.png)
Wicket and Teebo of Endor, e.g. / SUN 1-4-26 / Ixnays from Irkutsk / Ultimate end, to Aristotle / Obnoxious fratty sort, colloquially / Combine using heat without melting, as particles / Certain drink + what that drink has a lot of = women's lifestyle website / Elf portrayed by Cate Blanchett in "The Fellowship of the Ring" / Where idols go head-to-head? / Queen ___ Land (region of Antarctica claimed by Norway) / Titular role in a 2024 Disney prequel / Word before winner or after Wonder
Sunday, January 4, 2026
Constructor: Gene Louise De Vera
Relative difficulty: Medium
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| [20D: Wicket and Teebo of Endor, e.g. = EWOKS] |
THEME: "Base Pairs" — famous people who were DOUBLE-CROSSED (33D: Like five Across answers by five Down answers in this puzzle, literally and figuratively)—the double-crossers literally double-cross their victims (i.e. cross their victims twice in the grid) [curiously, as someone in the comments has noted, with each double-crossing pair, the double-crosser who is actually *clued* as the double-crosser crosses his victim each time at the last letter (or “back”), making him a kind of “back-stabber” (!!)]:
Theme answers:
***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** : It's early January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. 2026 is a big year for me, as Rex Parker Solves the NYT Crossword will celebrate its 20th birthday in September. Two decades. The big 2-0. A score of years. One score and no years ago, I brought forth on this Internet a new blog, conceived in ... I think I'll stop there, but you get the idea. I've been at this a long time, and while it has been my privilege and joy, it has also been (and continues to be) a lot of work. Very early mornings, no days off—well, no days off for the blog. I do have two very able regular subs (Mali and Clare) who write for me once a month, as well as a handful of other folks who stand in for me when I go on vacation. But otherwise, it's just me, every dang day, up by 4am, solving and writing. I've never been this disciplined about anything in my life. Ask anyone. "Is he disciplined about anything else?" "No, he is not. Just this one thing. It's weird." And it's because I have a responsibility to an audience (that's you). Even after nearly 20 years, I'm still genuinely stunned and exceedingly grateful that so many of you have made the blog a part of your daily routine. Ideally, it adds a little value to the solving experience. Teaches you something you didn't know, or helps you look at crosswords in a new way, or makes you laugh (my highest goal, frankly). Or maybe the blog simply offers a feeling of commiseration—a familiar voice confirming that yes, that clue was terrible, or yes, that themer set should have been tighter, or wow, yes, that answer was indeed beautiful. Whether you find it informative or comforting or entertaining or infuriating—or all of the above—if you're reading me on a fairly regular basis, there's something valuable you're getting out of the blog. And I couldn't be happier about that.
- CAESAR (35A: General who crossed the Rubicon)
- BRUTUS (3D: Name of Ohio State's buckeye mascot)
- BRUTUS (30D: Believing his friend and ally had too much power, he led a party of conspirators to put an end to him)
- OSIRIS (8A: Egyptian god of the underworld)
- SET (9D: Ready ... or a word after ready)
- SET (13D: He scattered his brother's remains across the land and usurped his throne)
- MUFASA (61A: Titular role in a 2024 Disney prequel)
- SCAR (50D: Traumatize)
- SCAR (52D: He led his brother to his demise by endangering his nephew)
- JESUS (91A: The Lamb)
- JUDAS (91D: 2011 Lady Gaga hit)
- JUDAS (69D: He sold out his master in exchange for silver)
- OTHELLO (119A: Whence the phrase "wear one's heart on one's sleeve")
- IAGO (105D: Jafar's parrot in "Aladdin")
- IAGO (107D: Driven by envy toward his comrades, he fabricated events that led to their downfall)
Set (/sɛt/; Egyptological: Sutekh - swtẖ ~ stẖ or: Seth /sɛθ/) Ⲥⲏⲧ (Coptic) is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. In Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Sēth (Σήθ). Set had a positive role where he accompanied Ra on his barque to repel Apep (Apophis), the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the Red Land (desert), where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the Black Land (fertile land).In the Osiris myth, the most important Egyptian myth, Set is portrayed as the usurper who murdered and mutilated his own brother, Osiris. Osiris's sister-wife, Isis, reassembled his corpse and resurrected her dead brother-husband with the help of the goddess Nephthys. The resurrection lasted long enough to conceive his son and heir, Horus. Horus sought revenge upon Set, and many of the ancient Egyptian myths describe their conflicts. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| ["That's upside-down, sweetheart"] |
Hopefully by now you can tell that for better or worse, what you get from me is my honest, unvarnished feelings about a puzzle. There's an explanatory element too, sure, but this blog is basically one person's solving diary. Idiosyncratic. Personal. Human. I'm not interested in trying to guess consensus opinion. I'll leave that to A.I. All I can do, all I want to do, is tell you exactly what it was like for me to solve the puzzle—what I thought, what I felt. Because while solving may seem like mere box-filling to outsiders, crossword enthusiasts know that the puzzle actually makes us feel things—joy, anguish, confusion (confusion's a feeling, right?). Our feelings might not always be rational, but dammit, they're ours, and they're worth having. And sharing. I love that crosswords engage the messy, human side of you, as well as the objective, solution-oriented side. If I just wanted to fill in boxes, without any of the messy human stuff, I'd solve sudoku (no shade, sudoku fans, they're just not for me!).
Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. And maybe I'd make more money that way, I don't know, but that sort of thing has never felt right for me. And honestly, does anyone really need yet another subscription to manage? As I've said in years past, I like being out here on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way. How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage, as well as at the bottom of every write-up):
Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker") (be sure to date them with the new year, 2026!):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I know snail mail is a hassle for most people, but I love it. I love seeing your (mostly) gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my (completely) awful handwriting. The human touch—it's nice. In recent years, my daughter has designed my annual postcards, but this year, grad school and NYC theater work are keeping her otherwise occupied, so I had to seek design help elsewhere. Enter Katie Kosma, who is not only a professional illustrator/designer, but (crucially!) a crossword enthusiast. She listened patiently to my long and disorganized list of ideas and in very short order was able to arrive at this year's design, inspired by film noir title cards.
I'm very happy with how it turned out. The teeny boxes inside the letters, the copyright credit ("Natick Pictures, Inc."), and especially that pencil lamppost—mwah! I know most people solve online now, and many paper solvers prefer pen, but the pencil just feels iconic, and appropriate for the card's throwback vibe. That lamppost was entirely Katie's creation. She was a dream to work with. Can't say enough good things about her.
Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD."
OK, this puzzle is kinda funny, in that its basic premise violates a basic rule of crosswords, namely that you can't have the same entry appear twice in the grid. You're not even supposed to have variants of the same word in the same word (say, JUMPED and JUMP START). But today, the puzzle flagrantly violates that rule ... for a reason! And a good one. The "double"ness is baked into the thematic concept. Double-crossers literally double-cross their victims. Conceptually, it's pretty fantastic. You gotta do some pretty weird things with the cluing to get the whole thing to work. The clues on those doubled answers are sometimes a ssttrreettcchh. The OSU mascot? How is that guy not named Bucky? Bucky the Buckeye! Whose idea was BRUTUS? BRUTUS either killed Caesar or molested Olive Oyl. There are no good BRUTUSes (Bruti?). Why would you name your mascot that? And what about this 2011 Lady Gaga song? How big a "hit" was it? Admittedly, in 2011 I was probably as un-pop savvy as I've ever been. Looks like it peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100—definitely a "hit." But totally unknown to me. But it doesn't matter how well known the song is because if you don't know it, you can infer it from the theme, if nothing else. I guess the "Base Pairs" of the title are the "pairs" of names that double-cross the Across themers. It's kind of weird to imagine OTHELLO double-crossed by a parrot, or Caesar stabbed by the Buckeye mascot, but I'd say that's more a wacky feature than a bug. Everything about the theme is pretty ingenious. Not sure why OTHELLO is clued as the play and not the character, since it's the character who is DOUBLE-CROSSED (the character who says "I will wear my heart upon my sleeve" is actually IAGO). But ... shrug, if that's a flaw, it's a pretty minor one.
