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Evil counterpart in an 1886 novella / SUN 4-19-26 / Winged beings of folklore / Heavy metal instrument in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" / Dooley Wilson's role in "Casablanca" / Slang term for a recording studio / Extract said to promote relaxation / Fatty tuna, at a sushi bar / Old name for Tokyo / Half of a candy duo / Eponymous hypnotist / Elaborate invitation from a senior, maybe
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Constructor: Michael Lieberman
Relative difficulty: Medium
 |
| [I missed a a double Star Wars day on Friday!] |
Editor’s note: If you plan to solve the Sunday Crossword in this week’s New York Times Magazine, you will find that the answers will not fit. After the issue had already been printed, we discovered that there was an error with the solvable grid of the Sunday Crossword. A corrected version of the puzzle can be found on Page 25 of Sunday’s daily New York Times. We sincerely apologize for the confusion. The grids available to print online are correct.
THEME: "Nuclear Fusion" — six Down answers are two-word answers where each word is four letters and both words share a core (i.e. they have the same two center letters, hence "nuclear fusion"); these six answers are represented in the grid as one four-letter answer, with the first and last square of each answer (the non-core part) containing two letters. Thus, DEAD HEAT, for example, becomes [D/H] EA [D/T] (the "dead" and the "heat" parts are both present simultaneously but are to be taken sequentially). In the crosses, the doubled-letters are read as sequential letters (e.g., in the DEAD HEAT example, the crosses for the first and last letters are ISLAN[D/H]OPPED and PLAYE[D/T]O WIN:
Theme answers:
Wow. Exhausting just to explain and type out that theme. Like many architectural marvels whose distinguishing characteristics are solely architectural, this one left me a little cold. It does its thing, repeatedly, and ... that's that. There's no wordplay or cleverness beyond the puzzle title. I kept waiting for a revealer that never came. Eventually I realized that the title itself was the revealer. Was it easy for you to grasp the meaning of the title, even after you understood what was physically going on in the grid? I think it's pretty self-evident, but can see even a regular solver being pretty lost. But I don't know, maybe the meaning of "Nuclear Fusion" was transparent to everyone—once you figured out the theme, of course. Before that? Woof, good luck. Chaos! And even if you went looking for a revealer clue to help you out, as I've already said, there was none to be found. So you really had to hack at this thing to get it to reveal its mysteries. I did, anyway. I was well into the grid before I understood what was happening. From where I was sitting, at first it looking like the "H" was missing from "ISLAN[D-H]OPPED" and the "HEAT' was missing from "DEAD HEAT." The next themer that I "got" was all the way down the west side at TEXA[S H]OLD 'EM, where, once again, it looked like an "H" was missing in the Across (TEXAS OLD 'EM!) and the four-letter "H" word (in this case, the HELP from SELF HELP) was missing from the Down. So I thought it was an "H"-related theme ... and with the title being "Nuclear Fusion," I thought maybe the "H" was supposed to be Hydrogen. Seriously, I thought that. It seemed ... logical, at the time. Logical-ish. Not sure when or how I finally realized what the entire gimmick was (shared core in the Downs, double-letters for the crosses of the first and last squares of those Downs). I just know it was a slog getting there. Once I got there, the puzzle got easier. I wish it had been more interesting. The puzzle is impressive, in its way, but in the end its impressiveness is purely structural, which left me a little cold.
The puzzle played about as hard as a Sunday should play, I think. The theme might've been a little harder than usual to suss out, but the rest was very doable, while not being ridiculously easy. There were lots of non-theme answers that gave me at least a little bit of trouble. "HOLY ___"! So many options. Moley, Moses, Toledo, Cow, Smokes, etc. Couldn't think of the one that fit until I got a few crosses (3D: "Mamma mia!"). Both "SO MAD" and "SO EXCITED" took some doing. I don't really get why the "SO MAD" clue is in brackets (34A: ["Unbe-frickin-lievable!"]). Without the brackets ... it makes sense. Or is "SO MAD" a state of being as opposed to an actual exclamation? Seems awkward, but OK. CBD OIL took some effort, for sure, as I wanted a word, but then got an initialism, but then got both an initialism and a word! Twofer! (63D: Extract said to promote relaxation). The LAB / BANG bit stumped me for a bit, too. I guess I've heard a studio called a "LAB" (108D: Slang term for a recording studio), but if I've heard a "!" called a BANG, I don't remember it. I can infer it from the portmanteau "interrobang," which is a fusion of a question mark and exclamation point:
But I've only ever referred to an exclamation point as an "exclamation point." Somehow I thought a PALISADE was a walkway and not a 54A: Defensive fortification, so that one took a little effort. My cabal had SECRET PLANS before they had SECRET PLOTS. And I think I had a CREAM EGG before I had a CREME EGG (84D: Cadbury confection). I did manage to remember who Renée RAPP was today (she was "Word of the Day" fairly recently), so that's nice. Nice for my brain, that it's not leaking All the new information it takes in. The one thing I truly don't understand in this puzzle is the clue on 1-Down. [Locks up?] = HAIR??? Obviously "locks" = "HAIR," but what the hell is this "up" business? I had UPDO in there at first, but the doubling up of "UP" made me think "well that ain't right." If "Locks" = HAIR (and it does), then I don't know what "up" is doing here. Seems entirely extraneous. I see that the clue wants to do a cheeky prison-related misdirect, but ... is the idea that you HAIR is "up" on your head!?!?!? If that's it, wow is that bad. People have HAIR on their damned feet. Come on, now ... It's true no one has "Locks" of HAIR on their feet, because locks appear only on the head ... which is why, as I say, you do not need the "up"—where else are locks going to be but "up" on your head?! These "?" clues have to land!
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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Theme answers:
[D/H] EA [D/T] ("dead heat") (24D: Race that's too close to call)
- ISLAN[D H]OPPED (23A: Traveled from Syros to Naxos to Mykonos, say)
- PLAYE[D T]O WIN (36A: Wasn't messing around, say)
[L/G] AS [T/P] ("last gasp") (26D: Desperate final effort)
- I FEE[L G]REAT (25A: "That was rejuvenating!")
- SECRE[T P]LOTS (39A: Cabal's schemes)
[Y/C] AR [D/E] ("yardcare") (50D: Mowing, mulching, raking, etc.)
