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M.L.B. shortstop Miguel / SUN 11-9-25 / Nocturnal primate of the Indian forest / Handcrafted items in a fishing tackle box / "The ___ Smith Show" (Apple TV offering) / What distinguishes "bet" from "vet" in Hebrew / 1990s ABC sitcom about kids growing up without their parents / Athol Fugard novel adapted as an Academy Award-winning film / Like someone who experiences little to no amorous and sexual attraction, for short
Sunday, November 9, 2025
Constructor: Amie Walker
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
Easy and kinda weak. The theme answers are often great answers in their own right, but the theme ... it just doesn't make much sense. I guess the states in the rebus square do "swing" (from one state to the other, depending whether you're considering the Across or the Down), and they are all WESTERN states, and form a kind of UNION inside their little squares, OK. But somehow that doesn't seem like enough. You know what would've gotten this puzzle into decent conceptual shape—if all the WESTERN UNIONs had involved states that actually abutted one another. I really thought we were going to be dealing with a border theme at first, when I got the UT/NV square (early and very easily). And MT/WA, again, so promising—we got something going here [ugh as several of you have noted WA and MT do not share a border—stupid ID panhandle is in the way! My mom grew up in that panhandle, you’d think I’d remember its location. Sorry]. But then HI ... Hawaii abuts nothing. I guess it's often paired with AK as one of two map insets, the two non-contiguous U.S. states, but even if we decided to count that "union," we've still got the NM/OR squares, and those states are nowhere near each other. No, thematically, this one's kind of ungainly. But again, it yields some great longer answers, so it's not a total loss.
- "YOU TALKIN' TO ME?" / FAN VOTE (23A: Iconic line from Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver" / 3D: Chance for supporters to induct athletes into the All-Star Game)
- "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" / "I'M NOT A KID ANYMORE!" (41A: "I've had it!" / 12D: "Treat me like an adult, MOM!")
- MOM-TO-BE / FEW AND FAR BETWEEN (57A: Certain expectant parent / 44D: Scarce)
- "IT'S ON ME" / "NO RETURNS" (91A: "Put your wallet away" / 87D: "All sales final")
Tsotsi is the only novel written by South African playwright Athol Fugard (1932–2025). It was published in 1980 although written some time earlier, and it was the basis of the 2005 film of the same name. [...] Tsotsi is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel Tsotsi by Athol Fugard, and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, it stars Presley Chweneyagae as David/Tsotsi (meaning "criminal" - see also Tsotsitaal), a young street thug who steals a car only to discover a baby in the back seat. It also features Kenneth Nkosi, Jerry Mofokeng, and Rapulana Seiphemo in supporting roles.
The soundtrack features Kwaito music performed by South African artist Zola and Afro-pop group Mafikizolo, as well as a score by Mark Kilian and Paul Hepker with the voice of South African protest singer and poet Vusi Mahlasela.
The film was praised, particularly for its writing, direction, and performances, especially Chweneyagae's and Pheto's, cinematography and for emotional weight. It went on to win the 2006 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first South African film and first African film not made in French to win the former. (wikipedia)
• • •
And yet once more the puzzle is far too easy. Not as insultingly easy as yesterday's remedial Saturday, but very, very easy. The only potential trouble spots that I can see involve (shockingly!) proper nouns of dubious fame. I watch Apple TV more than probably any other streaming service (check out Pluribus, which just started last week—it's Vince Gilligan's new show starring Rhea Seehorn of Better Call Saul fame, and it's fantastic). But despite all the time I spend on that service (seriously, I just watched the latest Morning Show episode earlier this (Saturday) evening), I have never ever heard of The KAMAL Smith Show (24D: "The ___ Smith Show" (Apple TV offering)). Never seen a promo or seen it on the menu that I can remember. Where do they hide it? So bizarre. Also bizarre, in the sense of obscure: TSOTSI (!?) crossing ON OUR OWN (!?!) (109A: 1990s ABC sitcom about kids growing up without their parents). Of those two, I'm much more disturbed by not knowing ON OUR OWN; I thought I knew my '90s TV pretty damned well, but apparently not. Oh ... it ran for one (1) season. OK, I feel much (much) less bad now. As for TSOTSI, I thought Fugard only wrote plays ... which is apparently mostly true, as TSOTSI is his only novel. The wikipedia entry for it is sparse, practically a stub, so I have no idea how important a novel it was. The movie won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film, so that's obviously something, but still, how many foreign film winners can you name? I watch a lot of movies and I'd be hard pressed to name a lot of them. Actually, I'm looking at the list now and I can name a lot of them. Most of them. Many are stone-cold classics. But the early '00s, yipes. Those are not familiar to me. No Man's Land (2001)? Nowhere in Africa (2002)? The Barbarian Invasions (2003)? The Sea Inside (2004)? I know older titles (Rashomon, Nights of Cabiria, La Strada, 8 1/2, Black Orpheus) and very recent titles (Roma, Parasite, Drive My Car, The Zone of Interest) much better. TSOTSI just missed me entirely. This is the fourth NYTXW appearance for TSOTSI, but the first in over eight years.
One thing I'm grateful for today is that the puzzle didn't straight-up tell me where the rebus squares were—no circled squares, no indicators at all. I had to find them myself, which is as it should be. Maybe that's why the puzzle played so easy—because the idea is that people will be struggling to find / handle those rebus squares, and so the puzzle should dial down difficulty elsewhere, in the non-theme stuff. Maybe. But somehow this puzzle still ended up solidly in Easy territory. The fact that there was a rebus at all (discovering which is usually the biggest obstacle to solving a rebus puzzle in the first place) did not take long to uncover. Not at all. The Taxi Driver quote is so familiar, so obvious, that you're gonna be left wondering why it won't fit—why you have some correct letters from the crosses, and still it won't fit. So that's one early obvious indicator. Having the FA- in FAN VOTE was another. I knew it was FAN something, but that "N" went where the "U" definitely went in "YOU TALKIN' TO ME," and bam, right there, that's when I knew something was up. Once I figured out that square, I knew to be on the alert for more; and I knew that the rebus squares would contain state codes, which added another level of ease—if an obviously correct theme answer wouldn't fit (say, FEW AND FAR BETWEEN), I just had to scan its letters, find the state code (in this case, "WA") and that was that.
