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All-powerful avatar in "Ready Player One" / WED 5-27-26 / Style magnate Gucci / Pitch-altering clamps on guitars / Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards / Low-lying landform / Engineering competition with two "battling" devices / He's always hard to find
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Constructor: Dario Salvucci
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- FOUR SCORE AND ("___ seven years ago...") (ABE) (20A: November 19, 1863)
- ASK NOT WHAT ("___ your country can do for you...") (JFK) (30A: January 20, 1961)
- HAVE A DREAM ("I ___...") (MLK Jr.) (46A: August 28, 1963)
The rondo or rondeau is a musical form that contains a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") which alternates with one or more contrasting themes (generally called "episodes", but also referred to as "digressions" or "couplets"). Some possible patterns include: ABACA, ABACAB, ABACBA, or ABACABA (with the letter 'A' representing the refrain).
[the '70s were full of wonders] The rondo form emerged in the Baroque period and became increasingly popular during the Classical period. The earliest examples of compositions employing rondo form are found within Italian operatic arias and choruses from the first years of the 17th century. These examples use a multi-couplet rondo or "chain rondo" (ABACAD) known as the Italian rondo. Rondo form, also known in English by its French spelling rondeau, should not be confused with the unrelated but similarly-named forme fixe rondeau, a 14th- and 15th-century French poetic and chanson form. (wikipedia)
• • •
In between the awkward beginning and the fiery, disastrous end, there's some good fill, there's some bad fill, and there's a theme. I did not really care for the theme. It's not horrible, it's barely there, and arbitrarily executed. The first two "parts of speech" contain the first three words of the famous phrase and omit what follows, but then the third gives you the second, third, and fourth words of the famous phrase and leaves off just the initial single-letter pronoun ("I"). So PART OF SPEECH isn't a great revealer. You're not dealing with famous "speeches," you're dealing with famous phrases within those speeches. In each case, the phrase itself—the complete phrase—would actually, technically be a PART OF SPEECH. So PART OF SPEECH, aside from being a somewhat dull phrase on its own, also doesn't quite get at what's happening. And then in execution the theme is really just "first three words of famous speech phrases, except the one where I randomly drop the 'I' from the MLK phrase and give you the next three words." Maybe solvers are supposed to feel smart for recognizing the speeches? I don't really see where the pleasure is supposed to be. So while "DARN IT ALL," "GOT A MATCH," and LEADFOOT provide some entertaining moments, on the whole I'd have to say "ABORC ANO TALIA!" (that's crosswordese for "no thanks").
Where was the difficulty today? Nowhere, really. I read Ready Player One once a decade or so ago, I guess. It was fine. Are we supposed to know the lore now? Isn't it enough to ask me to know all the LOTR and GOT characters, now you want me to remember (checks notes) ANORAK? The (checks notes) "all-powerful avatar" from a minor franchise, the second installment of which was widely panned? Extreme eyeroll for that one (28D: All-powerful avatar in "Ready Player One"). ANORAK is a perfectly good word, just clue it as the word. Anyway, I needed all the crosses there. Otherwise, the only dilemma I had was CAREEN vs. CAREER (which also somehow means (essentially) "careen")—it's really very confusing) (25D: Veer this way and that). So I left the last letter blank and TENS took care of it (48A: Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards). Not seeing any other potential trouble spots. I did get slowed down / mystified by 34A: Low-lying landform (GLEN). When I see a four-letter "landform," my Pavlovian response is MESA. When that didn't work, my brain just shut down. Also, without good reason, I don't think of GLENs as "landforms." They're depressions in the earth, so they seem like ... the inverse of "landforms." Just ... empty space between "landforms" (i.e. mountains or hills). This is a personal brain malfunction. The clue is fine as is.
Bullets:
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Where was the difficulty today? Nowhere, really. I read Ready Player One once a decade or so ago, I guess. It was fine. Are we supposed to know the lore now? Isn't it enough to ask me to know all the LOTR and GOT characters, now you want me to remember (checks notes) ANORAK? The (checks notes) "all-powerful avatar" from a minor franchise, the second installment of which was widely panned? Extreme eyeroll for that one (28D: All-powerful avatar in "Ready Player One"). ANORAK is a perfectly good word, just clue it as the word. Anyway, I needed all the crosses there. Otherwise, the only dilemma I had was CAREEN vs. CAREER (which also somehow means (essentially) "careen")—it's really very confusing) (25D: Veer this way and that). So I left the last letter blank and TENS took care of it (48A: Numbers that aren't entered on bowling scorecards). Not seeing any other potential trouble spots. I did get slowed down / mystified by 34A: Low-lying landform (GLEN). When I see a four-letter "landform," my Pavlovian response is MESA. When that didn't work, my brain just shut down. Also, without good reason, I don't think of GLENs as "landforms." They're depressions in the earth, so they seem like ... the inverse of "landforms." Just ... empty space between "landforms" (i.e. mountains or hills). This is a personal brain malfunction. The clue is fine as is.
