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Stickler for military discipline / SUN 3-29-26 / Turn into logs / Internet-influenced writing genre / Gertrude who swam the English Channel / Common vessel for a cosmopolitan / Tired old advertising mascot? / Pertaining to genetic copies / Leader ousted in 1955 / "The Office" accountant who kept a cat in her desk drawer / Religious title that translates to "ocean monk" / In Norse myth, world held up by the branches of Yggdrasil
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Constructor: Michael and Oliver Schlossberg
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
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| [51D: "Star Wars" title (DARTH)] |
First roundabout:
I completed this puzzle without fully understanding the gimmick. I could see that answers were entering and emerging, but I tried to make that little arrow-circle square at the middle of each "roundabout" mean something—I thought it represented letters, somehow, and I couldn't understand why it seemed to be representing different sets of letters for each answer. Over time, I could see that the answer going south had no letters added, the one going east seemed to have just one, and the one headed south had two, but I was solving at a reasonable clip and never really stopped to try to figure it all out. I kept waiting for a revealer to explain it all to me, but ... it never arrived. Perhaps if the roundabouts were circles (like actual roundabouts) and not squares (wtf????), the whole "roundabout" concept would've been clearer to me earlier, I don't know. No "roundabout" I have ever been in has ever had ninety-degree angles like that. I go through traffic circles like that nearly every day, all of them circular. So I'm not a fan of the visual representation of the roundabouts, but I am a fan of the concept in general. It is elaborate and kinda wild and really well executed. Also, that giant open section in the north features some of the most inventive grid-building I've seen. You've got the back end of BALLOON ANIMAL shooting up into the center of that section, and then a bunch of stellar long non-theme answers filling the spaces around it, including TRIVIA APP, PRICELINE, DALAI LAMA, ON VACAY (!) and always adorable RED PANDAS. OK, you also have the decidedly ugly CLONAL (8D: Pertaining to genetic copies), but hey, it's a small price to pay for the rest of it. This theme is so architecturally complex and so dense that it must've been an adventure filling the grid At All, let alone filling it so creatively. Maybe the one (high difficulty level) begat the other (extreme inventiveness). Whatever. This is the rare Sunday puzzle that seems worthy of the real estate it takes up. And one of the rare "architectural feats" that was actually interesting to solve (even if my aha moment came very, very late).
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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- MART (37A: Convenience store)
- MARTIALART (48D: Kendo or aikido)
- MARTINET (40A: Stickler for military discipline)
- MARTINIGLASS (5D: Common vessel for a cosmopolitan)
Second roundabout:
- BUT (42A: Nevertheless)
- BUTTIGIEG (52D: "Mayor Pete")
- BUTTOCKS (43A: Rear end)
- BUTTONFLIES (14D: Alternatives to zippers on blue jeans)
Third roundabout:
- BAL (68A: The Orioles, on a scoreboard)
- BALLGOWN (73D: Fancy dress)
- BALLOTS (69A: They're cast in November)
- BALLOONANIMAL (25D: Entertainer's creation at a child's birthday party)
Fourth roundabout:
- MICH (101A: Wisc. neighbor)
- MICHELLE (107D: One of the Obamas)
- MICHELOB (102A: Brand from Anheuser-Busch)
- MICHELINMAN (72D: Tired old advertising mascot?)
Fifth roundabout:
- ARM (103A: Branch)
- ARMANIS (110D: Some expensive suits)
- ARMAGNAC (104A: French brandy)
- ARMAGEDDON (75D: It's the end of the world)
Word of the Day: MARTINET (40A) —
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| [merriam-webster.com] |
• • •
Two parts of the puzzle seemed particularly treacherous. The first was MARTINET. I know the word ... but it's not exactly an everyday word, and because it was involved in the first "roundabout" I came to, and I didn't really understand who the "roundabout" worked, I wasn't entirely sure MARTINET was even right. What if it was something like, uh, MARINE VET, and I just wasn't seeing how the theme was working? I think of MARTINETs as being stern, but I don't associate the word with specifically "military" discipline, so I hesitated there. And I knew EDERLE! (crosswordese to the rescue!) (31D: Gertrude who swam the English Channel). Seems like MARTINET might've been even harder to pick up without EDERLE to help you confirm it. Aside from MARTINET, the other yikes part of the grid was CRONUS (71A: Father of Zeus). This is because my brain hiccuped and I wrote in URANUS (so many shared letters ...) without blinking, without hesitating, instantly. But URANUS was not Zeus's father, but his grandfather. Close, no cigar! Anyway, URANUS gave me "OH, LARDY" at 56D: "Good heavens!," and I was totally prepared to accept "OH, LARDY" as some horrid phonetically-spelled regionalism (actually thought to myself, "'OH, LAWDY' would be better”). The only way I caught the URANUS error was by (luckily) noticing that I had INUA as the answer for 62D: Early empire builder (INCA). No such thing as INUA (I'm pretty sure). So in went INCA and LARDY (!) became LORDY (better!) and that was the very last thing I wrote in the grid.
I kept wanting the letters inside the roundabouts to spell something or mean something ... and of course they did "mean" something, ultimately—you have to follow them around in order to make sense of all three answers that exit from the roundabout. Which brings me to the only part of the theme that doesn't quite work: that first answer, the one that enters but does not leave the roundabout. If you enter a roundabout you have to leave the roundabout. You do not stop on a roundabout. Have you ever been behind someone who stopped on a roundabout?! Chaos. Nightmare scenario. You have to keep moving and you have to (eventually) leave. So in order for three of the theme answers to work beautifully, one of them has to kick things off by awkwardly driving into the roundabout and ... stopping. I'm trying not to cling too hard to roundabout realism today. You can't have three answers exit if you don't first have one answer enter. A little unrealism is just the price you pay for the overall effect. I'm OK with that. I'm much more bothered by the square roundabouts than I am by the non-exiting answers.
Outside the theme answers, things look pretty good. I'm not too bothered by the doubling up of UP—I just wish one of those UP answers wasn't SAW UP, what in the world!? (93A: Turn into logs). What are we doing here? Who's supposed to be saying this, a cartoon pioneer? "After I SAW UP some wood I'm gonna scare up some grub!" SAW UP appears to be on a cycle, reappearing in the grid every thirty years like some kind of strange crossword comet (1965, 1996, 2026). I hope I live to see its next appearance, and yet I also hope I never see it again. The other "up" phrase is LACES UP, a perfectly fine phrase. If there's another "up" phrase I've missed, clearly it's not bothering me.
Bullets:
- 50D: Tots' pops (DADAS) — this is a ridiculous plural. I know it seems like an acceptable plural, but no tot would ever say DADAS. Just the one. There are mamas and there are papas but there are not DADAS. I suppose if a child had two dads, then DADAS is theoretically possible, but even then, I just don't see her describing them collectively. By the time she got the whole plural-with-an-S thing down, I think she'd be past the "dada" stage. Strange that I've seen DADAS so many times (fourteen since I started this blog), and this is the first time it struck me as absurd.
- 90A: Classic Andy Warhol subject (MARILYN) — hey, did you know that SOUP CAN and MARILYN have the same number of letters?! It's true! Ask me how I know!
- 94D: Leader ousted in 1955 (PERON) — I had to keep shouting at my brain, "No, not PEROT! The other guy ... the Evita guy ... come on!"
- 27A: "The Office" accountant who kept a cat in her desk drawer (ANGELA) — I laughed just remembering ANGELA. The clue-writing today was really colorful and entertaining, on the whole. The groaner clue on U.C.L.A. (122A: What you do when you tour a certain SoCal campus, phonetically?). The bizarro trivia clue on UFO (125A: Purported sighting recorded by Puritan governor John Winthrop in 1639). I mean, 54A: Heart on one's sleeve, perhaps, in brief (TAT)!?! What a great literalization of a common idiom (in case you were unaware, a "sleeve" is a large tattoo covering most or all of a person's arm). And [Tired old advertising mascot?] for MICHELIN MAN!? That's primo stuff right there.
