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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
 |
| [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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64 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.
Basta ya.
Before we begin, I owe y'all a big apology for yesterday when it LOOKS LIKE I mistook LOOK LIKE for LOOKALIKE which I OVERLOOKED LIKE the whiskey fueled editor I am and now it's LOOKING LIKE @RooMonster is (and probably always has been) the MAN with his sultry trumpeted tones and his epic uniclue offering of Alpert doppelganger? HERB LOOK LIKE. I LOOK LIKE a damn fool (no surprise) with my errantly additionally added A and as A peace offering I shall remove an A from today's uniclue lineup. And along those lines, until today I was 100% positive there is a P in DREAMT somewhere.
I finished the puzzle with zero understanding how the theme worked and assumed I would need to wait for the morning to have 🦖 explain it to me, and then about 20 minutes later while working on an arrangement of Tom Dooley (ugh) for my cowboy guitar class (coming this summer Albuquerque!) I was tapping away on my laptop with a real keyboard and the light bulb clicked on. So out comes my phone, open up the puzzle, check the grid against my laptop keyboard, sure enough there they are. NEATO. Although I do think it's UNshift as others have no doubt pointed out by now.
ABBI and SANSA were the only meaningful slowdowns today, but they were pretty serious about doing their job. Also, seems to me you can put wasabi on virtually anything you want to put in your mouth, so I'm not sure how the clue helps narrow it down to PEA. Put wasabi on a princess sleeping restlessly and then you've got it going on.
You've got TEASE in your grid and you go the comb route? You're not even trying. And you've got A TEASE one line up. Don't TEASE me, bro.
I don't know how anybody can be WOKE anymore since the clown car has solved all societal problems. We just needed more billions for the billionaires and poof we're all good.
I think in my next life I want to be named ANUBIS. It seems like I could be somebody with a name like that. Maybe I could land a pretty girl with a TAN. Maybe one who likes to murder ERMINES and fling 'em around her neck.
People: 6
Places: 2
Products: 6
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 78 (29%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
Tee-Hee: TEASE A TEASE. {Only one more to go.}
Uniclues:
1 Decoration on my calculator coyly beckoning while I hammer away at the minus key when balancing my checkbook. (Remember doing that?)
2 Falls off a cliff.
3 What a big orange baby should sign executive orders with.
4 Stoat estate.
1 PLUS SIGN {XOUT A} TEASE
2 MEET STEEPS (~)
3 REGAL CRAYON
4 ERMINE MAHAL
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Why your one-way trip became a round and round trip. TAXI ON ICE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
INU/NIKE did me in. I probably would have figured it out if I had worked at it more, but I didn't care - just wanted it to be over. Not a ringing endorsement of this puzzle. I, too, thought PARENTHESeS was plural. I knew deKE was a word (not just a fraternity, right?), although I couldn't tell you what it means, and had no idea on the dog breed, so ended with IdU/deKE.
I usually skip Mondays through Wednesdays and only solve Thursday through Sunday, but decided to give it a shot today. Wish I hadn't.
This puztheme was an absolute qwerty. Also, kinda shifty.
Refused to move on, until I understood why PLUSSIGN = {*Peers}. Lost many precious nanoseconds, but finally found a way to sorta make sense of it. Was able to capitalize on that info, for the rest of the solvequest.
staff weeject picks: INU & SMS. The weejects had a sharp no-know edge, today.
Speakin of no-know-ism, this was a classic crossin chain:
ABBI/TCBY/TSABIN/ULTA + ANUBIS. Majestically REGAL.
For fave stuff, couldn't find any 7+ long-balls, so will go with: SATINY. DREAMT. CRAYON. PARROT. The EWOK/WOKE variations.
Thanx, Mr. Keller dude. Cool theme idea.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I suspect it may have been a different solving experience for those doing the puzzle with a keyboard in front of them, as opposed to those of us doing it on paper or a phone.
Since I was lacking Rex's perspicacity regarding the theme, I enjoyed this a lot, much more than a mere two stars. That's because I had to get the revealer and then go back and look at my keyboard. Hence, "equals" = "peers" was evident at that point.
Yes, DOLLAR SYMBOL was not what one would want but it was obviously necessary due to 17A. A four letter dupe wouldn't be good and the answer wouldn't fit the space. Good call, Brian Keller.
I had LYFT as a Uber alternative, a scoop of ice cream rather than a quart and for some reason was thinking of the space bar rather than the shift key so I had a SHIFT bar first. Otherwise, this was a straightforward solve with a clever (in my opinion) theme and reveal.
COSMO is cosmopolitan for short, informally.
Besides, I agree with Rex that it would be a waste of my one cocktail a day.
However, there's an excellent potato vodka called 1857, made by Barber's Farm Distillery in Middleburgh, NY - a very potato-forward spirit. I use it in my Spud cocktail🍸, made like a martini and garnished with a tiny raw potato on a toothpick.
I liked it better than 2 stars. @Rex confused me a bit. Seems his angst was caused by both ease and difficulty. Also, I'm not seeing why *Peers is an outlier.
