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Animal in the Premier League logo / SUN 4-6-25 / Bit of curling equipment / ___ - Tiles (kids' building toy) / Language from which we get "cashmere"
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Constructor: KAREEM AYAS
Relative difficulty: Easy - Probably more Medium if you can't see the theme easily.
THEME: "Course Correction" — 6 wheels in the grid feature 3 letter common shortenings of school "courses." In one direction, those letters bridge two answers to create a longer answer. In the other direction, they complete a single word to form the correct answer to a clue in the other direction. It makes more sense to solve it than to try and explain it.
Theme answers:
- SPIN CLASSES (69A: Intense cycling sessions ... or what you must do to complete the answers to this puzzle's starred clues.
- WHY DO I BOTHER (18A: *"Oh, what's the point?") / BIOPIC (5D: Genre of the 2024 film "Bob Marley: One Love")
- EMPTY SPACES (38A: *Voids) / AUTOPSY (12D: Post-mortem order)
- COMIC STRIP (31D: *Part of the funnies page) / SCIONS (53A: Descendants)
- ZAGAT RATED (51D: *Like restaurants in a famed dining guide) / IMPART (83A: Bestow, as a quality)
- QUINTILLION (99A: *Number with 18 zeros) / LITCHIS (91D: Chinese fruits with leathery rinds)
- BRIEF SUMMARY (122A: *Recap) / HUMMUS (102D: Pita dip made from chickpeas and tahini
The erhu (Chinese: 二胡; pinyin: èrhú; [aɻ˥˩xu˧˥]) is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, that is sometimes known in the Western world as the Chinese violin or a Chinese two-stringed fiddle. It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles and large orchestras. It is the most popular of the huqin family of traditional bowed string instruments used by various ethnic groups of China. As a very versatile instrument, the erhu is used in both traditional and contemporary music arrangements, such as pop, rock and jazz.
• • •
Hey everyone, Eli back again for you on this Sunday. I may have to keep it a little shorter today because I did a Spartan Race this morning and I feel like I could fall asleep at any moment. And then typing out that theme description and all of those answers isn't making things better. Because oh boy, what a flashy theme!There's so much going on here that it's almost hard to wrap my head around. And because the app did a fun little animation, I had to post two grid pictures! The app also has an intermediate diagonal for each of the wheels, but from what I can tell they don't spell anything in that direction. The theme answers all worked and all felt sparkly to me, especially ZAGAT RATED and WHY DO I BOTHER. I thought at first that the spinning letters were arbitrary, but when I realized they were common school course names, it really clicked. I mean, I'd say PSYCH more often than PSY, but that's splitting hairs. I also appreciated that all of the "stubs" of the unrotated answers would be valid grid entries (PIC, HUM, IMP, etc). It might have been nice if the partials of the starred clues were also standalone words, but I think that might be physically impossible. I'm still a bit in awe at how much went into this theme and how well it all worked.
Unfortunately, this amount of theme strained the rest of the grid. There's a lot of less than stellar fill that had to carry the weight. ABCS, AAHS, AWS, ERS, BTUS, DAIS, NILE, ILKS - just not a lot to get excited about. The longest non-theme answers are GARAGE SALES and STAY CURRENT, which don't quite pop the way I'd like. And speaking of staying current, this one really doesn't. I feel like the revealer might be the most modern thing in the grid, and while I'm an avid cyclist who appreciates SPIN CLASSES, I feel like we could move a little more into the current decade.
"I thrill when I drill a biCUSPID / It's swell though they tell me I'm maladjusted!"
I think I can say I fall on the side of enjoying this puzzle. I've also had the app open while taking notes and the animation is a little hypnotic, so that's probably helping. I appreciate ambition, even if everything doesn't quite come together.
More thoughts:
- 42A: Break before college (GAP YEAR) — I always feel like this is an exclusively privileged kid thing. Must be nice to be afford to just take a year off. Maybe I'm being too harsh.
