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Printer resolution spec / THU 4-3-25 / "First Blood" tough guy / Big attraction at MoMA / Words on a U-Haul storage container / Lead-in to many a side thought / Fifth-century invader of Europe / 1980s arcade game with a cube-jumping character / Soft drink rival of Mug / Hounds with fine, silky hair / Market checkout option, for short / Country ruled by the al-Khalifa royal family since 1783 / Agent Smith's foe in "The Matrix"
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Constructor: Hanh Huynh
Relative difficulty: Easy (might take a little longer to enter all the special squares, but it's still easy to solve)
Theme answers (ACROSS):
- CO-[STAR] (9A: One sharing the credits?)
- THE [STAR]RY NIGHT (17A: Big attraction at MoMA)
- RE[ST AR]EA (28A: Stop at the side of the road)
- NON-[STAR]TER (36A: Idea that's dead on arrival)
- CU[STAR]D (47A: Egg tart filling)
- LO[ST AR]TS (48A: Using cursive and writing thank you notes, e.g.)
Theme answers (DOWN):
- *NSYNC (11D: Band with the 2000 11x platinum album "No Strings Attached")
- Q*BERT (13D: 1980s arcade game with a cube-jumping character)
- M*A*S*H (25D: Show with the most-watched episode in scripted TV history)
- E*TRADE (40D: Online investment firm founded in 1991)
Dots per inch (DPI, or dpi) is a measure of spatial printing, video or image scanner dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch (2.54 cm). Similarly, dots per millimetre (d/mm or dpmm) refers to the number of individual dots that can be placed within a line of 1 millimetre (0.039 in). (wikipedia)
• • •
If you went to arcades (or in my case, local pizza parlors, or Chuck E. Cheese, or 7-11, or ...) in the '80s, or you had a home video game system (in our case, Intellivision), then there's a good chance you got the theme concept very early, because Q*BERT was a Thing for a few years there. Not really my thing (my thing being 1. Donkey Kong, 2. Frogger), but you got to know the adjacent games, wherever and whatever you were playing. The thing about Q*BERT is that it has only five letters, but today's answer was six, so .... "they're doing an asterisk bit, probably." In fact. And I've seen THE [STAR]RY NIGHT, just in the past couple of years, I think (maybe during that Van Gogh "Cypresses" exhibit at the Met?), so bam bam, theme sorted. Of course at that point, I didn't know if maybe I'd be dealing with other typographical symbols, but I ran into M*A*S*H real fast, and so knew that it was all stars from there on out.
The one big revelation of the day was that *NSYNC starts with an asterisk! I definitely would've placed that thing between the "N" and the "S"—in fact, I did place that thing between the "N" and the "S," which caused the only real struggle I experienced in the entire puzzle. I was desperately trying to think what [Fifth-century invader of Europe] could end in "-STAR." Never heard of a HASTAR ... are they related to the Visigoths? I wanted HUN, of course, but the "*" was in the way. But once I got the "H" from CHEER ON, I entertained the idea that maybe I had the "*" in the wrong place, wrote in HUN and whoosh, the whole corner fell into place. Smooth sailing the rest of the way.
[58D: Great ___]
- 26A: Lead-in to many a side thought (PAREN) — triply had for me. First, it was in the NE corner, which, as we've established, I was already struggling with because of the erroneous N*SYNC. Second, "Lead-in" made me think it was going to be a spoken phrase, like "by the way" or "fun fact" or something. And third, PAREN? Who says / writes that? It's like a typo for "PARENT" or "KAREN"
- 47A: Egg tart filling (CU[STAR]D) — fun fact: CURD and CU[*]D are both things one might find in a tart, and both are four letters long—sharing three letters! No CURDs in an egg tart, though, so it shouldn't have been as confusing to me as it was—only briefly confusing, though, as E*TRADE came to the rescue very quickly.
- 70A: #23 of 24 (PSI) — the 23rd of 24 letters of the Greek alphabet, the order of which I will someday commit to memory. Someday. Gotta have goals.
- 6D and 49D: Certain "Top Gun" jet(s) (MIGS / TOMCAT) — MIGS was a cinch. I was less sure about TOMCAT (esp. as TOMCruise was the star of that movie, and that just seemed a little too on-the-nose). I saw Top Gun on the first (double) date I ever went on. It's possible she did not consider it a date, but I was sitting next to a girl I liked, so ... date! Anyway, R.I.P. Val Kilmer.
