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Biblical name for Syria / WED 2-18-26 / Offensively odorous / ___ Aran, heroine of Nintendo's Metroid / Demon of Japanese folklore / Reduced to crumbs, say / Leader of the Sharks in "West Side Story" / Like some buns and bedrooms / One of the "six enemies of the mind," in Hinduism / Bluish-purple bloom
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Constructor: Victor Schmitt
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
I was recoiling from this one right from the start. Ugliness in the NW corner is a real tone-setter, and though I'm not sure I'd call that corner "ugly," exactly, it's real wobbly. AMES and RANDB are hoary repeaters, and when I had to change NOPE to (ugh) "NOT I" (3D: Terse denial), I was fairly confident that this puzzle was NOT going to be for I. Moved over one section and was subjected to ALDO ARAM LOCO (and ACUTE, which, as clued, I really only know (from years of French) as AIGU). And then one over again and I've got AAS, plural PASTAS, something called SAMUS (20A: ___ Aran, heroine of Nintendo's Metroid), the gosh dang AGORA (hoariest of repeaters). By the time I got to ESPIAL (lol come on) I was ready to throw in the towel. I got the first themer fairly easy, and I guess the concept is OK (those are all "signs" related to telling "time"), but it didn't strike me as particularly funny. Also, of all the themers, SIGNS OF THE TIMES is the worst in the plural. The others seem very comfortable in the plural, but I'm fairly certain I've mostly only heard "Sign of the Times" in the singular (I may be under the heavy influence of the Prince album Sign O' the Times here, but ... that's OK, I can't think of very many albums I'd rather be under the influence of). The theme was pretty straightforward. Meanwhile, the unpleasant fill just kept coming. In the end, not enough highs in the theme material, and quite a lot of lows in the fill. FICA USDA EHOW ... an ERR and ERE that are actually holding hands and screaming for attention rather than hiding in the corners and trying to stay inconspicuous, as they should (40D: Old-fashioned word that's a homophone of 49-Across). The theme itself is solid enough. Kind of dull, but at least average for the NYTXW. But the fill really weighed it down. NOISOME fill. Not quite the DREGS, but dreggish.
- SIGNS OF THE TIMES (21A: π°️⏳⏰)
- SYMBOLIC GESTURES (39A: π€ππ)
- FIGURES OF SPEECH (57A: π¬π£️π―️)
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling desktop computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595 (equivalent to $1,940 in 2024). Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kibibytes (65,536 bytes) of RAM. [...] The C64 dominated the low-end computer market (except in the UK, France and Japan, lasting only about six months in Japan) for most of the later years of the 1980s.[8] For a substantial period (1983–1986), the C64 had between 30% and 40% share of the US market and two million units sold per year, outselling IBM PC compatibles, the Apple II, and Atari 8-bit computers. [...] Part of the Commodore 64's success was its sale in regular retail stores instead of only electronics or computer hobbyist specialty stores. Commodore produced many of its parts in-house to control costs, including custom integrated circuit chips from MOS Technology. In the United States, it has been compared to the Ford Model T automobile for its role in bringing a new technology to middle-class households via creative and affordable mass-production. (wikipedia)
• • •
I know SAMUS was in the puzzle last year some time (Mar. 1, it turns out). I remember not knowing SAMUS. Well, I re-didn't know it today. Also forgot which variety of "O"-ending crosswordese Gucci was. ERNO? ENZO? Had to wait for crosses, one of which was ARAM (??), which ... it's been a while (6A: Biblical name for Syria). The only way I know ARAM is from the William Saroyan novel My Name Is ARAM, and the only reason I know that is that I grew up in Fresno, CA (where Saroyan is from ... there is (or was) a theater named after him and everything). The Biblical ARAM I know only from crosswords, but I clearly don't "know" it since I needed crosses coming up with it today. If it seems unfamiliar to you, here, let me give you a quick visual explanation of why:
 |
| [xwordinfo] |
This chart shows ARAM appearances over time. The blue is where Shortz took over. Look at that ARAM supply just get (rightly) choked off right around the turn of the century. From eleven appearances a year in the mid-'90s to just once in the last decade in 2026 (before today). This is what I mean about the grid feeling like it's weighed down by olden gunk. It all feels very familiar to me, but that's because I started solving in the '90s, when ARAMs were (sadly) plentiful. There's no cause for ARAM now. There's especially no cause in a little section of a not-terribly-demanding grid. Anyway, after I got out of the ALDO / ARAM / SAMUS triangle, nothing held me up much, except (briefly) those awful four-letter government initialisms (plural!) (USDA, FICA). I really thought things were picking up slightly in the south when I got NOXIOUS (a cool word!) (51A: Offensively odorous) ... only it wasn't NOXIOUS, it was NOISOME (a much less cool word). I think HUMDINGERS is my favorite thing in the grid—ironic, given that it's as olde-timey as a lot of this fill, but at least it has style and personality. I don't know in what world you choose a computer clue for COMMODORES over a musical clue, but I guess it's this world. Unfathomable. I actually didn't mind learning a little bit about the history of the Commodore 64 (see "Word of the Day," above), but if you bring out the COMMODORES for the first time in 42 years, it oughta be Lionel Richie & Co. and they better be playing something (seriously, three COMMODORES clues all time and none of them use the band? Just the name of Vanderbilt athletes and computers? Filing a discrimination suit right now).
