Lamar uses his surprise appearance to directly respond to "First Person Shooter", rapping: "Yeah, get up with me, fuck sneak dissing / "First Person Shooter", I hope they came with three switches". He also rejected J. Cole's idea of the three rappers representing hip hop as its "big three" and claims that he alone takes the top spot: "Motherfuck the big three, nigga it's just big me". Throughout his verse, Lamar compares his rivalry with Drake to Prince's reported feud with Michael Jackson ("What? I'm really like that / And your best work is a light pack / Nigga, Prince outlived Mike Jack"). Drake has notably compared himself to Michael Jackson on numerous occasions, including during the final verse of "First Person Shooter", and Lamar has similarly compared himself to Prince. (wikipedia)
• • •
One feature of the theme that deserves some recognition is that the changing of "RE-" to "RE:" brings with it a change of the meaning of both words on either side of "RE:," every time. So "RE-" changes meaning (to "RE:" / "About"), but so does SPECIAL and QUEST, MANUAL and COUNT, etc. That's a nice feature. And yet, the RE: phrases were so awkward most of the time that solving them felt like a tedious mechanical exercise. CHAIN RE: ACTION was particularly clunky. Can't think of the last time I thought of an "email thread" as a CHAIN (it's a "thread," as the clue rightly says), and why would a CHAIN contain a single message ("Donate now!")? You'd think one email would've done the trick there. Not a very efficient way to get the word out. Further, if the show is about Morse (SHOW RE: MORSE), why is it "titled" with "dots and dashes?" (51A: Broadway offering titled with dots and dashes?) It's the "titled" part I don't get. Why would the "title" of your show about Morse be in Morse (code)? The whole thing just didn't resonate with me. Maybe if the puzzle had slowed me down At All, if I'd been forced to really work out the themers, I would (somehow) have had greater appreciation of them. I dunno. I just know that this was fun-free for me. It's not even enjoyably bad. There are no howlers or inanities that I can take pleasure digging into. The puzzle is just ... there. Taking up Sunday-sized space until the next Sunday rolls around.
[Sidenote of little relevance to the overall enjoyability of this puzzle, but ... why in the world are there cheater squares* in this thing!? The black squares after DAB and after SPY (and their symmetrical equivalents), why? You usually bring in cheaters when there's just too much strain on the grid, when it's hard to fill cleanly and you need to release some pressure. But ... It's not like things are particularly dense up there (or down below). Were things really so taxing that you had to add these superfluous black squares? Whoa, there's another one (under BRATT, above CHAIR). How is making short answers even shorter going to improve the overall appeal of your grid? I have to assume that without those extra black squares, the fill got real ugly ... so maybe I should be grateful those squares are there. Also, if the theme had been fabulous, I probably wouldn't even be noticing them; I certainly wouldn't be caring]
Though the puzzle was very easy, there were a few times where I had to stop and think today, outside the first couple themers. Like 96A: Bud after Jack, perhaps? (CHASER). That is (I realized eventually), Budweiser after Jack Daniels. Good one (no, really, I liked it). I had ---N for 77D: Adam's apple locale and was very very briefly mad that the answer was going to be CHIN ("what the!?"), then noticed that the "a" in "apple" wasn't capitalized ... which I'm now realizing doesn't mean a damn thing (that's how you spell "Adam's apple"), but somehow when I was solving, I thought "oh, that lowercase "a" means it's a regular apple, not the anatomical apple." Bizarre how being totally wrong (about the capitalization of "apple" in "Adam's apple") can lead to the right conclusion (in this case, EDEN). I had AWAKE and maybe even ALERT before AHEAD at 3D: Up. I briefly cast Mark HAMILL (!?!?!) in "NCIS," and then when I recast Mark HARM-N, I recast him like that (without the final vowel—totally unsure). Needed several crosses to remember ALOO GOBI, which is delicious, but the technical name of which I blanked on. But otherwise, there was almost no resistance today. Not only that, there was really no interesting or original fill to ooh and/or aah over. It was all pretty dreary. Not even dreary. Just ... plain. Unless I'm supposed to be excited about ERNO RUBIK (I'm not).
