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Breakfast order request / SUN 3-9-25 / Footwear for a sharp dresser? / They're below par / Headwear that's stereotypically red / It's blowin' in the wind / Baby name whose popularity plummeted after 2015 / Service providers? / Mexican marinade
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Constructor: Michael Schlossberg
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: Extra! Extra! — the grid has a list of headlines clued with their publication venues and dates.
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: CASSANDRA [Seer cursed by Apollo so that her prophecies would not be believed] —
It's Rafa again! Don't worry if you're tired of me -- I'll be gone tomorrow. Let's talk about this Sunday puzzle.
- 25A TITANIC SINKS [London Herald 4/16/1912]
- 27A NIXON RESIGNS [The New York Times, 8/9/1974]
- 39A DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN [Chicago Daily Tribune, 11/3/1948]
- 63A WALL ST LAYS AN EGG [Variety, 10/30/1929]
- 91A FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD [New York Daily News, 10/30/1975]
- 113A / 115A HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR [New York Post, 4/15/1983]
Cassandra or Kassandra (/kəˈsændrə/;[2] Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, pronounced [kas:ándra], sometimes referred to as Alexandra; Ἀλεξάνδρα)[3] in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.
• • •
It's Rafa again! Don't worry if you're tired of me -- I'll be gone tomorrow. Let's talk about this Sunday puzzle.
This one really wasn't for me. I'm not really sure who it was for, but I do know for sure it was not for me. I'm generally a believer in "if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all" ... but alas I do have to write this blog. So, let me try and break down why the solve didn't spark much joy.
It all boils down to the theme, which fell flat for me. "Here is a list of seven things that happened!" ... okay, and? Where is the wordplay? Where is the wit? Where is the ingenuity? Sure, not every Sunday theme needs to be completely groundbreaking. But a list of headlines really feels like it's missing some serious oomph to justify an entire Sunday-size grid. They aren't even in some specific order, or related in any way other than being subjectively famous. In general, a completely arbitrary rule of thumb that I just invented right now is that if a Wikipedia page exists listing (almost) all of your theme entries, it's probably not an exciting enough theme for a Sunday puzzle!
 |
| A drawstring going through some EYELETs |
Also, only the first three of these headlines were familiar to me. TITANIC SINKS and NIXON RESIGNS are just very straightforward ... like, yes, these events did happen. DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN was somewhat familiar to me as I'd seen the photo of Truman holding the newspaper (spoiler alert for time travelers from the '40s: Dewey did not, in fact, defeat Truman). The others were ???? to me. Doesn't mean that they are bad or unworthy entries (there are many, many things I am unfamiliar with) but it just made my whole experience with this puzzle a giant meh. To be fair, I was born many years after the most recent of these headlines, so maybe the history / headline buffs among you will have had a different experience. Were people familiar with all of these? Let me know!
 |
| Morehouse's campus (mentioned in the HBCU clue) |
Anyways, let's say some nice things about this puzzle now!!! APOCRYPHA is a very fun word that made me smile. APRILS [They're known to open with some jokes] has a cute clue. FOR THE WIN, IT'S A SHAME, I DECLARE, AW COME ON are all fun non-theme entries. ASSESSEES is not "good" but is hysterically 88.9% Es and Ss, so it kind of still made me smile. It really is a solid construction overall. There's not much gluey fill to nitpick here at all. This was clearly gridded and filled with a lot of care. Just a pity that the theme didn't do it for me.
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| NAMIBIA's Skeleton Coast |
Bullets:
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
- 4A SHAD [Common saltwater fish] / 68D GAR [Needlefish] — Was funny to see both these fish that I only know about from crosswords in the same grid
- 50A NAMIBIA [Driest country in sub-Saharan Africa] — I've never been, but I think Namibia is so cool. Its coastal area is known as the "Skeleton Coast" because of the number of shipwrecks around it. There is often very thick fog, and there are basically no human settlements along most of the coast. It looks gorgeous, though.
- 93A YARD [48-oz. beer glass] — This was totally new to me. I don't really drink so it makes sense I wouldn't know this but it made that area a little hard (along with the tricky clue for PORCH [Where people typically go to the mat?] and the (to me) completely unknown HEADLESS BODY / IN A TOPLESS BAR). Actually, thinking back, I really did flail quite a lot in that section.
