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Food writer Molly / THU 1-15-26 / Idiomatic partner of "lose" / Brief letters? / Oft-quoted advice in Matthew 7:7 / Sol, but not Luna / Shiny little platters / Subject of astrobiology, in brief
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Constructor: Wendy L. Brandes and Barbara Lin
Relative difficulty: The Easiest Thursday I've Ever Done (or close to it)
Theme answers:
- SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND (18A: *Oft-quoted advice in Matthew 7:7)
- ALL DAY EVERY DAY (28A: *24/7/365)
- FAMILY GAME NIGHT (47A: *Evening spent playing with the kids, say)
Molly O'Neill (9 Oct 1952, Columbus, Ohio - 16 Jun 2019) was an American food writer, cookbook author, and journalist, perhaps best known for her food column in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and Style section throughout the 1990s.
O'Neill was born and grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the only girl in a family with five brothers born to Charles and Virginia O'Neill. In her 2006 memoir, she describes the family's strong interest in baseball. Her father had been a minor league pitcher before working for North American Aviation and later running an excavation business. Her younger brother Paul O'Neill became an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Yankees. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| [The Upturned Microscope] |
[Hall find you!]
It's a four-star theme idea with points deducted for the sea of boring short fill and more points deducted for truly obscene easiness. I didn't know Molly O'NEILL and I kinda sorta stumbled at the very end with the unit of measurement (ROD) and "astrobiology" (?!?) (ETS) and trying to differentiate from Sol from Luna (43A: Sol, but not Luna)—I was like "... NAME? No, Luna's a name ..." But honestly that part only *felt* slightly hard because it came at the very end of the puzzle, and I had encountered absolutely no resistance at all since Molly greeted me at the *beginning* of the puzzle. Read clue, write in answer, bam bam bam. The theme answers were simple, and once those circled squares began to fill themselves in, the trick became clear. I know I am a broken record on this point, but this elimination of difficulty from the days of the week that are, historically, supposed to be difficult is truly dismaying. Everything is being simplified because apparently *all* of the NYT Games have to be easily accessible and digestible. Yeah, you fail Connections from time to time, but that's not gonna be as time-consuming as failing a full-sized crossword, so it's not likely to put you off Connections. Whereas you might get put off crosswords if you routinely failed them. But that's the *&#^%ing point. Some things, you should have to Work For. It makes them Satisfying. Bring back difficulty. Make Failure Normal Again! Thursday should not be as easy as Tuesday. Those of you who have been solving for decades know exactly what I'm talking about. Shortz's legacy will be that he made the puzzle more playful and entertaining and inclusive, but it will also be that he presided over the great Dumbing Down. I happily accept my role as the annoying old man who can't stop telling you that the Old Ways were better. Because they were. Not all of the Old Ways, for sure, but the part where the puzzle difficulty really ramped up as the week went on—that was better.
Star Wars is back in the puzzle again today (20D: Created Yoda, he did = LUCAS), but it's worth noting that this is, unbelievably, just the second Star Wars clue of the new year! Once a week, I can definitely handle. That's a very tolerable SW rate. Funny to see not one but two callbacks to Monday's "rhyming advice" puzzle today: we get (non-rhyming) "advice" in the first themer (18A: *Oft-quoted advice in Matthew 7:7), and then we get an echo of one of Monday's bits of "advice": "You SNOOZE, you lose!" (55A: Idiomatic partner of "lose"). On the whole, the non-theme fill was Dullsville—with so much of it in the 3-4-5 range and absolutely none of it 7+, this is not surprising. TSA SNL ETS IRENE ETTA CENA YALIES EATME SSN IDNO UMNO on and on and on. If you imagine a KRAKEN with a WEDGIE, you can squeeze some extra enjoyment out of this one, and the "Z" definitely livens things up (SNOOZE x/w FAZING) but otherwise, all the pleasure is in the theme. If there were "hard" parts today, I can't see them. Good theme, but real flat outside the theme, and criminally easy overall.
Bullets:
- 1A: Cattle calls (MOOS) — watched Howard Hawks's Red River (1948) earlier this week. Lots of cattle in that one. Lots. Like, oceans of cattle. The whole premise of the movie appears to be "people will like watching the spectacle of cattle ... moving ... over land." I'm sure this played well on the big screen in the late '40s, but on the small screen in the mid '20s ... meh. It was obviously an impressive and elaborate feat of film-making—cattle choreography—but it just wasn't that exciting to me. I did like watching John Wayne and Montgomery Clift clash—this is the movie where John Wayne first leaned into darkness. He's pretty much the "bad guy" of the film. Clift keeps trying to save him from himself, but Wayne ultimately feels so betrayed that he decides to hunt Clift down and kill him. These are two incredibly beautiful men, so it's fun to watch. The human drama is great; the grand cattle drive adventure of it all was far, far less interesting to me. Why am I telling you all this? Oh, right: MOOS. The movie had a lotta MOOS.