Bullets:
- 31A: What distinguishes "bet" from "vet" in Hebrew (DOT) — I have no idea what this means. I don't see any DOTs. Hang on ... looks like "bet" and "vet" are characters in the Hebrew alphabet, and they look identical except that "bet" has a dot (a diacritical mark called a "dagesh"):
- 97A: Any activities on them need to be wound up (CASSETTE TAPES) — this clue is so awkward it probably should have a "?"; I think it's trying to confuse you by bending the meaning of "wound up," but the wording is so totally inapt for what CASSETTE TAPES actually do and are that I think the "?" is called for. You would never use the words "wound up" in reference to CASSETTE TAPES. Nor would you say they contain "activities." BLECH all around.
- 90D: State that spans two time zones: Abbr. (TEX.) — my wife last night: "you shouldn't have any other states in your grid if state codes are your theme." This didn't really bother me, but from a strict spit-and-polish perspective, I concur—the only state abbrs. this puzzle should have are the ones in those rebus squares.
- 122A: Like someone who experiences little to no amorous and sexual attraction, for short (ARO-ACE)—I've seen both of these three-letter answers clued as sexual orientation/identities before, but I have not seen them paired together in the puzzle (as they sometimes are irl). Inventive answer (and a debut).
- 73D: Bunches and bunches (ATON) — second time this week that we've gotten ATON *and* ALOT in the same (damn) grid. The large size of this grid means that this particular crosswordese doppelgangery is less egregious than Wednesday's, but still, not ideal.
- 63A: Very lite (NO-CAL) — What the hell is NO-CAL besides, say, water? Do we really call things "NO-CAL?" I'm seeing it associated with soda, primarily, so ... I guess someone somewhere's using the term. Did you know that NO-CAL was the name of the first diet soda? 1952! "It was initially marketed to diabetics in a number of flavors, the most popular being black cherry" (wikipedia). I thought NOCAL was also shorthand for "Northern California" (a counterpart to SOCAL), but I'm being told that the shortening in this case is NORCAL, which looks superdumb written out. It looks a little better with camel caps, I guess: "NorCal." Still, it's awkward; NORCAL looks like it should rhyme with Sporcle or, uh, pork'll. "Some pork'll never cook up right / But then again some pork'll..."
The American Values Club Crossword (AVCX), my favorite crossword subscription, is in the middle of its Fall mini subscription drive. If you wanna know what puzzles I enjoy beyond the NYTXW, this one's at the top of the list. They operate independently from any big media outlet and thus rely entirely on subscriptions to fund their enterprise, which is considerable—puzzles released nearly every day (six days a week!) including several crossword puzzles of varying sizes and difficulty levels, a trivia puzzle, and (god bless them!) a regular cryptic crossword. In terms of both quality and value, you cannot beat it. If you're not a subscriber, you should rectify this ASAP. The puzzlemaking staff is absolutely top-tier (you'll recognize a lot of names from NYTXW bylines). There are different subscription tiers, including a very inexpensive "Scholarship" tier intended for students and other lower-income people (this tier is subsidized by higher-tier subscribers). They're even offering a free trial subscription if, even after all my impassioned advocacy, you're somehow not sure. Consider becoming a Sustaining Member today (or a Benefactor or Angel, if it's within your means). You won't regret it.
P.S. I have been made aware of a new(ish) Wordle-style word game called Phoodle, and I am enjoying it. There's both an iOS and an Android app. You can also play in your web browser (here). According to Phoodle's founder, Julie Loria:
Phoodle is a daily puzzle for food lovers. Inspired by Wordle but with a food-themed twist, it uses culinary terms from ingredients and kitchen tools to recipe language, food news, and lingo.
The extra fun comes after you solve the puzzle. Each puzzle reveals a “Phoodle Fact,” a quirky or educational tidbit on food, often paired with recipes, products, cookbooks, and more.
Launched in May 2022, Phoodle has grown into a global community of players who share a passion for puzzles and food. You can dig in at phoodle.net or on the app for iOS and Android.
Today's puzzle is hard as heck, but I definitely learned something! If you enjoy Wordle, and your interests lean culinary, try this fun little game.
[Reminder: I don't do paid promotions—I just like highlighting puzzle-related stuff I think my readers will enjoy, particularly stuff I enjoy myself]
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123 comments:
Medium, but a slog. I dislike rebus puzzles, and I doubly dislike bidirectional rebus puzzles. The only saving grace was that the clue for WESTERN UNION (117A) told me there were only four squares of misery.
At first I dutifully filled in each rebus as two abbreviations separated by a slash (e.g., "UT/NV"). But then I finished the puzzle and didn't get the happy music. So I went back and changed each square to only the across state. Still no joy. Finally, I found a stupid typo. D'oh!
Actually, Washington and Montana don’t abut (Idaho is between them), so only one of the rebus squares features abutting states.
FYI, WA/MT do not share a border, Idaho is between them
27 minutes for me, so I guess that's easy on a Sunday. I think they need to be this easy or they take too long! And then if you have a mistake it takes another 10 minutes to find it! Anyhoo.... I enjoyed finding the rebus squares--like @Rex said, it's a much more fun way to do a rebus, when their location is a mystery to be solved!!! I like the revealer--at least it gave the theme a bit of needed cohesion. Agree that it would have been better if they all abutted--AK/HI is close enough to an abutment for me. Thank you Amie, for this Sunday challenge! : )
i was really surprised to see ONOUROWN in the puzzle. that was a show i almost convinced myself i'd imagined until i finally tracked it down a couple years ago. glad to see at least one other person remembers it!
In addition to Michael's spouse's problem with 90D (with which I agree), the answer uses a a whole different rubric for abbreviating states than is used in the rest of the puzzle. Double foul = red card.