- 45D UNION [The "U" of 60-Down] — I lived my whole life thinking USSR stood for United Soviet Socialist Republics. Now I know!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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102 comments:
The only headlines I were familiar with in advance were the Dewey one and the Headless one. But it seemed like the themers were set up in a sort of progression -- I don't think it wasn't a coincidence that the first two headlines were the most straightforward and the last one was the one known only for the headline instead of the event itself.
Hi Rafa! This theme was much more up my alley because I have heard of all of these headlines, though not lived through all of them. HEADLESS BODY / IN TOPLESS BAR is pretty epic. I remember watching NIXON RESIGN(S) on my little black and white TV in 1974. All in all, as Sundays go, not bad, although my expectations are low... Sundays rarely delight me.
It got off to a bad start with a pile of names: IDA and NIXON crossing ALEXA, and with ICONS and CEL both clued with names, yuck. Thankfully it didn't get worse from there.
I finished with an error at square 62 with T-AD crossing -OL because... well seriously, who expects a V there? I ran the alphabet and didn't see it.
36 across "TEAM doesn't have one" = AN I, well except in French it does: "EQUIPE". And love the word APOCYPHA whenever I see it, or its adjective form "apocryphal".
Before I came here I checked out Wordplay and several people commented on 84 across "Headwear that's stereotypically red" = MAGA HAT.
Happy daylight savings everyone!
Easy-medium with the top half easier than the bottom, mostly because I knew the headlines at the top, the bottom not so much.
Costly erasure: WALL STreet before WALL ST. LAYS…
Breezy and fun, liked it quite a bit more than @Rafa did.
Headless body in topless bar is widely considered the greatest tabloid headline ever.
Just to underscore what @okanaganer said, I am one of those that the puzzle was for, since I lived through all of them and remember all but the Dewey/Truman one (39A) because I was only eight months old. I agree with @Rafa about the fill, but unlike him I smiled at every one of the theme answers.
It's AW C'MON, not AW COME ON. And HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR is one of the most famous headlines in history (DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN is another). The rest were all inferable from their dates--although I'd never seen or heard of the Variety one (WALL ST LAYS AN EGG) the crosses were fair. I misspelled LOLLiGAG, which threw me for a while, and I had trouble parsing TV AD (I was looking for T _AD), but otherwise no trouble and I enjoyed it a lot more than @Rafa.
Frankly, I welcomed this distraction from the horrendous headlines we've been subjected to every day since January 20.
Found it easy because I could guess 3 themes and get part of 2 others from thinking about the dates. So I had the themes mostly completed before the rest of the puzzle.
Adios adobo.
Ay yi yi. Toughest puzzle in years. Way too difficult for my feeble brain. Fought it for two hours under the haze of NyQuil and finally gave up.
People: 13
Places: 4
Products: 15
Partials: 12
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 48 of 140 (34%)
Funnyisms: 6 😐
Uniclues:
1 What noted Sleepy Hollow resident is famous for, essentially.
2 Why you're sitting in the parking lot with a black eye.
3 Commercial for ambulance chasing lawyer and former MMA fighter in New Mexico has gotta take the belt.
1 HEADLESS BODY LOLLYGAG (~)
2 "AW COME ON," IN TOPLESS BAR (~)
3 I DECLARE TV AD NADIR (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Lord of the Flies locale for those who do their class assignments. DIORAMAS ISLE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
FORD TO CITY DROP DEAD is also a classic headline esp to this former New Yorker.
I thought it was a creative theme idea. The headlines were familiar enough to hold my interest (and the dates helped guide me). The downer was the amount of out and out trivia, which just overwhelmed me. Hard for me to parse together the entirety of IDA, PESETA, HOSTA, MALLE, TOSCANINI, CASSANDRA, OLMEC and APOCRYPHA. That’s a big ask - hell, half of them don’t even look like they are real words. So, kind of a weird solving experience where I was into the theme but there was just too much that was outside of my wheelhouse to get any real momentum going today.
What I loved about this theme was that it was not a one-trick pony. It had dimension:
• The riddle-cracking fun of guessing those long answers with as few crosses as possible.
• Most of its answers evoked images of the headlined events, where I paused to relive what I remembered.
• The headlines that were funny WERE funny to me, filling me with smiles.
• The one headline that was unfamiliar was a worthy TIL.
So, the theme was more an experience rather than simply a figure-it-out.