[man, early music videos were wild (by which I mean tame, low-budget, adorable)]
- 70A: Reduced to crumbs, say (EATEN) — if you're eating a cookie, I guess, but "say" I'm eating steak?
- 5D: Leader of the Sharks in "West Side Story" (BERNARDO) — the puzzle continues to overestimate how well I'll remember roles in old movies / musicals. I know Spielberg remade this very recently, but still, no hope for me here without crosses. Those crosses weren't hard to come by, and so eventually I ESPIALed BERNARDO. [Note: this is the 23rd ESPIAL of all time, and the thirteenth time it's been clued [Observation]—interestingly, ESPIAL has not been favored more in one time period than another. No time period seems to want it—it appears more than once in a calendar year just twice (1942, 1969)]
- 29D: Demon of Japanese folklore (ONI) — I don't love ONI as fill, but this Japanese-demon way of cluing ONI is by far the best way I've seen. Before the 2020s, most ONI clues referred to the Office of Naval Intelligence (e.g. [Clandestine maritime org.] or [The Navy's C.I.A.]). Occasionally, you'd get a partial. For a very brief period in 1994, Shortz experimented with cluing "ONI" as if it were "ON-ONE" ([1-___ (way to guard)], [2 ___ (doubled teamed)]. He gave that up pretty quickly, which was probably the right move. Nowadays, since 2020, Japanese demon is the standard reference.
 |
| [this ONI is preparing to squeegee your windshield. Terrifying!] |
- 42D: ___ Howard, Oscar-nominated actor for 2005's "Hustle & Flow" (TERRENCE) — I knew this, but for some reason TERRENCE + "Oscar-nominated" made me think I was dealing with a different cinematic TERRENCE altogether. Turns out I was thinking of TERENCE (one-"R") Blanchard (Academy Award-nominated composer of the scores for BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods)
That’s all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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147 comments:
Friday time for me on Wednesday. Tough.
Ugh, obscure clues for obscure words.
A very pre-Shortzian vibe today. ESPIAL?!? The brightest spots are Rex’s musical choices: Commodores and Terence Blanchard. Great stuff!
It felt like a Friday to me too. I kept thinking why does it have a theme?
ARAM crossing MOTHRA naticked me.
Yeah, I thought this was MUCH harder than a typical Wednesday. Definitely felt like a Friday in some spots.
Medium for me today, 11 minutes. 16 wide grid probably accounts for an extra minute... So the real priority here for the constructor was obviously getting those nice shiny new long grid spanners in (one 16, and two 15s), by hook or by crook. I agree with @REX about the COMMODORES... c'mon! Give us the band! But I knew this puzzle was straining when I figured out ESPIAL was their answer for "observation"... wow. Loved all the longer answers today--HUMDINGERS, PETEREDOUT, ABUNDANCE, BERNARDO and TERRENCE dancing their symmetric roles. But yeah, the short fill.... And btw, EHOW is not a popular site. It just grabbed a good sitename and is a google-search-ad-trap. I avoid it like the plague, I've been misled by that site more than helped. I think their articles are AI generated. blecch. Anyway--thanks for a nice, 16 wide, emoji-filled Wednesday, Victor! : )
Messy buns?
Hairstyle
Unpleasant through and through. Friday time for me as well. I agree with Rex on every comment with the exception of SAMUS… but that’s only because it made the video game nerd in me happy. Being the main character of arguably one of the best and most popular games for the NES, I think qualifies you as fair and fun! (For me at least).
Everything else, nah. Not at all. No clue on ARAM which turned that little section into my personal nightmare. All in all, my time was only a minute shorter than last *Saturday’s* puzzle. Gross.
Oh, a couple more things. 4 letter Biblical places/kingdoms... edoM, ARAM, moAb, gath..... though Gath is a city. And... thank you so much for that truly antique music video, @REX!!!! gold!!! Cheered me right up. : )
I didn't know Commodore or Samus. I agree about Messy Buns: Are they a thing? Bakery or anatomy?
Definitely an oddball - the somewhat obscure trivia made certain sections late week tough. We’ve seen the theme before - the center themer acts as an internal revealer.
U Got The Look
The big guy highlights most of the ugly stuff - the grid is loaded with it. It feels very contrived - ARAM, SAMUS, GAH, ONI the list goes on and on. A day that required clean enough crosses to fill. Isn’t it KE$HA? Liked SCRAPE, MOTHRA and BERNARDO.
Tribe
Can’t say this was a pleasant Wednesday morning solve. Kind of liked the theme - tighten up the fill and we can revisit.