The SINTER / POP SUGAR / GALADRIEL area (i.e. the SE) was the only part that threatened to derail me. Got a little anxious there for a bit. Oh, I also didn't really know SET. As a mythological figure, he kind of rang a bell, but I definitely needed every cross to be sure. PAOLO v. PAULO (43A: ___ Veronese, "The Wedding at Cana" painter) was interesting there for a bit, before I figured out TOTEM (39D: Where idols go head-to-head?). Then there was the large, literal kealoa* at 15D: Hawaiian for "long mountain" (MAUNA LOA). I was lucky enough to know the Greek word TELOS (39A: Ultimate end, to Aristotle), as well as the word AIT (small island in river or lake—chiefly British; learned it from crosswords) (44D: British isle). Without those two answers, that LOA / PAOLO / TOTEM section could very well have been a disaster.
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)
Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle...
• • •
The fill was not nearly as enjoyable as the theme. A PLUSSES looks nuts with two "S"s (although the dictionary tells me this is an acceptable, if less common, plural) (21A: High marks). I'd say "PISH!" to PISH, for sure. I don't think I've ever heard it not followed by "POSH," and even then, I've barely heard it (80A: "Horsefeathers!"). I have seen EASE ON in the puzzle before, but I still don't believe it's real. You can EASE OFF a pedal, but EASE ON, er, not so much (95D: Touch lightly, as a gas pedal). A Scooby-Doo partial (!?) is never welcome ("Ruh-ROH!"). The insane clue on POP SUGAR tells you it's not exactly ready for prime time (also, not all POP has SUGAR, so the clue is bad) (76A: Certain drink + what that drink has a lot of = women's lifestyle website). Then there's SINTER, which ... what the hell? Looks like a typo for SINNER. Or WINTER. First time I've ever seen this alleged "word" (83A: Combine using heat without melting, as particles).
I also had no idea there was a place called SESAME PLACE (18A: Theme park with attractions like The Count's Splash Castle and Oscar's Rusty Rotten Rockets). I had SESAME WORLD in there for a bit. It's a better name, frankly. SESAME PLACE just kinda dies. Not exciting at all. Where the hell is this so-called "Place"? Huh, looks like there are two of them now: the original in Philadelphia (since 1980), and another in San Diego (as of 2022). So it's real. Not enjoyable to me, but real. HAS A BEEF may as well be HAS A BEEF SANDWICH for how standalone-worthy it is (not very) (81D: Disagrees (with)). And there are at least four (4!) fantasy/scifi answers in the grid. Lord of the Rings characters, not my thing (77D: Elf portrayed by Cate Blanchett in "The Fellowship of the Ring" = GALADRIEL). There's also all the short gunk I haven't even mentioned yet (ESSE NAM ALAI ATS OSS AMA SLR CFO NYS SGTMAJ NOLI etc. etc.). But gunk aside, most of my dislike for the fill is a matter of my own ignorance and also my own (dis)taste. And some of it was actually pretty good. "STOP IT, YOU TWO!," for instance (22A: "That's enough bickering!"). Or "IT'LL BE FUN" (2D: "Come on and let loose for a while!"). Or LATE BLOOMERS (109A: They'll get there eventually). If the fill took the overall quality of the puzzle down, it didn't take it down much. I still think this is one of the better Sundays I've seen in recent months—a good Sunday theme concept is a rare and valuable thing.
The SINTER / POP SUGAR / GALADRIEL area (i.e. the SE) was the only part that threatened to derail me. Got a little anxious there for a bit. Oh, I also didn't really know SET. As a mythological figure, he kind of rang a bell, but I definitely needed every cross to be sure. PAOLO v. PAULO (43A: ___ Veronese, "The Wedding at Cana" painter) was interesting there for a bit, before I figured out TOTEM (39D: Where idols go head-to-head?). Then there was the large, literal kealoa* at 15D: Hawaiian for "long mountain" (MAUNA LOA). I was lucky enough to know the Greek word TELOS (39A: Ultimate end, to Aristotle), as well as the word AIT (small island in river or lake—chiefly British; learned it from crosswords) (44D: British isle). Without those two answers, that LOA / PAOLO / TOTEM section could very well have been a disaster.
Bullets:
- 25A: Sci-fi protagonist who says "I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life" (NEO) — one of the many sci-fi/fantasy figures populating the grid today (joining the elf and the EWOKS and ALF). Not sure how I feel about the cross-reference with Morpheus today (28A: Morpheus, to 25-Across = MENTOR). With the theme being all about the relationship between people in the grid, something about having an additional, non-thematic pairing of people in the grid felt like static. Interference. Static interference. You know what I mean. Or you don't. Which is fine.
- 45A: Queen ___ Land (region of Antarctica claimed by Norway) (MAUD) — pfft, no idea. Absolutely none. Considered Queen MAUI Land before I double-checked the clue and saw "Antarctica" and "Norway" in there.
- 49A: With warts and all (AS IS) — first, you don't need the "With," not sure what it's doing here. Second, I had A TO Z here at first. Something about the "all" made me think of "the whole shebang," "all of it," "everything ... from A TO Z!"
- 19D: Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon ___" (PYM) — I knew this. How did I know this? I couldn't tell you anything about this story. Sometimes you just get lucky. There's also a Barbara PYM. I also couldn't tell you anything about her (except that she's an author).
- 84D: Ixnays from Irkutsk (NYETS) — I don't know what kind of alliteration or sing-songiness this clue was trying for, but I think it misses. Luckily, it misses wildly, and wackily, which makes me love it. Good effort! Nice hustle! You'll get 'em next time!
That's all for today. See you next time.
**kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.
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155 comments:
HAS A BEEF drove me crazy because I kept thinking that couldn’t be right. You don’t have a beef with someone. You have beef with them.
I liked the theme too, Rex, but I feel like you're giving the fill too much of a free pass. MAUD crossing the weird cluing of ALAI is Natick territory. Not clear to me why FILCHES gets the "informal" treatment. ADAIR is unforgivable 1990s-era crosswordese (at 69 uses since 1953... it's getting its annual use early in 2026). NOLI, FSHARP clued as a programming language, SINTER... bleh, bleh, bleh. I liked the theme, but the fill was a slog.
The theme goes even deeper, I think. The italicized copy of the betrayers all cross their counterpart at the end of the word. Given the semi-thematic nature of 22A (STOPITYOUTWO), it's plausible that 109A was originally meant to be a second revealer of BACKSTABBERS
The theme was fantastic and fun.
The fill required knowing way to much stuff that I would prefer going through life not knowing, and believe I would be better off for not knowing.
I'm not feeling well so I'm going to recuse myself from the discussion. I was concentrating more on my cold -- "just a cold" according to Urgent Care - than on the puzzle. Solved it as a themeless, barely noticing the repeated answers.