And, since it was filmed at my alma mater, one more:
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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117 comments:
"'Rue the day?' Who talks like that?"
"'Rue the day?' Who talks like that?"
“How does it feel to be FROZEN!”
I liked it, and it's very rare for me to say that on a Thursday. I got the theme with Q*BERT (13D), which was a gimme because at one time I had a Q*BERT arcade console at home. I loved seeing one of my favorite movies and TV series spelled out the official way at 25D. Like @Rex, I wanted 11D to be n*sync instead of *NSYNC.
I would add a fourth "gotcha" to OFL's list for 26A: PAREN is an abbreviation and should have been noted as such in the clue.
As an Aussie three clues that made the least sense we’re all naticked together ie EBT, BARQS and QBERT. Pub test fail down here.
Like @REX I found most of this pretty easy. I don't know Q*BERT so I abandoned the NW and strayed into the middle of the grid... "Stop at the side of the road" --RE*EA had to be RESTAREA, so that was where I started to figure out the theme--but I was trying to figure out if the down TV answer was doing to be star trek or star wars or.... and then finally remembered about the *s in M*A*S*H. I filled in the rebus squares with the letters STAR and that worked too. 15 minutes so easy-medium for me on a Thursday. Thanks, Hanh for a great Thursday morning puzzle! : )
Too bad S*P*Y*S didn't make an appearance!
I had “Haze/HPI” instead of Daze. Other than that causing me to lose I thought it was a great puzzle.
Interesting concept for the theme - I imagine it was very tough to pull off. It was a little overwhelming for me. Similar to Rex, I thought it was N*SYNC, which caused be quite a bit of grief.
I also felt that the short fill suffered, with things like DPI and BAHT. One that still has me stumped is HRS for “Smash hits” - thoughts, anyone ?
You dare to insult the members of high society?! You shall rue the day, sir! Rue it like you’ve never rued before!
@Anonymous 5:50, since I've heard or read it often, quite a few people.
Bu I'm with Rex re "pain". Did anyone ever say or write that? And what is EBT?
Got the star idea early from "The Starry nigh". But had trouble with some of the downs which did not seem to want the *. I googled NSYN three times before I found a reference to * at the front.
Oh well 17A and 47A were delightful. The rest of the across themes were pretty cool too.
Home Runs.
Would like to have seen Roger Maris worked into the puzzle.
I knew something was up early when neither 'Starry Night' nor 'The Starry Night' would work with the BAHRAIN cross. It being Thursday, a 'star' rebus seemed likely.
I had no idea that *NSYNC were stylized thusly, so the NE corner definitely gave me some trouble.
In college, I got good enough at Q*bert to play essentially an infinite amount of time on a single quarter. After a certain level - 30 or so? - it does not get any harder so you can accumulate huge numbers of extra lives. Not enough to sleep for the night, but enough to let someone else take over for 15 minutes while you eat.
What a pity overambition ruined a puzzle that otherwise could have been excellent.
The 3 additional * really overstrained the grid, hence the ridiculousluly high number of obscure abbrs. (EBT, PAREN, ROTC,TSA,HPI,SRO, AVI...) and proper names.
Real shame.
Bad clue for 47d. In chess, the corner piece is the ROOK, not the CASTLE. You CASTLE with the rook and the king.
What does this refer to? I don't see pain or rue in today's puzzle or write-up.
Oh, and PAREN may have started as a shortening, but today it's a word on its own. For example, it's accepted in Scrabble. and is in all my American dictionaries (but not the British English ones).
The STARBURST puzzle 3/19/25 had RESTAREA crossing LOSTARTS at a STAR rebus square. No more STAR rebuses for at least a couple of years, please.
It's a Val Kilmer quote
Re PAREN - I believe that’s why the clue includes “informally”.
HRs = Home Runs = Smash hits
HRS - as home runs, in baseball
Head slap. Thank you !
Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?
I have never heard or read PAREN. Ever! I declare it unfit for use in a puzzle.