I come down from Omaha to New York City to sing my songs
To be a real folk singer, HUMDINGER
I try to change the world with songs of love and hate and desperation
Can't wait to get myself known there
And find my home
Can't believe that nobody edited the FICA clue. FICA does not appear on a W-2
A messy bun is a very popular hairstyle
Rex elaborated on the warts, and there were plenty of them. For me, even NOISOME was a word I had never seen before, so no chance at guessing MOCHI and OUNCE as clued. With CIRCE and IRENE crossing OUNCE, the SW corner was not going to yield.
In addition to the just ugly answers that Rex pointed out, you also have some needlessly absurd clues like the “reduced to crumbs” nonsense for EATEN. Seriously, did the constructor come up with that clue, or, is it one of the apparently legion of clues that Shortz and his team bastardized?
It’s not shaping up to be a good week thus far.
It the time Tik Tok was recorded, it was definitely Ke$ha. But now she goes by Kesha, so I think no foul. Also, the song is usually stylized ad TiK ToK, and probably should have been clued that way.
Unlike @Rex, I actually threw in the towel. First Wednesday I didn’t finish in years but I found no joy the more I continued trying. Oh well. Looking forward to tomorrow.
This seems like a pretty big mistake. You are correct that I can’t find FICA on an actual W2. Ridiculous clueing!
So, my brain loves hills to climb in puzzles, loves rub. Give me answers out of my wheelhouse, words that have never entered my ears, riddles to crack, and my brain says, “Let me at it!”
So, there was that going on for me today, a brain-happifying puzzle.
Also, happifying was this theme. Using strings of emojis for theme clues has been done before, but not often, and not like it was done today. Bravo!
Smiles came as well from a couple of clue echoes. [Write “their” for “there"] for ERR echoes a clue from two weeks ago – [Mistake “air” for “Heir”, say], where rhymes to ERR are featured in the clues.
Also, [Pips], the clue for HUMDINGERS, recalls Victor’s last NYT puzzle, where dice were depicted in the grid, and the letter O represented the pips.
And I must say that HUMDINGERS after Sunday’s SMITHEREENS has once again smitten me over our quirky language.
The box, therefore, was filled with mood-lifting pings for me, Victor, making for one splendid outing. Thank you!
Hey All !
Grid is 16 wide, in case ya missed it. Haven't been keeping track of the undersized/oversized grids this year. I think we're about even. Still only 38 Blockers today.
Nice puz, wondering if all platforms supported the emojis. If not, did they have words in the clues?
A Uniclue that writes itself - NOISOME ARK
The fill was kinda iffy, but the stuff unknown to me, eg SAMUS, was filled easily by crosses.
It's actually been a minute for an ASS sighting. But hopefully the floodgates didn't open!
Have a great Wednesday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I disagree. The clues on the theme answers did help me, especially the last one - figures of speech. Those are all figures and relate to speech. Getting that is the only way I was able to finish up the bottom which was on the hard side for me.
You are absolutely positively correct. The acronym FICA often appears on paystubs that are issued by employers, but not on the W-2 form itself.
Unusually, my solving experience tracked Michael's very closely.
However, the plural "signs of the times" is quite common and widespread in the language.
Was expecting to see a Gladys Knight and the Pips clip in the blog today - or Garry Trudeau's classic and outrageously funny/famous take on the Pips from a weeklong series of Doonesbury strips in 1974. It still makes me laugh (though I very much appreciate the Commodores' appearance today).
HUMDINGERS was completely unknown to me as a synonym for pips on a die, is that what’s being referred to here? I like the word, but I needed every cross for it. Overall, a not-much-fun puzzle, totally weird cluing. According to my husband, who is big into DIY activity, no one goes to EHOW. And I’ve never heard of it. As for the theme, ditto what Rex said.
The ONI is kind of adorable in the picture Rex posted, although it certainly has a lot od scary teeth.
Loved the Bernardo clue. The original West Side Story is one of my favorite movies.
Easy-medium for me. I really liked the themers and really disliked everything else (except SAMUS, which as a gamer, was routine). RANDB is just about the worst possible way you could start a puzzle.
We're now 0-for-4 this week on "Have I enjoyed the puzzle overall?" Not a great position.
Attempting to reconsolidate my comments into one post.
Another day, another pronunciation issue. For me, ERR does not rhyme with ERE (urr versus air).
No emojis appeared solving at puzzlecrowd.org, which you would expect would make the puzzle harder. But looking at them now, they would have made no difference whatsoever to my solve.
First of all, they are too small to see. But even if they had been bigger, they still would have been unhelpful for my solve. Leave those three entries unclued and my solve experience is exactly the same. So ... basically an easy themeless Wednesday with three unchecked long answers, as far as my solve went,
Totally agree, Andy.
Figured Rex's call would be north of two stars, but...all the ugh-ly fill.
Lionel Richie video was indeed adorably quaint. But watching it, I kept waiting for a pivot to the Benny Hill theme music.
Thanks, I was clueless
Naticked twice; never heard of ARAM/MOTHRA or NOISOME/MOCHI. Ouch.