How long did it take you to figure out the theme? I needed two themers. When I got SPECIAL RE: QUEST, I thought that the first "quest' was the Titanic voyage itself, and then the "Search for the Titanic" was a separate, follow-up quest—a RE-QUEST. "Well, that first quest didn't quite work out the way we'd planned. Let's try another!" It was only when trying to make sense of the clue on MANUAL RE: COUNT that I had the "aha" moment of noticing that the "RE-" was supposed to be read as "RE:" It's not that the basic idea isn't clever, in its way, but ... there's just not a lot you can do with it. All the "humor" is in the clues, and there's just not that much juice to be squozen out of the core concept. When the grid fails to pick up the slack in terms of either interest or difficulty level, well, you get [waves hands at grid] this.
Not much that needs explaining, but ...:
- 11A: Place in a pyramid, say (ENTOMB) — Yesterday, I listened to the latest episode of Karina Longworth's You Must Remember This... podcast, which is about late-career Howard Hawks. Extremely coincidentally, this ended up helping me get this answer faster than I might have otherwise, as much of the episode was about Hawks's Land of the Pharaohs (1955), which is about a Pharaoh who has a robber-proof pyramid built (over the course of many, many years) so he can be ENTOMBed with all this treasure without fear of grave-robbers taking all his stuff. William Faulkner (who did not like movies and did not watch them) is one of the credited screenwriters. He didn't know how Pharaohs talked. No one involved in the production did. Does anyone? Anyway, the movie ... did not do well.
- 48A: Bit of Rasta headwear (TAM) — can you really have a "bit of headwear?" Why isn't this just [Rasta headwear]? "Bit" is bizarre.
- 84A: Scout's container (CANTEEN) — first thought: "Why is Scout (from To Kill A Mockingbird) in a container?" Nobody puts Scout in a container!
- 78D: Spanish muralist whose "American Progress" is in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Center (SERT) — if you solved crosswords in the 20th century, you definitely know SERT, and if not ... probably not, I'm guessing. (This is only the third appearance of SERT in the 2020s, whereas SERT appeared eight times in 1992 alone)
I hope you enjoyed this much more than I did, or, if not, that you finished quickly, maybe even broke your personal Sunday record. Someone must have broken their record. I can't be alone in thinking this was supremely easy. Or maybe I can be alone. It's been a weird week / month / year, and a long cold lonely winter. Discovering that I'm an outlier (in puzzles, and in general) surprises me less and less these days. I'm getting used to it. Hopefully next Sunday I love a puzzle you all hate. :) Remember the "Art Heist" puzzle? Good times ... See you next time.
*"Cheater squares" are black squares that do not add to the overall word count, usually added to the grid solely to make filling the grid easier for the constructor(s).
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100 comments:
Astoundingly easy, sailed through it like Magellan. But hats off to the "RE-" to "RE:" themer. Simple, but effective. Just with it was in a tougher grid.
Although I didn’t find this puzzle as easy as did Rex, I enjoyed the write-up. Nice reference to “Here comes the sun”, and to the Art Heist puzzle. (Yes, I do indeed remember that one!)
86A across reminded me of a Steven Wright one-liner: “I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.”
Once again LMTR. Why do I like it better than Rex? Not because I think the theme is sensational...yes it's about as cheesy or corny or clunky as Rex argues...but, but, but....for the second week in a row we have been gifted with a natick-free puzzle, and I must say that this is refreshing....feels like good old crossword puzzles again. For all the lacklustre of the theme, the cluing for the fill more than compensated, IMHO...I was quite entertained by the abundant wordplay there! Though the theme was not stellar, the puzzle overall was very solid and very clean. So I give it high marks and hope the dynamic duo of Katz and Chen will hurry back with more of the same...
Yes, @Rex, I enjoyed this much more than you did, and I finished quickly. A puzzle isn't bad because it's Easy.