I did OK, also thanks to Q*BERT, which I got pretty good at back at Backstreet Amusements (curse that snake!) *mumble* years ago, but the bottom east corner fouled me up with my mashup of two spellings of a breakfast dish: OMELETE got me PEI on the bottom, and I was trying to figure out how Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island could possibly be #23 out of #24, when it was #1 out of 10 (or 13, hello territories) as the Birthplace of Confederation. But it was Anne of Greek Gables, not Anne of Green Gables, who came to the rescue.
I knew that was ringing a bell for me, thanks! and agree.
Hey All !
Pretty cool. The ole brain forgot about the Asterisks in those names, so I was thinking the STAR/asterisk was just randomly placed somewhere in the Down. Silly brain. I Did know that MASH was M*A*S*H, though. Chalk one up for memory not completely shot!
I played lots of Q*BERT as a youth. Fun, but often infuriating game. My big one then was Galaga. Killed it on that one. Then, when I got older, bought me an NES. High falutin, there.
Neat idea that worked well. Would've liked to see a few less Blockers, but puz OK as is. Although, CASTLE referring to a Rook sems off to a Chess ear (I'm no avid/regular/good Chess player, but still ...) Now, you can CASTLE in the corner. Maybe clue could've been "Corner move?" or somesuch.
Anyway, fun, easy, neat ThursPuz. Even with a BUTT SIN. Har.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Did Rex seem particularly pleasant today while pointing out a lot of the same kind of criticisms? Maybe I read it differently assuming he would have a guest blogger - at any rate, I enjoyed the puzzle and the plug. I didn’t get the *s right away, but they helped me get from the middle back to the top. While Donkey Kong was my specialty, I played Frogger and Q*BERT. Robotron eventually became my favorite that I could play almost ad infinitum. Stargate was just too difficult to master.
Have fun at crossword con and the tournament everyone who is going.
I liked it, though Q*bert means exactly nothing to me. Easy for a Thursday. Final ep of MASH was worthy of that great series.
BARQS was a double Natick for me. Aargh.
Can anyone explain EBT for me, please?
Nearly entirely flummoxed in the NW because STARRYNIGHT fit so neatly that I forgot all about the THE. Not familiar with EBT, never played Q*BERT and the only root beer I could think of for the longest time was Hires. Finally added the THE which confirmed BAHRAIN and finally remembered BARQS. Sigh of relief.
Caught on to the gimmick at LO*TS, whose clue was sadly accurate and the first thing I thought of. Already had STARCROSSED by then and saw where the STAR went, and Bob's your uncle, as they say.
Technical DNF as I had LPI thinking Lines Per Inch and never went back to change it. As usual my paper version doesn't tell me to go fix something. Oh well.
Today's old friend is EFT, which people around here actually say. No really. No one says PAREN though.
Hooray for M*A*S*H, the last series I watched religiously.
I liked you r Thursday very much, HH, even if some gunky fill could Have Had better alternatives. Thanks for all the fun.
It stands for Electronic Benefit Transfer for food assistance ( formerly known as food stamps). It has different names in different states.
Mete las narices donde no le corresponde.
Wow. Another entertaining outing even with a nearly grotesque amount of gunk. This took my whole brain to pronounce those going horizontally and imagine their existence going vertically. Oddly, M*A*S*H took to the end for me to see, and then "doh!" of course.
Fifteen partial words seems like it would be an automatic rejection, but I suppose the NYTXW loved the star search too.
My roommate in college in 1985 had an IBM with Q*Bert and I found it quite pleasant to play. He jumps into the abyss when you mess up with a fun little sound effect.
😫 PAREN. AVIFAUNA.
People: 6
Places: 1
Products: 9
Partials: 15 {aaaaaack!}
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 35 of 76 (46%) {Not a world record, but way out in the stratosphere of gunkapaloozas.}
Funnyisms: 0 😫
Tee-Hee: BUTTS IN.
Uniclues:
1 Space monsters Van Gogh painted over with big swooshes.
2 Talent of the Gramma Crochet Club.
3 What my little brothers became when I taught them how to put a screwdriver into a light socket.
1 THE STARRY NIGHT E.T.S
2 INSTA-AFGHANS
3 OUTLETS OMELETS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Where the terminators will set up shop south of the border. ROBOT ESTADO.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
EBT = Electronic Benefits Transfer. In the past, those in need would qualify for food stamps; today they get an EBT card.