Plus, some lovely sparks. The gorgeous APOCRYPHA. Being misdirected by [Drink after a race, say] for HYDRATE, where I was seeing “drink” as a noun. That tiny 4x4 section in the upper SE rife with schwa enders AROMA, EMMA, MAMA, and a backward DATA. And finally, two uber-clever clues: [Where people typically go to the mat] for PORCH, and [They’re known to open with some jokes], for APRILS.
Very fond of what the box offered today; thumbs raised high. Thank you greatly for this, Michael!
Def had MAGA hat in there first! I knew all the headlines, which made it fun. I think it was John Mulaney who updated the Daily News one with: ‘NYC to Ford: Who’s Dead Now?’
Four more:
M___ W___ O___ M___ (New York Times, 7/21/1969)
U___ U___ A___ (USA Today, 9/12/2001)
D___ Y___ B___ I___ M___? (New York Times, 2/22/1980)
R___ A___ P___ (Washington Post, 8/30/1979)
MAN WALK ON MOON
U.S. UNDER ATTACK
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
RABBIT ATTACKS PRESIDENT (Look it up)
I was about to post a comment asking about APRILS opening with jokes ... then I got it.
In case others are occasionally slow like me ... April 1 opens the month of April.
Sorry, Rafa, this one was for us oldsters. I wonder how many millennials and GenZers actually read newspapers?!
Didn't feel sloggy to me - - look at NE and SW corners , for example. Clues and or answers were not hard but generally stimulating (especially liked ALEXA).
Nice trip down memory lane on a Sunday morn
Hi, newspaper writer here, so I guess this one was for … me? As others are saying, the last three are classic clever tabloid-y headlines, the best of a genre, Dewey defeats Truman is the biggest newspaper oops of all time, and the first two are just big events, the two word kind. I laughed when I realized topless bar was the answer (I was trying for some kind of Houdini and glass box). But even so, as you point out, they’re all of a category and then ok, so what it. But cheers to the great headline writers still working out there!
These headlines were all super familiar to me. From the S alone (and the date), I got NIXON RESIGNS. While I enjoyed (easily) remembering them all, I agree they don’t make for a highly scintillating theme. But the rest of the puzzle did have some fun and clever stuff, so I had a pleasant time.
If you are someone of a certain age, as I am, then the headlines just snap into place. But if you’re a younger solver, today’s puzzle could be a real struggle. The main problem I have is that today’s puzzle is essentially a trivia contest.
Easy up top, where the headlines were major stories everywhere. Much harder down bottom, where the stories were, I assume, very NY-centric.
Also one of those days where it felt like although there were not a ton of propers, they kept cropping up in key places preventing progress (IDA, SENOR, MALLE, EVIE, RIAN, EMMA).
No idea what that clue for PORCH is getting at.
Really like the clue for APRILS. Not great fill, but great clue.
OVER EASY is my preferred egg style. Very few places get it right, and the most common problem is overcooking, so that they are over hard. I'd rather they err the other way - I'll take undercooked before overcooked. Same with bacon.
Maybe it's just a NYC thing, but around here, FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD and HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR are iconic. I got both (as well as most of the themers) from just a couple of crosses and the date. I think I had more fun with this one that Rafa did. I think it's got to be a challenge to find a set of headlines that 1) are instantly recognizable to a significant segment of the populations, 2) pass the breakfast test, and 3) fit symmetrically.
I thought the theme was ok but let’s face it I am a Boomer. But the rest of it was filled with wither crosswardese or esoterica at its worst. Not a fun Sunday puzzle for me.
I thought it definitely skewed old and looked like a puzzle from the 90s, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Sometimes the headlines were obvious, other times I had to figure them out based on the historical events.
Can someone explain PORCH and go to the mat?
I think AW COME ON is just a more emphatic way of saying it - picturing Gob Bluth yelling it multiple times in Arrested Development.
Finished it without an error with the help of my significant other, who guessed (HEAD)LESSBODY for me. The puzzle was easier for and old guy like me than for the young crowd, because I remembered most of the headlines from back then. My father happened to be born on 4/15/1912, at the very hour the Titanic sank, so that was a cinch, and NIXONRESIGNS was equally easy. I got FORDTOCITYDROPDEAD from the crosses. Enjoyed the puzzle greatly...thanks to the constructor.
Hey All !
Another hair tearingly tough SE section today. That makes two days in a row. Many mistakes there, PAstOrS for PARSONS, aiRED for OARED, shred for RIPAT, rhyMe for POEMS, ohCOMEON-AWCOMEON. I had to Goog twice just to finish puz. Looked up RIAN and TYNAN. Sheesh.
