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Jackal-headed Egyptian deity / WED 5-13-26 / Drink with junmai and nigori variants / Uber alternative / Seville snack / Stark daughter played by Sophie Turner on "Game of Thrones" / Pittsburgh Pirates mascot / Cranberry-tinged cocktail / They're adjusted when truing a bicycle wheel
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Constructor: Brian Keller
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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| [40D: Furry "Star Wars" creature] |
Theme answers:
The "Medium" part of the "Easy-Medium" rating today is due entirely to the NW corner, which is where the first themer sits. I encountered it first *and* it was the most inscrutable of all the theme clues. The others all have definitive answers, so it was easy (very easy), when I saw that the answer to 24A: *Number of years between summer Olympics was gonna be DOLLAR SYMBOL, to figure out the gimmick. I know the answer to the clue is "four," so ... what is the connection between "four" and DOLLAR SYMBOL? That's easy. Transparent. Right in front of my face, in fact. Whereas there was no way in the world I was going to find my way to PLUS SIGN from 17A: *Peers any time soon. I don't mind the trickiness of that first themer—it's pretty innovative—but it's an awful outlier today, where all the other themers have obvious, specific, indisputable answers: 4, 9, Slash. Zero ambiguity. Whereas "Peers," yeesh, that could mean a lot of things, including "looks intently." I want to fault that first themer, but actually I wish the other themers were more like it—it's kinda boring to just answer a remedial trivia question and then look above a keyboard key for the answer. And the revealer was an extreme anti-climax. I had the conceit figured out after DOLLAR SYMBOL, so when I got to SHIFT KEY I was like "yeah, I know." Could've used some clever wordplay ... something that has a payoff. SHIFT KEY is just a flat explanation, and an unnecessary one at that. Maybe some of you were baffled by what was going on until you got to SHIFT KEY. I envy you. For me, this was one very strange but kind of interesting theme answer and then a bunch of ho-hum no-challenge fill-ins. And the fill has almost nothing to offer today, with no answers outside the theme set any longer than six letters (?). Hard to get any kind of sparkle going when you top out at 6 and are mostly dealing with 3-4-5s. Further, it's DOLLAR SIGN. It just is. [I just had to go back and edit this paragraph because I wrote DOLLAR SIGN every dang time, instinctively; that's how much my brain is rejecting DOLLAR SYMBOL]. I see why you went with SYMBOL, since SIGN was already taken, but it's SIGN. I mean, the rapper called himself Ty DOLLA $IGN, not Ty DOLLA $YMBOL. For a reason.
- PLUS SIGN (17A: *Peers) ("+" = Shift-"=" (i.e. "equals"))
- DOLLAR SYMBOL (24A: *Number of years between summer Olympics) ("$" = Shift-"4")
- OPEN PARENTHESES (37A: *Number of Supreme Court justices) ("(" = Shift-"9")
- QUESTION MARK (47A: *Guns N' Roses guitarist) ("?" = Shift-"/" (i.e. "Slash"))
The Pirate Parrot is a costumed mascot of the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball. He was introduced in 1979 to boost sagging attendance and was inspired by the success of rival mascot Phillie Phanatic, which the Philadelphia Phillies introduced the year before. // The parrot character was derived from the classic story Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, most notably the one owned by Long John Silver named "Captain Flint".
The Pirates put out a casting call for highly-energetic candidates, hoping to find a comedic talent similar to Robin Williams, and selected Kevin Koch after an extensive audition day due to his disco dance skills. The Parrot debuted on April Fools' Day, 1979 when he "hatched" at Three Rivers Stadium. That year, the "We Are Family" Pirates won the World Series. [...] In 1995, the Parrot was briefly paired with a secondary mascot, the Buccaneer, who was quickly dropped after its actor was arrested for skinny dipping. [...] In May 1986 the Pirate Parrot joined in the Pittsburgh section of Hands Across America. [...] Kevin Koch was the original Pirate Parrot for seven years after its debut in 1979, selected over 97 other applicants for his energetic nature and talented disco performance during his audition [...] In 1985, it was discovered that Koch had used cocaine during several games and introduced players to cocaine by serving as middle man between drug dealers and players. Koch resigned that year and has expressed regret for doing cocaine and sharing it with the players. Despite the scandal, the Pirates kept the Parrot. (wikipedia)
• • •
[all the warnings...]
