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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (once you get the gimmick, very easy)
Theme answers:
- D(O) WELL / LATE
X(1A: *Succeed (DWELL + "O" = "do well") / 5D: *Behind in payment (LATEX minus "X" = "late") - SH(O)UT-OUTS / E
XTERNALLY (18A: *Public messages of appreciation (SHUTOUTS + "O" = "shout-outs") / 11D: *Forevermore (EXTERNALLY minus "X" = "eternally") - CLAM S(O)UP / A
XMEN (37A: *New England-style chowder, for one (CLAMS UP + "O" = "clam soup") / 29D: *Word appearing 51 times in the New Testament (AXMEN minus "X" = "Amen") - FLAMING(O) / MA
XIM (54A: *Long-legged wader (FLAMING + "O" = "flamingo") / 52D: *Severely harm (MAXIM minus "X" = "maim")
 |
| [the only BATISTE I know] |
A finecloth made fromcotton orlinen ;cambric . // From French batiste, a form of Baptiste, of disputed origin (“according to Littré and Scheler from the alleged original maker, Baptiste of Cambray; according to others, from its use in wiping the heads of children after baptism” – OED) (Wiktionary via Wordnik)
• • •
I started out by getting DWELL but not getting DWELL, and then seeing LATE but not understanding why there was an extra square at the end. When EXIT gave me LATEX I thought "OK, we're adding Xs ... what's going on with DWELL?" If you stare at DWELL hard enough, knowing the clue is [*Succeed], DO WELL just pops out. At least it did for me. I feel like my constant diet of cryptic crosswords probably helped, as I'm now very accustomed to mentally cutting up words and rearranging their parts. Lots of training in seeing what's not there and dropping what is. Anyway, the initial struggle to figure out the theme concept was the only real difficulty for me today. That and BATISTE, which ... ?????? My first and only thought there was "the original clue here must have been Jon BATISTE." BATISTE was bandleader and musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for seven years (2015-22 and was a regular on-screen (and conversational) presence. He has won eight Grammys, including Album of the Year for 2021's We Are. This is all to say that he is more than crossworthy and I would've loved to see him as the clue here instead of this fabric I've never heard of (which is somehow the same as cambric but also not (?!) ... I fell down a bit of a BATISTE rabbit hole and it didn't leave me any fabric-smarter).
[BATISTE being Stephen Colbert's bandleader *and* crossing "EVEN STEVEN" ... would've been good, I'm just saying...]
While I liked the puzzle overall, there were some moments that were less than pleasant. LISTEE hurt my ears and made my shoulders tense up (4D: Directory name). A "directory name" is a LISTING. Yes it is. You know it is. I'm sure LISTEE's lawyers have prepared a good case but overruled, contempt of court, this whole courtroom is out of order, case dismissed. Actually, looking over the grid, the only other part that made me holler "no!" (silently, in my head) was GRAS because they decided to go the force-fed geese route instead of the simple (and *timely*) Mardi GRAS route. Always choose the festive parade over the animal torture. I also will always hate TE-HEE, spelled thusly. I just can't accept the "TE"—the two parts rhyme, so the two parts should look the same. It's TEE + HEE. See also TEPEE. But otherwise, nothing UNHOLY about this grid at all. Again, given the theme density, it's remarkably solid.
Bullets:
- 20A: Heavy metal band whose name is a big cat in Spanish (PANTERA) — maybe the thinking behind the BATISTE clue was "well, we've already used one long musical name that's' not exactly universally famous, maybe we shouldn't do it twice." Both PANTERA and BATISTE have multiple Grammy nominations. But BATISTE can (apparently!) be clued in a non-musical way, whereas PANTERA cannot*, so PANTERA stays a musical act and BATISTE gets changed. Boo. Side note: PANTERA would be a great answer for anyone working on some kind of "add-a-T" theme. PANERA + "T" = PANTERA. [*update: there is an automotive PANTERA, it turns out]
- 2D: 7-Eleven competitor on the East Coast (WAWA) — I live in the NE but not on the "East Coast," so there are actually no WAWAs in my vicinity. But I am aware of their existence, and I'm very aware that WAWA was very recently in the puzzle (Jan. 20, 2026), so I dropped WAWA next to DROP no problem.
- 3D: Tree of knowledge locale (EDEN) — I always think of it as the "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil," because that's what it's called, but this is good enough I guess. Sh(o)ut-outs to all the Paradise Lost fans out there.