[This song, and this performance in particular, always makes me stop and listen all the way through]
- 1A: He's always hard to find (WALDO) — is he, though? "Always"? Not loving this presumptuous clue.
- 35A: Filming location for the archaeological dig in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (SAHARA) — this is undoubtedly true, but ... SAHARA???? That's ... a pretty big place. 9.2 million sq km, to be semi-precise. May as well say the filming location was AFRICA or EARTH.
- 18A: Red flag for a mortgage applicant (BAD CREDIT) — isn't this a red flag for the potential lender, not the applicant? Like, the lender sees a "red flag" and decides not to lend. I don't really enjoy whatever "for" is doing here. I also just don't like thinking about the very concept of BAD CREDIT or the credit industry in general. Grim. The opposite of fun. ABORC! ABORC!
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83 comments:
Easy but cute. Liked it a lot more than @Rex did.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
My 31D rapscallion was a scAmp before he was a KNAVE.
At 34A, my low-lying landform was a fLat before it was a GLEN.
When I was in school, multiple-choice tests offered Abcde more often than AB OR C (62A)
WOEs:
ROBOT SUMO at 58A, but I had it filled in before I read the clue.
Monday-level grid - Rex summarizes the flat theme and revealer. Slightly odd all around.
Until The Real Thing Comes Along
The fill goes both ways. I liked EMBOSSED, DARN IT ALL and the ANORAK - GO NAVY stack. GOT A light? Too many LEAD FOOTs around lately.
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
The string A B OR C normally would intrigue but it is pretty ugly - so is SPANX. I’d like to the breakdown of walk offs in the NINTH and tenth. Word of the day is KNAVE.
Stephen Malkmus
As so-so as you can get for a midweek puzzle. Pleasant enough I guess Wednesday morning solve.
Okkervil River
I liked the puzzle more than Rex, because the revealer helped the solve with FOURSCORE. A-B-(or)-C is OK by me, as clued.
One objection...a baseball hit high in the air is never called a "sky." It can be a popup or a fly, even a "can of corn"...definitely not a "sky."
Rex, you don’t like BAD CREDIT for its unpleasant associations but say nothing about VEAL? Ick.
I did big chunks of this puzzle downs-only. Forgot it was Wednesday.
Thanks, Rex, for sharing a nice Glen Campbell moment.... pickin' and grinnin', right? Terrific banjo back-up. This was easy for me, 9:24. I actually think the revealer was perfect--if the last themer had been "I HAVE A DREAM" you would want the revealer to be "stARTSOFSPEECH" instead of PARTSOFSPEECH. I think the fact that it can be any part of the famous line ices the cake. And, while in a picky way Rex is correct--that it's parts of the famous lines from speeches--that wouldn't really make a great revealer, would it?? So I'd give this at least ***. Does this mean we are up to 3 days without a StarWars reference? And I don't think ABORC counts as an LOTR reference either, do you? Anyhoo, enjoyed it more than Rex did, though it was a bit easy for a Wednesday. I enjoyed the crossing of ROBOTSUMO with GOTAMATCH (the ROBOTSUMO fight is indeed a MATCH, right?). And the actual end of the puzzle--HOAX crossing SPANX--was great! Thanks, Dario, for all the fun! : ) [We had some neighbors named Salvucci in Wayland, MA growing up... one town over from NATICK.... wondering if you are related to the family we knew???]
Most people see phrases and take them at face value.
Crossword creators see them, flash on a different take, and come up with a puzzle theme. What amazes me is that in the history of crosswords, in all the major venues, no constructor ever saw PART OF SPEECH and came up with this theme. Truly, it seems like such low hanging fruit.
Props to Dario for snagging what all the other constructors over all the years missed – it’s a terrific theme idea.
I smiled at the lovely dook ABORC. I smiled again when I saw the neighbors CAPOS and a backward STRAD, imagining the former being used on the latter.
I also was grateful for being reminded at how elegant, memorable, and transformative language can be in a speech, sometimes never to be forgotten.
So, the box bestowed a constellation of good feelings to me today. Thank you, Dario!
Not to get too nitty gritty on theology, but having just finished a Reformation conference, I felt uncomfortable about the clue for 41A. Seems a bit imprecise to clue for PRAY TO as “Worship, in a way.” One could worship a deity in prayer, but one might also pray in ways that are not directly worshiping (e.g. making requests of the deity). Furthermore, some religions (e.g. Catholicism) practice prayer to non-deities (e.g. saints) whom they do not worship, which was a major point of contention in the reformations and still is today. Maybe I’m just being hyper attentive right after the conference, but it seems like it could be a sensitive issue, so I’d have appreciated a little more care for precision in the editing of that clue is all I’m saying.