Agree that Headlines through various years, although famous, aren't the most scintillating of Themes. Didn't know the WALL ST one (although did know it was about the crash), the FORD one (which city was he talking to?), or whose HEADLESS BODY was found in a TOPLESS BAR.
Fill mostly good, some nice cluing throughout.
@Anoa
We get a SuperPOC ASSESSEES today, but amazingly only provides one POC! That's got to be a rarity.
@pablo
I see your half point EMMA today. 😁 Is there other 1/2 pointers in here?
Welp, hope y'all have a Great Sunday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Didn’t know the tabloid two part answer and confidently put HEADLine in (as well as WALLSTreetcrash). Beyond that, not much resistance (but not too much fun either).
And hey, say what you want about Elon but DOGE has successfully cut down time waste - anyone else notice the number of hours in the day have been slashed by 4%, virtually overnight!?
You lived through TITANIC SINKS and WALL ST collapse?
😁
RooMonster Wise Guy Guy
@burtonkd. When you walk up to someone's front door, you cross the porch and stop at the Welcome Mat. Not my favorite.
Did anyone else have trouble with SAL crossing SNEAD? I didn't know either of those. What is SAL soda?
Oh, yuck!! No undercooked bacon for me, please!! Must be nice and crispy or it's inedible as far as I'm concerned.😁
Got the theme quick with NIX... - while alive when it happened, I don't remember it. All the President's Men is one of my favorite movies, so a gimmie. At that point, I was off to the races looking for other headlines. I expected Man Walks On Moon, or The Onion's much funnier counterpart and was disappointed it didn't show up. Topless bar brought a smile.
90+% Monday level easy…xword dreck like LADED; OAS; OLMEC; HOARS…tons of proper noun esoterica…old skewing headline theme…requisite NYT pandering with LGBT; HBCU…Shade for old school republicans like NIXON and FORD who would likely not wear 84A (Headwear that’s stereotypically red). AWCOMON IDECLARE this one sucked.
Me! That middle section was stumping me. I solved by way of likely letter pairings and brute force.
I figured it was a reference to a welcome mat.
Amigo-I think you mean "Ay ay ay".
Agree that it skewed old, and it probably helped if you're from NYC too, which I'm not. I knew about the FORD TO CITY headline and watched NIXON RESIGNS on TV, but I didn't know about the HEADLESS BODY (interesting story if, like me, you're inclined to look it up). Everything else eventually fell into place. A largely satisfying and only occasionally frustrating (TVAD gave me some trouble, especially crossing VOL) solve today.
I’m a Boomer and I found this to be a “difficult to get through” Sunday puzzle, after having rousing success on Friday and Saturday. For me, the top half of the puzzle was kind of a “whoosh”, then I came to a screeching halt in the bottom half. I was unaware Ford’s DROPDEAD headline and apparently the “iconic” HEADLESSBODYINTOPLESSBAR escaped my notice in the Midwest. Did the NY Post actually put out decent news back then? Seems like it’s always been known as the local tabloid style “rag” but what do I know.
Like Rafa, I tend to not say much unless I say something nice, but this puzzle was not for me. That’s not to say there weren’t many clever clues/answers.
This was surprisingly hard compared to my normal Sunday times. The ‘theme’ was a let down. I got stuck at weird crossings. Clues were meh but I enjoyed that EYELET and AGLET were in the same puzzle.
Unless you’re a food science wonk, from the 1950s or a poor constructor struggling with fill, good luck parsing SAL soda. It’s soda ash used in cooking and cleaning. Just ask your grandmother. I had TAB before SAL.
A “welcome” mat, or mud mat in front of door.
Had trouble with PORCH too, I'm assuming we're talking about a welcome mat, but it's a painful stteth.
I’m pretty much on the same page as Rafa here. Commenting to add - all of these headlines are over 40 years old. Can’t find one example in the 2000s? Most of them are famous enough events, but it still bugs me.
Was not for me either, Rafa, and I was born long before you were. I didn’t love the fill either. I thought the misdirections were just not cute or fun. And FOR THE WIN is not something I have ever heard anyone say about themselves, at least in my experience it’s directed at a fun comment or idea from someone else. I DECLARE, AW COME ON, and OH ME seem very contrived and could be a lot of different things in a tough corner. Meh, I had to break my million day streak and just check the grid at the end because I was so done with this one, and it was the cross of PESETA and HOSTA that did me in. I had PESETO. And didn’t know HOSTO was wrong since I never heard of it. Oh well.