- 29A: *Word appearing 51 times in the New Testament (AXMEN) — this is my favorite theme answer. Not the base answer ("Amen") but the actual "X"-added answer. I just love the idea of the New Testament being really into guitar players. "And Jesus shreddeth for the masses, and it was good."
[skip to 3:30 if you want to see God's Own Axman at work]
- 33D: Lunch item usually eaten with two hands, in brief (BLT) — [citation needed]
- 41D: Michael nominated for Oscars in five decades (CAINE) — had the "C" and thought "ooh, it's Michael CERA + an 'X' ... somehow. So, what would that make? CERAX? CEXAR? Why can't I make a word? Wait a minute ... Michael CERA hasn't even been alive for five decades, what the hell? Oh, crap, this isn't even a themer. So ... right, Michael CAINE. Yes, that's much better."
- 58D: Unpleasant discovery under a desk (GUM) — first of all, if I left the GUM there for later, then my "discovery" is not "unpleasant" at all, thank you very much. Second, I had G-M here and for a split second definitely thought GAM. "Why would that be unpleasant? Who doesn't like GAMs!?" In my defense, you can definitely find GAMs "under a desk"—you might get hauled into HR for inappropriate workplace behavior if you actively go hunting for them, but trust me, they're there. Sometimes.
 |
| [gams, seen here not under a desk] |
That's all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Had MANI instead of MASKS at first, other wise easy breezy.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI wrote out my thoughts after completing the puzzle and before reading @Rex, but it turns out I echoed much of what OFL said (only without the LOL Biblical reference to Jesus shredding)
Easy-Medium at first and then Easy once I caught on to the gimmick, as is common for a Thursday. Cute idea, and nice that all the theme answers are actual words.
* * * * _
My only overwrites were while I was figuring out what was going on. Most notably a rebus [Do] WELL at 1A.
One WOE, at 47A because the only BATISTE I know is Jon. And half a WOE at 20A since I knew the Spanish word but not the band.
@Conrad 6:25 AM
DeleteI checked and amenaxmen.com is available to holy rawkers and rollers. @🦖 was slaying with that joke. I still love heavy metal in small doses so Pantera was a welcome old friend up against axmen. There's a mega church here in Albuquerque that advertises heavily and they're desperate to prove how cool they are and it appears it's mostly a weekly concert with pithy Jesus-lite theology. I hope the Amen Axmen play there someday.
Fantastic puzzle - loved the theme and the overall fill was smooth and splashy. The letter swap trick took me some time to grok which is fine late week. Both revealers are top notch and I loved how they intersect and the vertical revealer associates with the vertical themers and the horizontal with the horizontals.
ReplyDeleteThe Accident (Things Could Be Worse
RADIAN, PANTERA, CLAMS UP, FLAMING, OR ELSE - the grid is elegantly filled. Needed crosses for some - BATISTE, DEE etc but it all evened out in the end.
A SALTY Dog
Highly enjoyable Thursday morning solve.
Ben Harper
Thank you for going there with BATISTE; I know about fabric, but an opportunity to lift up the remarkable Jon BATISTE should never be passed up!
ReplyDeleteI thought about the letter swap the opposite way--the answer has to GIVE A HUG (lose an O) or STEAL A KISS (add an x) to fit the grid. It still worked. BATISTE was a WOE but I got it. I enjoyed SH(O)UT OUT but was a little thrown by the second O. Enjoyable theme and an enjoyable puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed having OXO in there as an answer for the full hugs and kisses experience.
ReplyDeleteAlso NECK.
DeleteLoved the puzzle! Skilled construction! I had 58D/64A as GUN for unpleasant discovery under a desk, and NSN as the acronym for a sports network. I guess finding a gun or finding gum are both unpleasant under a desk.
ReplyDeleteAt first pass I hated the cluing and found this really tough, but came to appreciate it a lot once I got the theme and things came together. My big problem, and I had to cheat for this, was the second e in LISTEE, a ridiculous made-up word if there ever was one. SEE as clued should have been obvious, but somehow it wasn’t, so I was ATSEA.
ReplyDeleteI loved finding GUM under the desk, an eew, ick! moment always!
Over all an ecellent Thursday puzzle.
One of those thursdays where I solved without figuring out the gimmick. I knew the O's were missing. But didn't figure out the X's. The fill was pretty easy.