Have to agree with Rex’s comments on the technical aspects of this puzzle, particularly with regard to the themers. But on another level, the phrases are highly recognizable parts of highly inspirational speeches so had an uplifting charm for me. Muscle memory had me wanting to enter MESA for the four letter landform, but caught myself in time. For some reason, really liked finding KNAVE in the puzzle—seemed to reach back in time even before Oliver Twist.
Given the huge antipathy towards quote puzzles, the NYT has apparently decided to run partial quote puzzles.
Rex's description does not seem to match his rating. He says the theme doesn't work, and that the short fill is terrible, and that the long non-theme answers are unexciting, then gives it a solid 2 1/2 star rating. Is this that grade inflation I keep hearing about?
I've heard it as a verb -- "he skied out to left" -- but never as a noun.
I had an advantage with this one. I was born on November 19, so I've always been interested in other things that happened on that date, of which the two most notable are the delivery of the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln and the delivery of James A. Garfield by his mother. So as soon as I saw that first date, I knew what was going on. Same for JFK's inaugural address; HAVE A DREAM took me a little longer because of the missing I.
It would have been OK to have all the theme answers be the starts of a phrase, or none of them be, or just one of them; but once you have two, you've created a pattern that you need to conform to. Or you could have four or more -- but the constructor said he tried four but it made for junky fill.
I liked the revealer fine, unlike Rex. They're parts of phrases, sure, but they are also parts of the whole speech.
At one point in Britain, an ANORAK was a guy in a vaguely tech job with no social skills. I don't think it's current usage, though.
Agreed, although it can be used in verb form: ""He skies one to shallow left field..."
Hey All !
Harsh write up by OFL today. Geez, did Dario do something bad to Rex? I do agree about the SW corner, but the rest of the puz was OK.
I had ROBOTwarS in, as in the TV show thingie, where competitors build ROBOTic machines and they "fight" in an enclosed area. Gotta Goog it, as the name of the show is escaping me ...
*Hold music plays*
Har, it was indeed called ROBOT Wars. The ole brain worked, but yet I still forgot the name. An example of a Schrodinger brain right there. Remembered, but didn't remember if I remembered.
A B OR C? Swedish Chef's answer would be ABORC!
®Uniclue
When Ms. Fitzgerald got a new hairdo?
RAD CHANGE ELLA
Nice WedsPuz. Quick and easy, OK Theme.
And how about those Vegas Golden Knights? Go Knights Go!
Hope y'all have a great Wednesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Agreed, the puzzle wasn't much, but many thanks for the Glen Campbell cut which I've never seen. No idea he had that sort of talent on the guitar!
Mage?
I had trouble in the west central section. I couldn’t get comfortable with MAGE even though MORPHS was pretty apparent. I stuck with SAGE much too long. Alas, done in by NYT arcana once again. That section also included ANORAK, which means nothing to me, and I recognize the musical clues like RONDO from crosswords but can rarely remember them.
I’m glad Rex called out that icky ABORC. I actually felt bad for the puzzle - even an inanimate object deserves better than that. I felt cheated by the partial MLK situation as well. I agree with OFL that this one may have had potential, but it seems like it was rushed to press before it was ready for prime time. Everything in the SW would have benefited from some reengineering.
Name natick: ELLA/TALIA cross in the lower-right.
Except for that aborc clunker, I liked this puzzle way,way more than Rex did.🎈🎈🎊🎊
Very bizarre way to clue a word as simple as SKY using a baseball term. A real head scratcher.
Agree with RP, a decent Wednesday but kind of a ho-hum theme. No problems or issues anywhere other than a Natick at CAPOS/RPI because I don’t know guitars or New York universities. GOT A LIGHT before MATCH. Never heard of SKY to describe a “hit way up,” in baseball or anything else. I had FLY, then SAC, basically guessing since I had no clue on the avatar and had not yet parsed HAVE A DREAM. Still wondering why that “I” couldn’t fit in the cross by changing the plural at 48A to a singular. Of course, I’m not a constructor so what do I know. The phrase just seems awkward hanging there without it though, IMHO.
I don’t know whether to be happy or be a Scrooge on this one…something is definitely “amiss” when my timer indicates I not only had a PB but it was a little more than 6 minutes faster than my average for Wednesday. But. That has to do with the “day of the week” and not the constructor.