Due to numerous non-crossword distractions I needed an easy puzzle, and when I saw Jeff Chen's byline I relaxed. I seem to be on his wavelength; I generally do well on his puzzles, and this was no exception.
My one issue was at 35A, MANUAL RE: COUNT. There's nothing in the answer that has anything to do with killing the Count. A manual about Dracula would be about care and feeding ("be sure to give him lots of blood every day, keep his coffin clean," etc.), not killing. I really wanted MANUAL RE: Wooden stake or sunlight or -- off the C in COUNT -- Clove (of garlic, even though garlic keeps vampires away but doesn't kill them).
Like a dog wanting a reward before doing a trick?
HASTY RETREAT
I love word quirks, and crosswords are proof that they abound in our language. I love how constructors find them through flashes of insight, or serendipity, then run with them in a puzzle’s theme.
Today, for instance, giving new meaning to words that start with RE and riffing on it. I was greatly entertained as I uncovered the theme answers. This was a hoot.
Something special about those theme answers – six of the seven have never appeared in the 80+ years of the Times puzzle, despite being very in-the-language and having punch. Terrific finds. Bravo on that, Rich and Jeff! (Only SPOT REMOVER is not a debut answer).
And while more than 18,000 answers that begin with RE have appeared in the NYT puzzle, I found it very hard to come up with quality alternate theme answers, and man, I tried. Either I thought of a RE word and couldn’t come up with anything, or what I came up with fell flat.
So, I was not only entertained, but impressed.
Thank you, Rich and Jeff, for putting this together, and providing for a lovely gambol in the box today!
Definitely a one trick pony - and fill in the blanks easy. No real ugliness - but when you question yourself so many times that “the clue couldn’t be that simple” something is awry.
I love ALOO GOBI.
TATTOOED Love Boys
I love Land of the Pharaohs. The way the pyramid seals itself with the evil wife inside.
When I see Jeff Chen’s name I know it’s going to be a boring puzzle.
Today's "almost a minute" think for the final squre was the SERT/DENT intersection. DENT felt right, but SERT felt sooooo wrong. But since I could not come up with anything else, that's what I went with. Liked the theme.
@rex The tv show Inspector Morse has on opening tune that spells out Morse in dots and dashes
Hands up for Sunday speed record.
Agreed with Rex - though in my case I don’t have to write a daily blog about it and so it was breezy and over before I could get bored with the theme.
Fastest ever Sunday. I texted the screenshot to my spouse I was so stunned.
I had to do some post solve research to learn what HIVE MIND refers to. Interesting concept. Liked the Pluto clue for CEL - nice to have a bit of a chuckle on a pretty much standard 3-letter Crosswordese.
I don’t have enough interest to research RONDOS v.v. Sonatas, so will just have to take that duo on faith.
I read an article in the NYT (I believe) not too long ago about a Sriracha dispute - something about a different supplier (or maybe a different type of pepper) - anyway, I just remember a couple of dudes out in the Frisco area weren’t playing nicely together. All I know is the version I used to buy tastes different now and I don’t use it as much as I used to (at one time I pretty much treated it as a beverage).
Incredibly easy. Also a reminder that I will never remember if Rubik is ERNO, EERO, or ENZO
finished puzzles but don't understand 99across
Occasionally I quite like an easy Sunday so I can speed through it with just the one coffee and feel smug (though much less smug when I come here and see Rex halved my time…!). Also I loved the NOAH clue so much it made up for any other defects in this puzzle.
I liked this puzzle. I finished it in the time my wife had a conversation with her friend (no, it wasn''t THAT long a conversation!!)... She had wanted to work on this together but nope, finished it, too bad. As a ham radio operator, I am totally fine with SHOWREMORSE and the dots-dashes/title thing.
This is the first I've heard of "cheater squares" but see what Rex means.
I often spend hours watching NCIS, so Mark HARMON was a gimme. Law & Order is the other show I watch a lot so Benjamin BRATT is also a known quantity.
In short, I had a lot of fun with this but agree, this was a Monday-level difficulty, a bit easy for a Sunday.