ReplyDeleteThere would absolutely be another way to clue Pantera. It is a Italian sports car with a Ford V-8 engine. The De Tomaso Pantera.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Taylor Swift have a PANT ERA?
Delete@jberg. Nice one. Considerably better than my PANT ERA attempt below.
DeleteClever puzzle, but not at all on the easy spectrum. I grokked the gimmick early and still struggled - lots of obscure cluing, and isolated quadrants. Medium challenging
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, this was a constructing feat. Are you kidding me? Ten theme answers totaling a sky-high 72 squares, with each theme answer working two ways due to the gimmick, crossing revealers, and still the grid has hardly a whiff of junk?
ReplyDeleteBut a constructing feat is shallow, not to mention show-offish, if it doesn’t deliver satisfaction to the solver.
I can only speak for myself, but this theme was a first-order, multi-level capital-R Riddle, and cracking it brought great fulfillment, the sweet feeling that I earned this. That, plus being wowed by the feat, well, it also brought a huge inner standing O.
Sticky areas gave my brain pleasure as well.
Truly, a lovely puzzle could have been based on the STEAL A KISS element alone, but Kareem pulled off the double-play, all in a single 15x15 box.
Hats off on this one. Bravo, Kareem. Perfecto! An apex Valentine's Day puzzle. Can’t wait for your next, and thank you for a scintillating solve!
Very enjoyable puzzle with an interesting theme. It does seem odd to have OXO hanging out in the NE, but I'll call that a bonus rather than a flaw. CLAMS(O)UP is my favorite themer.
ReplyDeleteHand up for MAniS before MASKS, know of PANTERA but could not name a song, never heard of BATISTE as clued. Took me a while to figure out how OLDER worked.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteYes, Rex, a PANTERA is a highly sought after sports car in the automotive collector world. And they ain't cheap. Priced (and resemblance to) the Lamborghini's of the same era.
Remarkable puz construction. I've said before about tearing ones hair out trying to fill a puz cleanly, and that's with only one directional Theme. Holy moly, Kareem has to be totally bald after this one. Across AND Down Themers? Crossing?? With Two Crossing Revealers? Mamma mia!
And, somehow, the fill is great! This comes off as almost a deal-with-the-devil kind of good constructing. And basically symmetrical. The only outlier is DWELL, but just pointing it out, no points off for that! And look at the stacked Downs of 10! With the two symmetrical Themers!
To sum up: Wow. A+.
On top of all that, puz was fun to solve. As soon as I got GIVE A HUG, I knew what was happening, but still neat getting the -O's and +X's.
SALTY puz, Kareem. Here's hoping your hair grows back ...
Have a great Thursday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Agree with OFL. Hung onto LESSEE far too long until LISTEE became inevitable.
ReplyDeleteHoy.
ReplyDeleteToday...
no howling heard in our hallowed halls
the sniveling squall slinks silently away
lamentations lurk alone and alee
crying and caterwauling are quietly content
the sobs surreptitiously subside
the blubbering bursts and the bawling abates
whimpering whining wailing wind down awhile
the lugubrious lamentations lessen
plaintive pleas pass passively
the groans, the moans, the shrieking all sigh
O Ye yearning to yammer, yelp, and yowl
today becomes yesterday
and a too easy tragedy
prepares to pounce anon
and blight your blustery brilliance
Tomorrow....
A lamentation for our lacrymose on a day there's joy in Hooville ... take heart me Kleenex-free hearties, tomorrow is Friday and a sure day for waterworks to return like the lawn sprinklers in summer.
Pretty tough puzzle for me. Mostly because it was brilliant. I did have rebus squares all filled out, but the app wasn't having it, so I deleted and poof I win.
My pathway took me down the west coast early and I found the revealers and wow did those help with the solve. So wild the double theme density and still knocked this out of the park. Best puzzle of the year so far.
I know I spent five minutes working every cross on CORRAL as [Pen] seemed like it had to be a writing implement. Sigh.
Finding gum under the desk is unpleasant if your standards are too high about chewing it. You might find it's a cause for bubble-blowing celebration.
❤️ SHOUT OUTS. PANTERA. STEAL A KISS. EVEN STEVEN.
People: 4
Places: 4
Products: 5
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 22 of 76 (29%)
Funny Factor: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: MATED. Behind in payment = LATEX. And, c'mon, it's TEEHEE, not TEHEE. We've been over this. Once I post my random notion on the blog here I would think the NYTXW team would instantly SNAP TO and follow my words of wisdom as if I were the Moses of crosswords.