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| ["Tired!"] |
- 89A: Predator that might hunt by electrolocation (EEL) — I love that "electrolocation" is a real thing (I did not know that) and that I could use the word to infer EEL (via "electric EEL")
- 79D: Purple smoothie add-in (AÇAI BERRY) — there's something decadent about getting the whole BERRY when normally (quite normally—regularly, constantly) we just get AÇAI. Amplified crosswordese. I like it.
- 29A: Internet-influenced writing genre (ALT-LIT) — I have never heard of this genre. I don't really believe it's a genre. "Alternative literature brings together people with a common interest in the online publishing world" (wikipedia). Wait, is this ALT-LIT? Am I ALT-LIT? Are we ALT-LIT?
That's all for today. See you next time.
P.S. I'm going to see John Mulaney today! His stand-up tour ("Mister Whatever") is, improbably, coming through Ithaca, so we're going. No idea why I'm telling you; I'm just excited is all. Big names (that I want to see) rarely come to my neck of the NY woods. Fun fact: MULANEY (7) has never appeared in the NYTXW. So, if you're playing at home, that's three SAWUPs, zero MULANEYs. Also zero OZUs, btw. But you knew that. I've said that many (many) times before.
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180 comments:
Well, today is my last day in Africa. Thankful for good internet to be able to keep up with you all and the puzzle! Pretty exhausted, but that's good, maybe I'll sleep on the plane. 40 minutes for me, so definitely challenging. Definitely had to figure out the theme in order to complete the puzzle.... I couldn't figure out that the N going answers were going up instead of down until about 1/2 way through when I fully grokked the gimmick. Technically that last roundabout take-off square is unchecked, right? The other ones are each part of 2 answers... or 3, but that last one is only part of the upgoing final version of that answer. But those long answers were all pretty gettable from the clue and the surrounding fill, so no problem. ARMAGNAC was a complete and utter WOE, so that corner took me a long time. But ARMAGEDDON was where I finally fully figured out the deal! Loved SILVERLININGS, TRAILHEAD, DALAILAMA.... all terrific stuff. Enjoyed the different symmetry today. Thanks, Michael and Oliver, for a tough but terrific Sunday puzzle! And wow, to get 4.5 stars from Rex, that's high praise!!! : )
Very impressive architecture, but about the most unpleasant solving experience I've had.
I finished with a couple typos that I was blind to. While it's quite a feat to create a puzzle like this, when it's this gimmicky it becomes more trouble than it's worth to solve.
Wow!. What else can I say? Finally a Sunday puzzle worthy of the time spent on it. Reasonable difficulty and a great gimmick. Got it relatively early though the fact that there were three exiting words on each roundabout was stunning. Fun.
Gave up halfway through. Didn't understand the gimmick.
But how difficult was it, would you say?
This unusual puzzle was a bit of a slog. But, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed every hour solving it.🎈🎈🎊🎊
I love the backstory, that this was crafted by a father and his teenage son. And it’s not a case of the son throwing out a suggestion here and there and basically being credited as a NYT constructor as a gift from Dad. No, Oliver’s role – writer of the program that generated the theme answers, played an integral role.
Just an incredible grid build, from having the theme clusters be symmetrical, to having five (!) of them, to having the four answers of each roundabout come from different etymologies. Wowwowwow!
But that’s not all. There were seven lovely NYT answer debuts, including four that begged the question, “How could these never been in the Times puzzle before?”: TRAILHEAD, MARTINI GLASS, MICHELOB, and MICHELIN MAN.
Plus, the funnest word I’ve run into in a long time – LAMINANO (25D)! Yes, it’s meant to be read from south to north, but forget that. It’s a new word, it’s fun to say, and it means “a thin layer”. LAMINANO!
Bravo, Michael and Oliver. Bravo squared. This was for me a fun and satisfying tour de force. More please, and thank you!
Loaded for bear that’s for sure - dense and immersive the architecture is impressive. The trick is fun and especially with the north verticals tricky to see at first. Pretty much got it with BUTTON FLIES.
White RIOT
Overall fill suffered from the immensity of the theme in places. Liked TRAILHEAD, SILVER LININGS and TENACIOUS. Unlike Rex - the full AÇAÍ BERRY fell flat along with TRIVIA APP, OH LORDY, CERAMISTS, PERKIER etc - there’s a lot of grid constraints here and it shows.
ANGELA
Learned RED PANDAS - knew CRONUS and COPSE at one point and glad the puzzle reminded me of them. Another visit to ALTA today.
They gave me a TINHAT and they gave me a gun
Rare case for me when the theme clearly outshines the fill. Pleasant Palm Sunday morning solve. All rise - the Bombers are on a roll.
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky, they stand there
Twenty four before my love and I'll be there
A roundabout leads one to a turn-off. Ironically, for me, this puzzle did quite the contrary.
Wow. Unfortunately, my mind is too feeble and my eyesight is too far past its prime for me to give this one a fair effort. It’s hard enough for me to keep track of words and phrases written the “normal” way. No way I would enjoy trying to make sense of answers going every which way. I was lucky to make some progress through about 25% of it before I gave up and threw in the towel.
This is probably the first Sunday this decade that I have flat out given up on. I generally abide by the NYT’s penchant for gimmicks grudgingly, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and this one blew way by it.
Oh, lardy. I liked the write up more than the puzzle.
Can’t say i enjoyed this one as much as Rex or some of the others. Once I got the approach from the first roundabout, there wasn’t much of a challenge with the exception of MARTINET. To make the gimmick work which was impressive, I give you that, it left the puzzle with way too many choppy 3-letter answers. I thought one of the more clever aspects was the symmetry between RIO and REO. Didn’t hate it. I guess it was just ok for me from an experience pov.
Forget the puzzle analysis. I never would have expected to see both The Bats and The Beths name-checked here. NZ indie music forever. Bravo!
Hey All !
Interesting puz. On the one hand, I admire the talent it took to construct. Lots of real estate taken up by the Theme that needed to be worked around. The fill is quite clean considering.
On the other hand, the Roundabouts, while cool, have the fourth-square-turn-thingie that doesn't go anywhere. Granted, it's necessary for the visual of the Roundabout, and for symmetry, but it just sits there uninvited to the party the other three turns are in.
On the other other hand, you then get backwards Up answers which make the Downs they occupy gibberish. Plus, the continuation of the post-Roundabout answers are gibberish. I get you don't take them as standalone answers, but still ...
Not saying I didn't like this puz. I did like it. I'm impressed at the construction. Congrats on getting published with a neat Theme. I'm sure took a bit to come up with 5 different instances of words that can fit the parameters for the puz and for symmetry. Kudos.
Unsure why the nits are bugging me. Normally they don't. Chalk it up to (fill in the condition.) Har.
Overall, very nice. Michael and Oliver, forget about my complaints, dust in the wind, and all that.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
100%! WOW!! Just WOW!!!
I feel you’re being a little harsh about the shape of the roundabouts but I agree that the solving mechanism for them wasn’t great. I’m not sure why letters were effectively “collected” for each answer. Took me a while to figure it out but it helped a lot when I did.
The top right corner was bad. Hated a few clues in there (I’ve never heard of MY FOOT and I would never call zipper alternatives BUTTON FLIES instead of buttons or even buttonholes).
Stuck it out to the end and got no happy music. There’s a typo in there somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to track it down. In the words of Anonymous, I failed. Failed! OH LORDY, the failure!
But I enjoyed Rex’s lively write-up. Grateful for that.