Great, clean, fun. Loved it.
Dull, way too ease. Didn’t pick up on the theme and, by the time I finished, I didn’t care. My favorite thing about XWord themes is needing to get them in order to assist in solving the puzzle.
Easy by Sunday standards, but a very well constructed and enjoyable puzzle. The clue for "Adam's Apple locale" was a classic misdirect that brought a smile. I also didn't understand 99-Across, even though I got it from crosses.
One of the best Sundays in ages. Easy, sure, but that’s a plus on Sunday, which too often is a slog.
Easy-medium Sunday
Hey All !
Rex missed one more set of cheater squares, after CANTEEN, before ROADIES. Total: Eight superfluous Blockers. But, I'm not one to dwell on that, if it results in cleaner fill. To get on @AnoaBob's point on the S, you could replace the Blocker after CANTEEN with an S, resulting in CANTEENS/HONS. Did that add anything to the fill?
Can't remember where I caught the trick, maybe after second or third Themer. Different kind of parsing, which I thought made for a good puz. Light on junk fill, which is always a plus.
Neat to see the full ERNORUBIK, usually just get his first or last name. Saw a tutorial about a super easy way to solve the Cube. Any mixed up cube in seven moves, I believe it was. Something like, turn the side, turn cube 90°, turn the top, then the side, then 90°. I forget (there's a shocker). Go Google it. 😁
Agree easy for a SunPuz, but I'm enjoying the fact of not being stuck, and forced to look something up. Just me?
Too easy, but ... Leave in a chair - LET SEAT.
Have a great Sunday. Don't get too (drunk, upset, happy, not peeing for many hours) watching the Super Bowl today!
No F's! In a SunSized Grid! My GOD. I'm gonna HURL.
RooMonster
DarrinV
Thought it was cute. Not great. I also hoped the RE would change to DE or something else, like different prefixes? That might have made it a bit more challenging. I love your super mega pic.
Never heard of "Like That" and just listened to it for the first time. I am stunned that this is what passes for good "music" these days. Beyond awful.
Whenever I see Jeff Chen’s name I know it is going to be a clean entertaining puzzle.
8 minutes yesterday, 10 minutes (and a personal Sunday record) today. I know I’m not getting any smarter, so must be something wrong with the puzzles.
13:27 Sunday record for me
Morse must refer to great bway star Robert Morse
This is great!
Think bees
Crazy easy. Even spelled ECHINACEA correctly on the first try. Very few over-writes and nothing that wasn't a gimme on the second try. The only tiny hesitation was the NOAH/BARB section. Had Boom originally and the NOAH clue was a good enough misdirect to create a slight slowdown. Finished in 16:24 between leisurely sips of coffee.
It wasn't a record time for me, but it sure was close.
Easy, didn’t get the theme, didn’t care.
A few clues in I new it would be my fastest Sunday solve ever, and that Rex would be disappointed. Liked the theme but now I'll be dipping into the archives for my usual Sunday puzzle time with a cat on my lap.
Same thought about the manual.
Enjoyed the low key word play in this puzzle. Maybe because I also enjoy watching NCIS. It’s a show that talks high tech but overall is a low tech production. Unlike some recent puzzles this was not a trivia fest, or as an earlier blogger put it, not a natick fest. So, maybe a bit on the easier side but not so easy for me that it was boring. Lots of hunting and pecking to fill in the blanks.
you can just google “hive mind”. it’s a thing.
On HIVE mind, my friend Miriam Webster says: the collective thoughts, ideas, and opinions of a group of people (such as Internet users) regarded as functioning together as a single mind, e.g.,
… Mindy Kaling asks her Twitter followers for the best dinner spots in cities she's visiting. Generally, people trust that feedback from the hive mind is correct and well-informed.
—Sarah Z. Wexler
I would almost quit doing Sundays if I wasn’t vain about my streak.
Crossword blog rant about Musk: REXREX
I have no idea what’s cheating about “cheater squares.” So what? The make the puzzle work. BFD.