Your wife is spot on - my Mai take here is that you can’t include another state as fill and even worse use a three letter abbreviation in grid that’s based on two letter state codes. That’s pretty much all I came away with here.
APB
I did like that the rebus squares were not highlighted or circled - a little anticipation in an otherwise inane puzzle. Loaded with nontheme longs - the vibe was odd. MENTAL NOTE, STREAKED and WESTERN UNION were solid and parsing the NBA REF string is pretty neat. Some weird trivia spotted throughout. One of these days I’ll have to try crossword darling ASHAI.
Public Image
Not one I’ll remember.
Lloyd Cole
I agree, this puzzle is too easy...again. In fact, this whole week has been insultingly easy (Friday, Saturday and Sunday in particular, put up virtually no resistance), and we're much more appropriate in terms of full and cluing to Tuesday or Wednesday. There is nothing more disappointing than a weekend crossword that is over and done with inside ten minutes.
Struggled a bit with the high volume of PPP. Also thought it odd that three of the four rebuses were in long cross answers, often intersecting long downs, but the fourth was just above, but not in, CASSETTE TAPES.
I’ll start with three things I liked about this puzzle, because my brain adores riddle-cracking:
First, realizing it was a rebus puzzle. There are no indicators, like circles, to give that away, and the puzzle’s title certainly didn’t holler “Rebus!”
Second, finding the rebuses. They are not symmetrical, or only in the longest answers.
Third, seeing that each rebus square has two elements. A double-element rebus is a layer more difficult than a single element one. And figuring out, thanks to the puzzle’s title, that the elements were state postal codes.
I’ll continue with what I liked most of all.
There I was, after figuring out the above, filling boxes in, workman-like.
Then I uncovered WESTERN UNION. Hah! – Now THAT was a special moment, combining surprise – that there was an in-grid revealer at all (Sundays often don't have them), not to mention that I hadn’t realized that the states were all in the West – and delight at its scintillating wordplay.
For a moment, the air filled with sparks and the puzzle went from being good to being sublime.
You happified my brain’s workout ethic, plus you surprised, and wonderfully tricked me, Amie. You got me thinking, “Ain’t Crosslandia grand!” Thank you!
Easy and uninspiring. I liked the revealer, but for a Sunday puzzle to only have FOUR SQUARES that are impacted by the theme? I mean, that's less than 1% of the grid. Plus, the theme was apparent so quickly ("YOUTALKINTOME doesn't fit, so where do I squish two letters together?") that the excitement was lacking.
I guess I should be happy this Sunday at least HAD a theme.
A little surprised that 57D “Make a Bet” didn’t get an Eat A Sandwich mention from Rex
Hey All !
Figured out the ole Rebus trick pretty quick. Was wondering how the puz would accept the Rebi. I just wrote in the state abbrs. Across first, then Downs, and got the Happy Music. Not saying this will work in all the puz apps y'all use, but did the trick for me.
Wanted the state Abbrs. to spell out an actual word at first, but was quickly expunged of that notion. Interesting to find said Rebi in other spots than the Long answers. Throwing a curveball at us.
HBCUS? Without Googling, gonna ask, What's that? Home B(something) Credit Unions? Here Be Crazy Unicorns?
If you're reading that Fugard novel with your dreaded fly friend who commits a faux pas, , you'd have TSOTSI TSETSE TSKTSK time.
OK, I'll see myself out.
Have a great Sunday!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Here's some pedantry: "bet" and "vet" are not two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. They are the same letter, one with the dagesh and the other without, and there to tell you how to pronounce the letter (sort of like an e or i after a g tells you how to pronounce it). With the dot=hard b, without=soft (or v). The diacritical does not appear in the Torah scrolls. Only the undotted version shows up there; in fact, it's the first letter in the Bible--beresheet (in the beginning), not veresheet. The way the rabbi explained this to me when I was a wiseass bar mitzvah boy was that when Hebrew made the transition from oral to written, everyone knew what the word was so they could infer the hard or the soft version of bet. But in latter years, as knowledge of ancient Hebrew receded, the diacritical were added to assist readers. And evidently, crossword constructors.
Yeah, unless they are integral to the puzzle theme somehow, ditch the circles and shaded cells that simply point out that something else is going on in the square. In the good old days, the puzzle didn't have condescending pointers; if something weird like a rebus was going on, you had to struggle for a while with why the puzzle didn't seem to be working as expected, and then figure out how to to make it work.
So it was refreshing not to have such pointers today - though the clueing was generally so straightforward and obvious that one could figure out almost immediately the "swing" rebus gimmick.
@Anonymous 7:28 AM
There are very many more disappointing things than that.
I'm OK with rebuses in general, but wondered if this one could have been improved in some way. (I don't know how! -- Maybe the Across and Down share a common letter?) I had initially thought "Swing States" meant a sort of rotation, so that the "W" in FEWANDFARBETWEEN could be turned to become an "M" for MOMTOBE. Didn't quite work, of course, so I actually didn't get the theme until quite late into the solve.
As for 117A: I had W_ _TERN_ _ _ _ _ and so initially assumed the first name of this telegraph pioneer would be WALTER. Obviously, that hung me up for a bit! But as a radio operator (who in fact uses Morse code and telegraph keys mostly), I could not for the life of me remember any Walters in telegraph history!
The puzzle itself was fine. I found it a little tedious keeping track of all the state codes and entering them into the rebus squares. I struggled with RATITE, TSOTSI and LORIS - I get spooked by answers that I’m not familiar with if they don’t look like “real words” because I assume I have a mistake (although it was obvious that TSOTSI was a title, so that helped, but not much).
I tried to get the reveal without any crosses - but when I saw “pioneer” in the clue I immediately started thinking of people’s names. At least a bit of an aha when it materialized.
I don’t mind Sundays being on the easy side. I’ve heard Will Shortz refer to them as “Thursday-ish”. I believe I also recall Christina Iverson characterize them as Wednesday/Thursday difficult, and today’s grid seems to be somewhere in that sweet spot.