[B/L] OA [T/D] ("boat load") (64D: Ton of cargo)
- HAPP[Y C]AMPERS (49A: They've got no complaints)
- CIN[DE]R[BL]OCK (63A: Masonry unit)
- CONCER[T D]ATES (83A: Listings on a band T-shirt)
[S/H] EL [F/P] ("self-help") (92D: Where "The Four Agreements" and "The Five Love Languages" may be shelved)
- TEXA[S H]OLD 'EM (90A: Popular poker variant)
- OUT O[F P]LACE (107A: How a misfit might feel)
[H/W] AR [D/E] ("hardware") (94D: Most merchandise at Ace and True Value)
- BIRT[H W]EIGHT (93A: Baby book datum)
- UNREA[D E]MAILS (109A: Inbox zero targets)
Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s until 2011), she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as color field. Born in Manhattan, she was influenced by Greenberg, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock's paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
[Mauve District, 1966] Frankenthaler had a home and studio in Darien, Connecticut. (wikipedia)
• • •
[45A: Dooley Wilson's role in "Casablanca"]
[Sam plays it, and plays it again, but no one ever says "Play it again, Sam"]
Bullets:
- 20A: ___ pasta (rhyming fusion dish) (RASTA) — easy, and it's got "fusion" in there (nice callback to the theme), but I wish the clue had given me any indication of what this dish actually consists of. I would've guessed something to do with jerk chicken, and apparently that is mostly correct.
- 59A: Fatty tuna, at a sushi bar (TORO) — remembered this one today! (with a little nudge from the "T"). With two types of TORO already occupying my brain (the Spanish "bull," the snowblower brand), I figured I was doomed never to make a third meaning stick, but apparently, sticking hath occurred. More good news for my aging brain.
- 115A: Heavy metal instrument in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" (ANVIL) — cute pun on "heavy metal" (briefly tried to imagine someone playing Verdi on an electric guitar). That SW corner seems potentially treacherous, with not only this slightly odd clue on ANVIL, but an ANI / NIETO crossing that might catch non-Spanish-speaking non-jewelry fans flat-footed (111D: Alex and ___ (jewelry company) / 119A: Grandchild of un abuelo)
- 3D: "Mamma mia!" ("HOLY CANNOLI!") — speaking of Mamma Mia! ([cracks knuckles], watch this segue...), I had guest writers for the Friday and Saturday blog posts this week (thanks, Eli and Rafa!) because earlier this weekend I was in NYC seeing the new Broadway production of Death of a Salesman at the Winter Garden Theatre. I read in the playbill that the Winter Garden was where Cats ran for a mind-boggling 18 years (1982-2000), and that Cats was then immediately followed by ... Mamma Mia!, which also ran for an absurdly long time (2001-2013). So basically, for over three decades at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, the Winter Garden was home to just two shows: Cats and Mamma Mia! The Winter Garden is a lovely theater, and this production of Death of a Salesman (starring Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers) was truly moving. Turns out crossword constructor Rebecca Goldstein was there on the same night! (I ran into her in line). I got to go backstage after the show—Laurie Metcalf is a crossword enthusiast and was gracious enough to invite me. Penelope and I got to see the stage up close and talk to Laurie for a bit. Needless to say, the whole evening was a genuine thrill.
 |
| [Making claw-like gestures in the air, totally normal] |
- 75D: Crown and ___ (alliterative bar order) (COKE) — Crown (Royal) is a Canadian whisky. COKE is ... well, presumably you know. I've never heard of Crown & COKE, only Jack & COKE, but the COKE part was easy to get. Apparently COKE & Fernet BRANCA is a really popular cocktail in Argentina (93D: Fernet- ___ (Italian digestif brand)).
- 33D: Evil counterpart in an 1886 novella (HYDE) — counterpart to whom, you might ask? Well I'm not telling. OK, it's Siegfried (just kidding—Siegfried's evil counterpart was ROY)
That's all for today. I'll see you next time. And thanks to Eli and Rafa for doing such a bang-up job with the Friday and Saturday write-ups, respectively!
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149 comments:
Good luck to anyone using the printed puzzle in the magazine (there was an acknowledged printing error making it impossible)
I have no idea what is going on with this puzzle. I'm looking at Rex's grid, and it's different from my (print) version. There is NO 6A on the grid, NO 11A, NO 15A, etc. It's an entirely different grid that does not fit the clues. I stared at this for about 30 minutes, thinking this was the theme. I wrote down the answers I knew next to the clues, hoping something would click. No.
I have never not been able to start a puzzle. Until this one. Did anyone else have this problem?
Easy-Medium until I got the gimmick, then Easy. I got the gimmick at 26D (LAST/GASP), so it was Easy most of the way. Once I realized there had to be a rebus square in a long across, I looked for the four-letter answer starting in the word to figure out where the rebus should go. It was sorta like a poker "tell". Didn't get the significance of the title until I came here.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
Wanted some sort of fEES for the counselor's charges at 5D.
I FEEL good before I FEE[L/G]REAT at 25A before the dime dropped.
At 41D I had Rack up before RERACK for the billiards/beer pong request.
I confused the 48A ACNE treatment salicylic acid with acetylsalicylic acid, which you might use to treat an AChE.
Considered a rebused bALuS[tr]ADE before PALISADE for the 54A fortification.
Misspelled SPIEL (62A) as SPeiL. As usual.
@Rex CREam EGG before CREME for the 84D confection.
KiT or KaT for the candy half at 86A (IKE).
WOEs:
Expressionist HELEN Frankenthaler at 46A.
The 55A winged beings FAE.
I'd never heard of an AIR HIGH FIVE (68D), but it was easy to infer.
Bar order Crown and COKE at 75D.
The 93D digestif Fernet-BRANCA.
I didn't know that LAB can mean recording studio (108D).
Is SECRE[T/P]LOTS (39A) a thing? To me it sounds a bit like EAT A SANDWICH in that it's something you might say but not a common phrase. Ditto MEAT STEW (79A). Beef stew, yes.
There was a printing error. I added the editor’s note to the beginning of the write-up just now—RP
I’m no coding expert but for some reason I believe that an exclamation point is referred to as a BANG by the coders of the world. Further, I think that the exclamation point can be used with other punctuation marks to change the meaning (reversal, maybe?) of the section of code it’s attached to. I suppose different coding languages have different ways of doing this.
Same. You and I use the printed magazine, which is clearly filled with misprints. I feel like filing a class action lawsuit. Give our money back. A dark day for the gray lady.
As a longtime rebus hater and not a big fan of Sunday puzzles, I’m reluctant to admit that I really enjoyed this puzzle. Once I had DEAD HEAT figured out, it was fun searching out the other pairs. No revealer needed. (Since I read and immediately forgot the title, it didn’t function as a revealer or anything else.)
So envious, Rex, that you got to see that production of “Salesman.” I’ve heard it’s terrific but am nowhere near NYC at the moment.
Think I’ll put “Il Trovatore” on the stereo today, get out my anvil, and BANG along.
Tortured gimmick.
I’m sure it was a bear to build - the concept is simple enough and cute but the construct - whew. All in with Rex’s take that the solver’s enjoyment is somewhat watered down by the thickness of the theme - it really didn’t allow for much fun elsewhere in the grid.