Uniclues:
1 We will we will rock you or stone you, dammit, so be rocked.
2 How to get out of the holes you've dug with your smart mouth.
3 When the gay dogs are fierce.
4 What I am to my dominatrix.
5 Hot dogs on the Sabbath.
6 Commits PDA.
1 PANTERA OR ELSE
2 EXIT LADDERS
3 KENNEL FLAMING
4 LATEX ICE SNACK
5 UNHOLY SNARF
6 EXTERNALLY NECKS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: One delicious bit of cereal in a box of Insurance Bit-o-Charms coming to a breakfast table near you. GEICO GECKO FLAKE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I agree with your "Best puzzle of the year so far"!
DeleteFor your uniclue #2: I forget who once cautioned: Don't let your mouth take you some place your ass can't get you out of.
DeleteThe KISSARMY is disappointed their song UNHOLY isn't highlighted in today's write-up.
ReplyDeleteIn Connecticut all Wawa stores were purchased and rebranded as Krauszer. No more Wawa stores here.
ReplyDeleteThis happened in 1996. https://www.courant.com/1996/11/20/new-jersey-firm-buys-wawa-stores-in-state/
DeleteI never heard chowder called “CLAM SOUP” before, which just doesn’t sound right, although I have to concede that it probably is technically accurate.
ReplyDeleteBATISTE is one of those rare occasions when cluing a word as a proper name might actually be preferable to the somewhat obscure definition.
I don’t get excited by theme gimmicks that result in nonsensical clue/answer combinations. I may have had a better experience if I had caught on to the gimmick with DWELL - but unfortunately I went into a “here we go again” funk and solved it as a themeless. I do try, but I just can’t seem to warm up to the Thursday puzzles.
@SouthsideJohnny 7:53 am, good point about BATISTE.
DeleteIm on again and off again with Thursday puzzles and they're usually not worth commenting on but today's was one of the exceptions. It's a charming theme and best of all the fill was mostly Saturday level. The NW was the last section to go in. Being a Chicagoan I'm unfamiliar with WAWA. Is it run by MAMA and PAPA?
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for the S LISTEE would be as much of an SB classic as LIBELEE, MENTEE and TUTEE.
Wawa is a small town in Pennsylvania, near Delaware. The first Wawa store was in a nearby town.
DeleteBest Thursday in a while. Theme was creative and fun - and the solve had just the right amount of crunch for a Thursday.
ReplyDeleteI could use less of the hand-holding in the digital versions thought (i.e,, shaded squares; highlighting of related answer, circles, etc ). It would be nice if NYTimes gave you an option to shut off those things. With all the money it spent on its app to add those silly animation features and the like, it should be a simple matter to give us a toggle on/off switch for these hand-holding features. Really simple, actually. Ridiculously simple. A crime that there is not that option already.
Bo, you make a good point. Tons of "in your face" stuff (share your result, review your stats, badges). How about using available technology to enhance the solving experience?
DeleteAlas, as was brought up in a conversation I had today, NYTXW is a cash cow; to grow their participation, they need more non-junkies.
That said, today was a remarkably crafted, timely-themed, if fairly easy solve that grew better the deeper you got. Four stars was appropriate, even with the cringe-worthy LISTEE (just sub the final E for cryin' out loud).
NYTimes has reset upwards it digital subscription goal to 15 million by the end of 2027 (which goal it actually intends to reach must earlier, of course). It has been quite upfront saying that it is the ancillary products (Games, Cooking & Wirecutter) that will be the lead drivers of the subscription growth. Hence the head of each of these stand-alone products (they report to corporate, not to the editor of the newspaper) is under significant pressure to tailor their products to the requirement of garnering new subscriptions at am aggressive rate.
DeleteNot a gripe; a statement of fact.
It was more Medium for me. I think I needed to get to the revealer STEAL A KISS, make that the second revealer in my case because I had already understood what was going on with the Os, before I knew we had two themes going on. Very impressive. Probably the best Thursday in a while. And yes, as already noted, OXO was a nice little flourish.
ReplyDeleteDid the childhood game MOUSETRAP, the sort of Rube Goldberg thing, include LADDERS? That sort of popped into my brain, looking over the grid just now. The long downs MOUSETRAPS and EVEN STEVEN were pretty luscious in my opinion.