- 25A: Light, short-sleeved, collared garment (CAMP SHIRT) — A year ago, I might have thought this was a made up thing, but being a tiki enthusiast ends up having a pretty big crossover with fun camp shirts. They're kinda closer-fitting, more breathable aloha shirts. I don't have this exact Jurassic Park shirt, but I do have a Jurassic Park camp shirt.
- 50D: "Wayne's World" or "MacGruber," informally (SNL SKIT) — I know there are people in the comedy community who would riot over calling these "skits" instead of "sketches" (a skit is something you do at your school talent show, a sketch is what pros do, etc...). I think the clue threw "informally" on there to alleviate that. I was going to post a sketch of Christopher Walken as a drama teacher censoring "Greased Lightning," but I can't find an embeddable version. Look it up. Anyway, here's Jon Hamm on a toilet:
- 93D: Tax-advantaged savings plan (ROTH IRA) - I get that retirement and savings are important, but everything finance related always feels gross and scammy to me. The past week has done nothing to dissuade me of that notion.
- 21D: Cloying sentimentality (TREACLE) — I think you know what's coming.
I think that's all the energy I have today. It looks like ACPT is a great time, and separately, I'm proud of everyone taking to the streets to have their voices heard. As for me, I'm off to have a nice DARK ALE (92A: Brown beer). Cheers!
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld [Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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93 comments:
Easy- medium. My biggest problem was figuring out the alternative spelling for Lychees. If I’d realized the spinners were class abbreviations it might have gone more smoothly. Other than that pretty whooshy.
WOEs - CAMP SHIRT, MAGNA, and ERHU
Costly erasure - see above.
Impressive construction and a fun Sunday,
Thanks for the Little Shop video, Eli. When I was still working and someone sent an email saying they were going to be out of the office for a dental appointment, I'd always reply with that clip, asking "Is this the guy?"
Medium. It took me a while to catch on to the theme because in the app the pre-cycle part of the across answers were highlighted while the post-cycle part was not. I'd have preferred if both had been highlighted, or neither.
Overwrites:
It took several tries to get the right spelling of LITCHIS (91D)
sET before MET for Satisfied at 104A
WOEs:
CAMP SHIRT (25A)
PERCY (89D) where it crossed ERHU (101A)
My comment on 85D: "Please don't be BAILERS. Please Don't be BAILERS. Please don't be BAILERS ... d'oh!"
I was simply amazed by this theme and construction. One small nit is that five of the six wheels spun clockwise and then the Zagat Rated one spun counter clockwise. This was weird but the overall theme of actually spinning classes was way too fun for me to not have this as a 10/10. Fill was better imo than Eli giving it credit for. Cluing was great here so nothing felt blah.
Fun, original and tight construction, but with no resistance whatsoever.
Only issue was dRY humor that made the terrific “turned to ash” clue harder to suss out.
Nice shift at the wheel, Eli, steering us to class (in a classy way this time;)
Thanks for the write up! Fun theme that left the rest a bit crowded, I agree. I’ve never come across that spelling of “lychee” - tripped me up in that last corner until I started counting, “ok, million is six, billion is nine…”
Another terrible "Look what I did" puzzle.
WTH is Nile Green??!
¿Por qué me molesto?
For those of you around the world who joined in demonstrations yesterday against the embarrassment that America has become, thank you.
I knew when I opened this puzzle those dials were going to spin around after I finished the puzzle, and I saw a zillion little black squares leading to a zillion little ugly fill words. And then I dove into the puzzle and the sad slog began.
So who is this for? Are they hoping to lure young people off the zombie apocalypse virtual battlefield, or out of their digital Batmobiles, or from being space cowboys in distant galaxies against an invasion of xenomorphs all to look at this puzzle and say, "Aren't crosswords cool? We have partial words spinning around!"
Game-ifying puzzles is always going to be lame. Write better clues and make better grids and that'll lure in the children of the screen.