1. Beanie incident?
2. Did you hear the one about the Mr. Universe contestant whose fake bicep fell off during judging?
3. Legal argument for Mr. Wahlberg?
(answers below)
The other day I mentioned that all of my dates were the PITS by the middle. Maybe I've started coming to grips with the reason for this given that today I had DA_ _ for 122A (Reason someone might go streaking) and immediately figured DAtE. No wonder I could never get anyone in DEBUNK. The consecutive acrosses BLUR and MOËT also have associations with most of my dates.
Hey, the sister of Hades was trying to get ahold of you.
Okay, I'll give HERA call.
Donner: Did you hear about Santa's standup act?
Blitzen: Yeah, they say he SLEIGHED at that Pole dancing club.
@Rex. I'm curious about your discovering that you're an outlier. It sounds like some unpleasant self reflection is going on. If so, please keep in mind that you are a very important part of the lives of (largely) intelligent people throughout the world.
As @Lewis points out, these "re" things are much much tougher to construct than you might think. I won't bore you with the details. Try it and you'll soon understand. Also, @Lewis, you forgot to mention the rare-for-crosswords five letter palindrome contained in this puzzle.
For those who watch Severance, "Scout's container" could be Lumon (if it had enough letters).
I agree with @Rex on the easiness, but still enjoyed sussing out the themers. Thanks for a fun-to-solve but difficult-to-construct puzzle, Rich Katz and Jeff Chen.
1. Episode recap
2. Gag reflex
3. Brief remark
Yes, it was an easy one (gave us a break for the Super Bowl), but had to come here to get "What's It All About." Thanks, Rex.
I filled HIVEMIND and then had to look it up. Never heard of it. I also had to look up spelling of ECHINACEA. I enjoyed the fill. Sunday doesnt always have to be a SLOG !!!
Cheery and easy combine for cheesy - one that I’d expect from the maker of Squeezy. Which coming from Jeff is as predictable as a rom-com ending (you can’t spell CHEESINESS without CHEN!)
Which isn’t all bad - it’s kind of a combo of corny and sweet, like a Family Circus comic. Many of the Squeezy themes are dad joke groaners but still I come back. There are worse ways to start a morning.
The REs were clever and all worked. It must have been fun when Messrs Chen and Katz came upon each.
Throw in an ATTILA the HON bonus (and a clever Connections featuring Jumbo and Tron) and well, again, there are worse ways to start a Super Sunday morning.
It sucked.
I enjoyed the puzzle, and I enjoyed Rex’s write up even more: Rex was even more petulant and dyspeptic than usual. Excellent reading on Super Bowl Sunday. 🦅🦅🦅
Way too easy. Pretty much exactly half of my average time. But hey, the streak's still alive, right?
Here to report that yes I also broke my record.
This is a clever rethinking of RE words, in my opinion. I especially liked SHOW RE MORSE, SPOT RE MOVER and HIGH RE SOLUTION.
I had a few write-overs, most entertaining of which was dwarvES before KETTLES. And I was "Believing" the Truth before a TENET. Otherwise, this was an average Sunday difficulty and I enjoyed it.
Thanks, Rich Katz and Jeff Chen!
Yep, very easy. A whooshy end to a whooshy weekend.
I did not know that Drake and Kendrick had a beef in 2024 and I’m fine with that.
SLEIGHED is a tad cringy.
Cute, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did but his write up was delightful.
Easy, yes, but it took me far to long to notice the RE/RE: gimmick. Probably lost a step by shoveling a lot of snow before solving. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Maybe I would remember ALOOGOBI better if I actually ate some. Not yet though. Speaking of eating, I;m saying CHURROS are more Spanish than Mexican, and I have had chocolate y CHURROS at 4 AM in Madrid, so there.
Today's highlight for me is the appearance of DOOWOP, as I am now on my second DOOWOP group. My first one started thirty years ago and two members aged out, so now I have seniority, a dubious honor. The two younger members don't know the classics but they can be taught.