26 minutes for me last night, so it's in easy-medium territory for me time-wise, but I think the more accurate description would be "Medium, but in my wheelhouse". I knew all the pairs except SET (I knew OSIRIS but not SET). And, because back in 1980 I worked in a lab making ceramic parts for turbines, and we SINTERed those parts as the final production step, I knew that word! The NE corner felt like the corner cafe where our old friends MAUNALOA and ALOEGEL are having a cuppa Joe... Enjoyed seeing SIERRALEONE in the grid, a place I've been, but that clue was.... certainly a unique one! Couldn't really parse this theme until I saw JESUS with the two JUDASes crossing--then I figured it out. I was solving GOOSEEGG from the back end, and man, when you see "OOSEEGG" you just instinctively start deleting things, it looks so impossible. But then you remember the parrot's name, and you are back in business! Thank you, Gene ( or is it Gene Louise???) for a terrific Sunday puzzle. A mystery thriller of a sort today. Definitely a most unique theme, worthy of the 21 x 21 grid scale!!! really great. : )
Oh, that’s one terrific theme. The marvelous cast of Othello, Jesus, Musafa, Osiris, and Caesar – all who were double-crossed – being visually double-crossed by their double-crossers in the grid.
Pure originality – how often do you see a theme like that? Furthermore, IMO, the theme was beautified by those artfully-written italicized clues describing the villainous characters.
Then, the skill and talent behind making this. Designing a symmetrical grid to accommodate five sets of three answers plus a 13-letter revealer had to be a bear.
Meanwhile, witty clues, such as [Paired chips with dips?] for RHYMED, and [Where idols go head-to-head] for TOTEM brightened the way, as did the gorgeous FILCHES bannering the center of the box. My wheelhouse deficiencies provided trouble spots here and there, happifying my work-loving brain.
The art and science of crosswords showcased in your quality creation, Gene. Thank you, sir, and bravo!
Administrative note. For Monday, I should be able to sneak in my Favorite Clues of The Week by posting them Sunday night. But I shall be away on Monday, due to spending what I expect to be a delightful day entertaining a young family member.
Yay yay yay! A well-crafted Sunday! Sunday is funday! Don’t get to say that very often. From the initial confusion about duplicate answers to the ultimate, and literally laugh out loud kealoa, I was joyfully engaged. Had to guess (correctly) on the C in NOCAP to finish the solve - not familiar with the slang. Also just because no one’s said it yet, “BASE pairs” because the double crossers are base in their character. And lastly appreciate Rex’s heartfelt annual plea - check in the mail…or will be after I finish my coffee and publish this.
Lewis, do you have terms for words with 2 double letters, 3 double letters, or 4 double letters? GOOSEEGG as a triple double looked pretty wild as I was typing it in!
Add me to the cute theme concept - sloggy fill crowd. Given the Sunday-sized grid this became a downright chore to finish due to the magnitude of the useless trivia/oddball entries.
Palace Brothers
The theme construct and the revealer were definitely the highlights. I also liked LATE BLOOMERS and STOP IT YOI TWO. There’s a boatload of other stuff that didn’t ring at all.
I was lost DOUBLE CROSSED
I don’t expect much from Sunday’s anymore - this one didn’t do anything to change that.
Idiot Wind
Mostly agree with Rex on this one. It took me a while to appreciate the theme, although I suspected the doubles early on while wondering, "Could this be?" (i.e., repeated words)
Random and not-so-random thoughts:
- I always thought ALIT means "landed on", as the past tense of alight. And AIT crossing ALIT... oof.
- Agree, SINTER / POPSUGAR / GALADRIEL was painful.
- PLUSSES caught my annoyance as well. British spelling?
- 99A: Hadst HASDT at first. Similar concept, wrong spelling!
- 84D: Wasn't sure if the clue suggested an answer such as ETNYAYS. But that wouldn't fit and looked really, really weird.
As a wannabe Latin scholar, I looked up Brutus (and brutus) in my Cassell's Latin dictionary (to address Rex’s question of “Bruti?”). Yes, the plural would be Bruti / bruti; "brutus" appears to be a second declension masculine noun. Many folks think that any Latin word ending in -us in the singular would end in -i in the plural, and that is often correct but that's only for second declension nouns. Some nouns ending in -us are actually fourth declension, in which case the nominative plural would end in -ūs (note long ū, pronounced like a long u or “oo”). Ductus (as in patent ductus arteriosus) in the plural would be ductūs (and ductus arteriosus would be ductūs arteriosi). Manus (“hand”; the MIT motto is “Mens et manus” or “Mind and hand”) is another example of a fourth declension noun, and so the plural of manus is manūs.
I'm a programmer by trade, and I have NEVER heard of F# (F sharp) in my entire life. C#... of course. F#... nope.
I can appreciate the difficulty in pulling something like this off, although it’s not really enjoyable due to the large amount of basically unrecognizable fill functioning as glue that is required to hold it all together. Rex touched on most of it, so I won’t repeat it here, but it dragged this one solidly into slog territory for me.
I did discern the theme and actually thought it was a neat idea, however not being able to make much progress throughout the grid also meant that I missed much of the theme pizzazz.
I can see where someone like Rex or other advanced solvers who can rely on years of experience and draw on fill they have at least seen before from doing thousands of puzzles could really enjoy this one - but unfortunately for me, this one is out of my league.
Hey All !
Interesting concept. My first find was the DOUBLE JUDAS, and I was like, " How can there be two JUDAS' here?" But, eventually figured out that that was indeed the Theme. Confirmed when getting the first part, DOUBLE, of the Revealer.
Nice how the constructor didn't force themselves into a set way of setting the three names in. As in, it's flexible where the names go, not having each one x amount of rows away, for example, or crossing at certain points. If you see what I'm trying to say.
Fill decent having to work around all the Themer squares. Still managed to get some Longs in. I'm sure the middle section took some time to fill cleanly!
Liked it. Good first SunPuz of the year. Not too shabby on the Blocker count, 78, considering that 14 of them are Cheater Squares.
Time to EASE ON down the road.
Have a great Sunday!
Five F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Rick, I’m delighted and impressed to know there’s someone in this world who not only knows but has used the word SINTER. I kept staring at that one, sure that something was wrong. But not as much as, like you, I stared at -OOSEEGG, which I thought absolutely couldn’t be right. What a fun and challenging Sunday!
Started out super easy, then I hit a brick wall in the middle. Ouch. But then it came together… I didn’t love it while solving — I was super-confused when some answers appeared twice, was sure that couldn’t be right. But when I put it all together, I thought it was very impressive and definitely worth the four stars from Rex, if not more.
I took my daughter to Sesame Place in the mid-80s. Glad it’s not called a World, too overused. Nice place!
Rex, check out “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz. It’s a thing!
Once again I'm glad my printed puzzle doesn't have any clues that are in italics. I much prefer figuring things out without assistance of that sort.
TWO is also duplicated, at the end of the cross between 22A and 16D, which is theme-adjacent.
DNF. Gravely painful. This puzzle was constructed for someone else.
I got the double-entry / cross thing almost right away with Brutus and Caesar, but beyond that I was completely out of luck because the other pairs (trios) of theme answers were completely lost on me.
(Having said that, I still had no idea that the Ohio State mascot had a name, or that the name was BRUTUS, despite my spouse being a professor at the school for more than ten years.)