Thumbs up for the clue on NBA REFS. Bronx cheer regarding the clue for CASSETTE TAPES.
Disappointing
Tedious and boring.
Painful
HBCU = Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Bar Mitzvah memories! Oh, how they qvelled.
Your fine explanation gives added weight to the answer at 57D: MAKE A BET.
HBCU - Historically Black Colleges and Universities
TIL Camel Caps. Per Wikipedia: Writing phrases without spaces or punctuation and with capitalized words
I guess I'm in the minority but I thought it was pretty good. Although, had difficulty with the SEATAC, AROACE, RANCHO stew at the bottom and I kinda feel like all card games are luck based. I'm pretty sure that's where the term "luck of the draw" originates.
I never read the title in the information icon, so this proved to be impossible without knowing that I was looking for state codes. The rebusodes made no sense, so figured I was doing something wrong. I ended up with only one mistake, having a FANzOnE as a place to vote for all stars. Hebrew could have been any letter.
Didn’t hate it, but it just kind of plodded along.Cassette Tapes clue trying really hard to be something; go back and do it again: Be Kind Rewind
It's true. Some people are even disappointed by hyperbole.
Stared at AROACE a long time before shrugging and moving on.
The placement of the theme squares being random, and the absence of circles, are big pluses for me.
Hall of shameworthy clue for CASSETTE TAPES. And it feels like traveling has not been called by NBA REFS since 1994.
Yes, the rebus was *so well hidden* in one of the most famous movie quotations in the history of cinema. It might has well have a neon circle around it and a big arrow saying 'insert Rebus here's.
Well, perhaps. But in terms of discussion below the line on a NYT crossword puzzle blog, which is - last time I checked - where we are, I genuinely can't think of anything more disappointing than an offensively easy trio of late week solves.
It wasn’t until I got to the MOMTOBE answer that I realized that the crossing squares were rebuses going both across and down. As originally entered, ENOUGHSENOUGH, without the extra “I”, worked fine. I had shortened YOUTALKINGTOME to YATALKINGTOME, which I did think was a little off but fit. I agree with Rex and the other folks that think this was too easy (as were others this weekend), even though I ended up with a DNF at the IGOTTA/KAMAL crossing. I had IGOTTO/KOMAL. We don’t have Apple TV and I never heard of this show so “Komal” seemed plausible.
I saw “Taxi Driver quote” and instantly tried “I’m walkin here”, and when it didn’t fit I assumed rebus (at least I got that right), and that corner was the last to fall because it took me forever to register that I had the wrong movie
Understood the concept but I got stuck up top cause I thought the Quote was I'M WALKIN HERE!! HAHAHA 😆
I can summarize my reaction to this puzzle in one word: BLECH. I hate to leave it at just that and be so negative, but the theme left me cold and I found the puzzle tedious, to borrow a word already used above. Rex's comments were apt, and a little nicer than this one, so I'll happily defer to him here.
Since Rex brought up Phoodle, I'll bring up a word game I've really been enjoying this past year: Squareword. It's free: squareword.org. The goal is to fill a 5x5 square grid with words to form a Latin square (where all five rows across and all five columns down make English words), in as few plays as possible. Your entries will be guesses for the row words. Any letter you enter that occurs in a row word but in the wrong spot is noted to the side; any letter you enter that occurs in a row word in the right spot is entered into the grid. Despite the clean simplicity of the rules, some of those puzzles can require a fair bit of analysis to solve in 6 or 7 plays, which is what I aim for. So if you like word games with some nice tactical bite to them, you might really like this one.
Not so easy for me, but not because of the rebuses. I didn't know AIM/RATITE and didn't recall the "You talkin to me" quote, so it took a while to work out that section. And I had No Fat instead of NO CAL, and Toris made as much sense as LORIS; likewise, HBFOS made as much sense as HBCOS. Finally, I kept trying to make "I'm not a child anymore" work...just didn't think of KID instead of child.
Maybe I got needed more coffee...but this Sunday was tougher than most for me.
RP: I tried your friend’s puzzle and failed miserably. But it is appealing, and I like that it gives a an explanation of the answer. So yes, I learned something and I’ll give it a whirl. Hoping they’re not all as hard as this one.
My experience, too. This is an annoying downside to rebus puzzles.
First Sunday I’ve done in quite a while, and I enjoyed it. Great long entries and mostly good clues (the one for CASSETTETAPES being a glaring outlier). I’m one of those who is sad that NYT Fridays and Saturdays have gotten so easy, but this felt like appropriate Sunday difficulty to me.
I wish there COULDA been more theme squares. I’m never quite sure where the WESTERN states become midwestern states, but CA, AZ, ID, WY and CO seem reasonable. No doubt the constructor tried for more and just couldn’t make it work. I love how TEX is sitting there looking toward the west at the others.
YO(UT)ALKINTOME crossing KAMAL made me chuckle, because just last night I watched that very scene on Apple TV, having started the “Mr. Scorsese” documentary. Two episodes in, I’m loving it.
Enjoyed it. I too, upon seeing the UT/NV rebus, expected to see adjoining states on each rebus. Of course , I have never constructed a puzzle so far be it for me to complain. Thanks !
I'd seen ARO in crosswords before and knew it meant "aromantic" (i.e., antiromantic), but I didn't know until just now that ACE is supposed to be short for "asexual". The character string AROACE is visually unappealing and made me grumble.
Bad joke du jour:
This 97-year-old man goes to a lawyer and says he wants to divorce his 94-year-old wife after 70 years of marriage. The lawyer asks "Why now?" and the man says, "Enough is enough."
The other joke involving those two is when they both go to the lawyer asking for a divorce. The lawyer asks, why now? And they say "We were waiting for the children to die."
I do a mental accounting of how I feel about a puzzle to make sure that the comments, or Rex, don't influence my take and find that I'm mostly in agreement with folks - but not today. I enjoyed this. Sometimes I wonder if it's because I do all acrosses first and then downs that lets me discover things gradually. Who knows.