A welcome mat?
As with nearly all the touted DOGE savings, it's merely accounting tricks. Same number of hours in the day as yesterday - just shifted.
I kept waiting for there to be a point to this beyond being a list of headlines. And I say that as a relatively old person who loves newspapers and knew all of them except the Wall St. one.
For no reason other than I love it, here's a classic from the UK. It needs a bit of context, so bear with me. On the evening of February 8 2002 saw huge upset Scottish soccer. Celtic form the aristocracy of Scottish soccer along with their bitter Glasgow rivals Rangers. In most seasons, everyone else is playing for third place. Celtic were playing Inverness Caledonian Thistle (known as Caley) in the Scottish Cup, who were an undistinguished team not even in the same league as Celtic. Celtic were at home - it should have been easy for them.
To everyone's amazement, Celtic lost 3-1. Remember, this was an evening game, so the sub-editors had roughly 20 minutes after the game to pick a headline before the early editions were published. Eschewing the usual headline brevity, they came up with.
The Sun 2/9/2002: SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS
A puzzle for boomers is aces with me. The only themer that was just vaguely familiar was the HEADLESSBODY duo, but I can see why it's a classic. Also glad others had a problem with TVAD, which once seen, was obvious. Doh!.
Apologies if my NIXON RESIGNS STORY is a rerun, Anyway, in the summer of '74 our softball team had a car entered in a local demolition derby. That was a one-off for me, but inordinately exciting, as we made it out of the first round. The idea of "rounds" or "heats" in a demo derby is counter-intuitive to me, but that's the way it was. As you can imagine there were (many) adult beverages involved and at one point I found myself in the men's room standing next to a guy who excitedly informed me that Nixon had just resigned, and I could only reply "So what? We're in the semis!". Oh to be young again.
I liked your Sunday just fine,MS. Made Sunday a funday for me, for which thanks.
@Roo-Thanks for the half point. EMMA was here last night for an overnight, and you're a brick.
This was a complete mess all over. Just huge problems. APOCRYPHA doesn't begin to cover it. A bunch of those headlines were not that famous or familiar, so you desperately needed crosses to get them. And that is going to be hard if you weren't born 80 years ago so you could live through most of this stuff. Just a huge slog with oh so much too precious cluing for the crosses. When you're going to PUNISH your solvers like this, you need to throw them a bone.
TYNAN? SAL? Stupid cluing on APRILS because APRILS isn't really a thing? PAESE??
On a porch, you may go up to a welcome mat
I knew all of them word for word, with one slight misremembering, just from the year (not the month or day) -- with the exception of HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR. I have no idea what that was all about, but I don't read that appalling rag anyway.
The one teensy exception to knowing the headline verbatim without crosses was 91A. I couldn't make FORD TO NYC: DROP DEAD fit. Crosses helped me remember it was FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.
Several of these I was alive for when they happened. The ones that were before my time are Very Famous and photos of those headlines from history have appeared often.
What on earth was the HEADLESS BODY in reference to? I'll go back and read y'all now.
One more thing. It's an entirely different experience to solve knowing the headline and patting yourself on the back than it is to not know the headline and rely on crosses. I know this because I had both experiences today. And feeling good about myself in remembering these memorable headlines is why I liked this puzzle so much. It was both entertaining and gratifying for me. YMMV.
I struggled with VOL because of T_AD and MAL_E. Ran the alphabet for the certain spot but blew past TVAD on the first try.
Yep, that was a Natick for me. The rest of the puzzle was one of the easiest Sundays in memory for me, but I DNF on SAL/SNEAD and TVAD / VOL / SNEAD. Nothing made any sense to me there.
Nixon resigned on my birthday, a memorable happy day
This played hard. The random solve kept me from getting much traction on the headlines and silly errors added to the difficulty. Oh COME ON, stars crossing tat for 1D/19A (why would I think anyone had a tattoo of Mickey Mouse?), gags before BITS. But the most egregious of the hold-ups was not getting the welcome mat part of 104A. Even after I filled in PORCH, I didn't get it for some time (and I don't like it.)