Berlin
I like the lack of a revealer. PLAYED TO WIN and SECRET PLOTS were solid. One of the underlying issues here is that the rebus are all pretty boring - they’re all connected and sharing and all that which is cool but not a lot of fun.
SKIN DEEP
HOLY CANNOLI is cute I guess for a non- themer. MEAT STEW, PROMPOSAL, AIR HIGH FIVE etc all felt like they were there out of necessity. Most NYers will know PALISADE from the Jersey side.
Freddy Cannon
Took some time and brainpower to work through it which was great. A marvel of construction no doubt - I just don’t know if it will bring much Sunday morning solving enjoyment.
Rex - try the Trade Secret -
2 parts FERNET
2 parts Domaine de Canton
1 part lime juice
1-2 dash bitters
SIERRA Ferrel
Lovely touches in the making of this puzzle:
• The six fused phrases (such as DEAD HEAT and YARD CARE) are all, elegantly, the same length.
• Their first letters are different, as well as their last letters. So, DeaD HeaT works, but DeaD HeaD doesn’t because its last letters are the same. More elegance.
• The across answers with rebuses no only fit grid symmetry, but are in-the-language, most of them colorful.
• On top of this, there are 15 NYT debut answers – 15! – all interesting and unforced, such as CRÈME EGG, AIR HIGH FIVE, HOLY CANNOLI, PROMPOSAL, and I FEEL GREAT.
This theme was, for me, a tough nut to crack. Thorny cluing slowed me up, and while I knew there was a rebus, I wasn’t sure, for quite a while, which square held it. And thus, my brain, which lives for nutcracking moments, was in heaven.
Way to push the envelope on this theme, Michael, and thank you for creating a sweet hill to climb. Your excellent creation easily goes on my Sunday POY list. Thank you!
Hey All !
The Rebus/DoubleDown words whooshed right over the ole noggin. I was going with a missing letter type thing, even though none of the Themers were making any sense. In my defense, some of the DoubleDown answers worked fine as just one of the words. Figured I'd come here for the Rexplanation.
Had two wrong squares/four wrong answers on top of not grasping the Rebus. ANa/NaETO and LAd/dANG. Dang!
Liked the puz after the fact. Played tougher for me than recent Sundays and other days puzs have been.
Good job, Michael. You stumped me.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I do the Sunday puzzle right out of the Magazine and when I saw the clues and grid didn’t match up I thought this was some complex gimmicky solve and I walked away from it. Only when I read Rex this morning do I now realize the Times blew it. That’s a first as far ad I can tell.
I cannot get the puzzle to complete. The "rebus" squares have gone pale grey, which they didn't until I found one last mistake, ! I thought dang.
I also believed a palisade was something else. The Fae definitely do not have wings, maybe fairies do but the Fae do not
Started on paper, thought "WTH?", did it on my phone instead. Tricky enough with the correct grid!
I absolutely agree that they should be held accountable - Will Shortz himself should apologize somehow. This is an outrageous error. For those of you who only see the online version - the grid does not match the clues. For example, 3 down is 4 squares, not 11, and there IS no 6 across. Since one does not automatically suspect the NYT of such an egregious snafu, the title ight suggest a fusion of answers across squares or something-but NO. Also, I don’t know where that quote at the top came from, but the correct puzzle in the news section only states “the puzzle below is a corrected version of the puzzle printed in this weekend’s magazine.Enjoy.” Enjoy, my a..
I knew something was going on – answers didn't fit, words were dropped, possibly there was a rebus – but I couldn't figure it out. In retrospect I was focusing too much on the acrosses at the expense of the downs. Had to go to Wordplay for the explanation.
I confess it took a bit to figure out the gimmick. For a time I felt as confused as the convoluted Trovatore libretto! Luckily, the code was eventually broken and it wrapped up quickly.
Thank you Michael Lieberman for a fun outing!
If the rebuses (rebi?) had all been the chemical symbols for actual atoms, then I think the puzzle’s title would’ve been appropriate. However, with just random two letter pairings, it was a really lame title and annoying red herring.
I solved it in the app so I was spared the mistaken grid confusion. Once the gimmick became clear (I didn’t bang my head against the fall and get frustrated - I just looked it up), the solving process became a tad more enjoyable. Still, just the logistics of entering everything on the app was pretty tedious. Keeping track of the first/last letters and entering the rebus squares became a bit of a chore pretty quickly.
I’m not going to rail on the puzzle as I know there are rebus-lovers and solvers who enjoy this type of challenge. Fortunately for me, I chose to just enjoy what I could and will now move on to the LAT and then see what Evan is up to over at the WaPo today.
All together now: "We HATE rebus puzzles!"
Well, I looked at the puzzle first on Rex's blog, which I usually do on Sundays because of the large grid & my proclivity for typos, to see what I'm in for.
Then I went to emails & saw this from the NYT:
"MEA CULPAS
Editor’s Note
Usually, the Sunday Crossword that runs in The New York Times Magazine is difficult. This week, it’s impossible. Because of a production error, this week’s puzzle contains a grid that does not match the clues. We sincerely apologize for the confusion and aggravation this may cause.
The mistake was discovered too late to fix in the magazine, but the correct version of the puzzle can be found in the news section of Sunday’s edition of the daily New York Times.
Forgive my language, but WTF?
Very disappointing. Don't even think that I'll try. Oh well.
Have a good day, everyone :)
Truly thought the rebus squares would be the initials for periodic table elements - bit of a disappointment...
I like rebus puzzles.However, this puzzle was a nuclear bomb. Awful. No 🎈for me.
I agree about the FAE. They don’t necessarily have wings, but I guess some of them do.
Couldn’t get the happy music until I came here and saw LAB/BANG. (I hate looking for the mistake in the Sunday puzzle. Sigh.) but I’m very glad to learn that ! Is a BANG for some coders. Thanks, Paulus Johannes.
I didn’t get the gimmick until I was about three quarters in. It was a nice aha moment, reminiscent of classic Sunday puzzles. I enjoyed it.
Does anyone still use MSN as their ISP? How long before we can finally retire that clue?
[Designer] = ADORNER [51D]? Well I can tell you that the worst money we ever spent was when we hired an Interior ADORNER to do our new house. She seemed on the up-and-up, even showing us her degree from the Rhode Island School of Adorn. But we were not HAPPYCAMPERS when we saw that a BOATLOAD of OUTOFPLACE CINDERBLOCKs was to be our living room. You shoulda SEENIT. But by then she'd split for ONTARIO and left us SOMAD.
When golfing, I always play from the MENTEES.
How soon we forget. [Holy cannoli!] was the clue for "EEK" just last Wednesday. It should have been fresh on our collective minds.