1. Saw John Mulaney at Radio City Music Hall during the Kid Gorgeous tour. Great comic. Great building.
2. The Michelin Man's name is Bibendum. His catchphrase: "I Eat Obstacles."
3. The Michelin restaurant guide was invented because, though many urban Frechmen and women owned cars, they lacked a reason to use them. The canny Michelin brothers thought "If we tell them where to eat, they will have to drive there and we can sell them tires." Tortured logic, yes, but who's to argue?
1. Saw John Mulaney at Radio City Music Hall during the Kid Gorgeous tour. Great comic. Great building.
2. The Michelin Man's name is Bibendum. His catchphrase: "I Eat Obstacles."
3. The Michelin restaurant guide was invented because, though many urban Frechmen and women owned cars, they lacked a reason to use them. The canny Michelin brothers thought "If we tell them where to eat, they will have to drive there and we can sell them tires." Tortured logic, yes, but who's to argue?
I’m with Rex. This is the best Sunday in a long time, with a good challenging theme and mostly clean fill. Bravo!
No artwork in my version of the grid, which may have made figuring out the theme trickier, or maybe not.
Went through my usual cronos/cronus/kronos/kronus kealoa dance.
Good theme and a ton of nice clues today.
I agree that this puzzle was a rare, memorable, worth-my-time Sunday. It boasted high-quality fill and an intricate gimmick executed five times—an impressive feat of construction. Nonetheless, I feel it was ultimately a "stunt puzzle," intended more to impress peers than to be enjoyed by the solver.
My specific complaint is that the gimmick necessitated five uncrossed squares (the first letters of each "third exit"). If you didn't know the specific spelling of any of those letters, you were "cooked" as far as achieving a clean solve. The second vowel of MICHELIN did me in. I racked my brain trying to visualize the labeling on the Michelin windshield wipers in my mudroom and even tested every spelling of "Michelin-starred restaurant" in a text editor (with autocorrect disabled), all without an "aha" moment. Consequently, my long-standing solving streak went down in flames when I incorrectly guessed "E."
Couldn’t agree more…tired of gimmicks!
There were no little arrow circles and such in AcrossLite, which made it more of a challenge. Still, I figured out the gimmick pretty early, but getting the specific answers to work was a challenge. I had the most trouble in the NE, as I couldn’t make cognac work (I’m not familiar with ARMAGNAC,)
Instead of ALT-LIT, I really wanted AI SLOP.
Enjoyed it!
I thought RP would begrudge the architecture, then complain about a slog. Boy, am I off this morning - and I didn't know the star system could actually go up to 4.5 :) As far as the architecture, the title is "Roundabout" and there is a circle in the dark center square of each roundabout pointing in the correct direction, so maybe Rex's software and not reading titles were to blame for the half-star deduction, depriving us of a 5. For the record, I usually ignore titles also because they give it away frequently.
I think we can officially declare anon7:06 "bobstroll". I concede they had a half-point yesterday, but today is outright trollery.
@DeeJay, I didn't make the Michelin guide/tire connection for a long time. The three star system are oddly ratings based on how far it is worth it to travel to eat at those establishments.
Yes, the top square of each roundabout seems to be “unchecked” — unless they’re “checked” in some clever way that has escaped me. But the theme and execution were so strong that I don’t mind so much!
Oof, another denial. In reading of Diana Nyad's feat years ago (and the recent retelling), I recalled references to Gertrude but the surname wasn't surfacing and thus was no corrector when I spanked in NuT at 40d. At the rejection, that cross drew immediate attention and MARTINuT -> MARTINET, posthaste.
And then, bupkis. Scanned and scanned some more, until the reality of tedium ahead came into focus - tabbing through each clue. I cannae recall when I last launched this methodical scrutiny, but for me, the second wind afforded through digital play has become a sometimes satisfying part - the rapid critique of the replies.
Re the yesterday deliberation, I've nevah once consulted (dunno why you people characterize it 'cheating'), and my five-hundred-plus so-called streak will come to an end when I cannot ferret an error in the 26-hr period - likely because the day left no room. Riprock is a social animal, but for me, the momentary diversion is entirely solitary (midday we'll take friends to eat and there is zero chance of any gaming discussion - no one knows I play). The entertainment comes in speed and humor - the fantastic blog insights into the art of construction and other missed elements add an extra dimension. If you yourself hit the Zoom to debate 169d with the great-grands or read the blog before starting play (which ta me makes no sense), to each her own.
Mercifully, midway through cycling the across entries, I recalled pausing a beat at saFEST, 70a, and then convincing myself that that and the crossing PEsKIER jibed with their cloos. My review approach first examines vowels, and by this, RIFEST emerged.
Game board manipulations ain't my jam, but I'm adept adept at them, and this one sorted quickly. I sussed the northward spoke last - the reversal was evident, but I speculated the start would be a reversal through the east spoke. The single west-spoke start was more elegant - the repeated rotary traversal affirmed the interior elements except for the last, the I/N/O/I/E, which were all clear.
Slick application. And playtime-to-gong was fast, but the postmortem took nearly as long - I think I might've found it more entertaining free of the muddled finish.
Respect to the constructors. Harder than your usual Sunday, or at least Sundays in recent times. The operative word seems to be "dense", and so I found it: dense, and somewhat fussy in the beginning. And twisty-turny. But after a while, having found my groove, I began to enjoy the ride a bit more, such as spelling out SSALG in the opposite direction (MARTINI GLASS). And yes, indeed: incredible from the point of view of construction.
I am utterly baffled by SEEST. Oh wait a minute, I just got it ("see" in second person singular, old-timey-like). Like "siehst" in German (English is after all a Germanic language). Tricky. And not a very enjoyable sight, to my eyes.
Neither is DO I GOTTA. If someone (presumably a TEEN or younger) asked me that, I'd find it hard not to respond, witheringly, "yes, you must". But in point of fact, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it. "Do I have to?", even though it sounds more formal, also sounds much more natural to me, and is something I have heard.
Rex made me crack up with the SAW UP commentary, especially with his comet imagery. While I'm on the topic: great write-up! That old MICHELIN MAN ad, with the gent on bended KNEES, is a HOOT, a RIOT, a GAS, seemingly a RARE GAS at that. Where do you find this stuff, RP? Did you already know of this ad beforehand?
Never heard of TIN HAT for the WWI helmet. "TIN foil HAT" is of course very familiar. Merch sold by QAnon. (My god, how stupid we Americans have become.)
Anyhow, in the end I quite enjoyed it. These past three days have been a welcome return to hard end-of-week puzzles. A SIGNAL of things to come, I ask hopefully?
RIFEST is god-awful. A slog to solve, but appreciated the gimmick in the end. Boy, DOIGOTTA PEE.
Very fun solve for a Sunday morning (even if I needed a hint or two). Thanks.
What part of Africa were you in?
Was Rick Sacra in Accra?
Challenging. I hated it. Not because it was challenging but because it was a slog. I just returned from Hollywood, Florida, where the roundabout (or traffic circle) is the town's mascot. Three major ones and countless minor ones, including at least two at "T" intersections. I hate roundabouts, and that feeling extends to puzzles about roundabouts. I did admire the architecture, though.
* _ _ _ _
I knew something was up when the Cosmo drink clue had GLASS going backwards, and that was early on. I didnt understand why some of the themers had a different amount of letters added than others. I kept slogging away and eventually it dawned on me. this puzzle was not for the weak. I Had _E__N and stupidly put in lEniN, almost immediately I said "No, that was way before 1955".. corrected to PERON. I also thought since they had Andy Warhol's first and last name it should have been MARILYN Monroe... and that was near a roundabout so I searched in vain. I really liked this puzzle, great Sunday . Congrats to the Schlossbergs.