When Bruce Springsteen calls it a “speed ball,“ that’s not consistent with baseball terminology. There’s another misuse of baseball terminology in a song by an equally great rock ‘n’ roll star — what song and artist?
As one of many who took a while to get the gimmick, I enjoyed it. Unlike Rex, I tend to bounce around when I get stuck (I made the mistake of LYFT right out the door, and had both OMIT and XOFF before XOUT), and some of the gunkier fill in this puzzle had me doing a lot of bouncing. Thus I was already all over the puzzle when I got the themers and the revealer together, which was a fun moment. Overall I enjoyed the puzzle, but grumbled about some of the gunk crossings.
Anyone wanna suggest better revealers for particular gimmick of the puzzle? TAKE IT TO ANOTHER LEVEL is too long, but maybe something along those lines? TOP TIER? HIGHER GROUND? THE MAN UPSTAIRS?
And @Rex, I think there are some VEERs that are not sudden and unexpected, like when you VEER right onto a side street that comes off your current road at a Y-shaped angle. In that case VEER implies that it’s more subtle than a full 90-degree turn, and a driver may choose such a VEER in a way that is neither sudden nor unexpected.
I'm surprised that Rex didn't mention the clue for WOKE...
Medium because, unlike the standard PC keyboard, the iPad keyboard was not helpful…thus,, I got most of this without paying attention to the theme. That said, the reveal did help me finish the top third.
WOEs - SANSA, PARROT, INU (although it looked familiar once I put it in), and ANUBIS.
No costly erasures but I too had lyft before TAXI and also ABBe before ABBI.
I’m with @Rex on this one.
OK puzzle good write up. The Pirate story was wild, just like the 80's. Agree 100% with Rex about vodka based cocktails,why bother when you have so many with flavor.
Well, you can be a center fielder, but I've always wondered about being a center field.
Deke is a hockey term for a fake. I used it for quite a while before intuiting it was short for "decoy", and I've never bothered to check on that, but if that's not the origin it should be.
Boy it took me a while to figure out the convoluted theme. Once I did, it was amusing, but yikes. My condolence to all of you that don't solve on a PC!
Several Unknown Names today: SANSA, INU, ABBI, ANUBIS. I've heard of EWOK but the clue was no help to me. And DEAN and PROF were two almost symmetrical college heads.
@PH from yesterday, I don't think I've ever played Squardle, but I do fairly regularly play both Dordle (2 words) and Octordle (8 words!). Playing Octordle on my high-def monitor is a riot.
Dreadful.
When you start with LYFT instead of TAXI you know you're in for a bit of a slog.
Definitely an all-time WOTD entry. Thanks for highlighting--I had skimmed past it originally.
I’m not a typist so this was not really a good puzzle for me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but in junior high, when offered an array of electives, I chose Home Ec over typing. I could cook and sew (my mother was seamstress, happy to instruct me) and Home Economics sounded more fun than sitting for hours in front of a typewriter counting my WPM. “But,” asked my friends, “What about employability and useful workplace skills?” Well as a teenager in the late 60s with hair below my shoulders who tie-dyed his own t-shirts I apparently wasn’t too concerned with employability. Did I make the right decision? Maybe not. But I am a pretty damn good cook.
So this was harder than it should have been … until I hit the reveal. I am thankful for all those really, really easy downs. Yes, thank you Brian Keller. It turned out to be a fair bit of fun.
Also difficult to fully grasp the connection when you don’t have an American keyboard.
Solved as a themeless puzzle on paper - I do not have keyboards memorized and don’t know Slash. Came here to understand peers - thanks, Rex. On balance I enjoyed this fine Wednesday.
I disliked Game of Thrones on TV whenever I stumbled across it, so don’t know SANSA or anyone else in GoT. Give me Star Wars any day!
You may be referring to the use of “coach” in Fogerty’s Centerfield. I’ve often seen this cited as a mistake, though I’ve never had issue with it because outside of professional baseball, the title generally is Coach and not Manager (or Skip, which a player is more likely to use.) I don’t believe the song, with reference to shoddy equipment, is necessarily referring to pro ball, even if we take it as late 19th / early 20th century ball. That said, sports references in pop culture tend to be somewhat off base, pun intended, more often than not, so I’m sure there are many examples.
NAMES, NAMES, NAMES, NAMES, AND MORE FREAKIN' NAMES. "Easy"?? In what freakin' universe? I don't know (or care) who "Abbi" is, never heard of a Shiba Inu, and have never watched, nor given a flyin' flicker about, "Game of [freakin'] Thrones." This was a HARD Wednesday, even when I got the theme early, and I hated it.
Thanks for pointing out the missing LOTR clue.... it would be fun to construct a puzzle that maximized the # of entries pertaining to StarWars, GOT, LOTR... what other epic fantasy series fit in to that grouping?
Besides symbol instead of sign, which I completely agree is nonsense, I really enjoyed the theme and had no issue with the revealer. Easy, but I also didn't mind the fill. 3, maybe 3.5 stars from me. There have been some very good themes in the last week or so.