As an unflagging admirer of new theme approaches I gotta say I liked this one a lot. Thanks for the BANG up puzzle, Michael Lieberman.
Enjoyed this for the most part, but ended with a couple of Natick close calls at FAE/CLEF and LAB/BANG. For the first, I had no idea on either, so just guessed that a FAE sounded vaguely like faerie which sounded mythical. And had dANG for a long time and ran the alphabet to get LAB which made sense only after I saw it.
Otherwise enjoyed figuring out where the rebuses were and thought the theme was clever. So glad I solved online. If I didn't see the note about the mistake I would have been working in it forever and would have been distressed to discover there was no workable solution. 32:25
A sweet capital-P Puzzle. It is titled NUCLEAR FUSION, but for a delicious while, I could title my solving experience UNCLEAR FUSION.
More like this, please!
How wonderful you saw Death of a Salesman. With that cast it must’ve been amazing. The Winter Garden is a great theater. I saw Follies there way back in 1971. Live theater makes great memories.
Definitely a 2.5-star puzzle for me. Nothing at all exciting or interesting or exhausting or bad. The definition of "meh".
What the f*ck is going on over at the NYT? Was this a result of AI or just plain old weed? As budgets have shrunken for publications I've. spotted more and more grammatical errors and missing words but today's gaffe is a whole different level. Luckily I did the puzzle on my phone last night so I didn't waste any time trying to figure out the printed mess that is in today's magazine. When I saw the blurb at the bottom of page 1 about a mistake I figured it was just something like a single square but the entire grid is misprinted.
The solve on my phone was quite normal. I'd rate it as easy. Until I figured out rebus with the doubled words it was a little confusing but the trick revealed itself quickly.
The title had me looking at the doubled letters to see if there was anything that could relate to nuclear fusion or maybe the periodic table but as far as I could tell they were just random letters.
An impressive construction feat but a rather pedestrian solve and filling in all those rebus squares became tedious.
I like architectural gimmicks, and mostly enjoyed this puzzle. My first pass told me there was some kind of missing letters / rebus thing going on with TEXAS HOLD EM and (I thought) some sort of black square or other tricksiness with SELF HELP and HARD WARE. On my second pass I had enough crosses to figure out ISLAND HOPPED and eventually get enough of the NW to also get PLAY TO WIN and figure out the gimmick.
I enjoy this sort of gimmick so I raced around the different theme answers filling out the puzzle in chunks. Some of the answers were clunky. I have heard of YARD WORK but I have never in my 52 years on this planet heard of YARD CARE. Wasn't too excited by the "That was refreshing" / I FEEL GREAT but I don't like those random-mundane-phrase-sorta-means-other-random-mundane-phrase clues.
But what really killed me and I'm surprised Rex didn't mention is that the theme breaks itself on CINDER BLOCK. For every single other theme answer the "fusion" is two words fusing. I thought the theme was much stronger where they were two word phrases. ISLAN[DH]OPPED, SECRE[TP]LOTS, HAPP[YC]AMPERS, CONCER[TD]ATE, BIRT[HW]EIGHT, UNREA[DE]MAILS were all strong and I liked them a lot. Even TEXA[SH]OLDEM which can be read as one or two words was strong. IFEE[LG]REAT and PLAYE[DT]OWIN were a little weaker but I get you need to make some compromises for the reality of constructing.
But CIN[DE]R[BL]OCK breaks the entire idea of words fusing at the nuceleus of the phrase and is just "stick two random letters together with no theme". Which is completely broken.
Overall I enjoyed the puzzle but that central bit was the last to fall because I couldn't believe the theme answer would break like that, and it was a disappointing ending to an otherwise fun solve.
Why shoukd Shortz apologize for someone else’s error.
The Times should apologize including to Shortz. And the mechsnism is hardly a mystery. They publsh corrections with an apology all the time.
I'm glad some people are commenting on FAE. That was truly a WOE for me. FAERIES is a word I know from folklore. Is FAE both a singular and plural form? Am I the only solver who doesn't know this word? Bah!
Laurie Metcalf is the best actress going. Has been for ages. ( I hope you read this Ms. Metcalf—- it is a sincere belief)
Had fun figuring out the gimmick. The rest was a mixed bag, although no worse than most Sundays. Had to take 3 wild stabs and got two right: ANI/NIETO and WAPITI/TORO. DNF at the CREMEEGG/METRO/MESMER/SIERRA/BRANCO mashup. Might’ve unraveled it if I’d taken more time but I’m starting an exercise program this morning.
Mimi L
PS. STEPS ON reverses to NO PETS (Hi, @Lewis!)
I’m a new crossword puzzler and this sucked! I had to give up and turn on auto check because I couldn’t figure out which of the missing letters it actually wanted and I wasn’t going to torture myself with trial and error.
This! I figured out fairly early on that there were rebuses, and I could not for the life of me figure it out. I tried to make them into chemical symbols but that wasn’t working. Like another commenter said, I had to go to Wordplay for the explanation.
Sunday morning coffee and the NYT is sacred. This was SO annoying! After 15 minutes of pouting and staring, I knew I could count on Rex Parker to help me out of this mess. Thanks so much for showing us the way - to page 25! Cheers
I had a theme-recognition DNF today. I solved online and then wrote down the missing letters which spelled absolutely nothing but gibberish - HGTPCEDHWPE. So much for that theory. (And even some of those were wrong!)
I did notice DEADHEAT was missing its heat but didn't put the missing letters together. I was convinced the theme was related to the long across answers. YARD work occurred to me but YARD CARE never would have.
I tricked myself at 92D. I have no idea what those book titles indicate (self-help, apparently) so I figured the missing letter was an H for ShELF, even though "shelved" was in the clue. D'oh.
Oh well. Thanks for a true puzzle, Michael Lieberman!
Good write up @Rex, and I was happy to see we shared some initial mistakes. I enjoyed the puzzle for the most part, and thought most of the fill was pretty good. I knew about the “newish” over the top way that a prom date is secured now, so put in PROM, but had to wait a bit to see the portmanteau.
@Rex…maybe PALISADEs Park, NJ is why you didn’t tend to think it was a defensive fortification? Apparently it can be cliffs too, and there are cliffs by the water there. You’re too young for this, but there was also a song entitled PALISADEs Park (I think there was an amusement park there at one time?)
Hah! I thought of PArapets first, so it’s not like I plopped in the answer immediately.
We do not all hate them.