Nope, just nope. This is the most self-indulgent, self-conscious, "look-at-me!" puzzle I've seen in a long time. The constructors are mainly interested in being admired for being complex. There should be a gimmick limit per puzzle, and they have wildly overshot it.
YES - “Roundabout” (1971):
I'll be the roundabout
The words will make you out and out
You spent the day your way
Call it morning driving through the south in and out the valley
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
One mile over we'll be there and we'll see you
Ten true summers we'll be back and laughing too
Twenty four before my love, you'll see I'll be there with you
Loved it. Loved the clues and the gimmick and the construction and all of it. Worried my dogs would pester me enough to break my 33-day faster-than-average streak but they didn't. Daily completion streak is up to 1,958 (and only missed one in 2,702 days). Kudos to the constructors. (I only thought OFL would hate DOIGOTTA. That's the only thing in this puz that really made me cringe.)
I REALLY liked this one. I personally enjoy architectural gimmicks so much more than “change a letter/sound and clue wackily” puzzles.
I skipped the theme answers on my first pass, as is my custom. On my second pass when going off crosses I quickly figured out the gimmick on BALLOTS. I had a really good time immediately going from roundabout to roundabout solving as much as I could.
The cluing was nice and clever and most things were relatively in my wheelhouse, so I didn’t have the normal Sunday thing of getting halfway done and the rest feeling like a slog. The only truly hard part was the aforementioned MARTINET/EDERLE area. I’ve never heard either of those terms in my life. It also took me an embarrassingly long time to get DALAI LAMA - I think I needed 2/3rds of the crosses to see that one.
Love it! But "Bibendum" looks like it would refer more to drinking than eating; compare "imbibe". Indeed, AI Overview reports that the name was taken from a line of Horace, Nunc est bibendum, which they render as "now is the time to drink". (I'm not a Latin scholar, but taken in isolation, the word looks like a gerundive noun that might be translated as "something to be drunk". If I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected.)
ASANA fans say, "Gimme MOANA."
Chappell Roan (or at least her security guard) almost caused a RIO RIOT the other day.
I heard that there is a new Celebration of Rhode Island annual event called RIFEST.
Gotta disagree with @Rex about SAWUP. When you're cutting firewood you don't say "Let's saw into pieces this log and call it a day." I don't MINCE words or logs. But I do SAWUP logs.
Where I do agree with @Rex (actually I generally agree with him) is on the western word entering the roundabout and stopping. As I was pondering this I decided that the puzzle would be better, though harder, if the western approach were unclued. I wouldn't be surprised if Messrs. Schlossberg considered this, but found it to be too difficult. But, that aside, this was a fabulous theme in conception and execution. Thank you so much for this POY candidate and 4.5 star effort Michael and Oliver Schlossberg.
Bloody Hell! Rex provided an illustration of a UK roundabout - which moves clockwise, rather than counter-clockwise, as in most of the rest of the world and in the puzzle. Try to move through a roundabout clockwise here in the USA and you are sure to TOTAL your car.
The term "roundabout" is a relatively recent addition to traffic engineering terminology to designate all those small circles popping up all over the country meant to slow traffic and replace traffic lights at two-road intersections - and to distinguish them from the much larger and older traffic circles and rotaries that are used to manage complicated intersections comprising more then two roads coming together. The Europeans have been using them for decades.
I liked it. Took me a long time but no clues, cheats, look ups…I even flyspecked before the happy music so no one in the ALT LIT blog world can tell me I’m a failure. Boy, S’MORE is becoming the StarWars of the dessert world.
This puzzle had me tearing out my hair not QUITE getting the theme until I finally said "oh ROUNDABOUTS, you GO AROUND!" Once I had that true aha moment it went smoothly and I appreciated the concept a lot. I also just read The Island of Forgetting, a novel that follows four generations of a family in Barbados and is loosely inspired by Greek mythology, including the character names - CRONUS was ready to hand! I'd recommend the novel, it's sort of a latter day Roots but focusing on colonialism instead of slavery, and it's not as heavy.
I was very close to a DNF. Kept going over and over the puzzle, knowing that my mistake was probably in the "Gertrude who swam the English Channel" area because I had no idea what her name was, and didn't know the strict disciplinarian word. But tried all vowels to no avail until I realized that it was GARGLE rather than GuRGLE - et voila. That section I'm sure was a Natick for some. Loved this puzzle. Very clever and certainly challenging for a Sunday. 40:15 - well over average.
While a bit of a slog to navigate in the app, this puzzle was still a pleasure to solve and an architecture to admire. A welcome respite from recent Sundays that have all been ten minutes or so of unchallengeing and uninteresting fill. More of these, please!
Yes!
Great building yeah.
Right you are, and here is the correction.
It is gerundive. But it’s not a noun, it’s a passive verbal ajective.
The military is the first thing yiu shoukd think of when considering martinet.
Martinet was a real person. A muckety muck on the French army.
No way for me to tell UTTA was actually ATTA, so I couldn't figure out that UTMOST should have been AT MOST.
Enjoyed the challenge. Avoided the roundabouts until a lot of the puzzle was filled in. Then it became more obvious what was going on. I knew who mayor Pete was, but had to look up the spelling. Does that count as cheating or a DNF?
This puzzle put me in a bad mood. Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought, but I hated it. Gotta agree with SouthsideJohnny @ 7:18 who posted "I generally abide by the NYT’s penchant for gimmicks grudgingly, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and this one blew way by it."
"The NYT's penchant for gimmicks" is getting annoying. Too bad the New Yorker doesn't have puzzles on Sundays so I can redeem myself :(
In case Rick has no time to answer, he has been in Liberia.
Totally agree with you SSJohnny on "NYT’s penchant for gimmicks" :(
Enjoyed this puzzle and @Rex’s commentary. The double SS at the top turned me on to the construction early but it still took me forever to work through all the intersections. Thanks Rex for pointing out the purposeful build in words around the roundabouts. Was a struggle to get Pete B’s name spelled correctly, and now I’ve already forgotten it…again…
Oh I absolutely LOVED this puzzle! Lots of fill I haven't seen before - ARMAGNAC, MARTINET, BUTTIGIEG were standouts - and a gimmick that was incredibly rewarding once I figured it out. Puzzles like this is what I'm looking for in a Sunday xword.
I have no clue WHO would want BUTTONFLy jeans, but they have gone in and out of “style” over the years and are called BUTTONFLIES. My recollection is the buttons are actually the slightly raised metal variety of button. Maybe it harkens back to the early days of Levi Strauss.
Roundabouts like these are very common in Ireland. They are generally four-way and at right angles. Of course, the main difference from American ones is that you'd turn left for the first exit, or go 180 degrees, then out for the second, or three quarters around for the third.
I went Cresus, Crosus, CRONUS. (I guess my first two were a misspelled attempt at Croesus)
Totally flummoxed on 108 across - 'RECTO' ... any insights?
I like that “AI SLOP.” Yat
thx for clearning up 'seest' - that one's a stretch for me to accept tho.
Agreed on 'do i gotta' ... sounds like something from 50s sitcom teen 🤓
If you want to feel better about "clonal" remember that some trees (beeches and aspens, for two) send up clonal shoots all around their root zone, so that a grove of beeches or aspens is actually one very large organism.
I had tons of fun with this puzzle today.
Me too
Not particularly difficult but sorting out the roundabouts ate up quite a few nanoseconds.
Clever and fun, liked it.
I go through a roundabout occasionally and I am not a fan.
In Jersey, there are many roundabouts in which the driver enters and doesn't exit. We call them pile-ups.
Thought MARTINET was a small French martini.
This is why i still do the Sunday NYT. It can and every few years DOES deliver! I was challenged, determined, in awe of the structure and giggly. Full disclosure-i had to look up Asgard….