I've reached the point where I can bring my sense of humor and wonder and enjoy most any puzzle, but this one is pretty sad. The clues are Monday boring, the spinners aren't even a theme, the only thing giving me anything interesting was a Chinese fruit and a Chinese fiddle.
Let's look to our slush pile rule again: If you want to see your puzzle published, fill it full of juvenalia, and it'll make the first cut. SLEAZE, TUNA TACO, TRASHY, LEWD... all horizontal so slushy won't miss 'em.
I don't blame the constructor. It's a remedial puzzle perfect for someone ready to beat a Sunday. Some will find it amusing. But we've had some pretty good puzzles lately, so I know the NYTXW can do better than this.
I'll do my word count and uniclues later today. I need to be to work by 5.
HUCKS? WTF? (79A: Throws, informally). cHUCKS, okay. I'm 60 years old and never heard anybody say "HUCK" when they mean "throw". EVER. That H was the last letter in the puzzle. That combined with BAILERS soured me on this one. The visuals in the app made it pretty clear, even without the revealer, what was going on, and as BIOPIC was a gimme and WHYD was clearly not a word I saw that it had to be "WHY DO I BOTHER", checked 19A and was off to the races. IMPose before IMPART--but knowing ZAGAT helped fix that error.
The rest of the puzzle was fine, and I'm sure plenty of you will have heard someone say, "HUCK that thing and let's go", but man.
I had the same quibble with the theme - not all answers rotated the same way. I caught into the theme pretty quick but the rotation inconsistency made for a longer solve
I enjoyed this but agree LOTSA the fill SORTA suffered. Hard to believe HUMMUS has never been an answer in a NYT puzzle before.
When I search "Nile green", I come across a UCLA professor. However, the "images" of "nile green" show Benjamin Moore hue, etc.
ATRIA are "pieces" of the heart? I wouldn't exactly call them "pieces"... parts or chambers, yes.
Went with DRY humor before WRY humor. DRY was quickly determined to be a dead-end!
Took a bit to get the theme (over at ZAGA TRA TED), although I have no idea who TED Hughes is and filled in the TED based on the theme.
I'm sure the constructor must have tried to find a way around ERHU, but without success.
Never noticed the spinners were course names.
I’m probably in a pretty large cohort of us today who were able to manhandle what appeared to me to be a pretty easy grid. I really struggled with the theme construct though - even after I discerned the “spin around” component, I think I must have spun the wrong way, because I had the proper letters but they were upside down / backwards. I stuck with it and enjoyed trying to parse together the gimmick - but I really would prefer a more straightforward theme.
Sensational puzzle, and I didn't even realize the double entendre of the 'course correction' title. Once in a while a theme will come along that makes me marvel at the constructor's concept and ability to execute it. 'How did he DO that?' This is one of those times. Super job!
Two things that Eli focused on had already caught my attention. One was CAMPSHIRT, happy to see that was unfamiliar to others as well. The other was GAPYEAR, which I guess can be a vacation for well-to-do types, but not always. My older son took a gap year waiting tables, chose an affordable state school, and managed to graduate debt-free. Don't know how anyone affords college these days.
I have somehow never run into ERHU, which is the kind of "only in crosswords" term that I think I would remember. Hello new friend.
Saw that the B belonged in WHYBOTHER took a while to put DOI in there too. Nice aha! when that happened.
Nice feat of construction, KA. Kinda Advanced constructioneering there, well done you, and thanks for all the fun.
CAMP SHIRT was a WOE for me. Thought it might be a CAMo SHIRT, common among hunters here in Vermont.
Even if you’ve never heard of the ERHU, believe me, you’ve heard it. It appears in film and TV music often, usually to signal something “exotic” (esp. in sci-fi). It’s a beautiful, otherworldly sound. And I just realized that “otherworldly” is a bit exoticizing here.
Eli, I used to share your distaste for ROTH IRAs and other financial and retirement stuff. Thank goodness I changed my attitude around age fifty and got down to some serious saving. Now I’m semi-retired and not freaking out as the orange one makes everything more precarious.