Have not enjoyed a Sunday puzzle this much for yonks! Loved it. 😊
There was a missed opportunity here to honor Ralph BRANCA, the Brooklyn Dodger pitcher who surrendered NY Giant Bobby Thomson's home run in the 1951 playoffs, aka the shot heard round the world. Ralph was one of seventeen children (the 15th), which reminded me of Groucho's line (below), which may be the funniest line I've ever heard. But, where was I? Yes, 17 children. His dad was a trolley conductor from Italy and his mom was Hungarian and Jewish (and very tired). He lost relatives on his mom's side in the Holocaust. He was raised Roman Catholic. His MLB debut was on the same day as Jackie Robinson's (Opening Day, 1947), and Branca lined up on the field beside Robinson, while other players refused. That is to say, he was a mensch. He was a pallbearer at Jackie's funeral.
So, when Groucho hosted the quiz show "You Bet Your Life," he interviewed contestants briefly. And one woman stated that she had seventeen children. Groucho said, "Seventeen -- how do you explain that?" The woman said "Well, Groucho -- I love my husband." And Groucho said: "I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while."
BTW, I was today years old (Hi LMS!) when I learned Bobby Thomson may have been tipped off to the famous HR pitch. The Giants (including Thomson) admitted to sign stealing. Thomson even admitted he knew what pitches were coming in his three at-bats prior to the homer but maintained the HR was clean, i.e., he was not tipped off to that pitch. Branca never believed him on that latter point. Nevertheless, Branca and Thomson were lifelong friends and made numerous public appearances together.
It actually originated in the printing industry in the mid 20th century. Easier for a typesetter to say “hand me a bang” than “hand me an exclamation mark”. It did get adopted into coding later as well.
I spent 20 or so minutes looking at the grid this morning in NYT Sunday Magazine and realized that either something was very wrong or I was slipping. My wife was paging through the A section of the paper and alerted me to the Time's misprint
Once I had the correct grid, not a terribly difficult puzzle. But what happened to proofreading?
Same as Colin. SO MAD. I wake up early on Saturday mornings, make a pot of coffee and tackle the puzzle before my family awakes. Best part of my week. I stared at the damn thing for a good 30 minutes, trying to figure out "the trick". I gave up. I never do that. All day I felt like something was amiss. Then someone on Facebook mentioned the misprint and I went online last night and solved. And it was easy for me because I had already read most of the clues. This morning I also did the corrected hardcopy. This was not a clue or two - this was huge. I expect more from the NYTimes - it is a small fortune to be a 7-day subscriber and a big part of why I subscribe is the crossword puzzle.
Perhaps the error today was responding to the "easiness" complaints. Maybe the editors were saying: Is this hard enough for you? (I'm kidding.)
I hate this! STOP! I’m here to do a crossword puzzle, not to suss out ever growing gimmicks by constructors who have to come up with something new to keep it fresh. It’s about words and not how can I make you run through your tortured maze. STOP! Pretty soon we will have triple upside down rebuses.
Totally agree with Rex on all of this. I found there were missing letters, but struggled to see how that connected to nuclear fusion (and still don't really get it). And answers like just LOAD seemed like they might be OK just by themselves, so I wasn't even sure you needed two words for all of them, though obviously BOAT LOAF works better. l And some of the down answers are two words and some are one, which bugged me.
The clue at 29A is dead wrong. PAWNing something is *not* selling that thing—it's putting that item up as collateral for a loan! If you pay back the loan, you get your item back. What pawn shops are typically selling is the items that were put up as security for loans on which the borrower defaulted, thus losing the collateral (some pawn shops will make outright purchases of some items, but in that case, even if it happens in a pawn shop, it's a SALE not a PAWN). While you do get "quick cash" in either a sale or a pawn, they are not the same thing!
HOLY CANNOLI, was this a toughie for me. It was a real keep the FAITH sort of puzzle, as it took more than twice my usual time to complete. Rex says that apart from sussing out the theme, it was doable -- certainly no argument there, since I (for example) did it, but it was a Murphy's law sort of solve. I'll withhold from citing all the cases where something that could have gone wrong did go wrong.
Yesterday's ATONERS morphed into today's ADORNER. They're equally bad (except yesterday's had a POC: plural of convenience).
Do we have to be so brand-loyal? I had COla in before COKE. Would Crown and Pepsi be a NO-NO? How about other blended whiskeys?
PROMPOSAL and FAE were new to me. I don't mind me a good portmanteau, so the first is fine. The second was a complete WOE (as I have noted elsewhere -- I assume the comment will appear at some point).
[Speaking of which, I responded to some comments under my post yesterday, but my responses hadn't shown up by the time I went to bed. I see they're there now though. Congrats to @Les on 50 years!]
Hardness aside, the puzzle was impressive in its way, but I would consider the following one of its FLAWS. With one exception, all the rebus fusions unite two separate words. Based on my prior readings, that is just how Rex would want it. The exception was that CINDER BLOCK has a fusion within the first word -- if I'm not mistaken, that would be a NO-NO in the world according to Sharp. It also rendered the entry CINDER BLOCK as exceptional, by having two fusions. This made for a BOAT LOAD of density in the thematic material, to the point that it looked a little (BL)OAT[e]D.
YARDCARE rhymes with HARDWARE. "Yard care". Okay. I guess.
"CAIT". Sure. I guess. But I've never seen that IRL.
Well, it was a good construction anyway. And it was good to have at least one puzzle in the past seven days that put up a good fight. And despite my nits, there were not A FEW entries that I liked very much, so summing up, thank you Mr. Lieberman. Sorry the print version went all snafu on you.
Easy-medium. Mostly breezy solve. I kinda got the rebus part of the theme at HAPPY CAMPERS except I initially misplaced a couple of the rebus squares…hence the medium part. @Rex - thanks for explaining the Nuclear Fusion part.
Same issue with HAIR as @Rex - I had buns at first.
Clever and fun, liked it.
If you are reading copy out loud in the journalism world, “bang” is the term used to refer to an !
Rex said, “The puzzle played about as hard as a Sunday should play, I think. The theme might've been a little harder than usual to suss out, but the rest was very doable, while not being ridiculously easy.” That sounds like the description of a pretty good Sunday puzzle to me.
In the non-happy camper faction today. Did not enjoy at all.
I agree. I thought at first it did as the letters DHT were used, so I thought that was a reference to Hydrogen, Deuterium and Tritium.
My wife and I got the fill and were fortunate that the corrected version was what we printed out. There were obvious errors in our solutution but I took a second look and Finally (!) saw the theme. Then I read this and my only reaction is that I thought this was a combination of easy and ridiculously hard,
I don’t know if this happened to anyone else—since the online version of the puzzle cannot interpret the rebus, I was told I had successfully completed the puzzle even though I did not figure out the theme or enter the proper letters in the rebus. Very frustrating.
Yes, CIN[DE]R[BL]OCK is how I ended up on this site. I wasn't about to lose my streak because a puzzle didn't stick to its own theme.
Agree. Surprised that Rex didn't comment but there were bigger fish to fry.