I liked seeing the various famous headlines but I quit looking at the clues early on. I shouldn't have - 25A and 27A should have been gimmes. The rest, well, I was alive for half of the events but the 113A/115A combo is not as universally known, in my opinion.
Still, it Sunday-ed. Thanks, Michael Schlossberg.
Two world-class clues in this one, I thought. ALEXA (3D) and APRILS (43D). Will they make Lewis's list?
I have never heard FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD, and without the colon after "city," it made little sense, so that was a stumbling block. Also did not know HBCU, so that hung me up.
Excellent theme!
Great clues for PORCH and APRIL. And the headlines were fun memories. But had a lot of trouble with the trivia and FORTHEWIN. So all in all feel this puzzle theme was skewed to us older folks, but had a lot of current references that made it tough to pull together.
I still don’t get the Mat/Porch connection…
@kitshef: Order your eggs lightly scrambled instead of fried OVER EASY and it will be much harder for restaurants to completely mess up your order. Incidentally, that's why I scramble eggs every morning instead of frying them: I was never able to find the sweet spot between yucky overcooked yolks and yucky undercooked and viscous whites. I would need @GILL to fly here from CA and cook them for me!
PS. I hated the clue for PORCH too.
Once a rag, always a rag.
The bar in "Headless" was Herbie"s in Queens, a strip joint. It was a subject of a movie.
The gory details can be found here:
https://www.politico.com/media/story/2012/01/the-real-story-of-headless-body-in-topless-bar-as-argued-by-veterans-of-the-post-000201/
Easy for me, old person that I am. However, with my first theme answer in place - NIXON RESIGNS - I thought the "extra" was going to be a play on "re" as a prefix, for an "extra" meaning, i.e., resigns + re-signs. TITANIC SINKS put that idea to rest. I enjoyed having WALL ST LAYS AN EGG recalled to memory and especially loved revisiting the stellar FORD TO CITY DROP DEAD, which penetrated even to the heart of the Midwest. New to me, though, was the HEADLESS headline, which I'm delighted to learn.
I also enjoyed the chewed SCENERY, APOCRYPHA, FOR THE WIN, TOSCANINI, the clues for PORCH and APRIL, and seeing LOLLYGAG as an ESCAPEE from the Spelling Bee.
The story behind the HEADLESS BODY headline -- which I just looked up -- is really interesting!
Two answers I had to look up: forthewin (????) and HBCU; neither were in my wheelhouse.
One of my favorite NY Post headlines from long ago was simply in big letters: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. Apparently there was a slight earthquake in one or two of the boroughs.
On the "headless" headline, a reporter came up with it before they knew the bar was topless. And they had trouble finding out. The place was closed and the owners weren't answering the phone. Neighbors couldn't confirm. They finally sent someone down there who peered through a window and saw a sign inside that said "Topless dancers." Bingo.
Look, I'm terrified to read what people will say about a puzzle if I ever get one published, but I can't recall disliking a puzzle more. The theme was just whyyyyy??? and the fill was so crosswordese. A few clues were perfect and the rest was just completely unfun.
With the Trump DEI edicts, HBCU will just be Historically Colleges and Universities
The Post has had myriad great headlines over the years, Headless Body being the most iconic, but my favorite was from a few years later when a certain Top Hat and Shall we Dance actor passed away: TAPS FOR FRED
Really HARD. Got burned by HBCU, TYNAN and TVAD.
@pabloinnh 10:31 AM
Haha! Thanks Pablo. Has Cielito Lindo taught me nothing?
Loved it :) I wasn't alive yet to read (some of) these headlines, but I remembered reading about them. "I DECLARE" - something they would have said when the headlines were written so for me it was a clue & a good one. PORCH, APOCRYPHA, APRILS didn't come right away but were easy to figure out.
All in all, not the horror some Sundays are & I enjoyed the history lesson a lot.
Thank you, Michael :)
Famous headlines. Knew them all. Wish they had managed to include Hix Nix Stix Pix
Literally no human has lived through all of the headlines
Easy, my first entry was TYNAN. I remember that movie. All the theme answers I basically got by the date with very few crosses. Any NYCer of a certain age should remember HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR. Fun theme, Loved the ALEXA clue, I LOLed . And APRILS was unusually difficult .
Second son vs First son? what am I not getting?
Chewed scenery must be something I'm not familiar with as well.