I knew immediately that something was off with the Taxi Driver quote not fitting, which was reinforced as I went through the grid (IM NOT A KID ANYMORE was a good bet, as was NO RETURNS) but leaving them blank for the moment left me to struggle with them until after the WESTERN UNION reveal which was a genuine "aha" feeling, which is harder to come by in these puzzles lately.
I liked having to figure out what the two states might be - a double challenge because if the across was easy, sometimes the down wasn't (FAn bONE a thing? No, can't be, so not Nebraska). Also liked having to figure out where the rebus square was - had a few misses on that front before success. Thought the fill was flowy without being too ridiculously easy.
All in all a pleasant start to a Sunday. Finished in average time. 29:23
Rarely do I not enjoy a puzzle, no matter how hard I find it. In this case I found one or the other of the rebus crosses but never made heads or tails of the theme so was entirely lost, or as many puzzles would say ATSEA. As a feat of construction very admirable. Thank you Rex for getting me to shore…
I tried Phoodle and literally had never heard the word before
I solve on an old iPad and the theme never shows. Is there a way to learn the theme from some source? I would have tumbled to the double rebus earlier knowing the theme. Nice to see OR as one of the states. Go Ducks!
Two nits. Pinot (Noir) is the grape of Burgundy, not a wine specialty. And no one says “fly lures”. A fly is a type of lure, and u have flies in ur tackle box.
Bartender: Who's going to pay for that drink that that lady poured on your head?
Egs: ITSONME
You need three things to be a good roofer. ONESTAR and the other two don't matter.
Mrs Egs and I were having a good chuckle last night while watching home movies of our wedding. It seems I might have been a bit over served even before the ceremony.
Mrs. Egs: SAYIDO.
Egs: ISOGON, I can't shay it.
Mr. T had a TWOMAN act with his wife, TWOMAN.
Wasn't Snoopy an AROACE?
The director of the movie TSOTSI decided to employ a bunch of drunks as extras. He put the SOTS in TSOTSI.
I second what @Rex said except that I know that MT doesn't abut WA. Another example, perhaps, of a guy's ID not being properly suppressed. Thanks for this abbreviated State of enjoyment, Amie Walker.
Oh. Dang, showing my ignorance quite plainly.
Roo
Both of those made me laugh out loud!
Easy. Figuring out and filling in the rebus squares was the most time consuming part of this (hi @Rex). The rest was early week easy.
Clever idea with a great reveal, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did.
I think Swing States might also refer to the musical genre Western Swing
I’m guess I’m the only one who is confused by “Traveler’s checks, in brief” = NBAREF?? That’s gibberish to me. And since I misspelled the football guy as Payton, it cost me a dnf.
So anyone mind filling me in what the travelers check clue means?
Like Rex, I subscribe to the AVCX puzzles. I appreciate their edginess because they introduce me to current culture things that I would miss otherwise and which often help me with other puzzles (like the Boswords League puzzles and the New Yorker puzzles). But they can sometimes take that edginess a bit too far so if that's not your thing... On the other hand, I don't care if I cheat on them by revealing a square or marking something as wrong. It is nice to get a cryptic twice a month. The puzzles come in PDF, puz or jpz form. That means you either need an online method for opening the puzzle or you have to print it out. Not everyone has that capability. At least I think that's true. If not, someone should let me know.
Today's puzzle, I missed the aptness of the revealer because I filled that in before I realized the theme answers had state rebuses. I eventually revealed the state crossings on my online solve because the software wasn't accepting what I was using in the rebus squares. I don't count that as a DNF because if I'd been solving on paper, it wouldn't have been a problem and I knew what went in the space.
For a moment, with MA in place at 6A, I considered MAiden for Joan of Arc but the crosses DISAGREEd.
I'm obviously not a movie buff. I only recognized Parasite as a movie that Rex listed, and I wasn't able to watch the whole thing because I was too uncomfortable with what the characters were doing. Another movie I quit watching this year (not a foreign film) was Anora, this past year's Best Picture Winner. I hated every one of the characters and what they were all about. After bombing out of it, I read the Wikipedia synopsis and was glad I hadn't bothered with the second half. Why it got the Best vote, I can't imagine.
Thanks, Amie Walker, nice Sunday puzzle!
I can even think of things that are “over and done with inside 10 minutes” that are more disappointing.
Same here! I got it in 6 just by process of elimination.
Fun and easy! I am a sucker for a rebus
There are PLENTY of ways to clue "TEX" as something besides a state abbreviation... so why do it in THIS puzzle? Terrible clueing and, if we're being honest, terrible editing. How does Will not come back and say, "Why don't we use Avery or Cobb or Winter or Ritter instead?"
Not sure about iPad but on Android there's a little "i" in the top menu bar. Click that and it gives the title of the puzzle.
Got stuck for minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with it until I determined that (I think for the first time?) they're not accepting the first letter as an acceptable stand-in for the rebus squares. I'm not frustrated with that format per se, but I am frustrated that they changed the acceptable input without warning. Oh well.
Absolutely, positively my worst nightmare - with no desire to even try to finish it. I've never done that in all my years of solving (near-solving?). Usually I try to stick it out or just cheat. It's so disappointing - I could've used an enjoyable Sunday (even if challenging) on this gloomy day. Sorry, Amie - I just hate rebuses (rebi?) so on to something I'm better at - like Wordle, SB, maybe check out Phoodle.
BTW Rex your wife's comment was spot on - a match made in heaven :)
I'm with those who enjoyed it - rebuses are right up my alley, and here we got a double treat. I also enjoyed it because I didn't find the theme easy and needed to puzzle out what was going on. I was hampered at the outset by two mistakes, first by thinking that the famous quote was "YOU lookIN at ME?" and second by writing in lo-CAL instead of NO-CAL - both of which blocked crucial crosses. I needed that reveal! Then I saw how I'M NOT A KID ANYMORE worked with ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and I got on the right track. Will just add - I thought @Rex was a little grudging about AK and HI sharing the "outliers" square - I really liked that touch. And those Downs that go on forever! A top-notch Sunday for me.