- 12D: Title for any male in the House of Saud (EMIR) — easy ... once I read the clue correctly. On first pass, what my brain registered was: "Tiny house for any male Saudi." I was like, "whoa ... obscure. Wait ... why do they have tiny houses? For prayer? Weekend getaways? I want a tiny house!"
- 26D: Brief letters? (BVD) — a very old brand of underwear. Do they still make them? They used to be really common / well-known, but I honestly haven't thought about this brand in years. Decades? "BVDs" were just standard language for jockey shorts. Tighty-whiteys (whities?). Now, I dunno. I did an image search and got like one pair of underwear (from Japan??) and then a bunch of infographics related to something called "Binocular Vision Dysfunction."
- 38D: Fortune competitor (INC.) — they're both business-oriented magazines.
- 67A: "Sorry ... hard pass" ("UM, NO!") — absolutely impossible to differentiate "UM, NO" from "UH, NO" without the cross. "OH, NO" could've worked here as well, though that's usually an expression of dismay or concern.
- 45D: Sixth word of the Gettysburg Address ("AGO") — anybody else literally count it out on their fingers? All of you? I thought so.
That's it for today. See you next time.
P.S. really enjoying the mail I've been getting this week (from my fundraiser drive last week). First batch of thank-you cards are already in the mail. E-thank-yous are forthcoming. You people are the best.
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111 comments:
Stupid easy and all in with Rex’s plea for some late week rigor!!! I did enjoy the ONENIL ONEILL pairing - had a brief moment when I thought my astigmatism was kicking in
I really wanted 20D to somehow be FRANKOZ but LUCAS is fair enough. Great puzzle, great write up!
Very Easy. Again. Got the theme early, thanks to the circled squares.
Overwrites:
My sibling torture was a nooGIE before it was a WEDGIE (6D)
I had Brb (be right back) for the 26D brief letters instead of BVD
My moment of truth was a GOTcha before it was GO TIME (49D)
I thought the Gandhi quote might have called for being HUMble, not HUMANE (50D)
One WOE, Food writer Molly O'NEILL (3D). Cute to position O'NEILL parallel to ONE-NIL
Agree with @REX on this one... cute theme, AHA moment, well executed, but too easy, and somewhat boring fill. Solved last night--16 minutes cuz I was pretty sleepy. FAME and FAZING both took me a while to see. 5 Fs, Darrin will be pleased (I hope I counted right). Didn't even notice the wide grid til OFL mentioned it. Having human in the clue for HUMANE was a little funny. But overall a fun puzzle! Thanks, Barbara and Wendy for expanding out worlds! (and our grids). ; )
It's true, we do remember the increasing difficulty of the puzzle through the week. Once, on a Tuesday, while working the puzzle in a public place, an unknown and very arrogant man sitting next to me leaned over and said "If you get into any trouble with that, I'll be able to help you". To which I (somewhat icily) replied, "It's Tuesday, I think it'll be OK".
Lo siento... paso.
Weak theme, unbalanced gunk, but still a fun puzzle.
That ONENIL ONEILL stack is wonderful.
I read the entire Wikipedia entry on El Greco and it's really long. Just like the reluctant 5th grade academic inside me, I still choose books based on how long they are, so I am proud of myself for sticking with it. He's a fascinating dude. His theory seems to be: If I'm going to take time to paint one person, I might as well paint 75 more standing around watching.
Yesterday's HATS off to @🦖 for his uniclues on the grid spanning lines of gibberish today. You'll go far young padawan.
People: 10 {boo}
Places: 0
Products: 6
Partials: 11 {boo again}
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 28 of 85 (33%)
Funny Factor: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: GAY.
Uniclues:
1 Dude in the kitchen preparing to eat ... you.
2 When wealthy Arabs abandon their robes for "I'm with stupid ->" shirts.
3 A 24-hour Letterman-Matthews-esque celebration of all things &Busters-ish.
1 GALLEY KRAKEN
2 EMIR TEE GO TIME
3 ALL DAVERY DAY
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Abominable snowman dancing in an invisible box. YETI RAVER MIME.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Once again the New York Times Puzzle offers us a saying attributed to Gandhi (50D) for which there is no verified source or evidence - merely a plethora of sites on the internet that say he said it that "verify" their claim by pointing to the other sites on the internet that say he said it and that verify their claim by pointing back to those other sites in an endless loop that utterly devoid of any real citation or evidence. Why? Because there is nothing to cite. Unless, perhaps, they want to claim that the saying embroidered on their grandmother's pillow, dated and signed with best wishes by Gandhi, is a valid citation.