American here. Double Natick for me, too.
First of all, I didn't get the asterisk thing. I thought that the Acrosses had a STAR rebus and the Downs had a blank square. And I had no idea why.
I thought the STARs were brilliantly embedded. REST AREA and LOST ARTS took me forever to see -- and I almost gave up in those sections. I love the clue for LOST ARTS, btw. Such an overdue appreciation of what our culture has lost. Although I will say this: As long as I'm alive, those ARTS are not completely LOST.
My lifelong indifference to museums caused me a big headache today. With YNIGHT filled in, I wrote in STARRY NIGHT with only a moment's hesitation. Wasn't STARRY NIGHT at the Met and not at MoMA? Had it been moved while I wasn't looking? Surely Van Gogh wasn't a modernist painter, was he? Nevertheless, it seemed to fit perfectly, so in it went.
Of course, it I knew anything about MoMA, I might have known they had a SHERRY NIGHT. But I'm pretty sure I've only been there once. I live very close to Manhattan's "Museum Mile." There are a zillion museums in my nabe, but MoMA isn't one of them.
I see now that I never filled in the rival of Mug, market checkout option and cube-jumping character arcade game. I have no idea about any of them. I'll go take a look now and find out what I didn't know. I won't remember any of them in the future.
Lots of "Aha Moments" for me with the clever STAR embeddings. Wish I'd also appreciated the asterisk thing. But they all involved proper names in which I didn't know there were asterisks.
EBT, or Electronic Benefits Transfer, is a system that allows recipients of government assistance in the U.S. to access their benefits using a card similar to a debit card. Per duck duck go
What did Scrooge say when he saw the lousy wether forecast?
BAHRAIN, SLEET and BREEZES.
OUTLETS could be considered a BUTTSIN.
Spoiler Alert: In the final episode of White Lotus, Belinda the masseuse accepts Gary's bribe plus a pair of shoes that are made out of the local currency except for the rubber bottoms, proving that anyone and anything can be BAHT and soled.
Disappointed to once again have RYE clued without reference to the marina.
Cool concept, easy solve. Thanks, Hanh Huynh. You're a *.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates who said, “I drank what?”
I was hot and I was hungry! Okay? (I may have watched real genius on repeat the summer before I started college. And I might also have been super disappointed about the real college experience!)
This was fun. I never do NYT Sundays, so seeing the asterisk in a *ring role felt new enough to me. And M*A*S*H is a genuine showstopper. On the downside, there's more than just SOME really bad short gunk.
Randomness:
-- Nothing amazing outside the themers, but BAHRAIN looks good in the grid. Never knew that it had been "ruled" (term used loosely, given historical occupations) by the same family by over 300 years.
-- Preposition-fest: ONTAP, BUTTSIN, CHEERON, MOVESUP...and AVEC.
-- Specifically on the short gunk: EBT, DPI, UMM, AVI, NOS, ENE, TSA, SEC ...ETAL. Yikes.
-- EBT = Electronic Benefit Transfer, which appears basically to be electronic food stamps. I had to look this up; it's a terrible entry at 1-D, but always good to learn new things.
-- For a good while, I forgot the THE and just had STARRYNIGHT, thinking that STAR would be spelled out, as it is in the symmetrical revealer. Not knowing Q*BERT didn't help.
-- Not I sure I buy the inclusion of a "?" in the CO* clue.
-- I expect the current administration to cite this puzzle as an example of 64-D running amok.
Hated it.
Well, I figured out early on that we were dealing with punctuation, but I thought it might be Q-BERT, and I have usually seen the boy band spelled 'NSYNC, soo the asterisk/STAR was slow to come. Then I thought maybe the most-watched episode would be the revelation of who shot JR in Dynasty, which fit. So this one was tough for me.
I do not believe that SUMO wrestlers are called SUMOS, and CYSTS need not be fluid-filled, so those were slow to come. As for the LO*TS, they're not lost as long as I am still alive -- and writing thank you notes is neither lost nor an art. I hope Miss Manners does not do this puzzle, or the NYT will never hear the end of it.
If I was more familiar with M*A*S*H I would have got the trick much sooner, but I've only ever watched one episode (one more than Dynasty, at least), so I had forgotten all those asterisks in the title.