Never heard of SET or SCAR aside from their common English usages, and even if I had, I couldn’t pick their theme counterparts out of a police lineup.
So crossing SCAR with MUFASA doesn’t help when you also don’t know your Disney prequels.
Still don’t understand NOCAP, never heard of GALADRIEL, nor MAUD or ALAI (in this context) so crossing those was cruel.
I spent 20+ years in IT so while I’m very familiar with a good USECASE, and my teams worked for years programming in C#, I wasn’t aware that FSHARP was a thing.
I’ve never said “OHGEE” when flattered (guessed “AWGEE,” which I’ve also never said) and I don’t know who NEO is, but I guessed there wasn’t a sci-fi character named NED.
And while some of these were reasonably inferable, the puzzle kept going and going and going and going like this, and I couldn’t bear to continue.
So I looked up the last ~10 squares, and now I’m moving on with my life.
Shouldn't the clue for 33D refer to ten down answers, rather than five?
I quite enjoyed this, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it were not so blindingly easy. And if POP SUGAR were expunged.
Saw something was up withOth the DOUBLE BRUTUS/CAESAR thing, didn't know SET , or at least one of them, and had no idea of the connection to OSIIRIS. The other ones, yes. Cool stuff.
Pretty fast solve here, learned RAPINE and SINTER and found out what the other JUDAS was. Otherwise pretty smooth sailing and enjoyed lots of the longer answers.
@R00-1/2 pt. for PAOLO.
Very nice Sunday indeed, GLVD. Great Longs, Very Dense theme, and pretty ingenious. Thanks for all the fun.
And now off to my last bit of Christmas singing as The Gold King, who finally showed up.
Medium? Ok, I guess these days it’s a medium puzzle. I’d call it easy by historical standards. Also, I’d like never to read the words soothing goo again. Just lazy and gross.
79D (music score squiggle) is a truly BOGUS clue. There are multiple forms of what is called a "squiggle" in musical notation - and furthermore, some squiggles pertain to the music score for a specific musical instrument.
This constructor either needs to learn to read music, or should find another way to clue the perfectly ordinary word "REST"!
Loved the double double crossing theme, so clever. I've been looking at your blog for a few months and really enjoy everything about it. From the songs, movieclips to adorable funny animal photos, I'm hooked! I appreciate all the time and effort that you put into this blog!
Some readers of this blog must by readers of Barbara Pym…
AIT hasn't been seen in over five years, so, yes, that area *was* an unwelcome disaster.
Along with ALAI/MAUD -- the MAUD mountains not having been seen in the puzzle since 2004 (!) Two nasty naticks.
As for SESAMEPLACE, clearly Rex isnt raising a toddler.
Very clever puzzle. Hard for me. Pish , sinter — those are words that autocorrect just tried to turn into something recognizable.
It's been a very long time since I enjoyed a Sunday puzzle as much as I did this one. Still scratching my head over NOCAP as the answer for "Not gonna lie . . ." -- never heard that before. Fortunately, I was familiar with AURIC.
Then why comment?
This exactly.
in my dialect, it *is* “a beef”
Et two BRUTUSes?
Career Counselor: Mrs. Poe, I suggest Edgar Allan POETRY POETRY.
Dude: Bro, I'm going to the store to get 24 beers.
Bro: Dude, USECASE!
Dude: Zip it unless you're going to be the one to TOTEM.
Bro: How'd you like to eat ALIT spliff?
Dude: You're UGLI.
Bro: BYTE me!
Mom: STOPITYOUTWO!
Now that I think about it, could STOPITYOUTWO be a subtle urging for peace between the DOUBLECROSSErs and their victims? I guess I better keep thinking.
I don't want to say that some commenters are getting a bit too picky, but the NITRATES are off the charts!
That SPCA TV spot that shows mongrel dogs and asks you for just $7 a month is a CURAD.
To lay out this very ambitious scheme in a workable way at all is incredible. I enjoyed every second of my solve. Thank you, thank you, Gene Louise De Vera.
P.S. @Rex - The Prague guy is in the armor. Thanks for all you do.
Did anyone put in sternum before RIBCAGE? Just wondered. Also, I’m a bit behind in programming languages so even though it makes no sense, I could not get C++ out of my mind but luckily FILCHES led to FSHARP. Like @Rick Sacra, I was familiar with SINTER but because of its use in steel-making blast furnaces. Also…as old as I am, AVON no longer occupies the front of my brain when it comes to makeup products. I DO know that it was VERY nice NOT to have a “moonlighting” AVON representative in my office the last decade or so displaying the (IMO) subpar products.
Anyway…I’m on the side that says this puzzle was just crunchy enough and lots of fun. Thanks Gene Louise De Vera!
Bookkeeper
Ok. Are you kidding?
Don't have a cow if you have a beef, idiomatically speaking.....and I am pretty sure the Jetson's dog Astro did not say ruh roh...... Scooby as Rex mentioned
I agree the theme was cleverly conceived and executed. I still got a DNF because of the fill. ALIT means "landed ON," doesn't it? How then can it mean "got off?" I didn't know MUSAFA, so I didn't get SCAR in either context (does it really mean "traumatize"?)
Love me some learnin’ by crosswords. Egyptian Met, Ait the island, whatever the heck sinter is? Good stuff. And the double crosses were genius. Bisected by base buggers, they were.
Really enjoyed the puzzle and like @Rex, marveled at the cleverness of the theme concept.
But the big news for me today is that the furnace has conked out, we have no heat in the house, the repair people can’t come until tomorrow and outside it’s several degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). We’re definitely in MIN temperature conditions. My RIBCAGE is cold, my NOSE is cold and so is every other part. I feel like I’m in the Ninth Circle of Dante’s Inferno, frozen in the ice with the Devil himself and all the betrayers – there’s JUDAS over there, and Hey, BRUTUS! I wish it was JULY – I wish I were in SIERRA LEONE, MAUNA LOA, NAM, CAL or hanging out with the ATHENIANS at the Parthenon.
OH GEE, I think you could call this “Furnace ERROR.” We tried pasting on a CURAD bandage, but it didn’t work. There’s nothing to do but PUSH ON, drink POP, eat lots of SUGAR and BREAD and have a good old-fashioned FRY-UP.
When I called for service, I created an UPROAR and urged them to come ASAP. I HAve A BEEF with the repair company over the delay, and won’t be PLACATED until they come. We’ve been DOUBLE-CROSSED! First by the furnace and then by our supposed service providers. What’s next? PTSD?
But, don’t worry about us – we’ll be fine. My husband’s baking to keep the kitchen toasty, and I have my word puzzles, all of you on the Rexblog and a new Christmas quilt to keep me warm. Cheers!
This puzzle felt so much on my wavelength that it almost felt like cheating, so I loved it—literary references, Roman history, Aristotle, the Disney of my teens, Tolkien, biblical references, etc. I had fun, but I felt guilty about it.
The last holdout for me was the same area Rex mentions, where I didn’t know OSIRIS and SET, and RAPINE wouldn’t come to me, crossed with HADEN whom I don’t know (never heard of SESAME PLACE either, but it eventually came through crosses). But loved the puzzle over all.
A little icing on the cake for me was the way ESSE was clued. I’m a North Carolinian, and I have no idea why our state motto is “ESSE quam videri” (to be rather than to seem) or why that makes sense for any state motto, but I love the phrase, so it did my heart good to see it in the puzzle this morning.
Bucky is the mascot for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, a rival of Brutus Buckeye!