And it is demeaning to the very serious and disciplined science of astrobiology to suggest that its subject is ETS (40D).
More ways the puzzle is dumbing down to garner more NYTimes subscriptions to attain its goal of 15 million by the end of 2027.
I did a Monday puzzle from January 1999 last night and that took me more than twice as long as this modern Thursday one. I had somewtf moments with the older one but appreciated the crunch. The puzzles of late have been more like soft, processed food.
Those who SEEK ANDY, look no further.
Great revealer, too much short fill. Were the diagonal lines of black squares intentional references to the theme of “bias”? If so, then like most grid art they contributed to the grid’s choppiness, but I can’t see an easy way to avoid them.
Easy, enjoyable puzzle!. I liked anise crossing food writer Oneill. I too had humble before humane, which gave me confirmation bibs! Never heard of the Seattle Kraken. Umno was a stretch! Thought the Sol clue was clever. Now I know that 5.5 yards is a rod!
Not sure it’s as easy as last Thursday’s GRADE INFLATION puzzle but it overall it was pretty tepid. The two spanning themers are the highlight - I kind of like the oddball grid shape.
link text">Makes No SENSE At All
Non-theme fill was flat - loaded with 3s and 4s that didn’t move the needle. Nothing overwhelmingly bad but just flat. I liked WEDGIE and the HUMANE quote. The ONE NIL - ONEILL stack is interesting. YALIES can be kept out next time.
Arthur Alexander
Pleasant enough for a Tuesday - not quite sure how this ended up on a Thursday morning.
Brian Fallon
When Molly O'NEILL told her ballplayer brother Paul that she was going to interview Ted Williams for a fishing or food-related article, he begged her to let him come along. And when Paul met Williams he told him he saw him hit a home run at Fenway when he was a little boy. He described the circumstances as best he could remember them -- what team it was against, where it landed, roughly the date, and the game situation. Williams nodded and said: "A fastball, high and away."
I tend to ignore circled letters & then let Rex identify the nonfunctional cutesiness hidden there. But that didn’t work today as I filled in YES, AMEN and AYE as rebuses. I mean it’s Thursday. But there were circled things that clearly were not rebuses. So this slowed me down. This is not to say the puzzle wasn’t too easy.
Oh, lovely theme. Come on – constructor sees the term “confirmation bias” and doesn’t just move on, but envisages this! Brava on that!
Then, taking that idea and putting it into the box, which involves the 56 horizontal theme squares, but also ten squares on the bias. Now, 66 squares is astronomical as theme square counts go, making a grid very difficult to fill cleanly. But then you add the difficulty produced by those diagonal answers – and it is great – and, well, this was one masterful build. Brava again.
Add clues that get the brain storming, such as [Like darts]. Pointy? Feathery? Sleek? Sticky? You start imagining flying darts. You picture dartboards in bars. Brainstorming is so pleasurable!
As is riddle cracking, such as figuring out the theme.
Then add a lovely Gandhi quote, not to mention fresh and colorful theme answers, and there was, for me, Wendy and Barbara, much quality and goodness here, which I greatly enjoyed.
Thank you both for a splendid outing!
I enjoyed the clever theme and revealer, and wasn’t bothered nearly as much as Rex by the fill. I do think he has a point about easiness increasing, but it’s difficult to fully separate that from familiarity and experience.
The puzzle is not getting dumber. I'm getting smarter. Every day, and in every way.
Dang it! I seldom even try a Thursday puzzle. (or Friday or Saturday). Finishing this one made me think maybe I was getting smarter at this game. To find out they’re dumbing them down—- ouch.
I had a completely different experience. For whatever reason, this was not easy.
Hey All !
Funky grid week continues.
Agree with Rex in the easinessing of the puzs. For me to finish a ThursPuz in slightly over 15 minutes means "easy". Even figured out the Theme! Positive words on a BIAS that you need to incorporate into the answer.
ONENIL next to ONEILL is kinda neat. Did enjoy the unusualness of the Theme. Tough filling, as the BIASes are pretty much locked in, and you have to maneuver around not only the diagonals, but the straightline Themers as well. So some dreck as Rex pointed out, but can see why.
Wanted TEEN at first read, but thought answer would be in Español, since the clue was. So, didn't put it in until it became inevitable. Now looking at clue, I guess it could've been English or Spanish.
REIKI rings an extremely faint bell. It will probably slink back into the space wherever it briefly crawled out of in the ole brain.
Welp, hope y'all have a great Thursday!