But then I've never watched The Matrix, either, but I still knew that any clue referencing that movie is NEO.
Government assistance cards:
“EBT, or Electronic Benefits Transfer, is the digital method of delivering SNAP benefits to participants. Rather than using paper coupons, beneficiaries receive their benefits through an electronic card, resembling a debit or credit card. EBT cards store the allocated benefits electronically, making transactions smoother and more discreet.”
No to PAREN. No.
Really liked that there M*A*S*H themer entry ... it was the all-star puz entry.
The other Down themers were sorta no-*-knows, at our house. Wasn't all that familiar with the presence of them stars in: Q*BERT. *NSYNC. E*TRADE. They kinda star-crossed-up M&A's solvequest -- lost precious nanoseconds.
staff weeject pick: UMM. Nice weeject stacks in the NE & SW, btw. And honrable mention to whatever EBT is.
DEI!?! Rut Row! Watch out! If Trump Bankruptcy, Inc. catches sight of that, there'll be heavy crossword tariffs to bear!
Thanx for the feisty fun, Mr. Huynh dude.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
... and now for a star-tling dessert ...
"Light Humor" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I never know arcade games so had no idea about QBERT and couldn't remember BARQS, so the NW gave me some trouble. Making both the star rebuses and th asterisks work is a clever idea and a real accomplishment, though. I liked the puzzle!
He didn’t deserve that * and eventually they realized that. He earned his 61.
Honest question -- not a flame, not a "Get off my lawn!" rant, not an attack: If young people are no longer learning how to write cursive, how will they sign their names? Are signatures also going to become obsolete? If so, how will they be replaced as essential components of identification for drivers' licenses, "REAL IDs," passports, legal/financial contracts, etc.? Will a new version of the old "X (his mark)" non-written signature arise?
Cool concept. Loved it!
Never heard of "Q*Bert" and still don't know what the hell it is. And it was really confusing when it became evident that some of these answers just had "stars" in them, and others included the word "star" itself. Isn't that technically taking "misdirection" a tad too far?
Honest, I didn't plagiarize @Nancy about LO*TS, I wrote my first comment before I read anyone else.
Who says PAREN for "parenthesis?" The same people who say BANG for "exclamation point." I.e., newspaper reports dictating their stories over the phone. But I think that's another LO*T. I had a different objection to PAREN--it disturbed the purity of the theme, where punctuation marks are written with the symbol but pronounced as words.
BTW, I forgot to mention earlier that I not only had Dynasty before M*A*S*H, but also crossed it with 'lay-by' before RE*EA. What a mess that was!
OK, enough from me, I have to go practice the Palmer Method.
I call foul on 42 Across. No way is “heavyweight athletes” a legitimate clue for “sumos.”
The term for these supersize wrestlers is “rishiki,” one of the many words I am grateful to crosswords for teaching me. (Another such gift was “dohyo,” for the arena where they compete.)
So far as I can tell, the only legit meaning of “sumos” is the fruit of a certain species of mandarin; these are especially sweet and feature, at the stem end, a sort of topknot-looking shape that accounts for the name. Surely some fun was available here for a more artful, less lazy constructor.
M*A*S*H was really a nostalgic note, and I was one of the millions leaving on that helicopter at the end. Still feels like it was yesterday. Thought this was a fun, inventive puzzle, relatively easy except for me because I had no clue about the meaning of EBT, or Q*BERT and stuck with SheRRYNIGHT for way too long. And also thought HPI had to do with HP printers, and hAZE seemed good, so DPI did not come to mind until very late in the game.
I knew M*A*S*H had the stars, but was ignorant of Q*BERT, *NSYNC and EGTRADE's *s. In fact, because in my head I pronounce *NSYNC as “in SYNC”, my grid had a */I in the grid for a while at 9A.
For some reason, the second half of the revealer wouldn’t come to mind. I kept thinking! “What were Romeo and Juliet again?” Certainly not star-studded :-). Crosses gave me CROSSED finally.
Thanks, Hans Huynh, nice Thursday puzzle.
43 Down "USA USA" made me wince given the current actions being taken by the USA government
Sure, there’s a bit of weak short fill, but finding the star squares was a fun challenge, and there was a great aha moment at M*A*S*H. Also loved that the letters S-T-A-R were used as the word STAR in 9A, spanning two words in 28A and 48A, and in the middle of a word at 47A. Theme density was great and the usage interesting and varied. Loved it.