I feel like I got Naticked at a few spots...
AIT is something I've never seen. Maybe I should've been able to suss PAOLO... but still...
Mauna LOA/KEA crossed with TELOS, another word I've never seen....
Then Finally, MAUD with ALAI is absolutely unforgiveable IMO.
Meh, this puzzle felt too clever for it's own good. It was out of my wheelhouse, and, for me, not an enjoyable challenge. Happy Sunday, all.
We definitely have a beef where I come from.
Seriously? Awesome theme. I can’t understand anything but accolades for this one….
I think most of those were fine on a Sunday. I didn’t know MAUD, ALAI, ADAIR, and SINTER as they were clued, but I thought they were fairly crossed with the remaining unknowns inferable. (NOLI as clued happens to be in my wheelhouse, so I can’t speak to those crosses.) The clue on FSHARP was also musical, so once I had the first letter the rest filled itself in.
I got my weekly crosswordese fix today. It had good range and what I didn't know was fairly crossed. Sometimes doubly.
Incredible theme! Bravo!
Admission: I have always hated Sylvia Plath, even though admittedly, she's never done anything to me.
Eschewing all the structured walls
Of meter and of rhyme,
Of rhythm and sonority
That other poets climb,
You call your craft "tyrannical"
And think yourself a Bard,
But rhyme's what makes it hard, Ms. Plath --
Yes, rhyme's what makes it hard.
When rhyme's not there, said Robert Frost --
And here I'd like to quote:
"It's tennis played without a net" --
Yes, that is what he wrote!
Is poetry "tyrannical"?
I think, Ms. Plath, that's true.
But truest for the Bards who rhyme
And not so much for you.
-
@Bob…SCAR was the evil lion in Lion King. I was lucky enough to be in the “sweet spot” of parenting a child that I took to the movie. That child now being 37.
Also a stunning amount of chemistry-related fill. Some that’s very explicit: • Substances found in cured meats and explosives (nitrates)
• Combine using heat without melting, as particles (sinter)
• Eponym of element 96 (Curie)
• Chemist's variant (isomer)
• Chemistry lab dropper (pipet)
And some that’s maybe common enough that it wouldn’t come across as chemistry:
• Ozone no-no, for short (CFC)
• Derived from gold (auric)
Still, I’m really surprised that no one said whoa whoa whoa let’s pull back on that a bit. Or maybe they did and the original submission was even worse!?
Way out of my wheelhouse... could get no traction in the NW no matter how far I zoomed out. PPP crossing PPP.... what's the use? Pitched it. What a letdown after last Sunday's pleasant romp.
TOTEM = idol. place where idols go head to head = totem POLE.
Ruh roh Rorge! Definitely Jetsons.
Sierra Leone is less round than Nauru by every metric. Nauru has a circularity ratio of ~0.92 while Sierra Leone has a ratio of ~0.27 (a circle has a ratio 1.0) when calculated using their GIS shapefiles.
Giving a kid driving lessons my instructions were "ease on" both the gas and the brake.
Thanks for clarifying that.
Medium. This had just about the right amount of resistance for a Sunday. No whooshing, just a steady pace with enough WOEs (e.g. MAUD, PYM, GALADRIEL, F SHARP, SINTAR, RAPINE…) so I had to work for the solve.
Clever, fun, and impressive, liked it a bunch.
Throughly enjoyed this one. Knew something was up when I got a double BRUTUS and could not shake it. Had major problem only in the SE where not being a programmer I could not make sense out of USECASE. SINTER was also a new word to me but the crosses were relatively easy. Thanks @Nancy for the rhyming Plathwork.
This delighted me, Nancy! I taught a class on poetic form this past semester and the students ate it up, and by the end of the semester were bringing me to tears in some extremely complex forms. They loved the challenge, rose to meet it, and are better for the struggle.
Definitely “a beef” here. And both Astro and Scooby said “ruh-roh,” but Astro was first.
I’m sure the only way I happen to know NO CAP is that I teach Gen Zers. I always have small embarrassing moments of learning their slang late in the game and looking clueless in the process. One of my students in another class shouted through an open door “You’re the GOAT!” one day while I was teaching, and I immediately proceeded to lose GOAT status by having no idea what she was talking about. But I’m glad for crosswords to vary the generational reach of the clues.
I thought this was a really cleverly executed theme. That Lady Gaga song is a well-known hit in my house (give it a try, it won't leave your head for days!).
Around here if I have beef with someone, we're both eating.
100% agree!!! I had to force myself to type it in and then I kept an eye on it just in case. I almost saved the A for the last letter in but it’s a little crazy to do that on a Sunday lol!
Counterpoint--hope you feel better soon. I often agree almost entirely with your comments.
I got a late start today & came to the Blog first to see if it was a Rebus in a Sunday grid (& maybe peek a little) which usually means I will lose my streak & what you had to say about it. (4 stars - wow!).
I just wanted to say that I very much appreciated your heartfelt post today (not the puzzle review).
All of us pet lovers LOVE the XMAS Pet Parade & the time & effort you put into it each holiday season. Especially me, who lost my Cinnamon (& nearly myself) to a reckless driver & so you help keep her alive for me, & help me to share her each Christmas.
You ARE the NYT puzzle for me & a lot of us here, and THANK YOU :)
Enough sentimentality.
Happy Holiday to you & your family. Janine & Cinnamon
BTW - love the new 'snail mail' card :)
Lovely theme but blew it 6 times…igloos before adobes, mayhem before uproar and subsets for submenu. Then the alluvial before agrarian, Alta for Avon, followed by says who for says you. Spent most of my time correcting!
If 10 were doubled there would be 20.
Hope you feel better, @Conrad.
Anonymous @9:05 "Why NOT comment?"
Just can't let this go. Bucky Badger is a Wisconsinite through and through. Minnesota's Golden Gophers do not think kindly of him.
i began the puzzle hoping for some enjoyment to accompany the caffeine and eventual dopamine, but the puzzle squandered my good will with colloquialisms and antiquated fill. the former always sound stilted. i'm surprised no one mentioned the seemingly non-themed double appearance of YOU (both times via a clunky, quoted clue). NYS (buffalo's home) seems made up. NYC, NYE, & NYT sure; NYS not so much. it's so klugey that i truly look forward to seeing NDS, SDS, NCS, SCS, WVS, & NMS clued similarly in 2026.
Like others today, I stumbled over NOCAP, which is frustrating because it has appeared several times! Somebody, tell me again what the CAP part stands for--how is it related to telling a lie? Maybe then I'll be better at remembering it next time!
I appreciate the theme but would have liked this puzzle so much more had the fill not been such a slog. NOCAP (someone please explain this) crossing AURIC...USECASE and GALADRIEL crossing GOOSEEGG (which I couldn't get because I had Begat instead of BEGOT)...and how does ALIT mean "Got off" rather than "landed"?
SINTER...POPSUGAR...ADAIR...EWOPS...DUDEBRO...It's all just UGLI, UGLI, UGLI. Admirable, maybe, but not fun, and I like my Sunday puzzle to spark joy. To me this was all gunk.
Thanks so much, @Dr. Random. Wish more teachers were doing what you're doing. The world of literature would be much the better for it and certainly the world of poetry would. Maybe you've unleashed some future Tennysons and Blakes among your students? I certainly hope so!
Possibly confusing it with u Wisconsin"s bucky badger? I thought u minn mascot was called goldy…
Well hello @Nancy. Nice bit of POETRY. Nicer yet to have you amongst us. Hope you'll stay.