Not much going on in the fill, as I say. TSA BIN gets a little inventive, and I appreciate that. Hard to do unusual or interesting stuff with answers under 7 letters. Nothing else in the grid has much shine, except maybe (fittingly) SATINY (45D: Smooth and glossy). Lots of crosswordese today, as well as neocrosswordese (ABBI, SANSA). Not much in the way of difficulty, though. The hardest part for me was, once again, the very beginning, partially because that first themer was impossible to figure out with no context, but also because I had LYFT instead of TAXI at first for 1A: Uber alternative, and my [Group of reps] was a SEN and at some point my XOUT was an XOFF (3D: Strike from a list). Also, I just forgot SANSA (7D: Stark daughter played by Sophie Turner on "Game of Thrones"). Gregor SAMSA, I know. SANSA is just never gonna stick. Ah well.
Bullets:
- 30A: Heated competition? (MEET) — a swim MEET or a track MEET will feature different "heats" (i.e. preliminary races).
- 64A: Try a new course, say (VEER) — LOL that's more than "trying." This clue misses the crucial component of VEERing, which is that it's sudden and unexpected. No one's like "hmmm, I think I shall choose to VEER now." If you're simply going to "try a new course," you're much more likely to simply TURN.
- 12D: Cranberry-tinged cocktail (COSMO) — I used to like these back before I really knew anything about cocktails. Now I can't imagine wasting my one cocktail / day (hard limit) on a COSMO. On anything vodka-based, for that matter. Although I did once listen to a genuinely fascinating Cocktail College episode about the COSMO, including its rise to extreme popularity in the wake of Sex & the City. Almost made me want to try one again. Almost.
- 35D: Personification of victory (NIKE) — before it was an athletic brand, it was a Greek goddess. Thank god for NIKE because I honestly wasn't sure how to spell OPEN PARENTHESIS (kinda wanted the plural spelling ("E") ... like "hello, I am addressing you two PARENTHESES, because you always travel in pairs ... please open!"
- 48D: Forearm-related, in a way (ULNAR) — for a split second there, I considered ULNIC (?!), but then I remembered the ULNAR nerve, which may be the only way I've ever seen ULNAR used in the wild.
- 5D: Many fast pitches (SPIELS) — so ... sales pitches, not baseball pitches. I had the SP- and was like "SPEED ... balls? SPEEDS? Are they calling them SPEEDS now?" Bah.
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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31 comments:
Easy-Medium. Solved without reading the theme clues, and that made it harder. Like @Rex, most of my problems were in the NW.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
My 1A Uber alternative was lyft before cabs before TAXI. The NW was the last section I filled in.
Wanted ales for the 1D tavern array but it didn't cross with any of my 1A candidates (TAPS).
omit before XOUT for the list strike at 3D.
I didn't know the 39D actress, so I guessed ABBy before ABBI.
At 44A, my frozen dessert initials were iCee(?) before TCBY.
Got my Egyptian gods confused. I had osirIS before ANUBIS for the 57A jackal-head.
WOEs:
Not a GoT follower, so needed every cross for SANSA at 7D.
Actress ABBI Jacobson at 39D.
Early week puzzle on a Wednesday - Rex summarizes it well. Single level theme - simply revealed and workmanlike fill. The central spanning themer is the highlight.
By-Tor and the Snow Dog
We’ve seen similar plays on the keyboard previously - they work of course but lack any real depth. Today it results in a choppy grid loaded with gluey stuff - the threes and fours here are rough.
The Lady Is A Tramp
SPIELS, DREAMT, ERMINE, SATINY are all pretty cool. I don’t love the cheeky letter string adds with ER DOCS and TSA BIN. No idea on ABBI but the crosses were easy enough. A SLOG no but it approaches it in places.
Venus in Furs
I didn’t love it but it’ll have to do for a Wednesday morning solve.
QUESTION MARK
I’m one of those for whom the trick wasn’t obvious and it me a long time to figure out what was going on. So I really liked the puzzle.
Finished it with one look-up, for the INU/NIKE cross, because I wasn't thinking of Greek heroes as personifications of victory. I'd rate the puzzle three stars, for the creativity of its theme.