I liked your Sundecito just fine, RK and JC. The Rare Kind of Junk-free Crossword I don't expect on Sunday, and thanks for all the fun.
Dullsville cluing. A big snore. Could I make this flat, boring puzzle interesting for myself? Yes. Once I had the theme, I tried to get all the rest of the theme answers with as few crosses as possible. I got SPOT REMOVER off just the V. I got SHOW REMORSE off just the M -- though I don't think I needed it. And so forth. I didn't fill in any more of the answers than the minimum I needed to get all the themers. Then I stopped because what fun there was was over.
There were two highlights for me today. First, spelled ATTILA right on the first try - with confidence. Rex asked for mnemonics for the spelling, and mine was "Attila ain't vanilla." It's so bad, but I remembered it today when I needed it.
Second highlight was a PR of 29:27. My Monday PR isn't even under 7 minutes, goodness gracious.
That was the fastest Sunday ever for me. I got down to about five empty squares before I even considered hitting “check puzzle,” which is rare for me. Usually I make it halfway through. I enjoyed it a lot and figured out the trick (but not what the re meant) very quickly. Maybe a little too easy but still enjoyable.
Agreed :)
So - to all the masochists out there - what's wrong with an easy Sunday for a change?? I enjoyed. it & like Rex, I thought "could my answer be right - could it be this easy?" I loved NOAH & I loved this puzzle - not having to beat myself up to find my typo in a Sunday grid - definitely had Jeff's name (& Rich who I don't "know" as well) all over it & I enjoyed it. Thanks for a fun & yes, easy Sunday to you both :)
Easy and a wordplay treat. Major props to the constructors for coming up with common phrases in which all three elements (word + re + word) change their meanings. I'll concede that CHAIN RE: ACTION is a little wobbly, but the rest are solid and satisfying, with the MANUAL RE: COUNT reaching the "inspired" level.
@Conrad 6:09 - I agree with you about the contents of the MANUAL and have been entertaining myself by imagining more topics, ranging from the basic (cape maintenance) to the advanced (techniques for werewolf avoidance). Thanks for the added fun.
Is the correct term SLEIGHED or SLEIGHN?
I do my NYT Sunday in Pen and strive to (and usually succeed) make no mistakes. This was the easiest, and most boring, Sunday puzzle I’ve done in the 40 or so years I’ve been solving.
Agreed! I never remember which is which.
Slog is answer to 39 Down, "Hardly a romp"
Whoa! Thank you! I filled it in with crosses, finished the puzzle and came here thinking NOAH was an acronym! So funny!
I was still trying to figure out the theme at this point and thought maybe it wanted MANUAL de-COUNT.
The good thing about doing these outside a grid is that you don't have to worry about length, much less symmetry. Try these:
1. God handles the whole shebang in two, not seven days. (7, 10)
2. "Call me X, call me Y, call me Z --whatever you think of first." (11, 12)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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1. WEEKEND RECREATION
2. SPONTANEOUS REGENERATION
Hands up, too. Nothing punctures the post-PB ego boost quite like coming to this blog and seeing Rex classify the relative difficulty as "Way too easy!"
(Not that he is wrong - my PB came despite having to play hunt the typo.)
Do you read other people’s comments? We a have a regular poster who points out cheater squares every single time.
Not so "easy" for me at all. Never heard of: "Charcuterie" (?!); HARMON Mark (or is it Mark HARMON?); Benjamin BRATT; or GAEL Greene. No idea what a "blogroll" is; never knew the word "cache" could be tortured into a verb (CACHING). Not a TV watcher so had no idea about TBS. Also no clue what a "face emoji with hearts for eyes" represents (Sorry, but I still communicate in words, even when I'm writing).
I found it uncommonly easy as well…but I’ll never understand OFL’s completion times. If you GAVE me the answers to this puzzle, and all I had to do was transfer them to the grid, I’m not sure I could do it in 6 or 7 minutes. I know I wouldn’t do it by moving at a regular human rate. I’d be hustling.