Can anyone explain to me 33 Down? The reference to “five Across answers” makes no sense to me. The double things are all Downs, no? And FWIW, in Boston we have a beef.
Judging by what people on this blog find tough or inscrutable, no one on here has interacted with anyone under 40 in over two decades, much less is raising babies.
46 down had a clever clue: "It's in your jeans." I got _ENI_ before landing on D to start and M to end.
During the depression, my mother worked for the head of the Sailor's Union of the Pacific in San Francisco; disputes of any kind were filed under "Beef."
I was slow this morning. For me, at least Medium-Hard, very much a wheelhouse thing. SCAR was unknown, so was GALADRIEL, as was F SHARP qua programming language, as was POP SUGAR qua lifestyle website. SINTER is just barely something I think I've seen before. Queen MAUD: good grief. I'll come back to that in a minute. DUDE BRO -- you must be kidding me. That's a phrase? HADST is pretty obscure to me; what's that, second person, as in "thou hadst"? AIT is also obscure to me. ADAIR was plucked from within some deep fold of brain tissue.
Worst of all in my case is not seeing DOUBLE CROSSED for quite some time (I was playing around with DOUBLE tReaSon, which is not a phrase I know of, but I knew by that time that there was a doubling theme that involved treasonous behavior, so that accounts for that). And ATHENIANS right next to it took a long time to come into view.
Had "slur" before REST, which was simply wrong for a squiggle; what I think I was groping for was "mordent" (which obviously doesn't fit). I had pILferS before FILCHES, and I honestly couldn't tell which of those is the more "informal", to quote the clue. I think NO CAP has appeared not too long ago, but if so, I've already forgotten how to make sense of it. SUBMENU is not that familiar to me either.
I was fairly uncomfortable about 11 down, RAPINE, thinking "oh no you didn't", even with that E instead of a final G. I don't think I know that word. I was also thinking "oh no you didn't" when I had _ENI_ for the thing "in your jeans", and indeed no they didn't; it was DENIM, not the same first letter as in PISH (which would have made the cross Queen MAUp, similar to the Moops from Seinfeld). I agree with Rex about PISH missing its partner PoSH. SGT MAJ seemed insufficient in its cluing, that this is in heavily abbreviated form.
SIERRA LEONE brings up a very unpleasant memory, that my PhD advisor's son, who served as an AP reporter in Africa, was murdered along with three others in a car, in Sierra Leone, by a child soldier.
Some final notes: (1) Rex, I think Popeye's nemesis was named Bluto, not BRUTUS, (2) TELOS is a word that some people here will hate, but you know, just a little bit of Greek can go a long way in making you seem smarter than you actually are. The word is related to "teleology", which has to do with final ends, according to an old idea that events can be explained in terms of directedness toward a final goal (as opposed to being driven from behind by past causes). Its inclusion gets an A PLUS from me. (3) I also loved STOP IT YOU TWO and LATE BLOOMERS. (4) Loved the misdirection for BYTE ("small part in a gig").
Lots of football today. I'll be tuning in. See you later!
Based on my understanding of the terms, I would agree with you, although I would be interested if anyone has a proposed approach at lawyering the clue/answer combo to the point of acceptance.
Will’s “five or six mistakes a year” assertion is looking a little shaky, considering that it is only January 4th. Other than curiosity, I’ve kind of made peace with the fact that “accuracy” doesn’t seem to be a paramount consideration for Will (or maybe he is just in denial). Between flat-out mistakes, made up words, outdated slang, foreign words that I would never recognize (and that even native speakers of the language debate their accuracy), and so on - it sure seems like that train left the station a long, long time ago.
SINTER was not a complete no-know for me. I thought it might be from watching "Forged in Fire" on TV, over my husband's shoulders. I asked him if it sounded familiar and it did, so that's my theory.
I was definitely in the "3D should be Bucky" group but it didn't work, for so many reasons. The theme helped me clean up some of my other goofs in the NW (Citrons before CASABAS). The double SETs for OSIRIS were only noticed during a post-solve theme inspection. MUSAFA vs. the SCARs was another double-crosser I wasn't acquainted with, having still avoided watching the Lion King (at least I think that's where it comes from.)
GALADRIEL was pulled out of somewhere though it sat as GALADiel_ for a while. PIPET is always fun to see in Spelling Bee because you know if that works as an answer, PIPETte is sure to follow.
SUB MENU and USE CASE were hard for me but crosses made it work. And why do clues like 7/11 always throw me off. JULY, of course.
Gene Louise De Vera, great Sunday theme, thanks!
@Barbara S, sorry for your problem and good luck. We have had mild weather so far, and still no snow, but having the furnace conk out is one of my greatest fears.
Thank you for this. The relative circularity of Sierra Leone was the most interesting part of the puzzle to me.
Find me a flower in a LAUREL wreath, crown, or any victory symbol. The plant does produce flowers, but what an ignorant clue.
--> "97 Leafy victory symbol"
My sintered story I once inspected a single engine Piper that had a sintered tin firewall the part between the cockpit and engine. Well it had a hole burnt through it from the exhaust pipe. The owner balked at the price of repairs. So he snuck in the Hangar at night slapped something on the hole and flew away he left behind his putty knife I still have it
I was stunned by this puzzle in a good way, and here's why:
Years ago I tried to make a few crosswords. One of my theme ideas was "Dirty Double Crossers"; for example BENEDICT and ARNOLD could cross UNITEDSTATES. It turned out to be far too difficult for me, and I thought: there's no way anyone could make this work. But here... Gene has done it! Slightly different in that he's using the first name twice, but still, I am very impressed.
I did have some problems with names and such, eg MUFASA and GALADRIEL are total Unknowns. Like several of you I'm very annoyed at cluing FSHARP as a programming language; CSHARP has been around for years and had me convinced that CILCHES was a word. And I have done some coding but never ran into the term USE CASE, so I had USE EASE crossing EURIE (and that's a bizarre clue for CURIE, by the way).
So: best Sunday in months for me, but still some rough patches!
I'll correct myself, on reading this: "After the theatrical Popeye cartoon series ceased production in 1957, Bluto's name was changed to Brutus because it was incorrectly believed that Paramount Pictures, distributors of the Fleischer Studios cartoons, owned the rights to the name “Bluto”."
I'm guessing that Minnesota's Goldy Gopher and Wisconsin's Bucky Badger are both thinking, "What the heck?"
@Barbara S, I've been through that scenario, though the repair person was three days out. That's when we're grateful that we have two gas-insert fireplaces in the house and electric heating in our bedroom. Good luck!
Never heard of no cap.
Agree with Chris. And both dogs were voiced by the same actor (both by Don Messick, and later, both by Frank Welker).
I thought the theme was terrific, and, for me, another example of both seeing and not seeing, i.e., I saw the two SETs, two BRUTUSes, and two JUDASes but never noticed that they CROSSED their victims....until I got the reveal. At least that left me two more to discover with a full appreciation of the theme. What a construction feat! Lots more to like, too: LATE BLOOMERS by AGRARIAN, ATHENIANS, ANNAPOLIS, STOP IT YOU TWO....
As far as BRUTUS the OSU Buckeye goes, I'm guessing he's not Bucky because the name was already taken by Wisconsin's Bucky Badger. Wikipedia tells me that BRUTUS was the winning entry in OSU's "Name the Buckeye" contest.