Yeah, "Social Security" (wages and tax withheld) are two boxes on a W-2, but not "FICA" per se. Obviously, the former is the name of the program which the latter (legislative act) goes by, but why clue it in a way that's demonstrably wrong?
Not that rough, I liked rap crossing R and B, messy crossing Sty, and gas up crossing PSI. Little happy moments among the bad ones
See: boxes 4 and 6.
I agree with Rex about this puzzle in general, but NOISOME is the coolest of words. It’s like something is so smelly it transcends the sense of smell and you can actually hear how bad it smells. Great word.
Seis enemigos de la mente.
GAH. You gotta know this crowd will be over the moon for an emoji puzzle. π So many hopeless and forlorn words getting together for a tea party they'll probably be the talk of the town instead of the rather simple theme.
Much tougher for me than most of the beauts lately primarily due to so many unknown names and the π¦ list of stinkers. Still quite do-able, and took an "old normal" Wednesday time to fill it out. In the end I liked it and the challenge.
I think it's so exciting when we get our favorite place names in the gunk gauge like Syria's ancient name ARAM. It's the kind of thing making crosswords worthwhile.
Gimme my trusty and lovable Commodore 64 over another dead band any day of the week. I loved that gadget.
❤️ SORCERERS. HUMDINGERS.
People: 11 {hmm}
Places: 3
Products: 5
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 25 of 77 (32%)
Funny Factor: 3 π
Tee-Hee: All we can look forward to from the NYTXW is the day when finally we can tell our grandchildren how the ASSES PETERED OUT.
Uniclues:
1 Home of the strippers.
2 Those engaged in the voodoo of making you believe factory food is fine.
3 Day 39 aroma during the flood.
4 Day 2 event during the robot uprising.
5 Sarcastically tell the unkempt pretty girl to get her act together.
1 ABUNDANCE POLE
2 USDA SORCERERS
3 NOISOME ARK
4 COMMODORES CHAT
5 SASS MESSY TEN
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Adds LED spoke lights and a stereo system (with only one speaker of course). AMPS UP UNICYCLE.
¯\_(γ)_/¯
TBF, Rex doesn't say that SAMUS doesn't belong in the puzzle; he says that he didn't remember it, even though he'd seen it before.
Well, Eden, too
While I’m certainly no fashion expert, seems to me that messy buns are not as popular as they used to be.
Not that kind of pips--it's probably archaic, but "He's a real pip!" means (or once meant) "He's a real HUMDINGER!"
True the letters FICA do not appear. However the tax of the same name (Social Security) does appear in block 4.
Lots of guys appreciate a good belly dance, but give me ABUNDANCE any day, unless the dancers MESSY buns GASUP and get NOISOME. Watch those GAH DAM ASSES on TV and even the SCREENSHOT.
I hope you all had EATEN breakfast before reading the above. And thanks for ACUTE puzzle, Victor Schmitt.
Easy-Medium. Good level of difficulty for a Wednesday. Liked it better than @Rex did.
* * * _ _
Only one overwrite, my 3D terse denial was @Rex NOpe before it was NOT I
WOEs:
ARAM at 6A
SAMUS Aran at 20A
The 29D Japanese demon ONI
I misspelled TERRENCE as TERRaNCE at 42D
rUn before HUT for the QB's call at 46A
My 64D X was chi before it was TEN
@RooMonster 7:34 AM
Day 1 on the ARK with all the shiny new things and so many fun pets. Day 40 on the ark, when the damn sun finally comes out and you were starting to think you'd rather have grown up in Sodom, you bump up against ARARAT and open the door to the hellhole you've been locked in for over a month with all those vile NOISOM creatures. As @Alexscott68 8:46 AM calls it, the stench was so bad you could feel it in your ears. And then NOAH gets hailed as a hero when the only real hero was you and the shovel.
ESPIAL?? Sounds like a good example of a MUWOC (made-up word of convenience), the term Nancy coined. I learned the TRUE definition of NOISOME, which is not what I thought it was. Sounds more like it ought to mean offensively loud, not offensively smelly. Seems funky to me but there you go. I cringed when I first saw the SYMBOLS in the clues but this turned out to be a perfectly nice Wednesday, albeit a little heavy on the trivia.
I had the ES and couldn't think of anything that would fit except ESPIAL. Oh no, they wouldn't! I thought, and didn't put those four letters in. But by the time I got them, I had come to love the word. Just the kind of old-fashioned English I like to use from time to time.
I had two big problems with this puzzle, neither of them all that major. First, it's a 16-wide, which means that the Times is not able to print the "large print" version, for some reason; instead you get a printout of the 'newspaper version," which has smaller squares and smaller print, making the emojis very hard to read. But I put on my reading glasses and squinted and I could see what they all were except for the blue FIGURE OF SPEECH.
Second, my upper-case Ds look a lot like Os, so I thought I had HUMoI_________ for "Pips." It took INGERS to show me my error.
Wand clues used to make me think of SORCERERS, but that word has been used deceptively to clue TSA agents so often that my mind went there first.