@Liveprof
If you're UTAHN, then it's SLEIGHN.
😁
RooMonster Wise One Guy
Yes it was very quick, which is probably why I enjoyed it more than a normal Sunday! The only typeover I can remember from last evening was Mark HAMILL... typed that right in and thought: NCIS?... something's wrong with that...
Proud of myself for getting ECHINACEA off the initial E and even spelling it right.
an accessable puzzle for newbies. not a newbie but i enjoyed it. probably a personal best time.
I thought it was cool that, to quote Rex, "the changing of "RE-" to "RE:" brings with it a change of the meaning of both words on either side of "RE:," every time." For me, however, it was every time except once.
Maybe because I was in the business (psychology teacher), the meanings of SPEECH RECOGNITION and SPEECH RE: COGNITION hardly change at all. SPEECH RECOGNITION is a form of COGNITION.
And, by the way, neither phrase necessarily implies any connection to "neuropsychology", as clued. For that to work, there would have to be something along the lines of a mention of Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe of the brain.
Oh, and I would say that one can be an outlier and still be a member in good standing with the rest of humanity. Plus, there may be times when being an outlier is preferable, advantageous even, to being a faceless, nameless part of the HIVE MIND. So, there.
It didn't take me very long. But what I loved about it was that I didn't continually find my progress impeded by names I do not know and profoundly do not care about. I'm aways happy to learn a new bit of geography or an important painter or a bit of Indian food -- I love Indian food but there are no restaurants here and I always forget the names. In this case the rap reference was to an admittedly unsavory diss war that has actually been written up in the semi-legitimate press this week. And very few TV actors. Yay!
Also no idea what ECHINACEA is.
Great catch, @egs on the 5-letter palindrome! Yes, in Crosslandia, they are rare and wonderful...
. . . nor ALOOGOBI either.
I must be the only person left in the world who doesn't speak French. "Tours __ jours" utterly flummoxed me. No idea how to pronounce it, either.
+1! "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" definitely applies here. One person's cheesy/corny/clunky is another person's cute and diverting. I found plenty of "chuckle fuel" in this lovely puzzle, and it was just what I needed this morning. One antidote to an oversized grid is fill that is clean, clever and amusing. Yes, I finished in near-record time, but that's OK with me on a Sunday. Loved it!
Average Sunday time for me. Loved the puzzle, the theme was fun and clever. IDGAS RE: everything Rex pilloried about it. Thanks Jeff and Rich!
Sailor et al
Interesting reaction
I very rarely agree with Rex when he dumps on a puzzle. While I thought the theme was fine (though having the RE in each theme answers made it even easier)the rest of it had way too much old crosswordese that I have seen over my 50 years of doing this puzzle. And also too much stuff like DAB and TOOT very easily clued. I do agree that it was nice to see the constructor didn’t overly rely on names. But I think part of our different reactions is that we differ on what a natick is.
Eric NC
Saw the sequels but never saw the original so interesting item about Inspector Morse.
Well, this was just disappointing. Too easy. So easy in fact that it got boring. And I usually love Sundays with some sort of a word-related theme. Not so today. The only reason that this was nit a Sunday personal best was that I started watching a couple tv shows I had recorded as breaks from my boredom.
I will say that it was an interesting (only momentarily) observation by our constructors, but not Sunday-worthy by any means. Possibly a quick Monday of the type that gives newer solvers hope of completing later week offerings?
Please know that many people here do not speak French. I have some pleasantries in my pocket when actually in France (a few times) and Quebec (a few times). Otherwise, I learn language from the NYT xword!
all the nyt puzzles were too easy today. wordle, connections and this (which i was saving for the afternoon) was exactly as rex said way too easy and boring. now what do i do with my evening.
I agree!
Loved comment today…and I got the “phew” message today on Connections.
Anonymous 9:13 AM
I have heard OF the Lamar record but I have never heard it. It has been in the news quite a bit.
He is highly popular. As is Drake.
He and Drake got into a very vicious (verbal and song) feud and that hit is part of it all. Drake has even sued the record company for libel for issuing Like That.