I knew something looked funny about BATIShE (crossing hEHEE). Side notes: I would consider "he-hee" and "TE-HEE" equally annoying. "Tepee" doesn't bother me so much because it's just one of three renderings from a Native American language, and I don't see much linguistic ground to favor one over another. (Not that I'm a linguist.) My personal preference these days is "tipi", simply for the way it looks.
There are a few things from today's review that I found strange. First up: "I started out by getting DWELL but not getting DWELL". Now wait: how does that work? You somehow knew that DWELL was the answer but not knowing why? (And this was the first thing you put in?) That word does not fit the clue, so how on earth could be that be your first entry before even getting the theme? Makes no sense to me. But perhaps I've misunderstood.
Second: GUM under the desk is fricking gross. Just as gum on the sidewalk is fricking gross. The clue is absolutely fine. Rex's cavil makes no sense to me because if you put it there (is that something you did as a kid, thinking to return to the gum later and pop it in your mouth, or what? jesus kids are savages), then of course you don't discover it later. Which means that if someone does discover it, then that someone is someone else, and that someone will find it unpleasant (even if only a little). I practically bet my house on it. So c'mon.
And finally: if a citation is needed, then I grant you permission to use this: if I eat a BLT, then I'm pretty sure I use both hands so that the loose bacon pieces/strips won't fall out. You can eat a pbj with one hand no problem because the ingredients stick together. For a BLT, smart people, or anyway people who don't want to spill ingredients down their shirtfronts, are likely going to use two hands. Little tip for ya there.
That'll do it for now.
Erle Stanley Gardner pseudonym!!!!
ReplyDeleteGod’s own Axman, indeed.
ReplyDeleteHaha! My wife used to teach at Catholic school. One time a typo got sent home and it said “Xavier SHRED the gospel” so naturally I (poorly) photoshopped an album cover with St Francis Xavier “shredding” a Flying V guitar and wearing shades and the album was called “do unto others” because that had a gothic sounding metal album ring to it. Like Metallica probably.
ReplyDeleteAlso on the puzzle, I really hoped Rex would have imagined a scenario where a movie villain gave the hero an ultimatum like “BRING ME THE MONEY - ALTERNATIVELY…!!!”
Fun puzzle. Enjoyed the theme.
Not only is it funny that Bastiste (Stephen Colbert’s bandleader) crosses EVEN STEVEN, but Colbert actually used to do a bit with Steve Carell on the Daily Show called “Even Step(v)hens”.
ReplyDeleteYeah there’s a clip of even Steven in the writeup did you not see that?
DeleteI'm an idiot -- I was reading in a train tunnel, and none of the videos loaded up. Never mind!
DeleteI found this to be a nicely crunchy treat after a string of way too easy puzzles. It got easier when I figured out the theme, but getting there was fun. Impressive architectural feats don’t always make for a pleasant solve, but this one worked just fine.
ReplyDeleteJust one problem: as.a New Englander with a severe addiction to clams (planning to have some tonight, in fact), I have never ever ever ever heard (and would never use) the phrase CLAM SOUP. Sounds pretty awful (unlike Zuppa di clams, mmmm), but I can let it go.
Well, neither UNGRANGATO or UNGATOGRANDE would fit in the NW so I went elsewhere, could see something was up at SHUTOUTS, but it took some more X's and O's and finally two revealers to actually appreciate what was going on. Not often you get a double aha! on a Thursday which doubled the pleasure on this one, which was already considerable.
ReplyDeleteMost fun--getting MOUSTRAPS off the M. Didn't know BATISTE as clued. I guess EXETER is famous enough for inclusion, have driven by there many times but never stopped to visit. Usually we are on our way to Maine to enjoy some CLAMSOUP. Uh, no.
Hello and welcome back to IBEX. Nice to see you again and thanks for inspiring, in part, the OFL take on AXMEN, which is a classic.
Great stuff, KA. A Killer Achievement, and thanks for all the fun.
I can’t be the only one who learned about BATISTE from Mad Magazine’s parody “Casey at the Dice”: “The cufflinks on his sheer batiste were rubies from afar; / Between his teeth he coolly smoked a ninety-cent cigar!”
ReplyDeleteI love living in the PANTERA. It's chilling to hear the old folks talk about the days before pants.
ReplyDeleteIt got me excited to see my late ex in LATEX. Eventually, though, I'd have to EXETER.
I grew up in Eugene, Oregon, which prided itself as being the "Lumber Capital of the World". It was also home of the South Eugene High School AXMEN. I wonder if their mascot has evolved into a lumberjack shredding his guitar.