Five F's - Nice!
RooMonster
DarrinV
Depending on how long it takes to get the posts up I may be the first person to say I had “difficulty” with this puzzle. Oh…I “flew” through a lot of the fill…BUT rebused the YES, AMEN, and AYE in the circle intersections, mentally noted that most circles had no rebus, finished, THEN studied the whole thing to FINALLY figure out what the “bias” thing was, deleted the rebus “ends” to then get my “Congratulations” pop up.
I guess for me, the level of difficulty (easy) for much of the fill was balanced out by the level of difficulty (harder) with the theme…but all in all, I enjoyed it.
You’re saying the puzzles have gotten easier over the last two decades? Man, I thought I was getting better.
Figured out the trick, but still got a DNF because I had "name" instead of NOTE for "Sol." Maybe somebody out there is named "Luna."
Speaking of Star Wars clues, when was the last puzzle without ELLA Fitzgerald?
Even though it felt like a Tuesday I was still able to have fun with it. The training wheels (the circles) directed me right to the theme gimmick, which is where I usually have the most trouble on Thursdays. I know Nancy hates circles almost as much as I hate trivia, but they helped me out today.
I think we may have witnessed the birth of a new phenomena today - the “Rex Tangent”, not to be confused of course with the classic “Rex Rant”, in which we are taken from a simple answer like MOOS to an in-depth critique of the 1940’s classic Red River. I for one am proud to have been here to witness the event.
I'm not as much of a crossword historian as Rex or, likely, most in this community. But it seems to me that constructors, and ultimately Will Shortz, have changed their collective M.O., becoming less of a word puzzle/challenge to an impressive "look at this!" construction. Quite a feat to envision and execute, but often resulting in a junky grid that can often be finished before understanding the theme or trick. Rex often makes this point, perhaps not so globally.
Thursday puzzles used to be our favorite; now, too often it's a "meh" outing where the answers get entered fast as we can read the clues.
Kraken is obscure for non sports fans. Coincidentally they are in Boston tonight to play the Bruins (heard of them?😂) I'm a heretic as a New Englander; don't care a whit about the Patriots (and the team's Trump-supporting owner); but Go Bruins!
How are you going to call it the easiest puzzle ever when it has the disgusting mess of INC/ROD/ETS/NOTE/IRENE/DYNE??? Yes the rest of the puzzle was stupidly easy but that one section made it impossible for me without a lot of guessing and finally revealing. Who TF ever heard of ROD as a unit of measurement? And shouldn't 40D be clued as a plural instead of singular? Yes i can infer, but it causes doubt when the answer appears to be plural but the clue is singular "subject". And what is a DYNE? Maybe this is all basic crosswordese that I am not familiar with, but that one section alone prevented this from being as easy as Rex claims. I guess this ugly section was just not in my wheelhouse.
I agree that the puzzles continue to get easier but as the years pass and my brain slows down I am at least occasionally thankful for this synchronization.
Today's offering was way easy once the gimmick became obvious, which was instantly. Ditto for the revealer, but always fun to write in a spanner after a couple of letters.
Had OFL's problems with the INC/ETS/NOTE section. Also met IRENE in the same area. Enchante, I'm sure. The DAZED/FAZED OUI/NON choices were the only other minor snags.
Just before getting to the puzzle I saw a wonderful ad on line--I paraphrase-"This amazing vacuum picks up all kinds of grime and now you can buy it!" Um, no thanks. Also, please check your antecedents.
Easy breezy Thursdecito, WLB and BL. But Listen, it Would Land Better with a little more crunch. Thanks for a medium amount of fun.
@Roo--Thanks for the generous gift of half a point yesterday. You're a brick.
Can someone please explain the Sol/Luna clue and answer? I was also thinking "name" but knew it couldn't be that because Luna is also a name. What does "note" mean here?
I was able to download The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (it is a 100 volume set!). I searched for the referenced quote but got no hits. Seems like something the constructor or one of the editors should have at least considered.
Absolutely agree! It used to be about vocabulary, now it's all about figuring out the "cute trick."
Yesterday and Today.
1. Healing process, Indian way
2. Gaps not entirely matching
1. MASALA IN A SCAR
2. RIFTS SEMI-ABUT
Add YTD RBI BVD to the crosswordese cluster. RBI x BVD is going to be a trouble spot for some non-American solvers. (I'm not from the US, but I've memorized RBI after enough crosswords. I might have seen BVD a couple of times, but... no idea during the solve, especially with a "?" clue.) That area was the trickiest for me, especially since I didn't see the theme right away. Add to that my initial guess NOOGIE before WEDGIE.