Some chess players will call the rook a castle, just like some call the knight a horse.
hand up. intellivision !!
Challenging for me and fun to rassle with and figure out. Even though I got the first * square early in THE [STAR]RY NIGHT, I had trouble understanding the crossing Downs, assuming at first that "star" would be in them as well. Only at M*A*S*H* did I see the genius of the theme. That allowed me to finish the unknown-to-me Q*BERT and easily get E*TRADE CU[STAR]D. But the NE was a struggle: there had to be a *, but where? I'm not sure you can do an "alphabet run" with an *, but that's basically what I did, until the right square filled itself in. What a dynamite reveal!
@pabloinnh - I thought your "old friend" of the day might be ADIA. For me, that one of the first entries in the "have to learn" list that I started compiling when I first came here about a dozen years ago, soon joined by Omar EPPS, ESAI Morales, and India ARIE.
I put the word STAR instead of an asterisk, and didn’t get Congratulations. I was unsure of the 12A/13D cross, so I inserted every letter sequentially. No go. So an asterisk was the only acceptable entry for the rebus squares? Dirty Pool.
I'm blaming Don McLean for my struggles, which all worked out in the end. But thanks to Mr. McLean, I had *RY*RYNIGHT at 17A, which--added to the three * in M*A*S*H and the single * in E*TRADE meant that I had all 6 stare-filled squares. And that made the NE really hard to figure out. But finally I came to my senses.
I had to solve the revealer before I could get any of the theme answers. I wanted "MASH" but couldn't envision the *** (and also realized that "friends" had 7 letters, although I never typed it in). But once I got STAR CROSSED, the themers began to fall. I still didn't know Q*BERT or the *NSYNC began with the *, so it was a slow solve all the way to the end.
Impressive job of construction.
Medium. I caught the theme about half way through and hoped that a * would work…and it did.
Misspelling PAREN was my only costly erasure and BAHRAIN was it for WOEs.
Fun solve, liked it.
I would never dream of accusing such an honorable and trustworthy blog pal as you of plagiarism, @jberg!
The same thing happened to me. I had STAR and couldn't think of STAR-CROSSED either. The only difference: STAR-studded, I'm happy to say, never once crossed my mind:)
Hand up for having said and heard PAREN and it usually has to do with proof-reading…such as you forgot to close your PARENs or back in the day of dictation, you might say close PAREN.
No, the letters STAR as a rebus worked as well, which is what I entered.
Like many others, I forgot that *NSYNC had an asterisk, but once I remembered, the front seemed right since it functions like an apostrophe for that missing ‘i.’
This was a fine Thursday gimmick; fun tracking down all those STARs. Hands up for N*SYNC crossing HUSTAR (I guess I was thinking of Hussar?) Also never heard of EBT so I had EFT (electronic funds transfer). Also had a Great LAKE at 58 down.
Spelling OMELETS was a challenge. OMELETTE wouldn't fit so... OMELETT? Nothing in the clue to indicate plural.
Hands up for being sure it was STARRY NIGHT, not THE *RRY NIGHT, thanks to Don Mclean's incredibly beautiful song. I'm no big fan of modern art, but made a point of going to MOMA just to see Vincent's wonderful picture, years ago.
Also never heard of Q*BERT. My game playing days pretty much ended when my favorite pub finally took out their Ms. Pacman machine.
Trivia Fest! PASS!
Downs had * in them; acrosses had "star." Hope that's not too confusing.
@egsforbreakfast 9:42 AM
In my defense, I've been WOO-ing Belinda for a long while.
All I can say is WOW. A very ambitious (for me) rebus to be solved & I'm impressed, Hanh & very pleased with myself. You make me rethink my dislike of rebuses (rebi?). Thank you :)
I agree. M*A*S*H looks so great and catches the eye in the puzzle’s center, why not stop there? At first, I wondered if the “six squares” aspect of the revealer simply meant 3 across + 3 down. Was disappointed when I came across CO*.
My signature is a blend of printing and cursive - it evolved that way over the years 😉
I had RE*TIT instead of REBOOT and couldn't reconcile with SRO or YOUR Honor. Never heard of Q*BERT so I figured Q**ERT was a thing.