OXOxox to this puzzle. Thanks, Kareem Ayas.
I think the era before pants goes back to the Tree of Knowledge:)
DeleteBeautiful puzzle (I will pretend I didn’t see listee). Batiste is not obscure to anyone who sews. Personally I don’t know from Wawa so I consider that way weirder. The X and O thing was evident early but that didn’t meaning finding them wasn’t fun.
ReplyDeleteLast week we had a better-than-usual Thursday, and now today’s excellent puzzle. Either Thursdays are improving or I’m (gasp!) losing my anti-Thursday bias. Whichever it is, I’m glad to see it happening.
ReplyDeleteYikes, this was a hard one for me but I enjoyed it. Actually caught the gimmick fairly early on, but that didn’t help all that much. Was too focused on getting answers to see the real theme. One big problem was that I had Oahu before GUAM. From 30,000 feet GUAM looks so tiny in the sea you can’t believe an airplane can really land there. Makes one even more amazed at how pilots can land on a mere aircraft carrier, big as they look when you get up close. I don’t remember a national park being on the island when I visited, but it was definitely full of SALTY naval guys.
ReplyDeleteI found GUAM under my seat.
DeleteMy intuitive polarity on this kind of theme is backward from how they did it -- if the answer has a bonus X, the revealer 'should' be "GIVE A KISS" for it to feel right for me. But other than that and GRAS, I liked this puzzle a lot: every single wordplay answer changes a vowel sound, and half of them change the syllable count of the word. With only one letter! Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteVery cute and timely theme. At first, the trick seemed backwards, like wait just a second here. We’re doing the opposite - taking away the hug and adding the kiss. Then I realized that in order for the answers to read correctly, we have to STEAL/remove the X/KISS and GIVE/put back the O/HUG … exactly like the clues for the two revealers say. And pretty darn impressive to have the down revealer and the cross revealer intersecting. What a challenge it must have been to put together but in this case, the constructor’s fun translated into solving fun as well, which doesn’t always happen. I also appreciated the dearth of proper nouns. Really a solid grid, a fun theme and very pleasant solve overall. Best Thursday in a long time. If I had a POY list, this one would go on it.
ReplyDeleteSide note, I happened to have the TV tuned to the movie Miss Congeniality while I was solving, and who was on the screen but the marvelous Michael CAINE. Such a talented and versatile actor, who won two of those Academy Awards and is one of only three who have been nominated in five different decades … the others being Laurence Olivier and Meryl Streep.
Thanks for that interesting bit of Oscar trivia! I love Michael, too.
Deleteremove the asterisks and counts from the revealers and this would have been a mighty fine thursday. that said, it's the closest to an actual thursday puzzle in months.
ReplyDeleteGreat write up, Rex. Excellent puzzle today. Any nit picks are vastly outweighed by the positives.
ReplyDeleteYes, Prince is an amazing musician, but I know a guy, Javier Carrasco, originally from Peru, who could give Prince some competition. Why Javier isn't a world-renowned guitarist, I'll never understand. I hear he now lives in Barcelona, pursuing a career in art.
ReplyDeleteI got the X/O thing at EXTERNALLY/SHUTOUTS. As per my usual, I didn't finish reading either of the revealer clues so I missed that the X's were all in downs and the O's all in acrosses, but that certainly didn't affect my enjoyment of this puzzle.
37A gave me a bit of trouble when I decided to leave the O in, for ____Soup. What word A_SE_ could be appearing 51 times in the NT? AT SEA was already in the grid. IBEX jumped in there for the "aha".
Kareem Ayas, thank you for the Thursday entertainment!
I loved this Thursday's crossword puzzle! I too had Oahu before Guam. I only realized the theme when I hit flaming rather than flaming(o)! Thought it was a very clever theme and very well executed. In particular, the crossing of give a hug with steal a kiss. Loved the skit between the two Stevens. The music was wonderful!
ReplyDeleteGeese raised for foie gras are treated FAR better than 90% of animals raised for consumption in this country. For most producers the animal is not tortured at all
ReplyDeleteI can't think of another puzzle where it felt so necessary to grok the theme before completing the fill. I got the X when maim turned into MAXIM, and when I got GIVEAHUG I got the O. But this felt like a Friday or Saturday to me, though I enjoyed working it out. Not knowing PANTERA or WAWA (I live on the East coast but have never heard of it), I found the NW hard; if I could have come up with D(O)WELL, I might have gotten it without cheating, but I didn't. I still enjoyed the workout, so thanks, Mr. Ayas!