June 15 2023 was a much easier Thursday for me, I think Rex would agree. Fun fact, the relative difficulty on XWStats is "Easy" for that puzzle and "Hard" for today, and yet the median solve time on today's crossword is about 5 and a half minutes faster than the June 15 2023 one.
I have found that too. Going back to pre-2000 you will find some real stumpers and not always on Saturday.
Obscure? I must have erased KRAKEN at least a half dozen times because I couldn’t believe it was correct. And having that circle in there made it even more confusing.
Rex, the "only good thing I got from that relationship" note was as cute as the holiday pet pictures.
Trump has demanded that church rites clarify that there are only two genders. Thus they will not allow a CONFIRMATIONBIAS far as I know.
New slogan for the NYTXW: All the MOOS that's fit to print.
Andy: Dad, our team lost ONENIL. What if they had scored?
Dad: Then it'd be a TIESON.
SOL is ok as a musical note, but it doesn't have that FAZING.
If every day is "Monday easy" maybe we should let up on the complaints about day-of-the-week placement and just focus on the puzzle. I actually feel bad for constructors who read this blog and see so much negativity that relates to something out of their control. Anyway, I greatly admire the theme idea and execution today. Thanks, Wendy L. Brandes and Barbara Lin.
Not so much in my wheelhouse. Didn’t know names like ONEILL or IRENE or REIKI, and used rebuses (rebi?) instead of the biases, which of course led me to disaster in the case of GAMEN…One of these days will pay more attention to the full import of the revealer. Agree that construction gimmicks are playing an increasing role versus vocabulary in crossword puzzles. Is some kind of CONFIRMATIONBIAS involved?
I found this one quite difficult to be honest, there was quite a bit of obscure fill and difficult cluing in the NW
Yes they still make BVDs !
I'm the dullard of the class today.
This one took me forever, as I thought it could only be a rebus puzzle.
And eventually I "finished" it that way, at the same time giving up because my refuses (rebi?) only sorta made sense... like when I'm forced to complete the middle name of an ancient Aztec jazz bassoonist from really easy crosses and still second guess myself (only worse).
Checking the solution, I just had to remove an obviously incorrect rebus word and replace it with a single letter (which each rebus entry started with) and that was it.
Seems like this was a "me problem," but my god was this not any fun.
My difficulty came almost entirely from thinking liKE would be a good suffix for sponge or fish. It certainly works, though I'll agree CAKE is better. The result of that error was that there was no way into the bottom section of the puzzle unless I could figure out the gimmick at 47-A. But the clue was clear enough that it had to be FAMILY GAME NIGHT, and the rest fell into place. I don't think anyone has pointed out yet that all the BIAS letters contain parts of two words, a nice touch.
I'm pretty sure the French in the clue for 54-A should be "voudrais" rather than veux, but that doesn't affect the answer.
In addition to the ONENIL ONEILL parallel answers, I liked the BVDs pulled up into a WEDGIE.
My favorite unconfirmed Gandhi quotation is his answer to "What do you think of Western civilization," "I think it would be a good idea."
100%. I’m relatively new to solving crosswords and just in that short time, I’m much much better. I have no evidence that the puzzles are easier or harder than they used to be. But I have seen my own progress in just a year. (And even so, I’m surprised at the attitude (condescension?) sometimes expressed at “how easy” ad nauseum these puzzles are. It’s boring and off putting commentary, even when I agree.) Either the puzzles got way easier just in that year (doubtful) or we may be seeing some CONFIRMATIONBIAS here.
That middle west section was impossible for me; just had to run the alphabet several times. ROD was a WOE, and I will never be able to accept that SOL is the part of the song that is clearly “do re mi fa SO la ti da”. I mean come on, SOL into LA? Simply refuse. INC was also a WOE. Had Ipo for a while (thinking Fortune 500?) but that got me nowhere.
Joking aside, a fun puzzle until that final chunk.
Sol is a name for a musical note like “do re mi fa sol…”. Tricky one!
And I’m sports fan!
A caper is not an April Fool, but rather an April Fools prank.
RP: Love the fan mail.
I enjoyed this puzzle immensely but don’t mind joining @Beezer in admitting that it wasn’t entirely easy. I got the trick right away and could see that the theme answers had to be read with a diagonal slant before encountering the BIAS revealer. How clever is that! Loved it. But even so, I struggled somewhat with the other two, particularly GAME NIGHT. It was KRAKEN that threw me. I’d never heard of them and just could not believe that was the right answer. Plus with the circle on the A there, I kept second-guessing myself which just about drove me up the wall until I finally figured out the game part of the answer. For some reason, just one of those things I could not “see.” But despite that, well worth the effort. IMO the best Thursday we’ve had in quite a while.