Proper names always stump me.
sal soda was a new one for me, but Slammin' Sammy Snead is a golf legend
I happened to visit Disney World shortly after the “Ford to city” headline, and I would’ve loved to have seen a little newspaper next to the small world ride, saying “Disney to world: you’re small”
agree with Tynan/sal. But the headlines are famous. Apocrypha is a fantastic clue/answer. Bel paese is a for real. I also don't like plurals of months, etc.
Best headline in the Atlanta Journal: Death Plane Flew Too Low
I think the idea was that as you got lower you got in the grid, the quality of the journalistic outlet declined (from London Herald and NYT to Variety and finally Daily News and New York Post). Higher- to middle- to lowbrow.
Tough Sunday for me. I put the full word STREET in that center headline and only changed it to ST when I got EGG and knew I'd have to fit LAYS in there without a rebus.
The SE was the toughest part. I'm a Chicaoan so that two part headline wasn't that familiar to me. I was expecting the first half to reference some British sex scandal. TYNAN was a complete unknown and the clue for PORCH is beyond Saturday tough. A very challenging section for me but eventually the fog cleared. For me the SE was the highlight of the whole solve.
Agreed. This just didn't feel like an actual theme with a clever twist to figure out which is what I look forward to in a Sunday (I am always bummed when it is a unthemed one). I didn't live through any of the events and only knew a couple of the headlines. That is not to say that should be disqualified, but without an "aha" moment it fell flat for me.
Gonna give this SunPuz a grudginly raised thumb. Some of the themer headlines were sorta humorous. Many were also kinda ghoulish, with words like: TITANIC, DEFEATS, LAYSANEGG, DROPDEAD, HEADLESSBODY, and NIXON.
staff weeject pick from 32 choices: WOE. What M&A felt, initially, about a newspaper headlines puztheme, until he got to the fresh (to m&e) HEADLESSBODYINTOPLESSBAR.
Did kinda like LOLLYGAG, tho.
Thanx, Mr. Schlossberg dude. It was just one har-lariously anti-Trump headline away from greatness.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
... and for yer modest dessert ...
"Party Part" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Good catch
@Roo dude, I was surprised to see ASSESSEES in that location. Usually the slightly shorter (by one E) version appears in a far right column or bottom row where it can flex its super POC powers of being a POC itself while potentially enabling five other POCs.
Ah, yes, I remember those evening editions. I was a graphic artist/designer in the newsroom and the sports section was tough. Sometimes they were still phoning in their stories as we were going to press. We had a general idea of the layout and the "art" was usually in early enough to work with because the photogs would shoot the first period of the hockey game and rush back to the newsroom to download their pics. The sub-editors or, as we called them, the rim pigs would have prepared a half dozen or so possible heds, all of approximately the same length for easy placement. They were good, those guys, but never, as far as I can remember, did they ever produce anything a funny as the hed you cite. Remarkable!
Can someone explain “porch” to me?
I was today years old when I learned that “headline enthusiasts” exist. To me, this was a non-theme. I had pretty much the same experience as Rafa, being a lot younger than the most recent of the headlines. The Ford one was hard to parse even when I had it completely filled in, because I didn’t know there was punctuation involved. I made the HEADLESS part harder for myself because I had TBCU instead of HBCU. I mixed it up with another piece of crosswordese, TCBY.
Sorry, but a gruesome murder doesn't pass the breakfast test for me. Was it supposed to be funny?
I mostly agree with you, crayonbeam, a lot of short, gluey stuff. Not all of which I would call crosswordese, but definitely "routine", with, as you noted, a few perfect clues. But, as an old newspaper guy, I couldn't dislike the theme.
Basted eggs solve ALL the problems! You’ll even make them at home https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/8465544/basted-eggs/
Basted eggs! Look it up. Solves all the problems
A brick? As in a piece of a sturdy foundation in which to build in? Or as in thick headed? 😁
Or did you mean brick with a p. Har.
Roo
Love that you included Nixon amongst the "ghoulish" answers!
Love that you included Nixon amongst the "ghoulish" answers!
PORCH?? Lower right corner was a bear for me, but when it got filled in, I still do not understand how you get PORCH from the "tricky clue" "where people go to the mat". Yes, tricky AND incomprehensible to me.
Not fun
Does SCAD count as a SOC (Singular Of Convenience)?
Who or what is SAL Soda??
I think it is a different use of 'porch' than I am used to. A porch (to me) is a screened-off area at the side or back of the house. A welcome mat goes on the stoop.
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