2-D pretty much had to be AMES. But I live in the past where the Big Ten had 10 teams (now 18) and the Big Twelve had 12 teams (now 16), and the University of Iowa was in the Big Ten. so I really resisted that one.
As for ALDO, no problem, I knew it; but I hope somebody (Rex? Lewis?) is keeping score on the Gucci-Leopold competition.
I've seen many MESSY buns, but until today I always thought they were the result of inept self-styling of one's hair. I'm delighted to know they are a deliberate style--the type of thing I might go for if I a) were a woman, and b) had hair.
I think the pip here is as in “He’s a pip” at least that’s how I read it, however inapt.
NOISOME and ESPIAL, huh?
If you want some additional entertainment today, look up TERRENCE Howard’s views on mathematics.
See Meghan Markle’s wedding hairstyle
Average Wednesday difficulty, except I needed a cheat for the ARAM/MOTHRA cross. I also question PASTAS as a legitimate plural (I think PASTA is the plural form), and ESPIAL as a legitimate anything.
Rome, Tyra, Gaza,Susa, Arab, Genaro, Bela….
One of those rare days where I agree with all of Rex’s criticisms but still enjoyed the puzzle for its emoji cluing and idiomatic themers. ARAM SAMUS and ESPIAL are quite a threesome. NOISESOME in a way. Anyway, during the reign of COMMODORES my wife was working for IBM, so missed that experience completely but the name was familiar.
DAVinHOP: Yeah, a segue into “Yakety Sax” would have been perfect!
It’s product placement Commodore is making a comeback Google it and see
James Brown: funk; soul. Not randb
egs, you reliably crack me up day after day.
Mrs. Freude and I are working our way through “The Sopranos” (second time for her; I missed it the first time around) to see how well it holds up after a quarter century. Pretty well, by and large, except for those pole dancers at the Bada Bing. That whole scene looks really dated now.
@Roo: My same thought about 68A
@Gary: π
Thank you for hipping us to T.Howard’s theories. Surely going to be the highlight of my day.
Exactly what I was going to say about NOISOME. Well it's a poor day when you can't learn something.
I agree with Rex, mostly, though SIGNS OF THE TIMES seems fine to me in the plural. I got all of the fill until I PETERED OUT when I had to run the alphabet to get the ARAM/MOTHRA cross. Darn.
Same.
Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here: Aram, Gah, Noisome, Irene, Circe, Bernardo, Aldo, Mothra, Samus, Oni, Terrence, Pur, Mochi, Efron, Kesha, Iris…What the hell do we care? What the hell do we care?
Noisome and Espial, yah use them all the time.
No contest -- 34 ALDO clues with "Gucci", and 3 with "Leopold".
Yes, I was sure the last part of that answer was "singer," until it just wouldn't work.
I. Couldn't see the emojis either but phrases are so common got from crosses
But you do realize Ames is Iowa State, not University of Iowa...?
What everyone else said about ONI, ARAM crossing ALDO, ESPIAL (yuck), SAMUS, and for me TERRENCE and KESHA, who may be fine people but are not in my circle of acquaintances. How have you been? to AGORA, MIA for a while. The SW was stickiest for me. as I have never taken a SCREENSHOT, sort of remembered EHOW, and am not a fan of MOCHI. Finished with no cheats, but the feeling was "glad that's over with".
(A) SIGN OF THE TIME (S) is Petula Clark. That's it, that's the list.
I don;t remember who gave me information about how to print out a puzzle like this and make it fit the page, but I somehow did remember that and it worked, The emojis (they were emojis?) even appeared in color. Oh frabjous day, calloo callay!
OK Wednesday in some respects, VS, but a Very Small number of them. Not my jam, to quote myself. Thanks for some fun at least.
I don't view "Reduced to crumbs, say" as problematic. You can interpret it as "reduced to crumbs, possibly" and then EATEN works.
I too wanted to comment on two recent clues rhyming "err", today with "ere" and earlier with "air" and "heir"; many people instead pronounce "err" to rhyme with "er" (as in "her").
Hey! Dead band, indeed. The Commodores are still performing. Among other things, they are on the 2026 Ultimate Disco Cruise a week from today.
Another vote for NOISOME as a great word. I always think of it as one of those tricky multiple-choice vocabulary words.
I only know Aram from the Wheel of Time lol! but yeah I mostly agree with Rex today!
A slog of a Wednesday solve, especially in the South, but got through it. The SE had NOISOME (new to me), which left me struggling with OUNCE as clued, MOCHI which I need to commit to memory, and EFRON whom I blanked on for a bit. Trying to decide HUT vs. HUp didn't help (or "hep" as one of my former employers said when referring to offering aid--"We're here to hep people"). TOSS in IRENE and EHOW and (in the SW) TERRENCE & KESHA ... it was a lot.
Had one 5-letter HDW to make the South a bit brighter for me: WEEKS (off the W in EHOW, relying on the POC for the 5th letter).
I finished in ten minutes
Samus is a very well, very old character in the gaming world. Her inclusion made me smile, and certainly doesn’t deserve to be included alongside bad fill.