As for the fill, I generally agree with what Rex said, but I flew through the puzzle so fast that I didn’t even notice some of the bad fill he pointed out. I will say I agree on the BAD clue for BADCREDIT, but I guess the words can be lawyered into what they are supposed to convey.
Haha…I listened to Ready Player One several years ago and, while I enjoyed the book, I’m glad my life didn’t depend on remembering ANORAK.
Seems like PORT (which crosses ABORC) should have been clued [Choices for extending the QRS sequence].
Keats' "Ode On a Grecian Urn" inspired me to write an "Ode ONLSD." It didn't go well as I found myself tripping over my own words.
Lincoln's first draft read "Eighty-seven years ago ....." His speechwriters crossed it out and wrote in the margins "by our score, it's actually 88". Lincoln sarcastically wrote back "F our score" and with no time for more revisions , this remained for posterity.
When I want to really emphasize that I've heard more than enough, I use the entire Three Mile Island, rather than the abbreviation TMI.
In my IDEAL poker game, IDEAL.
I had to spend a week with a real introvert once when my car was in the shop and my mechanic gave me a LONER.
@Rex doesn't much like this puzzle, but me and my cousin RONDO. Thanks, Dario Salvucci.
I love Glen Campbell, and I’d never seen this clip, so thanks for that, Rex. My sister and I had every one of his records as teens in the 60s and 70s.
The puzzle was easy and I didn’t feel as negative about it as Rex, although I do agree on ABORC!
..... and crossing "anorak."
It was "lob" to me til it couldn't be.
We would need someone with constructing experience to elaborate. I suspect that they required that theme entry to have the same number of characters as ASK NOT WHAT in order to maintain the proper symmetry. Personally, I don’t care if the grid is asymmetrical (Evan B. over at the WaPo publishes them from time to time), but I’m guessing that at the NYT you would need a special dispensation from the editor to get that approved.
Loved starting with WALDO, that brought a smile to my face. O SOLE MIO always makes me think of Ace Venture: Pet Detective (the non -problematic parts) so that’s another big smile. But yeah, some of the fill was not IDEAL, and dropping the I from I HAVE A DREAM absolutely killed the theme for me. “Have a dream” isn’t even really a famous part of the speech. It never ever ever exists without the I. I don’t care about symmetry even a little in my puzzles, I don’t even notice it. But this… this I notice. It’s worth dropping symmetry to get that I in there.
Maybe this is just too ambitious for a Wednesday. A Sunday grid would allow for better themers like the full FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN and I HAVE A DREAM and A DAY THAT WILL LIVE… I dunno, I’m not a constructor.
I love word people. Only one of you all would have seen a CAPO on a backwards DARTS. Play leftie, perhaps?
@kitshef, I believe that three stars is the line of demarcation that, in Rex's eyes, separates a puzzle from being more bad than good (below three) versus more good than bad (above three), with three stars itself awarded when it's a mixed bag or, generally, meh. We'll never know for sure until he publishes his grading rubric.
So while there were some fun flashes, the clunkiness of the theme and ugliness of much of the fill (low-lighted by ABORC), pushed the rating to under-three territory.
As far as ABORC, as I typed it into the puzzle, I said out loud that Rex was going to hammer it but good; he didn't disappoint. ABORC could easily get nominated to be a lesser god of crosswordese.
@Rick, I recall "pickin' and grinnin' " as a catchphrase used by Roy Clark and Buck Owens, though I suppose it could be used to describe a lot of country music.
Clark and Owens would intro their musical number (on banjo and guitar) by saying alternately "I'm a pickin'"..."and I'm a grinnin'" on the tv show Hee Haw. Umm...that's what a friend told me anyway. 😳
ABORC was just awful.
I didn't really like this puzzle & it wasn't even Wednesday-worthy (sorry Dario). But in defense of Dario & Rex's write-up I don't think it was the constructor's fault but the editors at the NYT when (I'm sure) so many other puzzles are in the queue. Just saying ...
Ah yes, Wednesday: the day the crossword looks you directly in the eye and says, “You’re ready for complexity,” before handing you something only microscopically more difficult than Tuesday and hoping confidence will do the rest.
Today’s gimmick—presidential quotation fragments scattered across the grid, culminating in PART OF SPEECH—is exactly the sort of thing Wednesdays believe counts as educational enrichment. FOURSCOREAND. ASKNOTWHAT. HAVEADREAM. A parade of famous rhetorical openings, each stopping just early enough to force the solver into a brief, self-congratulatory moment of recognition. Oh, you know Lincoln? Kennedy? King? Congratulations, citizen, here is your sticker. The revealer lands with the sort of smug literalness Wednesdays adore: speech as rhetoric, part of speech as grammar. Fine. Cute. Mild applause.
But we need—need—to discuss BADCREDIT.