I wonder if the feud helped make it a big hit , sort of like kids in a school yard gathering around a fight? You should be UNhappy to know that Lamar just won Grammies for it.
Personally, I have zero interest in listening to it ( though I may read the lyrics to see what the fuss is about)
I'm not sure I should publish this since it snipes at one of my favorite contributors and one with gobs of smarts. However, as I said in my comment, this is much harder than you think, so I want to let those who kind of nodded at the theme and said "yeah, ok" what is really involved. Let's start with the before and after of a couple of themers:
SPECIALREQUEST. On initial reading, it means something like "unusual behest". However, after reading the clue, it means "one-off TV program regarding a search". You see, special has changed from meaning "unusual" to meaning "TV show" and "request" has changed from meaning "behest" to meaning "re: a search".
Similarly, in SPOTREMOVER, SPOT goes from meaning "stain" to meaning "advertisement" and REMOVER goes from meaning "cleaner" to meaning "re: U-Haul rentals."
In your examples, @Nancy, Weekend Recreation means "Having fun on Saturday and Sunday". Its second meaning would be something like "Saturday and Sunday re: producing something." The second half has changed meaning, but not the first.
Similarly, Spontaneous Regeneration in the first reading means something like "regrowing something without coherent causes" while the second one means "without coherency re: naming of age cohorts." Again, the second half has changed, but not the first.
When you play with this concept, you realize that, for the gimmick to work, the first word of the answer should (and perhaps must) change its part of speech. Going from adjective to noun seems easiest, as in "special" meaning "unusual" (adjective) and changing to "TV show" (noun)..
Modifying one of your examples, you could have an answer of PARTIALREGENERATION clued as "Fill in the blank clue relating to X,Y,Z or Millennial".
I'm sorry for this TLDR type comment, but it may increase the respect for this hard-to-construct but ego-boosting theme.
Shoutout to @dgd yesterday late afternoon PST yesterday. As a California resident, my late afternoon posts are also often some of the last but I always read all the late qnight qq A qfrom the day before after
Quick shoutout to @dgd from the post late yesterday. Since I am in California, and usually post in the afternoon PST, I also wonder if anyone reads the late ones. I do. I get my current day done and posted and always go back a day to see what I missed. That’s how I picked up your Saturday comment just now (after posting my thoughts from today). I enjoy seeing what everyone has to say.
Was in a semi-zombie state after super long travel day back from Tortola, BVI. No biggie on time change (one hour ahead from Eastern) but early start due to having to take ferry from Tortola to St. John ( customs) then to St. Thomas…yada yada. Ok. I’m a tired cuz I’m a senior cit.
but…this leads to me saying I was happy as a clam to have an “easy” Sunday puzzle. I will say that as I was solving I thought “Rex isn’t partial to Jeff Chen so I think this will be ‘bad’ review.” Ok…he weighed in as boring. To me…boring is not good…BUT I was happy to complete in well under my “best” time cuz dammit, I needed to do laundry!
Too easy, too dumb.
And don’t under any means go see “The Substance.”
Stay home and do crossword archives.
Meh. Not the worst. Not the best. A snappy reveal was lacking. The title: “What’s it all About” just doesn’t cut it.
I set my Sunday PR today. I've recorded times for 1928 NYT puzzles over a decade, and I set my PRs for Friday and Sunday this week.
Um kinda liked it - solved the puzzle before I got the theme. But thought the puzzler did some good work in creating the clues and not creating natives . A Sunday way to relax with my tea!
Fellow Doowopper here. We are The Bald Spots. Going for over thirty years now. We must keep the flame alive.
I likewise came to comment that churros originated from Spain, and as someone with family from there I am offended 😂
Whoa!! Kendrick Lamar may not be your “cup of tea” but “ I don’t like it” is one thing, it’s not awful. As a rapper he is one of the best that has ever been in the genre. He has won a Pulitzer and a Grammy not that awards make you great but yeah, I mean, just don’t trash what you may not love.
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