I spent an hour trying to figure out how to "fuse" answers in that messed-up grid in the magazine. Sheesh. Now I'm going to follow another commenter, head over to the LA Times, and have a fun time doing what I know will be a fine puzzle. :-\
Yeah, Fernet con coca is very popular in Argentina, but I sure don’t care for it.
You're so lucky that your wife was on the alert. I spent way too much time thinking, "Wow, this is going to be the first time in years that I haven't solved a Sunday puzzle." :-\ When I read about the error I wasn't even in the mood to do it any more.
Branca was clearly lying. Maybe that explains his staunch support of his son-in-law Bibby Valentine who -with a straight face— has vlaimed to have invented the wrap. Yes, Valentine claims that his restaurant ran out of bread and he imptovised by using tortillas.🙄
Actually, it's NO SPETS
I want to know if next week the magazine will have the same incorrect grid with the correct clues.
As @Rex says, something of a construction marvel, but this morning my mind was on other priorities and I was too impatient to work through all the rebuses (rebi?). Thanks @Liveprof for the Branca history.
My wife and I had this solved on-line, including the "gimmick." What we did not have was the method for expressing that gimmick. Without the "Letter/Letter" rebus it did not recognize a solve. We looked everywhere for our "mistake" before looking at Rex and getting the "aha." Did no one else encounter this problem?
Not liking this puzzle. At all
Wow! So nicely done! I spent some time in the NW futilely attempting to make ISLAND HOPPING work, then went next door to the NE where LAST GASP showed me what was up. But even understanding the pattern, I still needed to work to get some of the double-rebus Downs - especially in the midsection of the puzzle. I really enjoyed figuring it all out and admiring the constructing artistry at the same time.
And then, so many entries that were fun to write in: HAPPY CAMPER, HOLY CANNOLI, SKIN DEEP, WRAITH, SECRET PLOTS, PLAYED TO WIN....I thought this was a wonderful Sunday puzzle.
Does anyone know what CBER (95A) is? A cursory google search yielded nothing that seemed to fit and I was kind of hoping it would be addressed here.
The most interesting thing about this puzzle was the massive printing error in the hard copy magazine.
Renee decided to have a portrait of herself painted, so she went looking for a RAPP artist.
When the architect was told his designs for the theater were too ambitious, he shed a few TIERS.
Male counterpart of HELEN Reddy's I AM WOMAN: HEISMAN
When my niece was born I asked my sister about the BIRTHWEIGHT. She looked at me puzzled and said: "Nine months: not unusual for humans."
I asked my wife to suggest a new hairstyle for me. She said she'd MULLET over.
ANI/NIETO: makes NATICK look like a great entry. Random words in foreign languages have no place in English-language crosswords. I can deal with OUI, AMIGO, and SHALOM--those are words every solver knows; but that doesn't mean every word in every language is available for fill. And if your crossing word is obscure, clue it in the obvious way ("Darth Vader's nickname as a child") not as some obscure company that apparently has all of 7 stores still open after their 2019 bankruptcy.
I'm not surprised the NYT editors screwed up the puzzle and had to send a correction. It is Too. Clever. By. Half. Or 999/1000ths. The massive gimmick just overwhelms the puzzle. I do not understand why the NYT continues to publish junk like this.
My puzzle arrives on Saturday. I was in such a state of confusion. Retraction didn’t appear until Sunday. Almost ready to pull my LOCKS out! I was feeling SOUR and TENSE! Ready to say I ABHOR the puzzle. All I can say is HOLY CANNOLI!
Thursday puzzle on a Sunday-sized grid? Yes please, and thank you!
Not only a tricky gimmick, but some tough answers and clues for a Sunday. Roman à CLEF crossing HELEN, FAE. Alex and ANI crossing NIETO. I guess this was to make up for the easy Fri/Sat puzzles?
Unfortunate printing error. Spit happens, but it's not a good look for the NYT when it seems to be happening more frequently lately.
Thanks Rex for the writeup. I'm glad a guest reviewer was spared in having to type out all the theme answers. Laurie Metcalf is quite the name-drop. She was great on Roseanne and Big Bang Theory. (Hi Laurie if you're lurking!)
Thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle, thanks Michael Lieberman - Hip Hip Hoorum (x3)!
We need to give them a break. It was an error. Live with it... we all make them!
Absolutely wanted two H's to fuse into He!
@ Anon 11:41: it's someone who used a Citizens Band radio. Supposedly they call each other "good buddy" all the time (in addition to saying things like "10-4" and "bear in a plain wrapper").
@Anon 11:34: nope; I entered in only one of each letter, and it was considered correct by the app!
@Anon 11:11: The issue is that in the past, there were puzzles where even if you understood the rebus and entered something that made sense, the app would only accept one very specific way of entering things (e.g., D/T was considered correct, but DT was considered incorrect), and lots of people got very frustrated, because they had what was essentially a correct grid, but couldn't every get the app to say they'd solved. As a result, the NYT greatly eased what was considered correct in rebus squares.
Wow. That took forever to figure out. The gimmick I mean. The fill was easy but but the gimmick gave me brain bleed. Glad it's done.
Hand up for putting in PArapets at first, despite the ominous final s.
Haha - true! Can't spell backwards in a hurry! Should've been STEP ON/NO PETS. Thanks, @Egs!
This was the day I decided to solve online and not try to read a printout. So I missed all the misprinted editions that people are talking about.
OTOH, and as some have noted, I knew something was going on but I kept filling in answers without bothering to try to figure out the gimmick. And then I got the happy music and didn't bother to go back and recheck. So I missed the whole point of the puzzle. Well, at least it's rainy and cold here.
FAE was about it for total no-knows, except fo seeing what was going on.
I'm going back to the print version.
Referring to CB (Citizens Band) Radio, which has its own subculture, including use of the phrase "good buddy".
You have a gift! I almost complained about ADORNER - now it's my favorite entry.
I've been around even longer and have heard YARD woRk and lAwn CARE, but never YARD CARE.
I’ve always considered inbox zero to be zero emails in the inbox - not an inbox full of emails that I’ve read. Google agrees with me.
This puzzle left me a HAPPY CAMPER. I got lucky and saw what was going on very early so was able to use the pattern to solve some of the longer answers. I liked HOLY CANNOLI, and seeing SAM. YARD CARE didn’t leap to mind, but yes, it is a term in use. I really liked the four letter shared core answers. LAST GASP, SELF HELP, DEAD HEAT, BOAT LOAD. Chef's kiss to the constructor BANG
CBer - one who uses a CB radio. I don’t know if truckers still use them anymore. See also, the movie “Convoy”
You have my sympathy. I had to guess there as well. Figured it was probably either ANI or ANa, and thought the I looked more Spanish-y. NIETO also shares its first three letters with NIEce, which may be coincidental but it was enough for me.