I had exactly the opposite experience: I loved it; a great start to a Sunday.
Every hour??? It took me 33 minutes which I thought was too long.
As someone said above…Wow, just wow! I LOVED this puzzle to pieces and had a great time figuring out the “roundabout” concept…and yes…let’s just say I tend to plunge into the Sunday puzzle and forget to look at the written theme/title. I don’t do that on purpose, but once I get engaged, I don’t usually look until I’m done.
I thought I might have to do a “check puzzle” when I filled in my last square but figured my mistake was on one of the roundabouts and I was right! (I had an I instead of e for MICHELLE…sloppiness on my part) Also gotta say…for some reason I ALWAYS have pause when spelling BUTTIGIEG and ARMAGGEDON. Luckily, I had managed to get the spelling right.
A few people above seem to indicate this was a “vanity” project and I very much disagree. I see it as a father-son collaboration that resulted in the best (or one of the best) Sunday experiences I’ve had in a long while. Thank you!
I agree. Hate the gimmicks. Maybe a separate puzzle for them, but give me a good “medium” according to Rex and it’s a good Sunday.
The gimmick today reminded me more of the numerous squares in old-town Savannah, GA, which, from a traffic perspective, are like squared off roundabouts, in that they are all one-way, counterclockwise.
I didn't get very far last night, despite seeing the overturned glass at the top and lightly penning in the upside-down animal for BALLOON ANIMAL. Worked out the theme fairly quickly this morning, after MICHELLE etc., and that made all the remaining roundabouts pretty easy. I finished in the NE, left blank till the end.
This one was right up my alley - I loved figuring out how the roundabouts worked. Early on, I saw the exiting GLASS, but not knowing how cosmopolitans are served, I moved on. The neighboring BUT-->TONFLIES and intermediate exit points revealed the pattern; still, I stumbled and fumbled my way through the MARTINI GLASS and BALLOON ANIMAL and only truly got into the flow with the final two. Very satisfying! A big thank you to the constructors for providing the fun!
I didn't love it, and I like Sunday puzzles with clever themes, But this was too much to figure out, and too time-consuiming. I'm used to words starting out and then going this, that, or the other way, but I don't expect words to not start where they should start. Just ugh.
I had Do I Hafta before DO I GOTTA, Steadfast before TENACIOUS, Prompt before SIGNAL, Soup can before MARILYN. Now I'm going to forget this puzzle and get on with my day!
Thanks! Very cool. Is there some massive connected, maybe clonal🤷🏻♂️, mass of trees—maybe in Michigan—that’s considered the largest organism in the world?
Or have I got it all balled up?
Fewer and fewer these days. But I live close to a couple.
The program won't let me enter a reply to "Snabby" at 6:31 a.m: I heartily agree. 45 minutes of puzzlement, looking up answers (many of which made utterly no sense), wincing at factual and linguistic errors galore, and on and on. Definitely a contender for WOAT, but that's an increasingly crowded field.
Made the same "error" for which I also exonerate myself... it's perfectly reasonable. There were just too many foreignisms (as Gary likes to them) in the NW corner.... frightfully unfair and a real shame given this architectural masterpiece!
To Joe from Lethbridge 11:20. I had a good laugh at your comment.It really took me about 90 minutes to complete the puzzle.I admire you for finishing so quickly.🎈🎈🎊🎊
One challenging part of today's puzzle for me was trying to spell ARMAGEDDON while it went around in circles. I needed the crosses for that one.
Roundabouts are becoming quite common here in Minnesota and I embrace that enthusiastically. Though there are still folks who are completely clueless, stopping when they don't have to or even trying to go clockwise. But overall, they just save so much time compared to traffic lights or four-way stops. Go, roundabouts! (I prefer that term to the common "traffic circle".)
I figured out the gimmick at BUTTIGIEG, BUTTOCKS, BUTTON FLIES. I just had to try a few crosses on that last one to make sure those 270 degree answers went upwards against the usual flow. That far NE section was definitely the hardest. I tried "wily" for the Artful clue, went blank on ASGARD, thought Seized by the teeth might be BITten. Finally, I saw MY FOOT which helped break open that grid jam.
Hah, I just got the joke of the MICHELIN MAN clue. "Tired", I get it!
Michael and Oliver, I really enjoyed this puzzle. It was so non-sloggy, I quit imposing a random solve effect and just went for it. Thanks!
same thought on the MARILYN Monroe thing, was looking for her last name, based on "Warhol" being included in the clue
Be nice. I'm pleased when I finish in under an hour. Not all of us are quick, and we still have a place here
Nice!
Me too. Tired of gimmicks.
Yes! And, I hear it as "Call it morning driving through the sound and in and out the valley." Okay, just checked my original Fragile album and also multiple lyrics websites and they agree on sound vs south. Interestingly, the album also has the 4th line as "You change the day your way." Variations over time?
I agree on all fronts! This is one of my all-time favorite puzzles. I loved it so much I felt compelled to explain the theme to my partner, who is not my a crossword guy. Even he was impressed with the architecture! Bravo!
Pretty good, for a non-humorous SunPuztheme mcguffin. A true puzzler theme to unravel.
The only thing, is M&A does not at all like roundabouts in his drivin experiences. Thankfully, there ain't many of em, around where I reside.
Caught on to the counter-clockwise themer patterns in the BUTTOCKS roundabout, aptly.
staff weeject pick, of a mere 34 choices: BUT. Answer for someone refusin to enter the roundabout.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Schlossberg dudes. Happy drivin wishes: may y'all not have to go in circles too often. And watch out for all them other drivers that ain't used to roundabout rules.
And congratz to Oliver S. on his half-debut.
Masked & Anonym007Us
p.s.
runtpuz with no circles of any kind:
**gruntz**
M&A
Hate the gimmicks. This is a crossword puzzle folks not a contortionist exercise. I think the constructors are getting desperate to be fresh and clever.
I also dislike gimmicks. Impressive construction, but not enjoybale at all.
Hi Yat! I like your comment. ;) (Yesterday)
Honestly shocked that Rex is so hung up on the squareness of the roundabouts and yet seemingly fine with the fact that all of the secondary theme answers are gibberish on their own. This is the second puzzle this week with that “feature,” after the “flip the bird” one. If your crossword makes me figure out how to spell something backwards, you’ve done something wrong.
Sunday is usually my least favorite day, but I just loved this! I read the note so I took a screen shot of the NYT web page grid, and had it on my left monitor, which helped a lot. I got the trick right away at 5 down SSLAG... hey, that's GLASS backwards! And the whole puzzle went pretty quick at 22 minutes; almost half my time from yesterday.
Those long themers were amazing... all five of them. This was my favorite Sunday ever!
I got a kick out of 25 down, because just a couple of days ago doing Spelling Bee I noticed that ANIMAL backwards is LAMINA which is a word. I love semordnilaps!
Hands up for Warhol's SOUP CAN before MARILYN.
I loved that song! And they had a primo keyboardist with Rick Wakeman. Haha…unfortunately the one time I saw them in concert…I kid you not, a pillar (or something like a pillar) obstructed my view of the stage! (Oh how we never forget when we feel we’ve been “screwed.”
Someone please tell me what SEILNS means. Thanks.
Oddly I learned all that in the fabulous book…The Overstory. @Anon 11:48…dunno if you have it “balled up” but hey…I’ll search it. I’m a curious sort!
There’s a massive fungal organism in Michigan and also a single aspen tree in Utah called Pando that has thousands of “stems” - i.e. what appear to be individual trees but are actually all clones.
I hated this puzzle. I must live in a different universe than those who claim to have enjoyed the solving experience.