Rex - Thanks for the tip about the AVCX puzzles. I hadn't known about them and I did four of the sample puzzles and liked them.The ones I did were pretty easy but I'm betting that was the luck of the draw. On the other hand, I had never heard of today's PHoodle word...PHOOEY!
"Traveling" is a technical violation in basketball, and an NBA REF is there to keep that sort of thing in check: he serves as a check on such activity.
Same exact! And I love both movies. Liked the puzzle - people like to complain about the dumbest things.
Yes, this is precisely what happened to me, and the actual reason I was put in a bad mood. (Sorry about that, Amie. It's not your fault.) If this persists, I will officially hate rebus puzzles online.
Took a while. Interesting theme, but flawed...how can you refer to the Western states without including California, Arizona, and Idaho?
The clue for NBAREF refers to traveling violations, but traveling hasn't been called in an NBA game since Bob Cousy's day. Now, a guy will take three running steps, dunk the ball, and the crowd goes wild while the ref does zero.
People like to make the dumbest generalizations
Thank you for playing Phoodle! Here’s a tip: weekend puzzles can be a bit more challenging—but Mondays are always the easiest, with difficulty building through the week.
Thank you kind stranger! Never would have come up with that in a million years. I kept trying to parse it as some kind of variation of non bearer funds.
I was going to say essentially the same thing as Rex but he beat me to it.
Time to retire this puzzle generator.
I think we've had too many state abbrev themes lately! It wasn't too bad because there were only four rebus squares; I didn't mind hunting them down but I agree it's a dull theme. And of course once again I forgot that Sundays have a title, which would have helped me get the trick a lot sooner.
Note: this theme wouldn't work very well in Canada. We only have 5 "western" provinces/territories: YK, BC, AB, SK, MB. You Americans have so many states to choose from!
I had to cheat to finish, because there is no way I would have gotten HBCUS for several reasons:
1) The names in the clue mean nothing to me; I thought they were actors or something.
2) I had NO FAT for 63 across.
3) I've never heard of a LORIS, so I had no reason to suspect TORIS was wrong.
I was quite disgusted when I clicked "Reveal current word"; I'm sure I have seen it somewhere in the recent past but it meant absolutely nothing to me until I googled it. Bah.
How are you supposed to enter those 4 squares when not doing this on paper? On mobile you can’t enter more than one character, making it “impossible” to finish.
That was such a lame puzzle. I didn’t read the title of it so didn’t understand what the random string of letters in each rebus had to do with “Western Union.” Maybe that’s on me, but if it’s going to be state themed, why not lean into the theme a little harder and give us more state stuff so the rebuses don’t feel like icing on an unbaked cake? Or more Western stuff? Something? Anything? I had to come here to find out what “UTNV” meant. The only saving grace is I somehow managed to enter them in a way the happy-music would accept. 21 minutes and the only strain was from rolling my eyes back into my head.
Absolutely horrendous theme, horrendous fill, and horrendous clueing. Worse, none of the states are "swing" states so the title is also horrendous. The actual state pairs have absolutely nothing to do with each other, they don't form sensible answers in both directions, and they aren't even all "Western" states by any reasonable definition (Arkansas? Hawaii?!). And wtf is The KAMAL Smith Show? It's certainly not available on Apple TV, and there are a million better ways to clue that answer.
ON OUR OWN took me on a trip down memory lane, not for the 90s sit com in question but an 80s film by that title about four siblings fleeing the foster system so as not to be split up. I just learned that the version that I had seen, released by Feature Films for Families, was a highly edited version of the original, and now I want to see the version with cut scenes without the moralizing grandmother.
Anyway, in a puzzle that also included CASSETTE TAPES and NOT A KID ANYMORE, I appreciated the trip to my 80s childhood. I didn’t find the theme to be as transparent as Rex did—kept on trying to make the four missing letters spell something—but enjoyed the puzzle as a whole.
Never heard of "On Our Own", and I couldn't figure out why "Party of Five" wouldn't fit. That was also a no-parent show from the 90s, but that was on Fox, not ABC
@Phoodle - thanks for letting us know. Today’s was brutal. That answer would even get a few side-eyes from this group of solvers in one of the NYT’s difficult Saturday crossword puzzles.
Ditto for IPad. The “i” in the upper right hand corner provides the constructor’s name and the puzzle title.
When they do call it, it is just something that looks awkward but gains no advantage. There is a video showing Antetakoumpo taking 5 steps after the balls last bounce; my kids say it makes for more entertaining basketball, and I can’t fully dismiss them…
I couldn’t agree with you more, Bob. Two things have been mainstays in the NBA for decades. The fact that traveling basically doesn’t exist, and the home court shaft (home teams consistently receive more favorable foul calls and attempt more free throws than visiting teams).
Thank-you. I can't believe that you are the only one complaining about the totally made up "FLYLURE" - well, now there are two of us. While I'm here - I dislike rebuses in general and, yes, this puzzle was boring and dumb.
Puztheme was ok, but I think what I was most partial to in this here rodeo was all the sorta inventive new fillins:
AROACE. NBAREF. FLYLURES. BEETJUICE [do not say it 3 times in a row!]. HBCUS. POTATOBUD. CASSETTETAPES [nice weirdo clue there, btw].
staff weeject pick: EID. A member of the primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW. And one that I've seen before, but couldn't get the old memory pan to cough up. Even if I murmured "Beet Juice" 3 times, in desperation.
Figured out the puztheme pronto, at UT/NV. Helped that I was real sure about the "Taxi Driver" quote. The rebus done emerged.
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Walker darlin. An engagin and stately solvequest.
Masked & Anonymo11Us
... and now, for a brief safari recap ...
"Hippo Critical" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Oof. I did not like this one. But, because I’m making a concerted effort to up the ‘nice quotient’ of my comments, I’m going to try not to say I hated it.