An unpleasant slog.
Medium-Hard as measured by my time, but largely because I had put in SYMBOLIC mEasURES before SYMBOLIC GESTURES. So, Medium, perhaps, if we put that piece of idiocy to one side.
SAMUS and ONI were complete unknowns. Would have had trouble with ARAM, except that the cross MOTHRA somehow bubbled up to save me.
Rex made some good points (e.g., BERNARDO, ESPIAL, ACUTE, COMMODORES). I did not agree that "Reduced to crumbs, say" is particularly problematic (EATEN). You could reword that as "Reduced to crumbs, possibly". It didn't say "Reduced to crumbs, invariably", nor should you think that's what was meant. So Rex's remark about steak doesn't invalidate the clue at all. It's a simple confusion over possibility versus necessity. (That confusion seems to happen a lot.)
Who keeps track of which pepper is "two steps above" another on the Scoville scale (SERRANO)? Seems like a dubious clue to me. The Scoville scale is pretty flawed to begin with, despite a pretense to being scientific.
Let that be it for now.
I was surprised to see @Rex give the puzzle only two stars. I was expecting praise for the clever theme - concrete pictorial representations of non-corporeal SIGNS, FIGURES, and ...well, I wish we could have had parallel "SYMBOLs," but SYMBOLIC GESTURES is too good to kvetch over. I wouldn't say there was an ABUNDANCE of other winning entries, but for me HUMDINGERS, SORCERERS (including CIRCE), and NOISOME were treats. I got a laugh out of ES...."Don't tell me it's going to be ESPIAL!" (Hi, @jberg.)
Looked at the puzzle. Then decided to come here. 81 comments at 11:12 am? See you tomorrow - have a good day :)
Yea t, I agree that it’s legitimate, but is it desirable? Maybe if the rest of the grid didn’t have such a NOISOME odor (is that a redundancy? I’m still test-driving NOISOME in the hope of remembering it).
Didn't think of this while doing puzzle - but Pip reminds me of the character Terrence "Pip" Phillips on the series "The Job." Played by Bill Nunn, who was Radio Raheem in "Do the Right Thing."
Now I can’t stop thinking about steak crumbs π
Medium-tough.
I did not know SAMUS, ESPIAL, BERNADO (I saw WSS over 50 years ago), ARAM, ONI…so on the tough side for me.
Very costly erasure - sIRen before CIRCE
I did not like PASTAS (I was reminded of not liking RUSTS recently).
Cute theme but I mostly agree with @Rex on this one.
Another music genre - R & B. I am not good at discerning music genres. When 1A wasn't soul, the music genre I associate with James Brown, I had to wait for the crosses. Only DREGS and AMORE went in the NW without a struggle.
Music genres - emo vs shoe gaze. I do know the difference between night core and day core (and hate them both.) Rap vs hip hop vs trip hop. Disco is pretty easy to identify. Rock and roll vs pop. I could go on but like the cliche about art, I know what I like and that's all I care about.
I had real trouble with this puzzle, especially in the CCS EGO ERE ERR area. ERE for me has a long E sound and ERR doesn't. Now E'ER is a homophone for ERR, not ERE, right?
Victor Schmitt, thanks for a Wednesday challenge.
(BTW, I love how my Chromebook laptop does digital captures - very simple procedure!)
Also, I loved seeing the ONI image and got a great laugh from Rex's squeegee remark. What is that thing, anyway?
Had always thought it was HUp so DNF. Possed is a word albeit one I’ve never heard. Looking for mistakes I see poss means too throw. never heard of it but made me think HUP/POSSED was not my err. Even as I wrote it here it’s got a spell check underline.
Slow, but eventually got it. Was slowed down by the middle theme answer. The other two begin with plurals (SIGNS, FIGURES), so I wanted SYMBOLS rather than SYMBOLIC.
@Whatsername. But the clue explicitly says that the acronym appears on the W-2. Not the program, not the concept, not the constituent parts, but the acronym itself. That's a error - not a "close-enough-for-crosswords"
Surprised not to see a mini-rant on the use of images and emojis in the clues. I guess the pressure has been building for a few years now, and NYT has finally caved. (I can't see them well enough, even on my computer screen, without zooming in.)
Naticked at the cross of Biblical Syria and Godzilla foe. That M could have been anything.
Me too, or three as it is
My first reaction exactly. But I think R and B is an umbrella term that includes funk and soul.
Terryology!
I thought the theme was fine, but I agree with most of you that there is some nasty gunk here. First off, the Unknown Names: BERNARDO ARAM MOTHRA SAMUS TERRENCE KESHA! Then, three things I've never heard of jammed together around 19 down: BERNARDO EXPIAL ONI.
Finally, the ridiculous crossing of ARAM and MOTHRA. I tried G then B, then gave up and ran the consonants. There are about a dozen which seem quite likely. GAH!