I say PAREN all the time - usually in plural form. "In parens..."
I'm amused by all the NYT crossword solvers who are unaware of EBT. Some of us have apparently never been to a grocery store in an economically diverse area, or heaven forbid, actually relied on food assistance.
As a proofreader, I only say PAREN and PARENs - parenthesis/parentheses - what a mouthful!
D'oh! CUSTARD not MUSTARD!
I often find Rex's complaints about words silly and annoying, but complaining about three letter words seems the height of silliness.
@Rusty Trawler: those two things, or, don't live in the US. That's quite a few of us.
"Paren" is pretty widespread shorthand in proofreading/editing and in math/computer science. But I guess outside of those fields, maybe not so well known!
Yup! That's like saying "judos" or "taekwondos" to refer to the practitioners of those sports.
Around here, at least, even the stalls at farmers' markets have signs reading "EBT and WIC accepted."
My first STAR was at THE STARRY NIGHT...How about that! Why couldn't the reveal be A Star Is Born? No, they are CROSSED one way or the other....With me it was the other.
OK, so I figured out what we'd be dealing with here and off I went hither and yon trying to sniff out some others. My hardest? LO[STAR]TS. Damn, am I a dinosaur ? I still write in cursive and I write a ton of thank you notes on my own design and painted cards. Please don't let that art of sweetly communicating pass you by. I know, guess who probably added another 50% tariff on stamps, but it's my thought that counts....
I got to 10D and without a pause wrote in BBQ PITS....Where else would you have tongs? Anyone else? No? I let my mind wander too much.
I cheated on TOM CAT. Even though I've never been to an arcade and wouldn't know any one character even though my life depended on it, I managed QBERT. I even got NEO and NSYNC....but TOM CAT was my bete noire. So be it. At least you shoved in Lin MANUEL Miranda and that I liked.
Just a little something that has absolutely nothing with today's puzzle. Yesterday while looking over my balcony and trying to enjoy some sun, along come some turkeys. Sauntering about like they owned everything. There were two females and two gloriously plumbed males. I then wondered why the males are always so fluffed up and prettier than the girls. The males were strutting around like idiots in front of the ladies and the ladies ignored them. I watched for some time and then, (imagine singing "I Will Survive" at the top of your lungs) off they go, two by two, into a place that nobody can see and make two little babies named Shadow and Jackie.....Pretty neat, huh?
DNF. I'll have to write a letter in cursive.
Unfamiliar with BARQS and Q*BERT, which last is odd because in the early 80s I spent a *lot* of time at an arcade (in a Chinese restaurant!) mostly playing Asteroids and PacMan. And then I got married. No more arcades (it was unusual for women to play then anyway).
I entered STAR as a rebus but it didn't take even after a cheat to find BARQS, so, finally having clicked with M*A*S*H I replaced all the STARs with *s.
Did know EBT. People can use it to pay for certain child care in addition to food, and here, too, the farmer's market accepts it.
I'm on Team @Nancy and Jberg - as long as I'm alive there will be thank you notes written in cursive (and, sadly, as I get older, sympathy cards).
I had the same brief issue with CURD vs CU*RD
Thank you all for clearing up EBT for me, a non-American. I figured it might be Electronic Bank Transfer and thought, "Isn't that just like paying with your phone or a debit card?"
@pablo, Similar experience to yours today. I, too, plunked in Starry Night, which is what I have always called it. After changing to THE*RYNIGHT and completing the puzzle, I rooted around in my studio bookshelf and found the catalogue for a show I'd seen at the Met in the mid-80s called Van Gogh in Saint-Remy and Auvers and found the painting listed once with the definite article and thereafter referred to as simply Starry Night. I've never heard anyone refer to it with the THE. Also, not being a US resident, I didn't know EBT. So a rough start for me.
No it's fine, I refer too players of rugby as rugbyS and football players as footballS all the time. But I hated AVI more. Did not like the clue for custard since custard is basically cooked eggs and egg was in the clue so I struggled thinking about what I would put in an egg tart. To Rex's point on that clue I do think that curd is a valid answer as NY Times cooking recently had a recipe for Cottage Cheese (curds & whey) Egg Bites.