I have nothing against rebuses. I usually like them. But I like them to work the same way in both directions. So you might cross shandy and Amanda at the rebused ‘and’, thereby using the same 3 letters for both answers. Even though the rebused answers were fairly obvious, having UT and NV in the same square and having to read them in different directions was somewhat annoying.
Also, I don’t know all your damned state abbreviations. Is AK Alaska or Arkansas? Is MN Maine or Minnesota? Why isn’t Alaska AL? Oh, because Alabama. And why isn’t Montana, which begins with MO not MO while Missouri, which begins with MI, is?
And TEX at 90D?!? Why not, at least, try to clue that as a cowboy nickname, not a state.
But the most egregious thing in the grid (as noted by @Stumptown Steve) is 60D FLY LURES. Flies (often spelled flys) are a particular and very special subcategory of lures. It’s like saying ‘sports car automobiles’. I’ve been fishing the streams and rivers (and sometimes lakes) of western North America, Australia, and New Zealand for over 50 years, always with fly rod and fly. I have not ever heard anyone, on stream or in the several fly fishing forums in which I participated, use the term FLY LURES. Just awful.
I plan to make a second post about flies and lures, but first let me say that I liked some of the longer answers in this one: FEW AND FAR BETWEEN, I’M NOT A KID ANYMORE, and the revealer WESTERN UNION.
As a reader for Orion Pictues I did “coverage” of the novel Tsotsi in 1984:”A sad, spare, and profound and sometimes compelling novel.It’s infused with a primitive urgency..etc…” I just happened to run across this last week in my garage. Then it pops up in this week’s puzzle!
just renewed AVCX subscription thanks for the reminder Rex! felt the same about todays puzzle ny times is catering to new players and beginners so they can finish the puzzle easily it seems
Oof. I did not like this one. But, because I’m making a concerted effort to up the ‘nice quotient’ of my comments, I’m going to try not to say I hated it.
I have nothing against rebuses. I usually like them. But I like them to work the same way in both directions. So you might cross shandy and Amanda at the rebused ‘and’, thereby using the same 3 letters for both answers. Even though the rebused answers were fairly obvious, having UT and NV in the same square and having to read them in different directions was somewhat annoying.
Also, I don’t know all your damned state abbreviations. Is AK Alaska or Arkansas? Is MN Maine or Minnesota? Why isn’t Alaska AL? Oh, because Alabama. And why isn’t Montana, which begins with MO not MO while Missouri, which begins with MI, is?
And TEX at 90D?!? Why not, at least, try to clue that as a cowboy nickname, not a state.
But the most egregious thing in the grid (as noted by @Stumptown Steve) is 60D FLY LURES. Flies (often spelled flys) are a particular and very special subcategory of lures. It’s like saying ‘sports car automobiles’. I’ve been fishing the streams and rivers (and sometimes lakes) of western North America, Australia, and New Zealand for over 50 years, always with fly rod and fly. I have not ever heard anyone, on stream or in the several fly fishing forums in which I participated, use the term FLY LURES. Just awful.
I plan to make a second post about flies and lures, but first let me say that I liked some of the longer answers in this one: FEW AND FAR BETWEEN, I’M NOT A KID ANYMORE, and the revealer WESTERN UNION.
OK puzzle, some good fill some awful. I always flipped my cassettes over, except when I got a fancy auto-reverse deck, otherwise you only hear one side. So terrible clue. Also "two man" who would ever describe these twosomes as that. Fly lures might be the worst, flies are never called lures. Wine speciality is a meaningless description for Burgundian reds, pinot is a grape varietal
I didnt enjoy this puzzle. Answers were easy but sticking in extra letters seems like cheating to force the theme.
Second time in a couple of days with "a ton" and "a lot" in the same grid. They're pretty much the same answer, aren't they?
As threatened, here’s my second comment about FLY LURES.
I said in my first post that flies are a particular subset of lures. What I didn’t say was that fly fishermen, like me, can be quite snobby, elitist even, about us vs the ‘gear fishermen’, those guys who toss out sparkly baubles of chrome and brass that they get from the hardware store while we tie our own delicate fur and feather creations. And learn to cast rather than chuck.
So, one evening in the early- to mid-eighties while while standing butt deep in the Henry’s Fork outside of Last Chance, Idaho and landing a few decent fish on a hand-tied Hare’s Ear Nymph with copper ribbing, I noticed this guy about 100 yards away landing fish after fish on a spinning rod. I stopped and watched him for a while - it was poetic - and when he stopped to light a cigarette, I waded over to talk to him, lit a small cigar, and got him to show me his set-up. We each had a few nips from my flask of Canadian Rye and he showed me a small spoon - smaller than my thumbnail - beaten on his workbench from a penny - with a single barbless hook (as required by the regs) attached to it.
He explained to me that he was much more concerned with ‘presentation’ than with ‘imitation’. Fish are curious. Put something interesting in their window and they will take it.
I returned to my casting spot in the river and started dropping my casts about 10 feet further upstream in order to let the fly sink deeper and started catching more trout. Lesson learned. And I have never made fun of ‘gear’ fishermen since then.
Well, there are some real schmucks out there, but …
@tht. Aromantic is no more anti romantic than amoral is anti moral.
l.a. times Sunday puzzle today spot on how a Sunday should be its free to play I don't have a subscription - if todays nytimes was a turn off theme wise you'll love this one!
Yes but a modern reader of a Hebrew newspaper or novel makes do by context without the accent dots and the vowelling diacritics (those are mostly under the lertters) that together with punctuation, versification and chapter divisionwhich were inserted into the books of the Hebrew Bible by the "Masoretes" in the 7th to 9th centuries CE in Tiberias on Lake Galilee, and were universally accepted (almost identically) by by the King James Version..These accentuation and vowelling signs are today found only found in children's books, poetry, and sacred texts (e.g., prayer books).
Sounds like you might enjoy Align, by Brendan Quigley in the Boston Globe. OFL mentioned it a few months ago and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Rules are meant to be broken!
Never seen Taxi, no idea what the quote was.