I was very surprised that Rex while solving looks at the keyboard to see what the other options are on the top row. Under my personal rules that means a dnf. Don’t see any difference from googling. So for me the theme was harder. On the other hand, I got PLUSSIGN solely from the crosses. But the NW wasn’t difficult . for me. Once I got SRS & TAXI, that is.
So Rex started out annoyed. Maybe that influenced his star rating?
I did get the theme before finishing and it did help me change from y to I for ABBI.
Rex is right that the term is DOLLAR SIGN. but those types of substitutions do not bother me After all, that’s why this is called a puzzle! With clues and not a dictionary game.
Liked the puzzle more than Rex did
Son Volt
The Lady is a Tramp is one of my favorite songs Famous version by Sinatra at his peak which I like , but I prefer a women singing it. Makes more sense to me.
I knew QUESTION MARK was a link to 96 Tears but of course. I didn’t think of it till I read your comment. Don’t know how you do it.
Andy Freude
I was also surprised that ABBI is now crosswordese. I vaguely remembered it appeared before. Hopefully, I’ll remember it the next time! The theme helped me get the I instead of Y.
jberg
I never do the puzzle on a keyboard. So I consider looking at my laptop keyboard, albeit only 8 feet away from me, as a DNF. So I did not. I think it did make the puzzle more interesting b
Interesting point, Pablo. We always said it that was growing up in sandlot games, but you’re right that it’s not a way you would say it in organized baseball for the most part.
NHTSA, not EPA, is the org. that regulates fuel economy. The EPA used to regulate vehicle CO2, until the endangerment finding was revoked.
Maybe yiu are. Maybe you just cook for peope who are accustomed to yiur dishes. That is, taste is about as subjective as it gets. Good typing is not a matter of taste. It’s factual, and proveable either way; no possibility of refutation.
I truly do not enjoy being this disappointed in quick early week solves, no real difficulties and no really clever or surprising execution of an early week theme.
I remember with crystal clarity how I yearned to understand how it was possible for regular people to be able to sit down and solve a NYT crossword without stopping, or at least without having to pick up a book, or now, I guess it would be access the internet. I desperately wanted to know what a no-cheat solve. Gran said we were “learning” not cheating and called it a “no look-up.” My biggest life goal at 10 was to be able to solve a Monday puzzle without any help of any kind.
My son-in-law has that goal right now, although in his words it’s “Just once, I would like to solve a Monday Times crossword without asking LawMama for help.” Instead of being his M-I-L, he’s always called me his LawMama and I adore it).
It’s very possible to create a sparkling, clever, funny early week themed puzzle; I’ve solves hundreds of them, just not recently.
My point is that I do not mean to put myself on some sort of pedestal; I truly do not. Gran raised me much better than that. I welcome all solvers and hope each has the type of success they want from the experience.
Two things though. First, we all pay to play which means we expect some sort of ROI. Next, and related to the first, to reap a fair ROI each subscriber has expectations. @Rex shares his with us, along with countless tips, humorous tidbits, historical factoids, and he provides all of us a wonderful forum to do the same. I at least also have expectations on the part of the NYT. I expect the editors to be as enthusiastically engaged and diligent at doing their jobs as hopeful constructors are when they work sometimes for years to create a submission that gets accepted.
My accidentally “Anonymous” (I apparently failed to sign in properly) Tuesday rant partly on behalf of debut constructor John Ruff embellished and added to my repeating theme: “Where have all the editors gone?” Sorry if I offended anyone, but my frustration grows. I have attempted directly to communicate with Mr. Shortz but have received no reply, so I got up on my soapbox once again on Tuesday.
I shared and elaborated on my heightened frustration that in my opinion the crossword editorial staff is failing to edit and failing to demand the level of submissions many of us with 40 or more years of regular solving of this particular puzzle expect and over the past year or so, have found significantly below expectation. Lately, I question whether I am receiving the value I expect, particularly in terms of simple enjoyment.
Obviously, I could simply stop solving this puzzle. I very well might, but I am holding out hope that I can either live with current editorial benchmarks and protocols (their jobs being, defined by those “at the top,” whatever that mean in this context) and get over my frustration, or I can quit solving this puzzle. But quitting would mean I would lose this blog an all of you.
Today we have another puzzle with a theme that doesn’t go anywhere and has no surprises. I got the H2O gimmick immediately and thought it a clever idea. It simply lacked enough meat to make a meal. Once discovered, the solver had no more to discover, and because of the quasi-atomic diagram, the solver knew exactly where to look and what to enter.
Please editors, try harder. Constructors want to celebrate publication and read glowing reviews. Solvers want a little pushback in the early week offerings, lots later in the week and are always hoping for cleverness, humor and a good time. That’s what I expect and I used to get it at least Monday through Saturday.
I am going to continue my quest to receive a response from the Times, and stop complaining here about the lazy, or poorly directed editorial staff. I’ll report back if . . .
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