10:12 for me, so that’s easy-medium for a Wed. Done Tues PM at 10. Hands up for lyft before TAXI; also wanted mediCS but didn’t type it in, because the “hosp.” said it was abbr. Actually managed to figure out this theme before I looked fully at the revealer! Proud of myself for that. Only struggled to figure out how Axl was involved with the ?. Only later realized that “Slash” is their guitarist, Axl is the singer. RoyAL before REGAL. Enjoyed seeing RADIUM and DREAMT. Thanks, Brian, for a clever Wednesday grid… and for returning our StarWars counter to where it belongs, at 0! : )
Clever concept. Terrible fill.
I solve in the NYT Games app on an iPad, where the symbols are not accessed by number + shift key. So once I figured out the gimmick (and like Mark, that took me a while) I had to remember which symbol goes with which number on a traditional keyboard. That added a little extra crunch to the puzzle, which otherwise was just OK. Better than my final entry, which was SLOG.
Surprised to see Rex elevate ABBI Jacobson to the exalted status of crosswordese. I think I’ve noticed her name in the puzzle only once or twice before. Congratulations, ABBI!
Call me Dummy but I had to go to an AI to get the reasoning behind *peers = PLUSSIGN. In hindsight an excellent clue. My trouble in the NE started right at the beginning when I confidently entered “lyft”, and then tried to find a way to make “ales” fit, so that actually wound up being the last part I finished. The theme was transparent after DOLLARSIGN, oops, DOLLARSYMBOL, but kinda fun to follow. Hey, we have both Star Wars and GOT, what could be better?
Well, here is the puzzle we should have gotten yesterday. This would have made for a fantastic Tuesday. Well, it’s great on Wednesday, too, but would have fit better on Tuesday. Perhaps SANSA was sufficiently obscure to move it to Wednesday.
Hey All !
Envy away, Rex! I'm one of those that needed the Revealer to suss out what in tarhooties the Themers were doing. Let out an, "Oh, clever" once the ole brain let me in on the secret.
Closed NW and SE corners. Only the S in NW and the T in SE to let you in.
Fill okay, looking sideways at INU, though. Man, is there 2,593 dog breeds? Shiba Inu sounds almost like an insult.
Nice puz, Brian. A fun time this morning.
Hope y'all have a great Wednesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
This one posed a big ethical dilemma for me. In olden days we got home delivery of the NYT and I would solve in the paper, sitting in a big red easy chair in the living room. If I'd wanted to look at the keyboard I would have had to go upstairs to where my computer is, and I would definitely have considered that cheating. But now I solve online, with the keyboard beneath my fingers, and I didn't hesitate to take a peek or two; but in retrospect I wished I had not done so.
Anyway, I did need the revealer, even though if you'd ask me what was over the 4 I would have said "DOLLAR Sign" without batting an eye.
After she was a Greek goddess, but before she was a shoe, NIKE was an anti-ballistic missile. Very controversial, because a NIKE launch site was nearby it would make you a target.
Twofer today, with both Game of Thrones and Star Wars clues. Tolkien is miffed.
I had a lot of fun with this one. I actually appreciated that the first themer was very far from obvious, made my brain work a little harder at the outset. That and rushing to drop in LYFT like @Rex did at 1A made the NW a little sticky.
Most of the other fill was on the relatively easy side so as soon as IKEA, LEEK and LYRE fell to give me KEY in the revealer, I knew what was going on. And I really enjoyed the whoosh after that.
OPENPARENTHESIS is a nice spanner but like @Rex, wanted the plural there. The rest of the fill was serviceable if not terribly exciting.
I thought there was some appropriate mid-week level entries like ANUBIS and NIKE as clued. I also don't know my dog breeds, beauty products or GOT characters well enough so INU, ULTA and SANSA needed crosses.
Cute clueing for SPIELS, more of that would have been nice. With that, still got a lot of joy out this, which is all I need. Thanks Brian, this was fun!
A slog for me, although I didn’t really have trouble anywhere except that little INU, NIKE, WOKE, SPOKES, ISOK area. Had no idea about the dog name, couldn’t parse ISOK (ugh), and NIKE wouldn’t come to me as a personification of victory. All of which made me question WOKE and SPOKES.
I sort of got the theme and those answers were all gettable with crosses. I guess it was clever, but pretty uninteresting in my opinion.
My downfall consisted of two crosses today. INU, about which I know nothing and would have had to run the alphabet, and it crosses USES which didn’t come to me from the clue “wields” which is legit but seems like a stretch. That cross was aided and abetted by ANUBIS - no clue, but I handled most of the crosses except for the cross with SMS, which to me could have been IMS, DMS, TMI, etc. I didn’t bother arguing with either of those and just took the DNF.