Your Gandhi quote brings to mind the quote credited (perhaps wrongly) to Tampa Bay coach John McKay who, when asked (after a loss) what he thought of his team's execution, said he was in favor it.
Easy, certainly. The area that held me up longest was west central (didn't really know INC magazine, nor IRENE, and CDS was momentarily hard to see). I also had AiM for a while before putting in ARM. Other than that, I can't see any areas where I hesitated on fill. The theme was definitely fun to sort out.
I'll join Rex and others in wishing a return to more challenging puzzles. Usually I think the easiness of a puzzle is concentrated in how the entries are clued, and here I think the cluing was extremely straightforward and had little bite. Much of that is on the NYTXW editor team. But I also have to say that the fill was not exciting, a little boring (and too many partials/initialisms, as Gary's Gunk Gauge shows, and I don't think consulting that is an act of CONFIRMATION BIAS). So maybe the grid just didn't lend itself all that well to zippy and witty cluing. I won't call it an outright SNOOZE, because it was brightened up by the neatness of the theme (and this might have been a hard idea to execute, so kudos to the constructors there), but there was not enough of that for me to GAPE in awe.
I SEEK ANDY Hall frequently…dobro player with the Infamous Stringdusters
Love your first sentence…so funny!
yes, aye, amen!
Ditto on the diminishing difficulty. Seemed to get worse when Shortz returned from his time off.
C-section reminder == BRAT
No mentions “reiki” obvious when Rex says very easy most contributors echo him I guess you are all in the top ten crossword echelon!
Neither sponge nor fish in the clue for 44A said "think food" to me. So I didn't. 44D didn't help. I put in CAPER, couldn't make it work with 44A so I decided 44D really meant "April fool[ER]" and I changed it to jAPER. 44A must be "jade"?? Because REIKI is such a household word? Anyways, a double DNF today and I'm eating crow instead of sponge CAKE.
It took me a while to realize that this was not a rebus puzzle. I think it was when I saw AYE as a possible rebus and then saw the AYE slanting away in the circles. This helped a lot with the AMEN clue.
Wendy and Barbara, thanks for a new slant on a theme!
Another gimmick puzzle I hated. I do LOVE Archie Bell and The Drells Tighten Up, however!
You got better. People tend to get much better in their first year, or early in their solving careers. Congrats. But Rex is objectively correct about modern difficulty levels vs. historic difficulty levels. Sorry you are “put off” by the truth.
Good point, but from my point of view: in the 17 years I've been solving NYT daily, I've aged from 50 to 67, and I barely remember my relatives' names (let alone all the spouses) yet my times are roughly the same . Caffeine level has had more effect than age. Either the puzzles are getting easier or loss of crossword skills is a late result of brain degeneration That might actually be a good research topic for cruciverbalist/neurobiologist (but good luck getting it funded!)
🤣 👍 😂 ! ! !
@egs Yes! Thank you for posting this! I too greatly admire the theme and execution, well done! Write a letter to the editor if you don't like the placement. Thank you Wendy and Barbara!
I put in rebuses, too. I saw that the word was also spelled out on the slant, but I still thought I should type in the rebuses. But that didn't get me the happy music.
Currently reading Across the Universe by Natan Last. It’s a good read if you’re interested in how far reaching crosswording has become.
In today's puzzle, you needed to see that to put in the full answer, instead of filling in the rebus, you had to fill in the letters "on the bias" (which was the theme) and then resume filling them in straight across. You weren't supposed to use a rebus. It wasn't the same as a puzzle in which a rebus is needed in order for the Across answer or Down answer (or both) to read correctly.
I honestly don't see how the ongoing tsunami of names, brand names, obscure/arbitrary abbreviations and acronyms, and special-interest-group trivia makes these puzzles "easier." Dumbed-down, sure -- but also Natick-laden and bloated with WOEs (and WTFs).
Smart and dumb are relative terms. Yes, it's become clear that the puzzles have become easier (NYTimes might say "more accessible"), but it's still an an accomplishment finishing one - and finishing a Thursday. So pat yourself on the back and make that ouch go away,
I was glad to see Mel OTT made a return this week. It's been a while. Bobby ORR should bemaking his comeback next, methinks.
I'm pretty sure this is coming from higher-ups and Shortz is just doing what he is told. The Games section has become a huge driver of subscriptions, and the NYTimes recently announced a very aggressive drive to get digital subscriptions up to 15 million ( from just 10m a less than two years ago).