And I second @Gary Jugert’s thanks to all those who got off their keisters yesterday and demonstrated.
not a fan
I had EYE wARE briefly for 3D. That seemed reasonable, but it left me utterly confused as to what a wAMP SHIRT might be.
I generally find something to like in a puzzle even though some can be disappointing at times. I myself have never constructed one so I try not to be harsh. But oof. This was a kiddy puzzle at best. It’s a little early for a LITCHI martini but I think I could have done this puzzle after 5 of them.
Makes me wish I took a metaphorical GAPYEAR and skipped today and picked it up again tomorrow. In the end I felt like WHYDIBOTHER.
Best part of the entire experience was Eli’s Little Shop of Horrors reference. So thanks for that.
Sorry to nitpick, Eli, but if not here then where else? A CAMP SHIRT is indeed a thing, but I don't think what you posted qualifies. A key feature is the camp collar, which sits lower on the neck/sternum (great for ventilation in the heat). The fit also tends to be loose and boxy rather than fitted. Examples here: https://www.theessentialman.com/blog/camp-collar-shirt-fit-guide-men
Hey All !
Pretty nifty trick/idea/execution. The shaded squares all go in backwards (the letter order, I mean), and connect the Starred clue with the one beside/below it to make a complete thing/phrase. I'm sure it's not any clearer to you now after reading that!
Then when completed on the computer, animation takes hold, and the Down shaded ones turn Clockwise, whereas the Across shaded one turn Counterclockwise and complete the whole word/phrase.
All the ends of the Themers are real standalone words, but not all the fronts are. It's close, but a couple stray. We get WHYD (passable), EMPT (nope), QUIN (iffy), BRIEF (A word!), COM (Yes), ZAGA (?). But, counter of that, the words left after the rotation are all real words! PIC, TRIP, IMP, HUM, ONS, CHIS.
So quite a lot happening in this here SunPuz. A great effort by Kareem, which for me, plays out nicely. Wondering if he needed a big explanation page when he first submitted this.
I found fill surprisingly good, considering working around and through the Theme. There's dreck in every puz, this one was SORTA light.
It gets a good ZAGAT RATE. Har.
Happy Sunday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Anyone who gives a SUMMARY that is not BRIEF should be muzzled and made to sit in the corner.
Thank you.
COMIC STRIP spun counter clockwise also.
Simply. Dreadful.
I took one look at the puzzle and decided not to waste my time.
What a grouch!
A pretty simple, easy puzzle. Only hang up I had was dry vs. wry in the southeast. But I wonder who is this for. The trick is cool, but it comes at the expense of any interesting answers. The black spaces that make the theme work take up the space for better fill. I’m sure it took a lot of effort to pull off the fill. But it meant the solve was not particularly fun.
I believe that COMICSTRIP also spins counterclockwise.
Ted Hughes was a English poet - a pretty good one. For a time he was married to Sylvia Plath.
I literally said "Oh wow" out loud when I got the "classes" level of the theme. Beautifully done. This is my favorite theme puzzle I've done since last year's Lollapuzzoola.
Also, for the record, I also started signing that "Little Shop" reference when I came across CUSPID.
LYCHEES!!!
I knew this wasn't going to be a Nancy puzzle as soon as I laid eyes on it. Still, I started gamely (pun intended). I saw BIO and PSY and thought I sort of had the theme -- but of course I didn't, not even close. I knew I was missing something, but what? It never crossed my mind to spin the answers -- why would it? I don't think visually or spatially -- I just don't. Anyway, I was a third of the way down, bored to tears as well as mildly annoyed, and I thought: why not go to Rex, find out what the trick is, and save yourself a lot of aggravation? So that's what I did.
It's a very, very intricate bit of construction. Worthy of praise -- but, I fear, not from me. As I said: Not a Nancy puzzle. Sensing these things at the outset always saves me a lot of aggravation.