I cannot overstate the psychic violence of encountering BADCREDIT in a crossword. A crossword! A tiny pleasure-box of language! I am trying to enjoy my morning coffee, casually filling in WALDO, DARTS, maybe a cozy little GLEN, and suddenly the grid lurches sideways into financial judgment. “Red flag for a mortgage applicant.” Oh wonderful. Fantastic. Exactly the sort of sparkling midweek whimsy one hopes to encounter between MAGE and IDOs: the invisible bureaucratic systems by which adulthood quietly humiliates you. There are some concepts that belong outside crossword space. Tax withholding. Extended warranties. Credit scores. No one has ever felt delight entering BADCREDIT. You don’t fill that answer with satisfaction. You fill it with the vague sensation that a bank has just asked for supporting documentation.
And the thing is—it’s not even crossword-weird enough to justify itself. If you’re going to traumatize me with finance, at least do it flamboyantly. Give me SUBPRIMEMORTGAGE. Give me PREDATORYAPR. But BADCREDIT just sits there in the grid radiating beige despair. You can practically hear a man named Trevor in a quarter-zip fleece gently explaining your options. Meanwhile the rest of the puzzle is trying so hard to be pleasant. ROBOTSUMO! IGLOO! MOI! The tonal whiplash is extraordinary: presidential eloquence, cheerful crossword filler, and then suddenly the grim administrative fact that somewhere, at this very moment, a loan officer is disappointed in you. Still: the grid moves, the clueing behaves, and Wednesday does what Wednesday does best—makes you feel slightly smarter than you probably are while never quite threatening your self-esteem. A perfectly enjoyable solve, interrupted only by an answer that felt like accidentally opening your banking app.
I like aborc a lot! Robotsumo is a new one for and Sky just doesn't make it as a baseball term. Anyway, today was enjoyable and a bit challenging.
I got the end of 30A in the crosses first, but couldn't make a fit of the first prez inaugurated without a HAT.
It's been fascinating to follow this blog and comments. Turns out absolutely any endeavor develops a culture. I feel like an expat. What is considered a high- or low-quality clue or entry - I'd not have expected the disdain for ABORC. I appreciate the subjectivity of cultural references and was curious how the obscure pop ref clue for ANORAK would be taken when it could've referenced "something arctic, part seal, part caribou, and human inside, maybe". Particularly with IGLOO right around the corner. Would the link between ANORAK & IGLOO be clued directly on Monday but obscured on later days?
It's cool, in this strange, new land, to see commentary that Ew, we don't want naked people tased in our puzzle, or someone has a random affinity for a phrase. Rock on 🤘
This seemed like the third Monday in a row. What happened to progressively harder? Anyway, the only minor snags were DAL and ANORAK, which I know as cold weather gear. Oh and ROBOTSUMO which sounds motionless.
GOTALIGHT first (hi @Whatserhame) and filled in the revealer as PARTSOF instead of PARTOF, which wouldn't fit, easy fix. I read the "hit" in "hit way up" as a verb so no trouble with SKY. ABORC strikes me as clumsy but not egregious.
My favorite thing today was KNAVE, which made me think of the Smothers Brothers album "Curb thy tongue KNAVE". Anything connected with the Smothers Brothers is aces with me.
Nice enough Wednesdecito, DS. Didn;'t Say "wow" * to me, but pleasant enough. Thanks for some fun anyway.
*When we were first married my wife and I went shopping for a living room rug and ran into a salesman who had clearly had just come back from a lot of fun at lunch. At one point he threw something like a neon-colored shag sample on the floor and said "Now that one says wow!". (It didn't.) Ever since then we have described something that doesn't quite do it as "Didn't say wow".
"Career" comes to mind before "careen" for Sondheim fans. From, "I"m still here" (Follies): "First you're another sloe-eyed vamp,
Then someone's mother, then you're camp;
Then you career from career to career.
I'm almost through my memoirs, and I'm here!"
I thought that also on HAVEADREAM…haha…also thought “but what do I know?”
@ Whatsername 8:34 AM: Yes, I also had GOTALIGHT first because *that's the actual phrase*! Compared to my first few decades of life (smoking sections in planes, movie theaters, and restaurants [Today, a host just asks you "How many?" but through at least most of the 1990s, it was "How many? Smoking or non?"]), almost nobody smokes, but back in the day nobody asked 'got a match?' they asked 'got a light?'!! I'll make the stereotypical comment for this blog that I was expecting Rex to nail the constructor for that one!
Exactly… Very easy but clever clueing… This would be a perfect Monday in my world
I kinda hated this one. Can’t we find a better theme than three great leaders who were assassinated?