ReplyDeleteFavorite words and phrases: EVENSTEVEN, MOUSETRAP, BATISTE (I wonder if this word is unfamiliar to the younger set).
The only pantera I know was my body building name — La pantera Blanca! I was called that because I refused to do the layers and layers of fake tanning that accentuate the muscles and tone. I thought it would be amazing if I could win. But apparently you do need those layers and layers of fake tan. Thus la Pantera Blanca never won. But it was great to buck tradition! Also, I was probably the only person in those competitions who had even heard of the New York Times crossword puzzle :-)
ReplyDeleteTHIS is a GREAT comment!
DeleteIn Texas it’s Buc-ee’s https://buc-ees.com/
ReplyDeleteFlorida also on Buc-ees. I’m not from Fla but have heard of it. Both Wawa and Buc-ees are invading the portion of Midwest east of Mississippi. We won’t get into fact that I think the portion I live in (east of Mississippi) should be called the Mideast.
DeleteOne sad thing I discovered: in looking up, who the heck is PAMELA Bach, I found she had a pretty low key career, married to, had children with, and divorced from David Hasselhoff, and committed suicide about a year ago. This is the kind of clue I’d really like to know the back story of. What a tragic and little known situation. Who knew of her and wanted to highlight her? I don’t know exactly how I feel about it, but it just struck me.
ReplyDeleteA happier tale is that of Barbara Bach. Married to Ringo Starr since 1981.
DeleteOn the tough side for me. I needed to solve the reveal clues to make sense of what was going on. Plus I had LeSsEE and PANsERA before LISTEE and PANTERA (a WOE) which took a while to fix.
ReplyDeleteClever, tricky and fun or what @Rex said, liked it a bunch!!!
Terrific puzzle, fun to solve. I was very slow on the X-O uptake, as after I had both reveals, I tried to work the words KISS and HUG into the asterisked answers. Only after looking back again at DWELL and LATEX did I understand the missing Os and extra Xs. Now I could appreciate SHUTOUTS and EXTERNALLY and have the pleasure of easily writing in the remaining two theme pairs. One other pleasurable moment: writing in BATISTE, a lovely word and lovely fabric.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle: x’ s and o’ s
ReplyDeleteOne of those times when I come here to get an explanation of the trick. Solved it “kinda” easily but did not “get” it. 🤷🏼♂️
ReplyDelete[pushes glasses up] Having been born in 1988 Michael Cera has in fact been alive for five decades. (Sorry I had to.)
ReplyDeleteLOL at Rex's biblical AXMEN.
ReplyDeleteOne uni-clue:
Painful condition suffered by incompetent person with a rodent problem.
MOUSETRAPITIS
Yep. About had to do them X's and O's today, cuz Valentine's Day falls on a themeless SatPuz, this year.
ReplyDeleteCool, different puztheme.
fave hugger: CLAMSUP.
fave kisser: EXTERNALLY.
staff weeject pick: OXO. Y'all don't wonder why, amiright?
some faves: MASKS [especially crossin NECK, xxxooo]. SHUTOUTS. EVENSTEVEN. OWESTO/LATE(X) [especially since OWESTO could go WEST, with 2 hugs]. EXIT clue. GUM clue [M&A had a plethora of possible answers for that, startin out with RAT, then GNU, then GOO, then GOD, then GOP ...].
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Ayas dude. Great valentinespuz. xxxooouuu.
MASKSed & Anonymo6Us
Halfway through this puzzle last night I thought: this is WAYY too hard; I'll never finish this. But I finally got the gimmick and somehow finished in under 20 minutes which is just fine for a tricky Thursday. I'm really glad they didn't put any circles in as that would have made it too easy. Well done!
ReplyDeleteTyping this up now, I started to say there are refreshingly few names but actually there aren't... I count 11. But only WAWA, PANTERA, and DEE were total Unknowns to me.
I have heard of Wawa Ontario, but that would be really obscure for an American puzzle. (I've always wondered if the inhabitants of Walla Walla Washington ever call it Wawa? Or WaWaWa?)
And the weird winter weather continues: sunny and mild yesterday and today. Spent a couple hours reading in the sun in my back yard yesterday. 70 days now since the last snowfall. Only one day so far this winter with snow on the ground according to Environment Canada (Dec. 2). There are "flurries" in the forecast this weekend but I'll let you know if it actually happens.