Had SLur then SLAm before SLAP. NILE green? I googled afterwards . Google told me it is an English historian, a movie, a book before it mentioned it is also a shade of Benjamin Moore paint. weak. And crossing EHRU did not help. Speaking of green paint - UTTERROT? OK.... I had BUlkY before BURLY .
But I loved this puzzle - one of the best Sundays of the year for me. You could SORTA see what you had to do just by looking at the grid. Turn the screws. I was a little hung up on whether they should turn left or right.
Did non-NYers have a problem with SHIRLEY Chisolm? it was a gimme for me, but I remember her from the 60s and 70s.
Yes, I paused at WRY/dRY it could go either way, another Kealoa .
All in all, this was a tremendous construction. Not only the spin effect, but also having the three letters as class abbreviations. Such a clever theme. Thank you Kareem!! loved it
Acrosses spin counterclockwise, Downs spin clockwise, but it's consistent in that all wheels spin in such a way that the "course" appears reversed in all answers post-rotation.
A fun theme to figure out, but the fill makes the God of Short Crosswordese OOXTEPLERNON proud in places. AWS ADMAN ASEA right off the bat? ERHU? I thought it was old-shool crosswordese but it's making its second appearance after it debuted in 2023.
I finished in a normal Sunday time, but the solve felt sluggish due to having to wade through aaaalll the short fill.
Interesting spin (heh) on the MAGNA clue but... I'd rather have the usual Magna Carta instead of yet ANOTHER brand name partial after CHEEZ and ROLD from the last two Mondays.
I think Ted Hughes was Sylvia Plath’s husband. Now that I’ve said that I’ll dub check. If so…still pretty arcane.
The four across answers spin clockwise and the two downs spin counterclockwise. So there is consistency.
A guy that thinks the world revolves around him is on an ego trip. A guy who thinks it revolves around Charlie Brown is on a COMICSTRIP. Of course if you really want a trip, we've got ACID at 111A.
Bulls get castrated, chefs get ZAGATRATED.
I'm surprised that the "Beach bird" clue wasn't repeated elsewhere in the puzzle. After all, one good TERN deserves another.
I was at first skeptical about whether 1A (At bay, say?) was a good clue for ASEA. It kinda seems the opposite to me. But in exploring how ASEA is used, I also found many references to its use meaning addled, befuddled, etc. But then I noticed the Arkansas State Employees Association and thought I sure hope they don't have a slogan like "We're ASEA and we're here to help you" or something of that ilk.
Anyway, the concept of the theme is solid and fun, and I think some of today's bellyaching is really about the gimmickry added by the NYT tech bros. I'm not sure anyone has noted that the courses are all backwards and thus need correction (hence the puzzle title). I think COURSECORRECTION would have been a better revealer. But it was certainly an easy, but fun, solve. Thanks, KAREEM AYAS.
That's right! As someone who reads a lot of poetry, Ted Hughes is not that arcane. He was not only the husband of Plath--he is also (problematically responsible for publishing a lot of Plaths posthumous poetry).
I'll have to huck this one
This is the best Sunday puzzle of 2025 - so far…
Terrific construction feat and LOTSA fun to rack my brain over. Midway through solving, I had two of the grayed-out areas filled in: SCI and LIT, so I knew we were looking for CLASSES in the others. But what was their function? (@Nancy, here's where you and I part company, as in "the lengths I'll go to to try to understand a theme."). Solving on my iPad, I took a screen shot of the grid and on the resulting photo highlighted all of the starred entries - and COM-ICS-TRIPS snapped into view, which gave me the pattern for the others.
Knowing I was looking for courses helped me immensely with BIOPIC, because from the -IC I had in place, I wanted some kind of musIC, and that unknown CAM_SHIRT was giving me no help at all (CAMo? CAMi?). It also AIDED me with IMPART, but I still had a head-slap moment at EMPTY plACES - why kind of course has Tpl?? And way back when I'd been pondering classes that can have three-letter abbreviations, had thought of PSY.... Anyway, AAHS of satisfaction for this one!