I liked the puzzle and didn't think it was all that easy. I thought it called for rebuses, and even when I saw that the rebus word also went up on the bias, it didn't click with me to take out the rebus. Plus, the middle west section, with IRENE/ROD/ETS/DYNE, was tough. There was some fairly challenging fill, like "Results of feuds" (RIFTS), Energy-healing practice (REIKI), KRAKEN (really??), etc. And I love ONEILL next to ONENIL, crossing LIL. Thanks, Wendy and Barbara!
Lotsa odd puzgrid shapes and circles, this week. This rodeo especially compactified its longball fill [nuthin over 6-long], while at the same time expandin the gridsize. Weird.
staff weeject pick: LIL. Nice clue.
some fave stuff: WEDGIE. ONENIL+ONEILE, side-by-side.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Ms. Brandes & Lin darlins. Clever puztheme idea.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s.
runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
What a clever way to illustrate CONFIRMATION BIAS! Seeing how the slanty YES worked helped me with AYE and AMEN and a fast-for-a-Thursday solve. Besides the theme, I liked the KRAKEN (the sea monster) clinging to the front of the KEEL.
I was a little surprised at some commenters' not knowing ROD, but then realized that not everyone grew up with a FAMILY Bible-reading NIGHT (which was every. night): innumerable temple measurements were given in RODs.
Ditto!
Yes, very easy. No costly erasures (although I did need some crosses to spell REIKI) and me too for not knowing ONEILL.
I tangentially paid attention to the theme but I didn’t need it to finish the puzzle as the solve was very whooshy.
Clever idea, liked it.
When I was in a doo-wop group we used to quote their opening to this one--"Not only do we sing, but we dance just as good as we want!" (we had minimal choreography).
Not overly easy for me; I did speed up when I realized there was no rebus. And not a bad Thursday theme. But at the end I was really stumped by that little 38 to 46 area. I got DYNE cuz I majored in physics, and ETS was a gimme, but none of IRENE NOTE CDS INC ROD. I had ESQ for 38 down -- short for "Esquire", I guess -- and ELENE for Ms. Joliot-Curie. I eventually figured it out, but that was an ugly little box.
Right now I can't help reading 28 across as ALL DAVE EVERY DAY. Kinda reminds me of my late brother in law Dave, who was like that but in a good way.
Totally easy but stupid gimmicky puzzle
Very easy theme but man felt like I was banging my head against a wall trying to figure out DYNE (unfamiliar), ROD (same), NOTE (good tricky clue), and CDS. Is a CD a platter??? Isn’t a platter an only a platter by virtue of something being placed/served on it? It’s not a shape. A disc is not necessarily a platter, is it?
Nor have they carried a canoe or pack along a portage in the BWCA, also measured in rods.
I thought it was "Fourscore and seven years ago our"
Not easy for me; had to make lots of guesses in the west.
Had some trouble with the left-center. I know what 38D was asking, but I do not know any business magazines *other* than Fortune.
THANK YOU!
I first learned about rods from my grandfather, who was born and raised on a small family farm at the tail end of the 19th century, when the US was still an agrarian nation, and plows were pulled by horses or oxen. He customarily spoke of distances in terms of rods, chains and furlongs, which were convenient units in the world he grew up in, because of their relationship to horse-plowed acreage: 4 rods to a chain, 10 chains to a furlong, and a square 40 acre field is 2 furlongs on a side. A plowed rectangular acre is 1 furlong in length and one chain wide.
In these days of self-driving, GPS-guided tractors, there aren't many of us left who remember when rods and chains were customary, everyday units of measurement.
@jammon I could do without Star Wars clues much easier than I could do without the fabulous Ella Fitzgerald
Was pretty easy today for a Thursday; 14:43 faster than average. I lost a few minutes at the very end as I scoured for what was wrong, only to find what was wrong was that I wasn't supposed to use rebuses for the extra letters in the long answer ugh.
Toughest part was the west middle chunk, as I had Marie instead of Irene, never heard of her. And I didn't know Inc was a magazine. BVD confused me too cuz I'd never heard of that before.
Oh well, still fun and easy enough.
I got WEDGIE here in the xword (hours ago) faster than in SB today - Coincidence that it showed up twice? Do Will & Sam check with one another? Or did I get smarter at the xword than at SB?
Today's was pretty stupid. It would have been less stupid if the across themers had been words or phrases with and without the diagonal letters - would have been even better if they could have satisfied the clue with and without the diagonal letters. As it was, they were gobbledygook without the diagonal letters. That made the theme both silly and way too easy to figure out.
The Roman goddess of the moon!
What a wonderful comment! Love both of siblings. Happy to see Molly in the puzzle. Thank you so much.
Rod is old fashioned but still pops up in the Bible and in 18th - 19th century Brit Lit. Biology is the study of living things so astrobiology is the study of Extra-Terrestrial life formS. Dyne is basic metric unit of force in Physics.