Yes, you're right. I was temporarily distracted when I wrote that. The prefix a- means, approximately, "not" or "without".
@Teedmn, two things: 1) I wrote in MAiden, even thought I thought it was a stretch (in two senses) for the Maid of Orleans; 2) I watched all of Anora, trying and failing to understand why it won the Best Picture award.
I think it is rebupodes.
On mobile devices, among all those little icons and menus at the top of the puzzle screen is one to select for REBUS. Click on it and you can enter multiple letters.
How can you have all those western states and not include California????
This! Party of Five is the clear answer to the question.
@Roo, I need to change my shirt - just snorted coffee all over it with your TSOTSI TSETSE TSKTSK quip. Best yuk of the day!
Amen, @Anon 6:52AM!! Where are the editors?! Red card indeed!
Well the down 4th rebus went right through CASSETTE TAPES; not sure I see any foul here, especially since the rebus placement in this puzzle. I think it might be a Sunday debut for our constructor who has done a few themeless ones, I think.
@Anon 8:13AM: thanks for the pedantry. I’m a calligrapher and have done a couple small jobs in Hebrew. I learned about the “to dot or not to dot” issue from a client ages ago. Needing to drag that tidbit out from deep in the stacks reminded me that nothing you learn is wasted!
Solved it. It was hard, but not even in a fun way. I like hard puzzles but this one was a pointless slog. I hated it.
PS - Only four gimmick squares. That’s a bit too FEWANDFARBETWEEN.
AK is Alaska, AR is Arkansas
Theoretically, HI and AK are West of the Continental US
Just sayin'
Roo
I did the same but then realized it wasn’t a sitcom format either. We called it “Party of Whiners” and watched it still every week.
Wow! Everyone but me found this easy? I found it so hard I just cheated a lot.
I agree with Lewis re the "Western Union" reveal. That a sparkled for me.
This was just a little rough, but contained a great theme idea. I wanted to really love it but just can’t quite get there. The fill had nice clues and answers sprinkled throughout. Favorites were “gone in a flash” for STREAKED and “Traveler’s check,” for NBA REF. Overall though, the fill felt a little “word listy” without anything really hanging it all together.
The fact of the rebus was obvious at YOU TALKIN TO ME. Maybe the dead giveaway there was to introduce an easy answer in order to avoid circles or other indicia of the rebus? It took me a couple tries to figure out which square wanted the rebus, so that slowed the process just a bit. Also, when the first rebus entry across was UT, I recalled that we had a puzzle earlier this year that had a state abbreviation theme, and the UT really stood out and made me wonder if we were doing states again. And we were. After finding the proper location (that turned out to need the UT), checking the down in the first appearance also gave away the “double rebus” aspect, and off I went. A double rebus always looks awkward post-solve to me but I realize that’s a me problem.
My only real nit was the (to me) weird phrasing of the clue for CASSETTE TAPES. I do not think of them as containing “activities,” at all. By the time I got there, I didn’t really need a clue, but read it to make sure that CASS_TTET_P_S was in fact asking for CASSETTE TAPES. I almost reconsidered upon seeing “any activities on them . . . “ but couldn’t think of anything else that would fit with the downs for the remaining blanks. I guess I can stretch the meaning of “recorded speech or music or both” to be “activities,” but not really. No big deal, just one of the rough spots.
Soon after my struggle with the tapes, I got the reveal WESTERN UNION and stopped to check the states represented in each rebus. With the exception of HI, they could all be considered WESTERN. Never understood the UNION part though.
Post-solve, I checked out our constructor and as it happens, my memory was correct. This is Amie Walker’s first solo Sunday. The theme idea is strong, but for me, the execution doesn’t come together cohesively. I love a big, fat, challenging themed Sunday, though, so I look forward to her next offering. Hoping for some push back in the coming week; it’s been a tad on the easy side.
@Anon 6:52AM, I agree 100% that TEX should have been changed. Where were the editors?
Hey @Roo; once again you gave me a big ol’ LOL! TSOTSI TSETSE TSKTSK - and there’s coffee dribbles down the front of my Tee(hee) shirt!
I was hoping for a more fun theme having to do with a sounded out state like "are UTAH kin' to me". Turned out to be standard rebus and only four at that. Easy
Anonymous 12:20
Not very nice.
Rebus hater here. I was quite perturbed by this change.
¿Me estás hablando a mí?
I enjoyed finding the rebus squares and I like a lot (a ton) of the longer answers. As others have said, I wish all of the western states were represented. I also wish there were a way to make the unions more than just four random letters in the square. Ya know, make 'em a union.
Plenty of clankers would bring the Funnyism score up if I were that mercenary.
We're missing a YADA in the YADAYADA answer. And somebody with a tackle box full of FLY LURES is going fishing for the first time and has a few vocabulary terms to learn.
Guessed correctly on the AIM / RATITE cross, but that could've been any vowel.
❤️ I'M NOT A KID ANYMORE.
People: 15
Places: 3
Products: 14
Partials: 13
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 49 of 140 (35%)
Funny Factor: 3 😕
Tee-Hee: STREAKED. LOO.
Uniclues:
1 Friendly competition between fellas standing behind a tree in the forest.
2 Fancy words for trash.
1 I GOTTA AIM CONTESTS
2 CASSETTE TAPES BOX SETS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: List of paying customers at the by-the-hour motel. CARNAL RENT ROLL.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
THANK U. The “i” has it!
The puzzle was fine. What I couldn't get over was the fact that athletes do not get INDUCTED into the All-Star game, they are VOTED in. Someday these same athletes may get INDUCTED into the Hall of Fame.
And I assumed that roaches weren't very amorous so I went with that renowned Ancient Greek band RHO Speedwagon.
Ugh. Weird spelling, obscure proper names, and generally a slog.
Started fun then quickly ran aground.
Shoulda just called it when the first weird nonsensical rebus appeared. Kept thinking I’d have an aha moment when it would all make sense. Came here seeking enlightenment. Now I’m just more irritated.
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