And that clue for AMES... I've never heard of "the Big 12", never heard any team called the Cyclones, and no idea what sport they play! AMES has been in the puzzle many times clued as "college town" or something, so I put it in, but I didn't enjoy it.
The scale is perfect. That it doesn’t measure what you’d like it to is not the fault of the scale.
Thank you, Lewis. And Jnlzbth, thanks for the correction! My ex-wife was born in Iowa City, so I certainly should have remembered that! The Wikipedia article is misleading, referring to "universities in the states of...." so I'll give them partial blame.
Mothra is Godzillas girlfriend
A few things I forgot to mention earlier. First, I know the plot and many of the songs from "West Side Story," but the only character name I could remember is Maria. Simple enough to get from the BERN, but I'd have preferred "Chilean independence leader O'Higgins."
As for ONI--about a week ago I canceled our HBO Max subscription because we never used it -- and three days later we thought we were buying season I of The Pitt, but turned out actually to have resubscribed to Max. But in the meanwhile we had got a working TV set after a long hiatus, which revealed that Max has a Ghibli Studios channel, so we're watching a movie a night (mostly) to get our $19,80 worth. So far My Neighbor Totoro, Swept Away, and last night "The Cat Returns" which is Ghibli but not Miyazaki. A lot of the creatures in those movies are modeled on Shinto spirits, but I don't know enough to identify them. But ONI resonated nicely.
GAH! The brand new AI machine that the POC Committee paid big bucks for apparently blew a fuse. Looks like DREGS, ROOFS, PACTS, PASTAS, COMMODORES and AAS had it running a max speed and then SIGNS OF THE TIMES put it some kind of positive feedback do-loop and it let out a audible pop, melted down and went dead. It was MESSY and a bit NOISOME.
I With ERE, ESPIAL, and NOISOME thought we might have a double theme happening here. One, the answers clued by the emoji's. Two, current and archaic language.
I enjoyed the puns.
I was ready to give this puzzle a Nancy splat. I waited a few hours between solving and lo and behold everything fell into place, including KeshaLOL.ππππ
I don't do emojis. I hate emojis. I resent having them in my puzzle. Use your words, people.
This puzzle is a soup of names. And then there was ESPIAL - yuck. One star - for effort.
I have no idea why my 1:53 comment started with I.
Actually this post is to say:
Thank you to all the early commenters who found the puzzle very hard for Wednesday - so I don't feel so stupid
Thank you as usual to Eggs for a good laugh.
Apart from the many unknown names and not having funk or soul for James Brown, I enjoyed the puzzle
this was so horrible I never look at comments until after the fact - awful puzzle
Enjoyed this much more as I struggled with it! I did not know the first letter of Godzilla foe = last letter of biblical Syria. Was it N, B, Z no it’s M! ESPIAL is not a word I knew or like. But I was pleased to remember COMMODORES. I had fun figuring out the theme. Definitely at least 3 stars. Thank you!
Hair
Pre-Shortzian? Silly pictures like these were introduced by him. You mean because there was a rarely-used word in the fill?
Number of days this week without circles, shaded squares or other silly gimmicks: 0.
I was able to complete it quite quickly without looking at the little pictures.
I was amazed when I first heard someone say (air) for err; that helps with this ERE
ERE rhymes with ERR? Really? I've always pronounced ERE like "ear," and ERR like "air." Have I been misspeaking for all these years?
James Brown and other soul artists (as well as most Black pop and commercial jazz artists, for that matter) have long been categorized as "rhythm and blues" or "R&B" by the Billboard and Cashbox listings, which are pretty much the official listings of the music industry. Not that many of those artists haven't charted "pop" (or in some cases, even "country") as well, and not that a lot of "pop" artists (Elvis, anyone?) haven't also charted "R&B." But "R&B," I think, remains the catch-all category for Black popular music, even if quite a few subgenres (e.g., Hip-Hop, Blues) are considered genres of their own.
I was thinking oh shame on me, a DNF on a Wednesday - but after reading the comments I don't feel so bad. Except - I needed the comments to inform me that there's no genre in music called RAND B. Could not understand that even when I filled in the B. I really enjoyed doing this puzzle, though - very different from the Wednesdays we've been seeing.
Friggin' names and brand names everywhere you look.
Southside Johnny
I thought Rex’s criticism of the clue for EATEN made no sense, especially since it has a question mark. Crosswords routinely have answers that don’t completely overlap. Cookies leave crumbs so it is irrelevant that meat doesn’t. You didn’t like the clue/ answer combo I can understand that. But I don’t think it is absurd or even unusual.
Andy, I feared a Benny Hill reference was too lowbrow for this crowd. Thanks for picking it up!!
Roo agree with you about puzzle
But I wanted to clarify that I wasn’t criticizing you about not knowing the French version of the round Brother John. My point was if is an indication of my age because schools used to but have long since stopped teaching the French version (and maybe both these days?). I learned the French version well before I studied French.
Kitshef
I can see your point about getting common phrases from crosses. But for me , I saw the time pieces
so when from crosses I got t and e I knew it was probably TIME and that helped with the rest of it. The other emojis were less helpful for me though.