@Rex: Thanks for the Rondo pic! I loved Rondo, and just two days ago, I was telling my wife about it (including how it was "Lightly carbonated so you can slam it down fast!").
Although very easy I really liked this puzzle… Thought it was weird to drop the “I” From MLK’s speech… But almost every clue had a little twist to it and I appreciate that. In my world, this would be a perfect Monday.
Excited to see RPI in the grid today, as my kid is starting there in the fall!
@Johnny: I suspect you are right or at least on the right track. Like I said, what do I know?
A very simple puzzle. Faster time than for yesterday's.
ABORC is unattractive, yes, certainly when written that way and not more charitably as A, B, OR C, but HAVE A DREAM is in my opinion a worse sin, starting as it does on the second word. (Go ahead, HAVE A DREAM! On me!) I did think Rex overthought it a little in his complaint about the revealer: it seems undeniable that each of the theme entries is PART OF a SPEECH, and the question mark in the clue warns that a slight liberty is being taken, in this case by asking the solver to supply the word "a". (All this business of partial phrases versus complete phrases is really splitting hairs.) That is, PART OF SPEECH (noun, verb) MORPHS into PART OF a SPEECH. Doesn't seem so bad to me.
I think I like GOT A MATCH a lot less than BAD CREDIT. Just the image of a guy talking with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth is enough to turn me off, and it's about to get worse once the thing is lit, getting that awful smell in your hair and clothes.
The faults in the puzzle that Rex enumerates seem to reside mainly in the cluing, and for that I generally pin the blame on the NYTXW editorial team. Sometimes I question their ear for language (see, e.g., Rex's complaint about how BAD CREDIT was clued -- he's right about that). They need to think more about that sort of thing, and less about how to cleverly work the word ASS into their puzzles (although that's perhaps more on the constructor's end).
That'll do it. Think I'll try to find a video of ROBOT SUMO somewhere -- sounds like fun.
Easy. I got the theme with ASK… which was helpful.
Costly erasure - scAmp before KNAVE
I did not know ANORAK and ROBOT SUMO.
Fun/ clever theme, some fine long downs, add me to those who liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did.
Prithee your forbearance for this transgression.
Except for ABORC being an eyesore, I didn't notice any of Rex's disliked fill. It was a puzzle, with a theme that I thought worked okay.
I did have to laugh at myself at 34A. I had _LE_ in place and put into sLEw, rhymes with slough (which can also rhyme with stuff or scow according to M-W. I only ever hear it as sluff or slew). At least, a slough is a low-lying tract.
I also read "Ready Player 1" and saw most or all of the movie and had no idea about 28D.
Thanks, Dario Salvucci.
What to say when you don't want to have to repeat yourself: ASKNOTWHAT
DARNITALL: Medication effective in preventing the loss of sewing skills. (Stronger version is DAMITOL.)
IGLOO: For repairs to your IG.
Building on (i.e., stealing from) egs from a few days ago: ABORC and ANORAK walk into a bar . . . .
*****
There is a beautiful documentary out there, "I'll Be Me," on Glen Campbell's final tour with the help of his kids while struggling with Alzheimer's.
I liked ABORC and the puzzle as well. Hit a sky ball… I’m good with that too.
Thank you @egs great post!
Nice selection of SPEECH PARTs. Definitely all way above the 'BALLROOMFORFREE' one.
Fairly friendly solvequest. Was able to find WALDO real quick. Not much no-know fare, other than maybe ROBOTSUMO.
staff weeject picks: MIO & MOI.
Primo weeject stacks, NE & SW, btw.
some faves: DARNITALL [surely part of someone's speech]. LEADFOOT. GOTAMATCH? MORPHS. KNAVE & its clue. DARTS over AGAME pair. X splatzed into the final SE puzgrid square.
Thanx for speechin up for us, Mr. Salvucci dude. And congratz on hittin the @RP nerve jackpot with ABORC. har
Masked & Anonymo2Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
¡Caray! ¡Maldita sea! ¡Qué alucinante!
Yeeshk. Over before it began. This ran on the wrong day of the week. The missing "I" from I HAVE A DREAM is a killer even if the reveal is still correct.
❤️ ROBOTSUMO. I watched a few videos and it isn't my kind of excitement, but I like the phrase. There used to be a cable TV show about fighting robots that was horrible except for the few minutes of actual robots destroying each other during the episodes. Metal parts flying everywhere. Rawrr.
😫 A, B, OR C A NO. ON LSD. ANORAK.
People: 8
Places: 2
Products: 3
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 5
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Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 21 of 76 (28%)
Funny Factor: 1 🤨
Tee-Hee: SPANX. SPITS.