Good comment! Haha…same here with ARMADEDDON. Also…I didn’t find it sloggy at all. I mean…I don’t mind if it takes me some time to figure out what is going on. Honestly, I’m never sure what “slog” means (I’ll look it up) but I tend to equate it with drudgery. All I know is, is that I was VERY engaged in the solve.
I agree with Lisa. I’m satisfied if I finish period. My average time of 75 minutes is down from over two hours when I started solving five years ago (when I retired).
A very involved theme. It accounted for about 90% or more of the resistance. Amazingly clean fill considering how much territory the theme takes up. DOIGOTTA is the only eyesore I can recall. It's a debut for all the wrong reasons. While solving I don't think I ever realized that the 3-4 letter words leading into the roundabouts were stand alone words but it made no difference. When I put in my last letter I got the congrats.
I as well. Embarrassing to discover that 1A/D was the wrong letter, after all that.
Good comment! But…in my experience a small roundabout replacing 4-way stop signs was the difference between night and day in my neighborhood (during rush hours) on a street that was two-lane…but a bit of an “artery” for peeps getting home. M & A…may you be blessed with zero roundabouts OR just have to deal with a “simple” one. Because yeah…some of the more complex ones…WHOA NELLY!
Late to the game, as I was in Mystic, CT.
Impressive puzzle, impressive construction. Took me a while to figure out exactly how the roundabouts worked. Agree MARTINET was a question mark, as was (for me) ASGARD but ultimately, I guessed correctly. DOIGOTTA was just an "oof" - cramming this in, it felt like.
A family that solves together, builds together -- gotta love it. Thanks to the Schlossbergs, young and old.
Very fun solve. 5 roundabouts, 5 ways to suss the theme. Knew most the PPP, so no slog here. Nice to see Pete (birthname Peter) BUTTIGIEG in the puzzle, BUT unfortunate to bundle him with BUTTOCKS/BUTTONFLIES. Or maybe it's apt.
106D, 124A Real comedian: HOOT, RIOT (John Mulaney). Enjoy the show, Rex!
Useless word of the day: quincunx, the 5 shape/pips on dice, dominoes, playing cards. (The roundabouts in the grid reminded me of the word.)
Well done and thanks, Messrs. Schlossberg! (such a ridiculous, non-time-saving abbreviation)
- Peter H.
I didn't mind the gimmick, but I wanted more. Like the partials to be actual words. Or a revealer. Or the letters in the roundabout to spell something. I'm sure it was difficult to pull off, as-is. But I wanted more. Also some of the fill seem to come right out of the 1950s (HOOT, DOIGOTTA, etc). CLONAL and ON VACAY and ALT LIT are ugly. I found the whole thing meh.
Anonymous at 10:56 - from Latin recto and verso for the pages of a book. The recto is the right-hand page and it's odd-numbered. The verso is the left-hand page and it's even-numbered.
It’s not LAMINANO, it’s BALLOONANIMAL. The word that enters from the West goes all the way around and exits North.
👆🏼 didn’t mean to comment as anonymous (I wouldn’t post anything I wouldn’t own up to) I just didn’t know I wasn’t signed in to Google Blogger 😳
Enjoyed it! I’m definitely not at the level where I could have finished without getting the gimmick, and initially I had the gimmick wrong (in a way that makes more sense for roundabouts). The first themer I saw was MARTIAL ART, and I could see 4D was backwards of some kind of GLASS, so I thought it was going to be some scenario where the acrosses were coming at the at the roundabout and taking the first exit, but when nothing materialized I moved on. It was the BALL roundabout when I finally saw it, because BALLOON ANIMAL was clearly going to be the answer to be the answer for 25D, but there was no way to get the right number of letters with anything other than 73D, which was clearly not going to be OLLAB—eventually I realized that some kind of GOWN had to go there, and after some brief confusion, I saw it all.
Anyway, at my nascent skill level, there was no way I could have solved it without the gimmick, which created added layers of fun. I loved it.
My only quibble with theme execution was the MICH circle, since they are all proper nouns, and MICHELIN and MICHELLE are etymologically related. The other roundabouts felt like much tighter sets. But just a small quibble; as I said, I loved the puzzle.
Pete was a rare gimmie for me since his dad was one of my grad school professors (thus I learned the spelling and its Maltese roots), but it would have been beast otherwise as spelling is never my forte. Fun fact: his cultural-linguist dad, though proud of him, is probably rolling over in his grave about Pete’s efforts to help Americans pronounce his name, which he changed in order to do so (Dr. Buttigieg made sure we pronounced it correctly).
Anyway, I enjoyed seeing both Pete BUTTIGIEG and MICHELLE Obama in the same puzzle, as they are both people whom I find particularly refreshing on a rhetorical level.
He knows it is not laminano, but I hate that he's contributing to the semantic shift of "beg the question" away from the logical fallacy toward a more dramatic way of saying raise the question.
RECTO is the term used in book history for the “right” side; when you turn the page and are seeing the other side of the same leaf on the left, we call it the VERSO (“turned”).
I think LAMINANO is a diminutive for Dalai Lama.
I’m commenting again after I’ve read the comment thread with its sharply polarized reaction to gimmick puzzles, which is fascinating to me. I particularly like them (when well-executed), and we generally only get them a minority of the time (Thursday and Sunday). I understand that many people (Rex included) prefer themeless, so I was pondering why I haven’t yet gotten to appreciating that aesthetic (yet). I think in my own experience, the well-executed gimmick can provide another way to fill in the squares when clueing is trickier, or when there are too many known-only-to-crossworders answers. I enjoy having a different layer of puzzle to get me to answers that might have me stumped otherwise. Anyway, I think since Friday and Saturday are themeless, it’s fair to have gimmick puzzles on Thursday and Sunday.
Appreciated and got the trick and from there did the roundabouts first. But the puzzle construction left so much little fill crossing little unknown fill that the end wasn’t fun.
Haha Colin! I am TRULY not criticizing but…when my youngest was 15…I did NOT consider myself “old.” I KNOW…picking nits. 🤣
Just put on the album and the line sounds like "And spend the day your way." But no matter the lyrics, the music is primo. @Beezer that is a bummer. But at least you heard them live!
❤️ Okanaganer…I applaud you for kudos that went beyond mine. (Mine was “best Sunday I rememember” or something like that). You have helped vindicate my positive feelings…thanks!
I'm surprised Rex liked this so much. The gimmick was way to convoluted for my taste.
Yah, he's THE rick sacra.
We loved this puzzle.
I hear you…but…sometimes I think it boils down to…how much time do you have to solve? As a recently retired person I (usually) have “tons” of time to solve. I think it might depend on your interest on any given day with respect to solving. This is why I keep a “boughten” paper book of very tough puzzles. Even though I’m now retired, I’m still busy. I really hate to think a puzzle is a slog (you didn’t use that word) because I couldn’t solve within x amount of time.yeah…the typos are a bummer but pretty sure I’m on record for saying I do “check puzzle” and often I find typos (or inadvertent “fill-in’s” due to keyboard fubars). I’ll never say…I flew this…unless I really did without typos. I don’t know your age (doesn’t matter) BUT…in the “olden days” I was BUSY and didn’t have time to spend on hard puzzles. It didn’t piss me off ( you didn’t say you were pissed off) BUT…I’d just keep the paper puzzle around and work on it when I had time. Unless I’m mistaken…we’re not on Jeopardy…so our ONLY penalty for not completing a puzzle is…we can’t comment on it in real time. U
Except for a single sheet(leaf) in which case it’s front and back.
I think my daughter and son have both recommended John Mulaney which is good for me. I confess (and for those who “know” me prob not surprising) I LOVE non-confrontational comedians like Gaffigan and Bargatze. Um…or at least comedians that don’t pick out a member of the audience. Picking on peeps in live AUDience is kiss of death for me. What can I say? I’m an empathetic weenie.