“STAR” didn’t work for me either. I had to switch them all to asterisks and then I got the music. It’s so frustrating when there are rebuses that could be multiple things and the puzzle won’t accept all of them and I am left wondering if I have a typo or didn’t enter the rebus the exact way they want it.
Weird puzzle, but not too bad. Plus, there's a huge difference between jingoism and partiotism.
@Beezer, @ColleenAK, and @Rusty Trawler, I worked in a newsroom for about 20 years. I was not a designated proof-reader, but I did have to read copy to do my job as a graphic artist/designer and I never ever saw or heard the ugly partial word PAREN. I kept looking at it in my grid and saying, "This is just wrong".
I had a similar reaction to 10 Down and couldn't figure out how OUTLETS could be "Places for tongs". I just reviewed the puzzle on the NYT web site and the clue for 10D says "Places for prongs". Did I misread the clue or was there an after the fact correction by editors to change tongs to prongs. Prongs make sense because that's what electrical plugs have that fit into OUTLETS.
@Joe at 11:06--that's strange, I did the same, put the word "STAR" in each of the rebus squares, and I got the happy music. Sometimes the app misbehaves, or if you get a space in there or something it doesn't work. But it did work for me.
I was trying *RY*RYNIGHT, like the song lyrics
Good point, okanaganer, I guess that's one more Americanism to add to the lexicon. It's fairly standard for groceries, corner stores, and markets to have "EBT accepted here" signs. It's basically a pre-paid debit card that can be used to buy food at participating stores.
Interesting and somewhat infuriating puzzle. Spoiled for me by some nit-picky things like PAREN. Don't remember ever seeing or hearing it in 20 some years of newspapering work. And SUMOS. What's that?! That's like calling Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl hockeys. EBT is unknown to non-Americans and nobody who regularly plays chess calls a rook a CASTLE. And I would never wear a BEANIE but I would happily don a tuque on a cold winter's day. BEANIE always reminds me of those cartoon hats with propellers.
I wonder if the cluing on DEI was because the NYTimes feared the wrath our fascist overlords (or perhaps was forced to change it by them)?
I had a youngster fill out a job app where I work. I told him print, then sign his name. He printed it twice. When I asked him about signing, he said he was never taught cursive so just print his name. His name was Michael, I told him just to put a Big M and scribble afterwards.
RooMonster Scribble Me This Guy
Great, great puzzle. No notes, as the cool kids say.
@SharonAK EBT [electronic benefits transfer] is a food stamps card you can swipe like a credit card at grocery stores :)
-stephanie.
It was "prongs" in my dead tree edition -- delivered around dawn and therefore an early edition of the NYT. It could not have been an "after the fact correction." You probably both misread it -- something I do all the time. But not in this case.
Lucky @Gill gets to see four turkeys from her balcony!!!!! Damn! My Nature envy -- experienced much too often on this blog -- is kicking in again.
too bad I can't share a picture. I put in the star emoji (⭐️) which made the puzzle beautiful. not the same with STAR or * in there.
tripped on n*sync and haze/daze too.
avifauna??
Lighten up, Francis. My completely unscientific and unverifiable research/Intuition/Opinion says that 62% of all chess players refer to the piece that is shaped like a castle as…wait for it…a “Castle”. 😊
@Tom T - my experience exactly - I couldn't get Don McLean's Vincent out of my head and entered the grid the same way - I couldn't let it go for a LONG time...
@Twangster - I don't think anyone answered you, but 'pain' is either a typo or autocorrect and SharonAK meant 'paren'.
In my college days, I was a pinball wizard. I would rack up the maximum number of free games (15) on the machine and then leave, at which point the onlookers would take them.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, SUMOS is ugly fill. Outside of crossword puzzles does anyone use SUMO to mean the actual wrestler? It's a made-up usage of a word for the convenience of constructors.
I appreciated that the puzzle is bracketed by EBT and DEI, two things that the current administration would like to obliterate. It felt strangely subversive.
Woof, that northwest corner is one of the worst I’ve ever seen in a crossword. Q*BERT x BARQS x EBT was a real prick for someone neither from America nor old. M*A*S*H was cute though.
Started with Lin-Manuel and the SE, confidently wrote in the revealer... and spent most of the puzzle wondering what * had to do with being storm tossed
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