Two quotes from Eli's write-up (thank you, Eli :)
"It makes more sense to solve it than explain it" and "I appreciate ambition, even if everything doesn't quite come together."
This puzzle gets 2 "A's" from me -
ANNOYING & AGGRAVATING :(
I took a gap year after having a tough freshman year and got a job. It's what I imagine most people have to do to survive. The knee-jerk impulse people have to stereotype another person's life path is often inaccurate, needlessly divisive and presumptuous. Not sure why you felt the need to say anything.
Puzzle was challenging and fun for me. Took a minute to figure out what was going on but when I did a genuine surprise.
Four of the answers spin clockwise but only two spin counterclockwise. Am I being a bit too picky?
@Gary, Agreed 👏 for the demonstrators. Our country has become a scary place in which to live & will become scarier :(
You were very kind in your post re: this puzzle.
For me it was annoying & aggravating & a waste of my (Sunday) time :(
Thank goodness Arkansas is a landlocked state.
I'm even older than @Adam but I've never come across the verb "hesuck" either.. maybe in my next decade? Like a few if the rest of you I completely missed the class ("courses") aspect of this theme, but I have to say it is pretty cool frosting on the cake. Low PPP count (awaiting Gary's confirmation) and no true naticks in thias one, a clean finish. High marks from me...
Good question. I guessed that E and it worked out. Right next to that PERCY / ERHU cross. Guess which square I filled in last.
Ironically, the last answer i filled in was SHE, in That's all SHE wrote." Fitting. As Eli said, decent puzzle, but too much mindless fill.
Most of the time, I'm just like you, @Carola -- consumed with curiosity as to what a theme I don't understand might be. Certainly not annoyed and definitely intrigued. Dying to figure it out on my own. But almost always in those cases, there's no spatial relations element. It's wordplay or rebuses or letter substitution or something not especially visual. It calls on my ability to think rather than on my ability to see. I just have a blind spot when it comes to spatial relations. With that diabolical, much-feared by me section to be coped with on the SATs of my youth -- "Which of the following is the same figure rotated 90 degrees?" Who the hell could tell that? -- it's amazing I got into any college at all -- much less a very good one.
The reviewer wrote: “ I always feel like this is an exclusively privileged kid thing. Must be nice to be afford to just take a year off. Maybe I'm being too harsh.” Lots of people take gap years, some are privileged and some aren’t. I just don’t why he thinks it’s harsh to call someone privileged. It’s good to be privileged. Wish I were privileged.
Classy SunPuztheme. Easy-ish solvequest, at our house.
staff weeject pick: MUS. fave twirly-gig class abbreve, and, along with HUM, generated the debut word HUMMUS.
other faves: The TUNATACO & UTTERROT pair. ASEA & IDOS ?-marker clues [there weren't many be-?-marked clues in this rodeo].
Thanx for takin us for a nice spin, Mr. Ayas dude. It passes the LIT/MUS test, IM&AO.
Masked & Anonymo9Us
... well, vernal my equinoxes ...
"Springtime" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Thnx again egs for the laughs especially "Bulls..."
Have never head hucks and don't quite believe it exists. But even more in disbelief over anyone ever, anywhere, dying something "ash".
What school course is "MUS"?
Congratulations Rex!
I remember the entrance exam to Peter Cooper College in NYC that I took in 1967. It had an entire section of 3-D images bisected that asked you what the resulting shape looked like. Still gives me nightmares on how utterly lost I was. And I are smart. 🥴
I didn't even notice that the shaded squares are abbrev's for classes until I came here. And of course Across Lite didn't do any animation, too bad, that sounds cool. A pretty decent theme but the sheer weight and slog of a Sunday puzzle harshes the buzz a bit.
To Adam and others: when I was a kid in the 1960s in western Canada, we definitely said HUCKS for "throws"; I dunno if they still do.
Interesting that they clued 57a STONE via the sport of curling... that's very Canadian of them.