Uniclues:
1 One eating soup and listening to classical music in a car on a deserted highway.
2 Ask god for a roasted baby cow.
3 The stench of cheap energy loved by Republicans.
4 Boomer with a titanium hip and knee.
5 Norsemen in a different key.
6 Rebounding loogies.
7 Formulates fake flirtation fantasy.
1 RONDO DAL LONER
2 PRAY TO GET VEAL (~)
3 COAL ODORS
4 MODERN LEADFOOT
5 CAPO SAMIS
6 DARN IT ALL SPITS
7 SETS TART HOAX
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Giving the finger to a floating billionaire. LEWD YACHT BYES.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I always heard "got a match" and the reply, "not since Superman died."
Lewis, I think to fully realize your goal of CAPOing your old Fender guitar, we'd have to edit the puzz a bit.... Perhaps change Darnitall to Tarnatian, CAPOing our backwards TARTS.... Otherwise you might be tampering with the tuning on a million dollar antique!
Thanks for the laugh!
My birthday is January 20!
The puzzle was meh, but the Glen Campbell clip was worth it all. Great musician/singer but what was really fun was picking out the musicians sitting around him thoroughly enjoying the performance. Roy Clark, Willie Nelson etc. So great.
The clue cites side to side movement. That's careening. Careering is just straight ahead fast. In my 2 decades working in a newsroom I saw this edited soooo many times.
Excellent point
Gary…is it Mondayly easy? 😉🥰
Conrad. Your Rapscallion/scamp equation resonated with me because I always think rapscallion = childish and prank-oriented. KNAVEs are more adult and treacherous.
Tripping on my own words! Classic
My first entry there was GOT A SMOKE.
I thought the theme was fairly clunky. It would have been more consistent if 20 across had been a proper phrase like the other two, rather than ending in that annoying AND...
ANORAK was a complete Unknown. So was ROBOT SUMO which I had as ROBOT WARS for a while. And hands up for CAREER before CAREEN which denied me the Happy Pencil briefly. Always check the crosses, Ok!
Whenever I see CAPO I think of a mobster.
I agree that not having the opening "I" for HAVE A DREAM was inelegant and a bit of a fly in the thematic ointment. But I disagree that foregoing the requirement for grid symmetry would be an acceptable solution for that issue.
I think that symmetry elevates crosswords above simple word search type puzzles. It's similar to how the haiku requirement of three lines with a 5-7-5 structure elevates it above simple doggerel. If it were 5-7-5 plus or minus a syllable or two here and there, we'd all be haiku poets.
ANORAK has appeared in the NYTXW 63 times over the years. It has been clued as a type of artic wear 62 times. Today's clue is the first to break that pattern. Never seen that film and had no idea about the avatar thingie so needed crosses to get that.
The more I look at ABORC the more I like it. And I'm not even ON LSD.
jberg. I'm not disputing your "tech job with no social skills" ANORAK definition but when I was visiting relatives in Wigan a number of years ago a teen-aged kid used the term to describe a bird watcher. I asked him to explain and came away with the idea that it referred to any group of people with niche interests that usually involved standing out in the rain for many hours. Besides the bird people he cited trainspotters and detectorists. This kind of bummed me out cuz I had a really nice ANORAK that I wore when I was fly fishing for steelhead in the rainy months here in BC.
I need to bookmark your comment and read it when I'm trying my hand at constructing. Great advice!
It is top tier! Very nice!
Yikes. This was supposed to be a direct reply to @whatsername. She was at the bottom of list when I posted…🙄
Robot sumo? I’m a big fan of the robot fighting thing, but have never heard this phrase. And I agree, the fill was really bad.
ABORC. A word that looks and sounds so stupid. But it’s not a word, it’s a phrase, so it’s kind of funny. I loved it. And I quite liked the puzzle.
As a cigar smoker, I have no objection to GOTTA MATCH. GOTTA light works, too. Why can’t we all just get along?
And, for @tht, I smoke. I enjoy smoking. It’s a meditative act. (You should read Cigarettes are Sublime by Robert Klein.) I don’t smoke cigarettes. I smoke cigars; even more sublime. I can take a pause while solving the NYTXW and watch the smoke rise toward the ceiling of my studio and bliss out for a moment … or two, or three. I am well aware that a lot of people are put off by the aroma of tobacco smoke but I am put off by various odors that others consider quite acceptable. Perfume. Mentholated breath fresheners and body sprays. Smells developed by chemists. I prefer compost and new-mown hay.
Just so you don’t dismiss me as a total barbarian, I assure you I go to great lengths to spare others the pain associated with exposure, however brief, with tobacco smoke. I smoke in my studio, I smoke while I’m tossing the compost with the tractor, but I’m not going to lighting up a Nicaraguan Robusto on your patio at your dinner party. But if you bring out a baked brie doused in cheap balsamic, don’t be surprised if I disappear for a walk around the block with a Bravos Junior.