Yep, I had it all balled up.
Thanks for untangling
The other "Waltzing Matilda".. Love it.
Agreed. Geez. I grant you…Im old…but before blogging you could be blissfully ignorant of “speed solving.” No diss intended @Rex.
Yeah, I knew ATTA but failed to parse ATMOST as two words and figured UTTA might be a variant spelling. This would be plausible if the Hindi word had a short vowel at the beginning, which it doesn't.
Great fun! Finished in 74 percent of my average, but my times are still generally on their way down, so 74 percent of my average is sort of, well, average for me at the moment.
I see the gimmick is somewhat divisive. Well, I liked it. I had them each about half filled in before I fully realized what was going on, and from there, it definitely helped me, especially in the NE, where I had ANTON (his middle name) in place of APOLO for a while, blocking TEEPEE. SEILFN (the tail end of reversed BUTTON FLIES) convinced me that TEEPEE was right after all.
Other notes: I couldn't decide whether it was URANUS or CRONUS, but fortunately they overlap in four letters, so I could pin those down first. I'm not sure why RIOT and HOOT are "real comedians" (I've never heard that turn of phrase—"real hoot" yes, but not "real comedians"). I'm pleased to learn at least some of the etymology behind DALAI LAMA. Xenon and krypton are indeed RARE GASES, but they're more notable—to me, at least—for being inert or noble gases (which don't fit, obviously).
Yes!
oh LAWDY!! 🤣
Oof, another denial. In reading of Diana Nyad's feat years ago (and the recent retelling), I recalled references to Gertrude but the surname wasn't surfacing and thus was no corrector when I spanked in NuT at 40d. At the rejection, that cross drew immediate attention and MARTINuT -> MARTINET, posthaste.
And then, bupkis. Scanned and scanned some more, until the reality of tedium ahead came into focus - tabbing through each clue. I cannae recall when I last launched this methodical scrutiny, but for me, the second wind afforded through digital play has become a sometimes satisfying part - the rapid critique of the replies.
Re the yesterday deliberation, I've nevah once consulted (dunno why you people characterize it 'cheating'), and my five-hundred-plus so-called streak will come to an end when I cannot ferret an error in the 26-hr period - likely because the day left no room. Riprock is a social animal, but for me, the momentary diversion is entirely solitary (midday we'll take friends to eat and there is zero chance of any gaming discussion - no one knows I play). The entertainment comes in speed and humor - the fantastic blog insights into the art of construction and other missed elements add an extra dimension. If you yourself hit the Zoom to debate 169d with the great-grands or read the blog before starting play (which ta me makes no sense), to each her own.
Mercifully, midway through cycling the across entries, I recalled pausing a beat at saFEST, 70a, and then convincing myself that that and the crossing PEsKIER jibed with their cloos. My review approach first examines vowels, and by this, RIFEST emerged.
Game board manipulations ain't my jam, but I'm adept adept at them, and this one sorted quickly. I sussed the northward spoke last - the reversal was evident, but I speculated the start would be a reversal through the east spoke. The single west-spoke start was more elegant - the repeated rotary traversal affirmed the interior elements except for the last, the I/N/O/I/E, which were all clear.
Slick application. And playtime-to-gong was fast, but the postmortem took nearly as long - I think I might've found it more entertaining free of the muddled finish.
I've seen the Goya painting of "Saturn (Cronus) Devouring his Son". It bugs me, not because it is terribly gruesome (it is) but because I originally heard the story that he swallowed his children whole and then vomited them up, whereupon one of them (Zeus?) dispatched him. Worth a look if you have a strong stomach. You can probably find it if you search Goya Prado Saturn, but don't say i didn't warn you.
Late start and trying to do this while watching baseball, so extra late.
Anyway, like others I smelled tricksiness when the GLASS was going up instead of down but I didn't see the way everything worked until I had a lot of the puzzle filled in. Knew most of the trivia, including EDERLE and MARILYN as a first guess. However.......
I nearly gave up on the traffic circle containing BUTTONFLIES and BUTTIGIEG as I somehow missed the "rear end" clue and had to get COPSE and KNEES (had SEEST) to come up with BUTTOCKS, as I was trying to make BUTTO)____S into something that meant "nevertheless". I can assure you that this is a futile endeavor which will cost you many, many nanoseconds, followed by a most emphatic DOH!
Otherwise enjoyed the impressive construction and most of the fill. Roundabouts are becoming more and more popular around here and it seems like the worst problem is how to paint the arrows on the pavement to indicate the proper lane, but people are catching on. Some dear friends spent many revolutions in a roundabout in England trying to get to our son's wedding. They nearly missed the event.
But my favorite word today is TENACIOUS as I met my bride-to-be in the fall and as we passed a small maple on campus that was still holding on to some of its more beautiful leaves I said it was nice to see such a thing, and she said yes, said tree was certainly TENACIOUS, and that's where it all started. The stuff you remember.
Bravo on this one, MS and OS. A Mighty Sophisticated achievement and an Outstanding Sunday. Thanks for all the fun.
It's seilfn - the last six letters in button flies, west to north around the roundabout. Crosses my foot.
@mmorgan. If yuou like cognac but think maybe it is a little too "effete", a little too over-processed, try ARMAGNAC. Both liquors are produced not far from each other in the south west of France, but the Armagnac, being single distilled (as opposed to the double distillation of Cognac) maintains a fuller brandy-ish flavour. If I find myself in a bar that has both on the menu, I will always choose the Armagnac.
Recto: (n) 1. the right-hand page of a book
One I learned from crosswords. The left-hand page is the verso.
@Beezer - Well, hey -- Mt. Horeb, WI is one of my fave little towns to visit. But to get downtown from the highway, you get to navigate thru a gauntlet string of *five* roundabouts!
And they all have two lanes of traffic action.
Fortunately, Mt. Horeb's population is only around 7-8000, so the traffic typically ain't all that heavy.
Rumor has it, they're gonna add a coupla more roundabouts. Musta got a darn good construction deal on em.
M&A
Beezer—
Balled up-in this context- means mixed up. Made a hash of…
Lisa
I am in exactly the same situation as you with times. And I have been doing this puzzle for fifty years! I am just slow Doesn’t bother me in the least.
Anonymous 8:07 AM
MY FOOT
Another indication I am old. It was an extremely common euphemism once. And it still makes an appearance. I assume you are young. But it is in no way obscure Most would know it. Nothing wrong with it being in the puzzle.
Ahhh, Roundabout!
That AHA! moment when I figured out the gimmick.
I absolutely loved this one. Got the gimmick pretty early, and was actually a bit sad when I had only one roundabout left to solve. It's funny, sometimes I find a puzzle difficult and even have to google to get some of the answers... and come here to find people saying it was a breeze. Or I just hated it and other loved it. Or, as in this case, vice versa. I think sometimes you're just on the same wavelength as the creator, and that makes solving a joy. Or you're not, and it's a slog.
Verso and recto are the names for the right and left sides of pages in a book. Crossword-ese to the rescue...
I had Madonna before Marilyn. Same number of and first two letters, also a Warhol subject.
Beezer I always liked that song too
At the time, roundabout was not a common word in the US. Maybe the first time I heard that word!
The gimmick made the grid way too choppy with threes and fours. Not fun.
I LOVED it! Took me some time to decipher the upside down third exit, but when I did, I thought it was super clever. One question- what is “Spot in the Bible”? Answer -seest. I don’t get it.
H. Barnes
True that. the way of roundabouts in the US is relatively recent. And the word itself is also a relatively recent import from England. But the word itself has been in England a lond time I just remembered Penny Lane ( in the middle of the roundabout) and of course the above mentioned Yes Song. I understand there is a difference between the big “traffic circles” or as we called them in New England, “rotaries” and the new roundabouts but the term in England seems to refer to any type.