Aha, they are related, according to etymonline.com: "c. 1300, nece, "daughter of one's brother or sister; granddaughter; female relative," from Old French niece "niece; granddaughter" (12c., Modern French nièce), earlier niepce, from Latin neptia (also source of Portuguese neta, Spanish nieta), a more decidedly feminine form of neptis "granddaughter," in Late Latin "niece," fem. of nepos "grandson, nephew" (see nephew). Cognate with Old Lithuanian neptė, Sanskrit naptih "granddaughter;" Czech net, Old Irish necht, Welsh nith, German Nichte "niece."
It replaced Old English nift, from Proto-Germanic *neftiz, from the same PIE root (Old English also used broðordohter and nefene). Until c. 1600 in English, niece also commonly meant "a granddaughter" or any remote female descendant or kinswoman."
I spent around 10 years at Bell Labs and an exclamation point was universally known as a “bang” by the techies.
Solving online, so spared the confusion of the error.... This was definitely Challenging! for me (with a !Bang!). Took me over an hour to finish. Between the complicated them, and all the unknowns.... HELEN, BANCA, LAB (as clued), BANG (as clued), KIWI as a Chinese gooseberry.... Anybody else have PRIde before PRISM at the end of the rainbow??? ANI/NIETO was definitely a Natick square for me. Loved this puzzle, great theme, especially the triple themers in the middle of the puzzle--the way HAPPYCAMPERS, CINDERBLOCK, and CONCERTDATES interact in the middle. Fabulous. **** from me! Thanks, Michael!
I had the same experience- so frustrating! I thought I just didn’t get the trick.
Sundays, I always read the NYT from page 1 to the Metropolitan Diary before going to the Magazine for the puzzle. So when I arrived at pg. 25, I thought, "What's this?" That was quickly answered by the note at the top.
Nice stuff today, @Liveprof.
Wow, nothing about 65D. Am I missing something? Or is there a hidden "I" in Toronto?
I thought the fusion was in reference to the rebuses going across. They were all between the two words of the answer…until cinderblock of course. I too was looking for elements on the periodic table for a bit as well. I have no issues with the rebus in general.
A user of a Citizen Band radio system.
Very cool puztheme idea ... for a ThursPuz-sized rodeo. Prefer more humor, at our house, for a SunPuz-sized solvequest.
Caught on to the puztheme mcguffin early, at ISLAN[DH]OPPED and (after a few more nanoseconds of contemplation) at that there folded-over nuclear-fussin DEADHEAT.
staff weeject picks: FAE & RAE, the no-know waeject twins.
some fave stuff included: The 1-Down lead-off ?-marker clue, which seems to be the only one in the entire SunPuz! [weird].
Also: GOESROGUE. HOLYCANNOLI spellin challenge. SIMPSON clue.
Thanx, Mr. Lieberman dude. Nice nuclear confusion. [Especially, evidently, in the newspaper's version!]
Masked & Anonym007Us
p.s.
runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I rarely enjoy the Sunday puzzle, but I thought this was great! Quite a clever idea. I caught on to the rebuses fairly soon, but I never did get how it was "Nuclear Fusion", so Rex nice work figuring it out! (And I supposedly have a degree in physics.)
Hands up for disliking the ANI / NIETO cross. But even worse for me was WAPITI / TORO!... I had WAPINI / NORO, which I guess in my brain sounded like RAPINI / NORI. I had to click Reveal Incorrect Letters, and then I had to try several different consonants there before the T gave me a Happy Pencil.
Lots of Unknowns today: RAPP, FAE, HELEN, TORO, WAPITI, IKE, BRANCA, ANI, NIETO.
She also plays Dan Levy's mother in Big Mistkes and she is ecellent!
Had “no way” for “so mad” and “out of shape” for “out of place” - so got stuck in those areas…
Yep, back in the day before screen sharing, when you were telling people over the phone what to type, you used ’bang’ instead of saying ’exclamation point’. Saved a lot of syllables!
Thanks @egs!
There is that fair criticism and for some reason one, and only one, of the themes had two rebuses (sp). So BL was my last entry and I thought about it for way way too long
We do not hate them all
Totally agree on the cinderblock anomaly and was surprised Rex did not call it out
Yeah pawning is not technically selling outright but many people do use pawn shops to "sell" never intending to reclaim it.
I should have tried solving it on the original misprinted grid in the magazine. I would have done better I’m sure.
I LOVE rebus puzzles
Nope, DG has misunderstood the theme. The nuclear fusion has NOTHING to do with the Acrosses. Rex described the theme perfectly, but it seems many of you don’t bother to read him. There are no anomalies in Cinder Block beyond the fact that two perfectly executed themers run through it.
Clever concept, but it was a Sunday so too big to keep me engaged. When, about two thirds of the way through, I realized just how many more rebuses I had to figure out, I considered quitting. The fill was pretty easy and some of the long answers were nice, it still seemed a slog. Things like ADORNER and MEAT STEW made me pause to appreciate their ugliness. I also paused at YARD CARE (like many other commenters) as I don’t think I’ve heard the term. I have heard lAwn CARE often enough to just merge the two.
I smiled while I filled in ISLAND HOPPED because I used to live on one of those islands. Clue wasn’t bad, either, and it confirmed there would be rebuses, which I don’t really mind. Just not so many of them, please.
I have to take exception to the clue for HELEN Frankenthaler. She may have started her career as an Abstract Expressionist but later, under the tutelage of the renowned critic, Clement Greenberg, she became famous as one of the leading figures of Post-painterly Abstraction. The post-painterly part says it all; it is not expressionist in the splashing paint all over the place sense. Later, the art press would come to refer to her as a Color Field painter. Just look at the pic Rex included in his Word of the Day bit. That is definitely a colour field painting. And a really nice one.
So to label Frankenthaler an Abstract Expessionist when she is famous for being a pioneer in Color Field painting is akin to calling Jackson Pollock a “Regionalist” because that was the style he employed in his early years.
Yeah, I love them.
But who cares?
My question is why anyone would have the temerityto speak for group as varied as this. A stunning example of narcissism or myopia. Probably both.
I wonder why I didn't get this email. I'm a longtime subscriber. :-(
The clue says that ONTARIO contains all the letters of Toronto, which it does. It doesn't say that Toronto contains all the letters of ONTARIO.
The COINDERBLOCK is dead center, so the symmetry still works as intended.
Roo
Yikes, you'd better stop doing the NYT crossword, as the only two days without gimmicks are Friday and Saturday.