True dat!
My mail today consisted of a Rex Parker postcard and the new Games magazine. Good day.
@Danger Man try Bernard Perdie part 1 and part two live performance.
@Karl Grouch 9:31 AM
That's how ya DOIT. Seems like the perfect fusion of Asian cuisine and medicine.
Fenway Park, right field bleachers, “and your sister can’t cook”
Sweet Thursday! I enjoyed the “biases”. This took a lot of construction work - I appreciate the cleverness. Had to look up REIKI and thank you Rex for explaining BVD
I was thrilled to see Molly O’Neill in the puzzle. Highly recommend her memoir “Mostly True,” a delightful read about food, family, baseball, and much more.
Surprised Rex didn't commend the theme answer for spreading the "biased confirmation" across two words each time
Haha…I think your experience was common with app users. I love your last sentence and agree. Life is too short and times are too weird (at the very least “weird” is neutral) to let a puzzle upset anyone.
Oh…I’ll add on to my comment…except for Rex cuz that’s his job! 😊
What I loved about this very, very easy puzzle was Molly O’NEILL. I know her name has been clued before, but probably not often since her untimely death in 2019.
I think of her as my conduit to a better understanding of the world and its peoples through their everyday food. I met her only very briefly during an appearance in Columbus (my own home town) just after her first book, “The New York Cookbook” was published in 1992 and have always thought that if our paths had crossed regularly we would have been friends.
We were exactly the same age, Molly and I. Gran and I couldn’t wait to read what she had to say in each of her Sunday NYT food columns. She introduced readers to cultures, flavors and techniques we’d never heard of in her accessible style with humor; her undeniable joie de vivre practically skips off the pages of her books. The Times obituary summed up her spirit and proper place in American culinary history thus: “With American food writing today including many voices and cultures, it is easy to forget that Ms. O’Neill was doing so long before the globe-trotting Anthony Bourdain and the Los Angeles restaurant critic Jonathan Gold were household names, at least in food-centric households.”
You foodies out there who have not yet met Molly might want to start with the Times’ obituary. Then check out “One Big Table.” It’s a travelogue and cookbook and so much more. I often sit down with a cup of tea or a glass of wine and reread some of my favorite parts. If we taught history through food, and spoke of eras and events including people and their culinary lives, I firmly believe the world would be in better shape.
As for this very very easy puzzle, it was saved by its very, very cleverly presented theme. What Rex said.
I’ve been doing the NYT crossword daily for only about a year and a half now. Being so green compared to most of you, I definitely notice the difficulty scale up through the week. The mid-left section where ROD, DYNE, INC, NOTE were absolutely annihilated me today, had to check (had AUTO in for 43 across lol) . Coming in to see Rex call it “The easiest Thursday I’ve ever done” was very funny to me, I truly have a long way to go.
The constructor did the Hidden Diagonal Word thing for me today ... but forgot to actually hide them.
It took me a bit of time to realize cattle, in this case, were the nice animals that go "moo." When I think of cattle calls I think of show biz -open casting auditions. I really thought it was a showbiz clue until I did some crosses. Yep, all very easy
Same. The fill was easy and confirmation bias was solvable but the theme words were not apparent and i am still waiting for the aha moment.
I didn’t like the clue “Stereotypical dog” = FIDO.
I did not experience this as an easy Thursday, nit sure why.
Is it really allowed to cross two names and clue both if them with relatively obscure people? ANNA Quindlen and MOLLY Oneill are not in my wheelhouse, and I think one of them needs to be clued more famously.
They're not in your wheelhouse, but Anna Quindlen, especially, is very well known.
Hi Anon 10:05PM. Nice to see another night owl in the neighborhood! I meant to write this yesterday and will try to put a shoutout in my comment today.
Welcome!! This is a safe space for learning, humor and sharing all kinds of thoughts and especially for airing divergent opinions. Unless you’re competing (very fun but it makes me too nervous) crossword solving is about your personal experience. My Grandmother (“Gran” in my posts) got me hooked at about age 9. Took me years until I completed my first solo Monday and I clocked my first solo Saturday the year I graduated college! I still have her c.1955 taped up paperback “Dell Crossword Dictionary” that Gran gave to me at high school graduation. It’s a talisman of her love - and of course is hopelessly outdated, but it is a quick source for ancient crosswordese if I’m really stuck.
If you enjoy the blog, I hope you’ll join us often. Honestly, I consider many of the regulars here to be friends. I laugh and learn things every single day.
Back with my partner after 6 months apart—she came back within 24 hours thanks to Spiritual Awakening Realm. So grateful to spiritualawakeningrealm@gmail.com
Hendrik
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