I’m generally not a fan of theme gimmicks that involve clue and answer combinations that initially make no sense. Today I was able to parse together enough of the theme answers via crosses to get a sense of what was going on and used the reveal for confirmation. I agree with Rex that Will should have insisted that the constructor come up with a better way to get to EQUALS - but that may be splitting hairs a bit (on second thought - isn’t it Shortz’s job to pay attention to details like that?).
Did fine without looking at a keyboard since I solve IRL - we still get the newspaper delivered every day.
This Word of the Day entry was a journey. I did not expect all those twists.
Two puzzles out of three this week and solving them without cheating and not really understanding the theme: What the heck is going on? No 🎈for me.
NW corner went right in, which gave me PLUS which in no way related to its clue so I went elsewhere, winding up in the bottom and soon enough I ran into SHIFTKEY and since I had most of QUETIONMARK the gimmick became clear. Everything would have filled itself in if I remembered that Slash was the guitarist or that the PLUSSIGN was over the = on a keyboard. In a nice coincidence, I did remember that the DOLLARSYMBOL (agree with OFL that it should be SIGN) was over the 4, as I just went searching for it because of A$AP Rocky.
Not many other problems. I don't know my SAKE types, don't drink COSMOs, SANSA needed all the crosses, and DRAG before SLOG. I do know an Abigail who spells her name Abbe, but that didn't help. Hello ABBI. I hope things are OK in Broad City, whatever it is.
I thought this was a pretty neat trick, BK. I don't know if needing the revealer to get the themers is the Best Kind of crossword, but it worked today. Thanks for all the fun.
Please accept this bouquet of early blooming parentheses: ((((()))))
Top left killed me as well because I had LYFT for 1A and YOKE for 2D and just stared blankly at the screen for about 5 minutes.
Liked it a bit more than Rex, only for the cleverness of the theme, which nicely linked the marquee answers to the revealer.
But the result was, per Rex and likely to be a prevailing theme here, a really dull SET of fill answers. When TSA BIN and SATINY (we had a few letters and cringed that it might be sheeny) are the best that can be mentioned, it's a SLOG. The fill's obviousness (except for, like @Conrad, SANSA and ABBI) made the solve on the easy side, but not in a "whooshy" way.
Wonder whether Rex is as amused by some of his WOTD finds as me. The first paragraph on the Pirate PARROT couldn't be more vanilla. The second paragraph was a total revelation, and I was a huge fan of the "We Are Family" Pirates. (In those days, Red Sox fans needed a backup team to root for). Can AI find another paragraph ever written that contains all these words: Robin Williams, Koch (thankfully not ...brothers), skinny dipping, Hands Across America (wow, what a bygone era that was) and cocaine?
Sansa Stark, after the GOT dust settled, married Jim Belt and went on to found the Sansa Belt Slacks company.
I always wait for the crosses to see if it will be TSABIN or czABIN.
Any dupe call outs for TEASE and ATEASE? Or maybe I'm just being ATEASE.
"Open paren" is printer talk for OPENPARENTHESIS, or at least that's my OPENPARENTHESIS.
If you look at those TAPS in the mirror behind the bar, one of them will likely be REGAL.
My solve differed not at all from @Rex's. Thanks for the shifty puzzle, Brian Keller
28D Seville snack-Tapa really annoyed me. I know singular but really?!
100%. 😆
Isn't that from Salinger?
Was all set to drop the hammer on the Parrot when the coke dealing was in the first or second senrence. Dutifully read the entire and damn, if I wasn’t deprived of some fun. Stll, I say Wiki burried the lede.
@Michael - thanks so much for that!!! Good old Buddy Glass!
Agree, theme and easiness better for Tuesday, bit of a letdown for a Wednesday
much more difficult doing the hard copy rather than online. still got it, was fun. Last square to fall was the cross of ANUBIS/SMS
@Egs, your brain sure concocts some beauts, but Sansa Belt slacks was an award-winner. My brother (a small-time comedian of sorts) has referenced those (really a thing) garments over the years.
Not just AT EASE and TEASE, but TAPS and TAPA (which seems to usually appear as TAPAS). A couple of "kinda sorta maybe" dupes.
Aerial pirate seen yesterday from Cape May Lewes ferry. It was a parasitic jaeger not a great skua, but I thought of Rex and smiled just the same.
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