Down here on the coast it is 7 degrees Celsius. Fair amount of rain predicted but no chance of freezing temps for at least the next week. A few days ago they predicted sleet but it never happened. Where has winter gone?
DeleteI guess I'm the only one who hated MOUSETRAPS? They're so cruel. Poor mice.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably not the only one, @Rachel. I imagine lots of other commenters will chime in about how cute mice are. And they are. But they eat the grain I feed my llamas. Those grains are stored in tightly sealed bins made of thick and, if you believe the manufacturers, unassailable plastic. But those cute mice and their less cute buddies the rats manage to chew through them anyway. After dinner they scamper up to the loft to make nests in the hay bales. I have sort of solved that problem by buying my hay in compressed bales (too dense for their tastes) but they have just moved over to the straw bales (looser and I can't find straw bales compressed).
DeleteI've tried "humane" traps, aka "live" traps but every time I walk out to the road to release a rodent I hear the owls hooting in appreciation. The mice and rats don't have a chance out there. I've talked to neighbouring farmers about getting a "barn cat", but would that be any less cruel than trapping?
I'd be interested to hear more from you - or any other commenters - on this subject.
Is poison better? Really not trying to be mean because I’m all for “humane” methods. Have you watched Pluribus? If so, we need to watch whether we step on insects. It’s all a dilemma for humans as to what is cruel and what is not. Keep in mind I went to great lengths to catch a vole (several several years ago) in my basement and, because they move like a drunk mouse, was successful and took the vole “outside” a bit.
DeleteLISTEE should be disqualifying. That is just not a thing, it's something no one has ever said, and it's completely trivial to change to LISTEN. I have no idea how that got through, and while Rex flagged it, it's just so, so bad, completely ruins the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteTough start for me. Made some dumb mistakes, like putting in Oahu where GUAM belonged but, also, just couldn't wrap my groggy mind around things like MAIM/MAXIM. In my defense, I hadn't yet seen the revealers and my failing eyesight often causes me to overlook asterisks. So I just chipped away at it, stumbling here and there, tripping over my own mental feet, until I finally finished. Oh, yeah, Xes and Os, kisses and hugs. Quite brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI may be one of the 2% of adult males* who actually carries a handkerchief and I used to sew (my mother was a seamstress and actually taught me how to make many of my own clothes), but I have never heard the term BATISTE except when talking about Jon.
FLAMINGO was a bit weird because you have to add the extra letter outside the grid.
* citation needed. I just made that number up but it's probably close to the truth. Long live truthiness.
I like doing the crossword every day. Except maybe Thursday. I enjoy the word knowledge but these gimmicks are beyond my comprehension.
ReplyDeleteI found the gimmick tedious. I had to go back and check every time I came to an asterisk - is this across or down? And then what's the gimmick for whichever one it is?
DeleteWas surprised this song wasn't included. (Elle King's ex's and oh's) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uLI6BnVh6w
ReplyDeleteOne other thought about the theme. There are no non-theme Xes in the puzzle, which is nice. It would have been wonderful to have no non-theme Os either (perhaps allowing OXO as theme adjacent). It would probably not have been possible to eliminate all the other Os, but in that case, would it have been better to have at least one non-theme X, for consistency? Or is eliminating all the extra Xes but not of the Os better than not doing either?
ReplyDeleteIn my 70’s. Never a Prince fan. Name’s familiar, but don’t think I’ve ever listened to him. Don’t particularly like rock guitar. But wow, what a performance! I had to watch it twice. Thanks for linking to it.
ReplyDeleteI felt I needed to weigh in on what a GREAT puzzle this was….and it is. Everyone who has praised it have already said everything I think.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been in a bit of a Trump-funk and TODAY I found out about the EPA reversing the greenhouses gases endangerment finding and (having been “in the biz”) am…to say the least…a bit depressed. Oh. Add on to the general whatever it is “new normal” biz. Tipping point.
Listee? No. Just no. Got it from the cross as the last letter of the solve but I fully side with the Honorable Judge Parker on that one.
ReplyDeletethat's a classic Thursday in every way learned a lot too - brilliant!
ReplyDeleteIndeed this puzzle grows on you! Had to come here to actually read the 26D clue - before that I was stumped by all the Xs that needed to be removed. Clever fun puzzle quite hard for me. Had to look up WAWA and SILICA
ReplyDelete