💜Thanks Coop…
Love the “Bloody Hell!”! My confession: I STILL am not sure why “bloody” was seen as a “profanity”, like…”in England…do not say BLOODY…it’s BAD! (Yes, I can now “ look it up”, dammit)
Duncan MacKenzie
When ATTA first showed up in the Times puzzle. I had no clue. But since, it has showed up repeatedly. I am a bit lucky in that new words like that seem to get embedded in my brain after the second or third time. ATTA is now officially crosswordese FWIW.
It will show up again!
RECTO is a printing term The page on the right but has been in the Times puzzle fairly often. It is old crosswordese. I know it from crosswords b
I began to understand the gimmick fairly early (that N goes up from ssalg ). but the whole roundabout concept took a while longer. Didn’t see the title. I thought that a lot of the clues were quite easy, to compensate for the tricky theme. Also some of the harder answers happened to be in my wheelhouse. So for me, at my very slow pace, it ended up being moderate. Not a slog at all. Liked a lot!
I believe Lewis knows that
I think this is my favorite puzzle of all time! I saw the gimmick right away and was able to use it to complete the grid. Really admired the elegance of it and the fill was really solid too. Two thumbs up !
I couldn't remember what the parts of speech were called for Latin words like 'agendum' (plural: 'agenda'), 'memorandum', and presumably also 'bibendum'. When I asked for the first, the AI Overview response was "Agendum is a noun (specifically a substantive) in Latin, representing the neuter singular of the gerundive agendus..." Continuing this train of thought: "A substantive is a word or phrase that functions as a noun, such as a pronoun, nominal adjective, or noun phrase." So the idea is that adjectives can sometimes function as nouns (e.g., the adjective local is used substantively in the sentence "He had a drink at the local before going home"). That's what I had in mind here.
Yay!
Anthropomorphism?
Yikes! Good luck
This was a fun Puzzle. I was a little confused at first, but I know what roundabout is. Funny thing is I was taking a little afternoon nap and it hit me just before I dozed off that the fourth exit on the roundabout the word needed to be backwards
wonderful puzzle such a relief been forever it seems!
Not sure what it means, but it's golden.
To SPOT is to see. In the King James it could be seeest
¿De verdad vas a obligarme?
Fiddly and fun. I loved it and I really love the grumbles about it. Some days this comment section is a bit much. This was an architectural gem. I am so happy to tackle a complex puzzle. They don't need to be painful, just engaging. And this was.
That 20/20 clue is brilliant.
❤️ Yggradsil. MY FOOT. HANKER. OH LORDY.
😩 RIFEST: Rhianna Festival?
People: 17
Places: 6
Products: 13
Partials: 11
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 49 of 140 (35%)
Funny Factor: 5 😐
Tee-Hee: BUTTOCKS. PEE. RARE GASES.
Uniclues:
1 When Budweiser will be worth drinking.
2 Carbon copy father's burning marshmallow yummy.
3 Captain Kirk's second job, once.
1 MICHELOB ARMAGEDDON
2 CLONAL DADA'S SMORE
3 PRICELINE EDUCATION
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last from Last Year: Spaghetti sauce for one. ANTI-SOCIAL RAGU.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Heh, I can empathize with being an empathetic weenie. Not something I'm proud of, but it sure beats having anger management problems. :)
Jim Gaffigan is one of my faves. His sheer volume of jokes on any given topic is impressive. I'm not creative enough to think of a single Hot Pocket joke. (Hot pockets....)
I'm also a fan of Jeff Ross, the "Roastmaster General". He has a "volunteers only" policy for roasting the audience. He seems like a nice guy, from what I've seen in interviews. Also self-deprecating, a common trait in stand-up comics. (The ones I like, anyway.)
Your comment reminded me of the Key & Peele Insult Comic sketch (classic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSe8Mx6X6Fg
Rather than unclued I imagined the W entry with three numbered clues, one for each exit.
To “spot” something is to see it. Biblical way of saying “see” is -seest.
I’m back although still recovering from a worse than usual bout of iritis. I can’t read or watch tv or use any electronics or be in very strong light until the inflammation in the iris goes down, but I have had lots of help.
On the way home from the doctor last week (don’t worry, my daughter was driving) as I explained the treatment so she would relax, my granddaughter burst into tears. I freaked out thinking she just had information overload, but no. As I tried to calm her by explaining that this isn’t serious because I know how to take care of the problem, it occurs a few times a year, and it will go away and I will be just fine and it doesn’t hurt very much at all (I didn’t add - in a few days), tears kept flowing. Finally, she blurted out a tearful, “But Grandma, your streak! What about your streak!” I told her I would just catch up on my puzzles in a few days and everything will be fine.
How do kids these days learn stuff so quickly? Damn Google anyway! Within a couple hours, she knocked on my door (my tiny house being just across the breezeway from the kids) and came in like a force field telling me in an almost outside but very earnest voice at warp speed that did nothing for my exploding head and simultaneously made my heart feel the glorious power of love, “You can’t just wait and catch up later, Grandma, you have to do it every single day on time but don’t worry because I made a plan that will work, I promise! I looked on the computer and found the app and if we use yours I will read you the clues every day and put in the answers on your tablet on the app and by when you are better your streak will almost or maybe be 500!”
No matter how much I wanted to at that very moment, I could not disappoint the child who thinks (and I know this because she told her BFF Sophie) that I am “the coolest, most amazing grandma ever.” So, my streak lives, and now it’s starting to stress me out, but I can’t argue with love.
We finished this puzzle in spurts all day today. At first look, Grace said “there’s some weird picture that looks like a racetrack. What do we do?” Thankfully, I can see well enough to have expanded the first corner of the grid to see the roundabout. Thank the crossword gods that I recognized what it was supposed to be. In my last decade there, Norman, OK (my former home) fell in love with them. I agree wholeheartedly that the square “road” around the actual “roundabout” designation confuses things. I also think that the puzzle wouldn’t work without some indication of a road, but the problem is that the “road” did not lead into or out of the “roundabout.” But thankfully, I got the idea. Had I not, I do believe the streak would have been over and my coolness and most amazingness over with it.
The “grid art” weakness aside, I think it worked, and I loved this puzzle! Yes, I’m no doubt basking in the warm glow that only a grandchild’s adoration brings, but what a feat of construction. Once I figured out that the “traffic pattern” always went counterclockwise (as it should here in the US), and thus, the final “exit” requires the “down” answer to be entered bottom-up, we were off to the races.
When we got our happy music a couple hours ago, and I thanked Grace once again for the help. I felt as if my own Gran was sitting there with smiling, and I automatically said to Grace as Gran said to me for years, “What’s the most interesting thing you learned from this puzzle?” So we discussed a few highlights. When she got ready to leave, she hugged me, and asked, “Now that you can see better, can we do this tomorrow anyway?” And I was the one with tears in my eyes.”
Really? Once I saw GLASS spelled bottom to top it was game on! I didn’t try to solve the roundabouts until I made a couple passes at the other fill. Then the function of the circles became quite clear. Enjoyable Sunday for once.
@CDilly: "But Grandma, your streak!"... made me laugh in a good way.
amazing puzzle, one of the best ever
@CDilly52 9:48 PM
Beautiful and amazing. Got me teary too. I hope your eyes heal quickly.
Yeah, CDilly52, you "can't argue with love".
“Michelin Man” has a name, it’s Bibendum, and it definitely didn’t fit in that spot…so I was stuck.
@Beezer 11:26 AM
Yup. One of the best Sundays. I agree with you.
You can seize something by the teeth without biting it off. Hated all of this.
Way too gimmicky. Decided not to bother finishing because too annoying. First time ever in DECADES making that decision.
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