I try to avoid veal and assumed the osso buco I ordered was just beef. Seems weird to use veal, which is used for it's tenderness, for a dish that is braised for hours. Internet says veal is traditional but beef is more common. GotALight or GotASmoke before GotAMatch, nobody says that since less than one percent of smokers carry matches (unless they are a cigar smoker).
Ditto
But ANORAK has been in the puzzle so many times (40 times in the modern era), so it shouldn't be that arcane. When you say it means nothing to you, does it mean you never looked it up?
Well I enjoyed this and enjoyed seeing the PARTSOFSPEECHes of great men cut down in their prime. Way too many guns. I note that FOUR and SCORE rhyme and NOT and WHAT do too, but no rhyme for DREAM
I guessed at TALIA and ELLA.
For me an ANORAK will always be a kind of parka
Hey y’all! Hope y’all having a great day!
Who in the HELL approved ABORC???? Was just as mad about it as Rex. It’s clunky and looks ugly.
Had GOTAlight instead of GOTAMATCH. I feel like I’ve heard the former more, but maybe it’s only an East Coast thing? Can someone verify this?
I actually enjoyed the theme, but I didn’t really like the clueing. I would’ve enjoyed it more if the clues were somehow related to parts of speech, but alas.
I feel like a fake Ready Player One fan - absolutely adored the film, but could not get ANORAK for the life of me. Meh.
6/10 for me! 13:45, needed hints.
Thanks so much for the Glen Campbell clip. Most of the world knew him briefly through his short lived 70s TV variety show and a few of his songs. Far fewer understand and hold him easily within the the guitar legends of all, not just country, music.
I'm finding more and more that, for me, any amount of good fill makes up for any amount of bad fill. And this had some pretty good fill, i.e. DARNITALL, GOTAMATCH, EMBOSSED, KNAVE, and something about CHANGE made me smile. It took me a second or two for it to click - I couldn't stop thinking it *has* to be something with *coin*. When *coinage*(??) didn't fit, I knocked it all down and started over and the H in ASKNOTWHAT brought it home, that was a little fun.
I agree with the weaknesses already pointed out but there was still some joy to be had here. I don't even hate ABORC as much as some here, admittedly it's not a pretty entry but it's kinda cute.
This one also provided some mixed emotions; inspiring and history-making speeches gives me a lift. And then remembering the tragic ends to each speaker brings it all down a bit. That is in no way a nit, just my experience. And if a puzzle gives me an experience, well that's a good thing. Thank you Dario!
DAVinHOP…yes! And I’m old enuf to have seen that cornball show as a kid. (No offense to Roy and Buck)
You cracked me up. Haha…as for me…I am happy every time I open up my bank app because it reminds me I no longer have to buy stamps and (a few) envelopes and I can see my checking balance in real time! Yeah…the whole “credit score” at the side is a distraction, especially when you find out that having MORE credit cards makes it go up! (Found that out recently)
wait a minute - this is considered average? it's amazing those quotes 'partially' quoted are 3 of the most profound speeches ever made the fill is great too exactly what does it take to get 5 stars on a Wed. around here - this is one of the best puzzles I've ever solved its DEEP and the reveal is perfect Part of Speech that's exactly what the them answers are - the fill is just as good this is a quality Hump Day puzzle
I think I may have already posted this but I don't see it so here it is again.
ABORC. A word that looks and sounds so stupid. But it’s not a word, it’s a phrase, so it’s kind of funny. I loved it. And I quite liked the puzzle.
As a cigar smoker, I have no objection to GOTTA MATCH. GOTTA light works, too. Why can’t we all just get along?
And, for @tht, I smoke. I enjoy smoking. It’s a meditative act. (You should read Cigarettes are Sublime by Robert Klein.) I don’t smoke cigarettes. I smoke cigars; even more sublime. I can take a pause while solving the NYTXW and watch the smoke rise toward the ceiling of my studio and bliss out for a moment … or two, or three. I am well aware that a lot of people are put off by the aroma of tobacco smoke but I am put off by various odors that others consider quite acceptable. Perfume. Mentholated breath fresheners and body sprays. Smells developed by chemists. I prefer compost and new-mown hay.
Just so you don’t dismiss me as a total barbarian, I assure you I go to great lengths to spare others the pain associated with exposure, however brief, with tobacco smoke. I smoke in my studio, I smoke while I’m tossing the compost with the tractor, but I’m not going to lighting up a Nicaraguan Robusto on your patio at your dinner party. But if you bring out a baked brie doused in cheap balsamic, don’t be surprised if I disappear for a walk around the block with a Bravos Junior.
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