Every time I see the word STUD I think of my little battery powered stud finder. Women seem to think that term is hilarious.
Yes, buck is not this. Got hung up on southeast corner with “dry” humor instead of “wry.” So never got lewd. Very clever and fun puzzle.
There are 4 down themers and 2 across themers, plus the across revealer. You’ll find that the across answers “rotate” counterclockwise and the down answers turn clockwise.
Actually, it’s more accurate to say that *all 6* are mirrored over a line from the bottom left to the top right. In other words, regardless of the initial orientation: the top and right cells switch, and the left and bottom cells switch places. This is so that letters are always in the reverse order after rotation. eg. ART becomes TRA.
If any of the themers rotated the opposite way than they currently do, they would have the same spelling in both directions. So it’s actually quite cleverly done as it stands.
Tired of the gimmicks can’t we have a straight intelligent puzzle got tired of trying to get the trick never seen it before Chinese fruit Chinese instruments
Huck was a late 1940s term for “throw up” as in vomit. And yes, I am even older than that and still remember it
Too bad, since it was a fun one
Gotta make this quick because my wife has reserved us seats to a Sunday matinee of something called "Cambodian Rock Band". Not something I would have chosen, but I'm a pretty good husband, so ...
Amazed by the trick but aggravated by the entire thing. That's a lot of hard work for a Sunday morning. Had to capitulate at LITCHIS. I tried various spellings but that one eluded me. Had to hit reveal to finish up and when the screen told me revealing would break my streak, I answered, "Who gives a shit?" and headed for the shower to get ready for the show and maybe enjoy something today. Maybe someone will play an ERHU in this thing and I'll feel fulfilled.
Impressive but not fun. Why do I waste my Sunday mornings on this stuff when I could be out turning compost? Sundays, bah!
No-one else objects to clueing EPIC as "grandiloquent"?
MUSic. Obvs.
I assumed it’s MUSic.
M&A
Congratulations to Rex on his team performance at the Crossword Puzzle Competition!
MSN Explorer was a portal, similar to AOL. The browser was named Internet Explorer.
Understood!
I do. I DNFed this one because there were too many annoyances vs rewards.
What I objected to was calling STONE a 'bit' of curling equipment. They're pretty substantial bits.
What would be the objection? Grandiloquent means larger than life, and means larger than life. The former tends to be used with respect to speech in an unflattering sense while the latter is applied to a wide variety of things that inspire awe. Crossword puzzles are not meant to be one-to-one matches to either the dictionary or the prevailing colloquial standards.
Thank you, pabloinnh, for pointing out that Gap Years are not just to allow time for a kid to backpack around Europe. I took two gap years between high school and university, lived with my parents, worked like a dog at two jobs (waitressing, landscaping), saved every penny, and graduated with my nursing degree with a very small debt that I paid off in another two years. And my parents didn't have to shell out much for my education. So Win Win!
Very complicated theme that I finally figured out. Fairly routine solve after that. More fun than most theme puzzles for me, at least.
Hmmm... I was thinking Museum studies, but I think M&A is right.
Easy, but I made it Medium by being impatient, which I blame not on the puzzle, the constructor(s) or the editor(s) but on my obsession with that stupid clock. I finished without a bell after just 30 min. Not my fastest, but pretty good considering how anemic my first two passes were. Once I noodled the tricksies, I of course sped up. That left only the matter of the botched entry or entries. **All** I had to do was relax and look over the grid, nothing more. But no for I was weak. I required side-googling (indirect searches), thus incurring a technical DNF.
My stumble? For 91D -- Chinese fruits with leathery rinds, I had TILCHIS, despite understanding that 99A -- *Number with 18 zeros was QUINTILLION. I just didn't do the mental square rotation correctly... Blast!
But overall, good solving experience. And clever tricksies, my mental weakness notwithstanding.
@Anon 12:05pm, exactly the same as my puzzle finish. Amazing construction, thank you Kareem!