Same. Plunked down CSHARP pretty quickly which created an mess in the middle along with Filches. I did not find the double answers clever - I found them annoying.
When I have hand-written a piece of music, I definitely feel like the 1/4 note rest is the only thing that I would describe as a squiggle, so I thought that was OK. Clefs are more arcs . I'm interested in learning what the other squiggles look like : )
I enjoyed your poem since I feel much the same. Rhymes allow poems to echo in my mind. Thanks for sharing it!
I resisted APLUSSES to the very end!
Bluto was renamed Brutus in 1960 because King Features Syndicate believed Paramount owned the rights to the name Bluto (they didn't, since the character was originally created for the comic strip, not the animated Fleischer shorts). Since the 2000s, Brutus and Bluto have been distinct characters (twin brothers).
Yes on sternum. Very clever puzzle but Mufasa and Osiris are a bit obscure… I may not
Astro (1962) said Ruh-Roh before Scooby (1969)! Both were voiced by Don Messick
Thanks Egs and Nancy for the laughs.
This was a fun theme to see, especially with the Backstabbers note. At first I had DOUBLEtrouble for the revealer, but getting CROSSED made much clear. I don’t know MUSTAFA and SCAR so I missed out there.
STOPITYOUTWO, LATEBLOOMERS, BYTE, RHYMED, TOTEM (despite its absent pole), and the miracle of GOOSEEGG (solving from the Gs), were faves.
The problem for me was the abundance of chemistry clue/answers combined with a ton of extra PPP beyond the 13 theme answers. I grew a bit frustrated over all that.
Not, as I may have mentioned more than once before, a big fan of Sunday puzzles but this one, in more ways than one, breaks the mould. A really good workout. Great theme. A bit jarring at first, seeing those otherwise verboten duplicate answers, but everything fell brilliantly into place. Well, sort of. When I filled in the last square I got the "Sorry pal, but you're an idiot and there's at least one wrong letter in there" message. I usually hate scanning a Sunday grid for my mistake, most often a typo, but for some unknown reason my eyes ALIT upon the cross of pSHARP/pInCHES almost immediately. Quickly corrected to FSHARP (no idea) and FILCHES (nice word) and I was done.
Some iffy fill here and there. The double S APLUSSES, comes to mind but there was also some terrific stuff like STOP IT YOU TWO, LATE BLOOMERS, ATHENIANS, and GALADRIEL. Don't know how I knew that last one. I'm not a fantasy fan but I did watch the LotR movie with my family some years ago and the name seems to have stuck. Perhaps I have some sort of secret cinematic crush on Cate Blanchett.
Lots of fun and a great, disruptive theme. Thanks Gene Louse De Vera.
Thanks for this. I thought of Nauru, too, and also a few other island nations, but didn't know how to quantify their circularity. And in any case, they didn't fit. What a very odd clue that was! Even if correct, it would be super obscure.
I realized before I finished the puzzle that it was about betrayers, double crossers. All well and good. But as described by Rex and other commenters, the theme effectively went meta and became a commentary on the grid itself, like a novel about writing a novel. Not my cup of tea.
And now, I'll partially disagree with myself. It seems to be a widespread Mandela effect: people think Scooby said "ruh-roh", but it was only ever Astro. Or, if you think Scooby did, you are hereby requested to provide video with him saying that.
And you, @Wittgenstein, should know better than anyone that "It makes no sense to speak of knowing something in a context where we could not possibly doubt it."
Snow can SINTER as well... think of the hardening of avalanche debris when it comes to rest, or if you shovel a pile of loose snow to make a snow cave you let it sit for a bit and it SINTERs into harder snow.
This SunPuz theme had minimal humor, but it was so different, I luved it all the same. Had some tricky solvequest spots of the PAOLO/TELOS/HADEN kind, but gotta expect a few nanosecond sacrifices, somewhere in a SunPuz packed with all this here themer stuff.
staff weeject pick: SET & SET. Don't get to talk double like that, real often.
some fave moments: FILCHES. STOPITYOUTWO. GOOSEEGG. PLACATED. PAVE clue. The primo U count. BUBBA gettin double-crossed by BRUTUS [you weren't the only one, CAESAR dude].
Thanx for the fun, Mr. De Vera dude. Clever stuff.
Masked & Anonymo16Us
p.s. No runtpuzs, as my source in Venezuela has temporarily dried up.
RACCOONNOOKKEEPER
@pablo
You're in the lead!!
Roo
I would be much obliged if you could provide direct video evidence of Scooby saying "ruh-roh". In fact, here he seems to be saying "uh-oh"!
Two things:
NOCAP was just in a puzzle not too long ago, so I don't see how so many are stumped by that, and GOAT is popular in the sports world.
Not sure what you’re getting at here. The clue I had (this a.m. on the app) was “Floral victory symbol”. Per the Cambridge Dictionary, one of the definitions of floral is “a smell or perfume that is like flowers”.
Per Google AI, “some laurels like Mountain Laurel have distinct, fragrant flowers, others (like Bay Laurel) have subtle floral hints within their dominant herbal/spicy aroma, and some perfumes use "laurel" to evoke a complex, green-floral feel, making it a multifaceted scent description”.
I don’t believe “ignorant” is a fair (or accurate) characterization of the clue/answer combination. It sounds like you may have had a different clue though.
Perhaps the constructor was limiting themselves to non-island countries....
I liked the puzzle, but I can’t believe everyone is raving about how much they liked STOP IT YOU TWO (I also liked it) and not mentioning that literally right next to that great entry is ACT TWO, which dupes TWO, and dupes it very close to each other. I understand there are theme dupes in this puzzle but this TWO dupe is not a theme dupe. How did this not get caught in editing? Or do they just not care?
Extremely common Gen Z slang. Definitely a younger thing, but very much A Thing.
In my opinion, best Sunday puzzle in some time. I overlooked any poor fill due to the exquisite theme and execution. Although not easy, a fun puzzle for me.
incredible puzzle ingenious with layer after layer of meaning - not sure why this isn't a 5 star puzzle it has so much going for it and really timely as well - the Jesus/Judas cross and Mufasa/Scar cross added even more depth so many brilliant clues/answers loved it!
Hand up for “a beef” although, two people having “a beef” were “beefing.” As in, “Still together, are you kidding? They’ve been beefing for months!”
@Anon 5:19AM, I love your deeper theme analysis.
Feel better @Conrad.
The great Astro v. Scooby Doo debate lives on! Of course, I’m teasing you both. I am in the camp that goes with either cartoon dog because I watched both but truly don’t remember. Oh. I put in the dog that fits with the number of squares.
Yup. I’m guessing you saw it on forged with fire.
I've had a lingering cough from that cold for 3 weeks now. Went to Urgent Care myself yesterday and got an Albuteral inhaler, which has helped a lot. Evidently this cold just hangs on and on and on. Feel better soon!
So…I can’t imagine most people are familiar with SINTER, because after all, we all can’t know EVERY little damned thing. Keep in mind I only knew/know because-due to activities on the Lake Michigan shoreline-I was in involved in several federal/state enforcement actions. Ya gotta learn the biz if you do THAT.
As for the Bluto/Brutus thing, I didn’t know the WHY but I’m embarrassed to say that my level of cartoon watching MIGHT have been excessive, because I was always, like, “WHY is he now Brutus”?
Oh…and good one on the “it’s in your jeans”…yikes!
Nancy!! Thanks for stopping by!