@jberg, I remember looking at Chile on Google Streetview, and all the Bernardo O'Higgins references. (Quite the non-Spanish name!)
@dgd, I too vividly remember Frere Jacques / Brother John from school (but then I'm in Canada, so lots of French classes). We sang it in both languages, and I remember doing rounds in English... lots of fun.
They play ALL the sports, as do most colleges. Espial was bad, pretty obscure/archaic/un-used. But really hated GAH, not a word, not an onomonpaeia, not an interjection, just a noise (though not noisome). Humdinger seems a bit strong for pip, which I always saw as just good to above average, not extraordinary.
Gary
Love the uniclue and answer about the USDA. So true!
Whatsername
FWIW
Noxious is from Latin directly while noisome, annoyance, and noise all are related to each other stemming from various Medieval French worlds at various times brought into English during the Middle Ages. The all come from the Latin root of noxious. Over the centuries, while meanings diverged, they all still refer to something that is , well, annoying My guess is noisome is rarely used precisely because it is confusing. .
@okanager, lots of non-Spanish (or Portuguese Europeans emigrated to southern South America. I've always figured O'Higgins was the inspiration for Peter Lorre's line in Casablanca, "Many Germans in Chile are named O'Hara."
I did not Natick on Mothra/Aram but the M was a wild guess. I was just lucky. Abysmal fill all around, in my opinion. Not enjoyable.
FWIW
Pronunciations of the words ERE , ERR and e’er vary. What is right for you is not right for me. Ere and err I do pronounce the same, something like I pronounce air, and e’er I just don’t pronounce at all!
So we are both “right “.
R and B (rhythm and blues). That took me a while, also.
Easily the best Wednesday in as long as I can remember. The NYT has become basically People Magazine-level so quickly and for so long now that any challenge or attempt at vocabulary above grade school level is a breath of fresh air. Not that I'm counting on it being a trend
Michelle I had no clue but I must have read something about the Godzilla franchise and vaguely recalled a giant moth. My guess is they thought the Godzilla movies are popular enough to justify it.
The internet suggests Mothra was an ally rather than a foe.
This one gave me a bit more resistance than a typical Wednesday but I liked it much more than @Rex did. Old short fill never bothers me and I had fun with this theme. It's definitely been done before but so what? It's still a ton of fun to figure out the riddle.
Agree with everyone that there were a *lot* of names and several that I didn't know but the crosses were all relatively fair so no complaints.
Like @Rex, HUMDINGERS was my favorite non them long entry. The rest were just fine as well. Enjoyed learning about the COMMODORES, thanks @Rex!
Like someone else, I got a big kick out of RAP crossing with RANDB.
Also agree that with @Rex that SIGNSOFTHETIMES as a plural doesn't ring quite true to my ear but I got over that quickly as I like the way it looks in the grid.
Thanks Victor for a crunchier than usual Wednesday where I learned a couple of new things!
Came to the blog looking for emotional support; GAR instead of GAR (25A), sadly I seem to be the only one to fall into that trap. To me, the phrase
“That’s a real HUMDINGER” is not complimentary and far from the positive sense of “pips” so rumdinger was acceptable as just yet another modern slang unknown to my very senior age group. NOISIME was another problem, my sense of it as “annoy-some”, irritating rather than odiferous. Ah well, tomorrow!
I
Whate'er you say… :-)
Me four
when i couldn’t get ARAM and MOTHRA i looked it up. i was so over it. i kept trying to put in ANTHRA
Kept waiting for the light to go on as it often does on Wednesdays. Didn’t happen for this reason. Not happy for not finishing, but more unhappy after the reveal and realizing it was never meant to be.
Well, many of you know that as a rule I dislike grid art which includes being required to interpret a bunch of emojis to suss out an answer in the crossword as the inclusion of (and I use the term very loosely) “art.” This one was not my cup of tea.
Seeing the first gaggle of tiny images I nearly quit, but now that the app tells me I have a 452 puzzle streak going, one of the “six enemies of the mind” got the better of me, and i soldiered on. I also recalled another emoji filled Sunday grid from a long time ago and thought that if I could suffer a Sunday full of ridiculous “art,” a mid-week puzzle shouldn’t take too much time, and it didn’t. I stopped to look for the one I remembered; it was 2/9/2020, by Brian Kulman and all I remembered is that I really disliked the emojis.
Upon consideration though, I thought that the first Egyptologists and Paleoanthropologists probably had very different opinions about their finds. And fine, those discoveries advanced our understanding of early Man and early communication/documentation of events. But, haven’t we come far enough that today we can communicate in full sentences using words?? I know crosswords are “games,” but they are word games! Rant over. See y’all tomorrow.
@Anoa Bob, well said! Much better than my rant.
@Rex, Fun write up today. Your take on solving had me smiling from the opening "Father" and chuckling out loud by "so..We good? Awesome, thanks."
Agree the reveal nailed it.
Definitely easy for a Thursday
Messy buns make frequent appearances in sapphic romance novels
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