As a former Ultimate Frisbee player I can attest to the existence of one small group that uses hucks extensively to refer to long passes. Eli, don't be afraid of finance there are lots of scams but it's important, just remember "index funds", "buy and hold" and "low expense ratios" and you'll do fine. Also nice puzzle and good write up.
😉😘 ~RP
Thanks ~RP
This blog and its comments section is dominated by uncurious and judgmental people who usually don't know what they're talking about. It's why I read it! Sorry your feelings were hurt :(
I also liked the puzzle.
In addition to being married to Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes was Poet Laureate of England from 1984 until his death in 1998.
Gregmark
Comments about crosswords
Clues & Answers
Exactly!
Crosswords are puzzles, not dictionaries Close enough for crosswords is the point!
“Huck it” is definitely a Maine-ism; couldn’t tell you if it even extends further into New England. I’m very familiar with it, yet was still shocked to see it in the grid!
I will make it short since y’all are about to go to sleep out east/central ways.
As a lover of complicated but clever and cohesive Sunday themed puzzles, this is 100% what I want. The actual fill was easy and once I got the gimmick, I whooshed around excited to see what the next wheel would reveal.
What a feat of construction!! This must have taken a long, long time to complete. Then there’s the animation at the end; no idea how that’s done but whereas I usually grouse about “grid art” and clever animation, changing colors etc, the execution on this was nothing short of masterful, creative and smoooooooth!!
We have not had what I think of as a “traditional” NYTXW Sunday in such a long time, I cannot recall the last time I found a Sunday to rave about.
For those of you who loathe this type of Sunday shenanigans (or in this case is it he-nanigans) I am sorry for your agony in slogging through. For me, c’mon Kareem, do it again, please!!
People: 8
Places: 4
Products: 10
Partials: 14
Foreignisms: 4
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Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 40 of 142 (28%)
Funnyisms: 0 😫
Gawd: AWS & AAHS. BAILERS.
Uniclues:
1 What my friends (and enemies) call me.
2 Heirs abuse grandma's stupid angel baby statue.
3 My opinion of educational offerings from a cottagecore string maker.
4 Scribblings of Asian bronze-agers.
5 Lore surrounding the loss of the ambulance chaser's local TV commercials.
6 Hoarder's happy place evidence.
7 Food for squirrel one percenters.
1 TRASHY S.O.B. SLEEZE
2 SCIONS SLAP STONE LAD
3 ETSY SPIN CLASSES I SAY
4 SANSKRIT BRIEF SUMMARY
5 ADMAN BAILERS STORY
6 SMILE AT GARAGE SALES
7 WRY ZAGAT RATED ACORNS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: That time of the year when you sneak out the back door because you can't pay. EASE ON DOWN THE ROAD SEASON.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Eli,
Taking a gap year is indeed a privilege, but calling someone who does that “privileged” is name-calling, and it’s no different than any other type of shaming. There are plenty of people with means who share your disdain for the current situation. Point being, we arrived at the current discontent precisely because of sides-choosing, and your willingness to sideline people who are able to take a gap year - simply because they can do such a thing - is a comment that only perpetuates division. Just because someone has means doesn’t make them less worthy of your shared empathy as a person.
Separate from that - and again, with full acknowledgement of the challenging political climate in which we find ourselves, I would consider that discussing personal finance is not just important, but critical. As such, denigrating all finance-related topics simply because it makes fragile Eli feel “gross” is a short-sighted and sophomoric tack. People who could otherwise benefit from a Roth IRA might be less inspired to research it because you have incorrectly conflated it with a difficult time in our country. Saving for retirement is more important now than at any time in the past (a point you perfunctorily hinted at before undoing it a moment later with the word “but”), and so trashing a retirement vehicle that has nothing whatsoever to do with the current absurdity is irresponsible.
Nile?
Thx for articulating everything that was in my head!
Dying hair Ash Blonde... common.
When is it Nile green? I thought it was bile green. Bile is green. Green with envy and the bile flowing.
Exactly!
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