@Southside Johnny. I suggest you review Joaquin's Dictum. To say that there is a true mistake in this clue/answer combo kinda seems like saying that you don't get how crosswords work.
@Barbara S…oh my goodness…I see in your blog profile you are in Canada! I can only hope the PNW…like B.C. Furnace problems are a nightmare. Good luck!
Hang in there Southside! I’ve learned through last few years on blog that “out of my league” on one puzzle can later result in an OMG…what’s wrong?….this seemed easy to me experience.
What a construction tour de force! Original idea, complex structural challenges with a big fat Sunday grid to fill around the theme. Impressive. I agree that quite a bit of the non-theme fill was a tad boring.
I was stunned to see BRUTUS twice as my solve led me down the left side of the grid, and because the word was not one that could possibly be an accidental duplicate, the occurrence pinged my mental radar. When it crossed CAESAR, I thought the theme was going to be ancient Rome or Shakespeare. Not.
My biggest self-inflicted wound was thinking 22A was STOP IT OR ELSE, (a familiar phrase for me growing up because there were three of us “beefing”) which made eRS rather than ORS work. That blunder lasted a long time. The Star Wars answer contributed to the difficulty up there. I had no idea it was a Star Wars reference and thought it referred to witches and witchcraft. That NE chunk was the last to fall but I did finish with lots of guessing up there.
Partial answers elsewhere looked so odd my brain shorted out - SEEGG being the most problematic. Even completed, the word GOOSEEGG looked wrong after staring at the partial SEEGG for so long. Also up in the NE, The NEO-MORPHEUS relationship got me nowhere. By now I should remember “The Matrix” characters, but no, yet more reasons I had to finish up in that area.
Nice whooshy areas for relief, though. The diagonal starting with PAOLO down through PLACATED, POETRY, PUSHES ON to PISH gave my aching brain a rest, and the fill through there was some of the more interesting.
Do CURAD bandages still exist? I recall two commercials aimed at the Saturday morning television crowd of my youth. I remembered the commercials as I dug around the archives to find CURAD, but have seen neither ad nor the product itself in recent memory. If I need a new box of adhesive bandages, I will likely pick up the “other one.”
Best Sunday solve in a very long time.
Hey Mike, thank you SO MUCH for keeping your blog real and not making it a subscription thing; in this day and age I would just hate having this space, which has been a haven, a home for my nerdy, wordy soul (wether I contribute or not, I’m here regularly), another online, impersonal bunch of bytes demanding my email and login password. Since day one I’ve felt like I met you and bonded through the crossword and I can come meet you at your regular spot (at a café, park, tree, bar, whatever) and discuss the puzzle and get tips and share music. And all that with a bunch of other friends that also come and share opinions, hacks, knowledge and a bunch of other fun and creative things.
THIS is the kind of community we, as humanity, need the most; even if it is through this weird medium…I’m sure I’d love it if it was in person too.
Here’s to 20 more years! 🥂🎊
I thought it was fine also. Trills, mordants, arpeggios could look like squiggles, I suppose - in which case you just have to find the 4 letter one.
@Rick -- I think I've called them double-doubles and triple-doubles before, but I'm always in the market for new terms.
Conrad
I sympathize.
Like Anonymous 4:46 PM
I got a cold and Albuterol helps but the cold lingers….
Kitshef
Interesting that someone just above you said the puzzle was ridiculously hard so he quit
I wouldn’t go that far but while the theme was easy parts of it was quite hard, especially the SE.
Re: 33D, the 5 folks who were betrayed (eg double-crossed) were across answers.
I noticed the joey and the painter.
And knew that papbloinnh and Roo would add to their count
I was happy to see an Italian version for a change. Interesting to me that Rex had no clue that Veronese (which means from Verona ) was an Italian last name or maybe he thought Pablo was Italian also? Obviously not.
I agree with you both that this was a good puzzle.
Thanks Beez, I appreciate the encouragement.
Rick Sacra & Burtonkd
I am a retired attorney and over my many decades of doing the Times crossword I had to learn to accept that legal related clues/answers could sound “off” to practitioners’ ears but be perfectly fine in crosswords. I think it was Z who wrote sometimes knowing too MUCH can slow you down. The criticism of the rest clue seems a perfect example of the need to know that crosswords aren’t textbooks!
Hambone
Clearly Rex has raised a daughter who is in her twenties as he has repeatedly said.
@Barbara S. 9:48 AM
Your posts always warm up the blog. Good luck finding a repairman with your skills.
@Nancy 10:24 AM
Thanks for popping by and poetizing us.
Beezer
I had a few letters in so RIBCAGE went in. I did think of sternum after the fact because I developed an illness which first made itself known in my sternum. a little over a year ago. So the sternum is very much in my mind every day as the pain , though greatly reduced through treatment, is still there.
The New Yorker would spell “plusses” that way, I think.
@ Anonymous Would you favor, then, novels about Madeleines triggering childhood memories?
I looooooooooved Sesame Place as a kid. I am of the firm opinion that Sesame Street is the most important television show ever made, and I still love the Muppets (though not as much as my wife). Sesame Place was an absolute joy as a 6-year-old.
Anyway, a Place is a type of street. Sesame World, besides being trite, doesn't have the same meaning.
De acuerdo, pero esa no es mi opinión.
Wacky puzzle. So many weird moments. I like that. If I'm going to get bogged down, I want it to be on something ridiculous and this puzzle delivered the "what the heck?"
And yes, the amount of gunk here is out of control. At some point it became a feature rather than a bug.
Double sets, double twos, double scars, double Iagos, and a couple of wrinkly fruits. So so funny. I can hardly wait to see how many folks have grumbled about dupes being "against the rules."
With all due respect to Sylvia Plath, we know a bit about tyranny these days and it ain't poetry.
And literally everything on a music score is a squiggle.
❤️ FILCHES, Horsefeathers, Fiddlesticks, LATE BLOOMERS, GOOSE EGG, Ixnays, HAS A BEEF.
😩 AURIC, SINTER, RAPINE, AIT.
People: 21 {phew, that is a bunch}
Places: 7
Products: 7
Partials: 17
Foreignisms: 7
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 59 of 136 (43%) {Four days into the new year the Gunkmeisters and Gunkles gather for a gunkanalia under a gunk colored sky.}
Funny Factor: 13 😂
Tee-Hee: [DELETED.]
Uniclues:
1 Free verse tiger sneezes.
2 Country girls uninterested in country boys.
1 MUFASA NOSE POETRY (~)
2 AGRARIAN LATE BLOOMERS (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: My uncle after years of watching Fox News. INANE ORANGUTAN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Floral" can also mean "of or relating to a flora", i.e. plant life in general (as opposed to "fauna"). So that was actually a perfectly accurate clue, and you were taken in by the misdirection.
The theme was cool but there was WAY too much crappy fill and tons of obscurity crossing other obscurity. I solved without cheats but it took forever. And unlike Rex, I DO think the fill greatly diminished what was otherwise a fantastic theme.
I believe it come from a cap on a tooth. If you have a cap it’s fake so this cap=not true. Where as no cap is true.
Ohhh. Forgot about DUDEBRO. Possibly worst fill I’ve ever seen. I am very surprised Rex didn’t comment on how cringe with that is.
Great puzzle. I'm legitimately shocked that Rex never heard of SESAME PLACE living in this general area -- I can see it giving trouble to someone internationally but I was under the impression that everybody in the Northeast has at least heard of it.
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