@Anon 2:54
🤣👍
WOW! I thought it was dementia. On Sunday I look forward to solving in the magazine... but none, not one, of the answers fit, and sooo many entries were unclued... trying to imagine letters in the black spaces, multiple layered rebi (something to do with nuclear fusion???)... after 10 minutes I gave up and came here, THANKS for the important note!! Luckily we do have the paper Sunday paper. So *now* it should go super fast, since I pretty much know all the answers and in the revised grid they will fit, yay.
Same
Laughing out loud, RIS...A
ble
That Groucho "quote" is a legend, as numerous biographers and TV historians have confirmed. Branca hit that home run largely because he knew what pitch was coming -- In 2001, a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the Giants had been using a telescope from center field to steal the opposing catcher's signs.
Ahh, the shattered illusions of youth . . .
I think they are referring to the category of “unread emails.” I will say I do a “filter” for my inbox to see only “unread” emails. Anyway…assuming you have legitimate, “important” emails (at work) I guess the target would be zero.
OMG I want the three hours I spent on this yesterday back!!! What am I missing I kept thinking.... I do the print puzzle on Saturday every week. My husband showed me the retraction/reprint today in the afternoon. Super easy. Although, who has ever said "yard care"? yard work, yard chores, landscaping, etc. but NEVER yard care. Oh, by the way, if your "job" is to edit the crossword and this can happen under your regime, how about I come in and interview for that (super fun) job?!? I think I could at least complete each puzzle before it went live. Argh!
Prior to day…the only thing that came to MY mind was Morgan Le Fay from Arthurian legend. So rest assured you’re not alone. She was purported to have magical powers, but she did not have wings as I recall (if that was a spelling variation)
I agree. I didn’t even know it still existed…
Anon 3:05 is correct. The fusion is in the shared letters on the Downs.
When I first saw the puzzle Saturday when I receive the Sunday NYT, I thought, wow, this gimmick is do brilliant that I can't figure it out. How disappointing to find that it was a printing error. I felt sorry for the puzzle creator. By the way: I found the correct puzzle boring and not worth the wait.
I completed the puzzle in good time, but never got the happy music. Entered the rebus squares without the slashes. I guess I’ll be looking at the BLUE NO-STAR GRID OF SHAME until it falls off the right side of the screen, because there’s no way I’m going to go back to enter all those slashes.
Wow. I never realized how many people only solve (on Sunday) in the Magazine…and I guess…every day? Gotta say…if I had depend on the actual paper in my fairly large Midwest City…I’d probably wouldn’t get it until noon, and likely not every day. Not a criticism to those that still do…just an observation.
Agree 100% , Alice. They have got to do better. If this happened at my high school paper, heads would roll.
Eso fue rejuvenecedor.
But really for @Whatsername:? ¡Santo cannoli!
Super engaging and fun Sunday. I love rebus hunting especially in a big grid and especially when they're all different. I'm glad I didn't see the title of the puzzle as that takes a lot of lawyering to turn it into a revealer. Plenty of routine crummy fill, and an endless parade of products, but that's endemic in this activity on Sundays so I guess it's fine.
The best part of this puzzle is the reaction of commenters to the publication error in the magazine. I'm an ADORER of the outrage.
❤️ WRAITH.
😫 ADORNER. ONE-D.
People: 11
Places: 8
Products: 17
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 45 of 140 (32%) {Xword Info is down, so I am not sure how many words total, but it's close to 140 probably.}
Funny Factor: 6 😐
Uniclues:
1 Angry budgeteer didn't make budget.
2 Cheater cheating.
3 What kept forest dweller chaste.
4 Not just pastry eager, but blessed pastry eager.
5 Nickname for hypnotist who won't stay off the lawn.
1 CHEAP TSAR SO MAD (~)
2 PLAYED TO WIN SECRET PLOT
3 HAPPY CAMPER'S JUNE ACNE (~)
4 HOLY CANNOLI SO EXCITED
5 STEP ON YARD CARE MESMER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Result of prehistoric teenagers bored on a Saturday night. CANYON INKED.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This was really not any fun. I hate rebuses as it is and this made very little sense until almost the last one. When a puzzle needs that much explanation, it’s going to be a slog.
I did discover 81 across “Rae” worked in both right and wrong grids
Meh, not a fun one.
YES! that was the only one I think.
Been solving 40+ years hard copy in pen.
Glad I'm not the only one who entirely missed the rebus thing and assumed it was a missing letter thing -- even though it was clear that I was still missing something about how this puzzle worked! Probably didn't help that I started out with the print version with the wrong grid last night. When I was getting absolutely nowhere with that, I looked at my phone and figured the print grid was just simply wrong. All together, not a happy weekend of solving!!
So happy you and Penelope had such a wonderful theatre experience! Such a treat to meet artists. I love live theatre. I had a similar back stage treat when my son-in-law’s cousin appeared on Broadway in “To Kill a Mockingbird - the original cast with Jeff Daniels as Atticus. He got us backstage and I was pretty much just speechless, but did have a short conversation with La Tanya Richardson who played Calpurnia.
This grid nearly wore me out. I always have trouble with Michael Liberman’s clues; takes me forever to get on his wavelength, and I never stay long. I had to chip away at this all day.
Part of the difficulty wasn’t really difficulty, but sluggishness at having so many themers that were all the same. I figured we had a rebus at the first one, and caught on for good at HAPPY CAMPERS. After that, the theme was not a challenge, but the actual entries were fun. Overall, this was a big fat doable Sunday without any real difficulty, but with so much theme content, I never really got a whoosh going either.
I’m back on very limited screen time, and I am going to skip posting some days. I would much rather use my time to read all the comments and be enlightened and entertained by all of you than focus on getting my own comment in. I’m not gone, just lurking for a while.
Sunday not funday. Usually enjoy rebus puzzles. Not this one!
Blech! not my cup of tea. Figured out that there were double letters But could not get a sense of where the double letters went and didn’t have the patience to study Rex’s explanation
Totally agree. I'm very tired of Sundays being large Thursdays, which I hate.
I did not enter slashes but it worked for me. However I found the rebus answers inconsistent in the final puzzle. Ex: T worked alone without P in LAST GASP. And for ADORNER. Confusing inconsistency online.
I live in Fort Lee nj high atop the Palisades along the Hudson River. We used to have an amusement park called Palisades Amusement Park with a huge swimming pool. It was great. The town of Palisades Park is not actually on the Palisades.
Late to the party here.
We were fortunate to have read (on Sundays only we get the paper edition) the correction after wondering why they seemed to print a second puzzle. Unfortunate error.
Surprised no one took offense to Boeuf Bourguignon being considered an appropriate clue for MEAT STEW. We have a friend who makes BB on holidays and I think if we ever asked "hey, are you going to make your delicious meat stew?" she would never make it for us again.
Dear NYT— thank you for ruining my Sunday. Best, Ken
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