.png)
"Why, why, why?!" / SUN 5-3-2026 / Org. for J. Robert Oppenheimer / World Golf Hall-of-Famer Mark / Chewy chocolate candy brand / German actress Berger with a career spanning eight decades
Sunday, May 3, 2026
Constructor: Mark Diehl
Relative difficulty: not hard, especially if you've seen all the terrible fill before and recognize the cluing angles from older puzzles
THEME: "What Are The Odds?" — some entries spell out words / phrases with their odd letters, and those are then used to clue nearby entries
Theme answers:
Hard to tell where to begin with this blog; so many things I could complain about, and a much smaller, non-positive number of things that I enjoyed. Christopher Adams here, filling in for Rex, and really hoping that the wish from past me for a good Sunday was actually fulfilled. Instead, we get this puzzle, which, I honestly cannot say if any part of this proves that this puzzle wasn't made twenty years ago—so much of this gives off that vibe, and the solving experience sure felt like the slog of picking a random archived puzzle from back then.
Olio:
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)] =============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️
đ My other blog đ:
- [Moisture barrier supplies] for PLASTIC SHEETS, odd letters spell out PATCHES, which is used as the clue for GIVES A DARN
- [A hard job] for NO EASY TASK --> NESTS --> STICKY PADS
- [Fictional diary writer] for BRIDGET JONES --> BIG TOE --> LOW DIGIT
- ["One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" author] for KEN KESEY --> KNEE --> CHILD SUPPORT
- [Conan and others] for BARBARIANS --> BRAIN --> THINKPIECE
- [Client's sales agent, in brief] for ACCOUNT REP --> ACUTE --> NOT QUITE RIGHT
Senta Verhoeven (nÊe Berger; born 13 May 1941) is an Austrian-German actress. She received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film, and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an Adolf Grimme Award, both a Deutscher Fernsehpreis and a Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, and a Goldene Kamera. [I briefly got excited when I saw Wikipedia listed her father-in-law as Paul Verhoeven, but it's not the "RoboCop" director, just another dude that happens to share his name.]
• • •
Maybe the closest we get to a modern thing in this puzzle is BROCODE, which isn't great and feels pretty dated and icky as is. I'm not counting the clue for WINONA as a modern thing from a constructing viewpoint, btw; you could easily imagine that entry put in a puzzle that's older than I am, with that clue being an edit to try to make it feel more modern. Even if that's the case, attempt failed—so, so much terrible fill that I will inevitably miss some in the following list: OKED, HOR, OSE, INRE, PHYS, TENHUT, AEC, TASS, RET, SENTA, IS AT, PARI, CIRC, THE RAP (as far as I'm concerned, this is essentially a six letter fill in the blank clue even if not formatted as such). Plus clue/entry pairs that felt like Eugene T. Maleska was back in the land of the living: ERIN, ELIA, TAU, KEEN (especially bad, and especially when juxtaposed with the "how do you do fellow kids" feeling from ROFL—which, now that I think about it, might beat BROCODE for the newest thing in this puzzle, but also feels old and outdated).
[a clip from "Bridget Jones", mostly chosen because at 0:22, there's a brief cameo of Mark Goodliffe, of "Cracking the Cryptic" fame, and if you're interested in sudoku, I make those too]
But this is all to bury my biggest problem with this puzzle, which is that the words/phrases spelled out by the odd letters are being used as clues, when they fit much better as answers. In a way, I'm reminded of those old-timey themes (that you don't see much these days, for a good reason) where all the theme clues are [Spot] or something equally dull and boring, and the entries in the grid aren't really answers, but clues, and everything feels backwards. Same feeling here—[Gives a darn?] would be an excellent clue for the answer PATCHES, but that works because you're putting the slippery, fun part in the clue, and alerting the solver that something tricky is afoot with the question mark; on the other hand, having [Patches?] as a clue for GIVES A DARN as an answer does not work as well, and similar for the rest of the theme entries.
Olio:
- ACC [Stanford and Cal joined it in 2024] — actually, this might be the worst clue/entry in the puzzle, if only because it reminded me of the travesty that college sports is right now; I cannot wait for the Big Ten to become so big that it naturally splits into a Midwestern and Pacific division, and then back into the old Big Ten and the Pacific (pick a number), as it should be.
- TCU [The Horned Frogs of Ft. Worth] — there are much better ways to signal "abbreviation" than writing Fort Worth like that (and, imo, this clue does not need an abbreviation signal in the clue, given that the abbreviation is way, way more common than the full, unabbreviated name).
- TOOTIN ["Yer darn ___!"] — I didn't actually dislike this entry by itself, but putting this right next to GIVES A DARN was certainly a choice.
- KEN KESEY ["One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" author] — The movie based on this book is one of the many Oscar Best Picture winners with six words in its title, but that's not the most words in the title of a Best Picture winner. In fact, there's two with more than six words in their title; can you name them?
- CHOCTAW [One of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes] — There is an essay to be written about how awful the word "civilized" is here; I'm not going to write it, but I will say that it says a lot about the editing process for using a very controversial term that inherently frames things with a white superiority complex, and that is very much not used by the tribe in question because of how problematic the terminology is (and it's not like info about this being controversial is hard to find or anything).
Yours truly, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️
- Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)
đ My other blog đ:
- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Save And Share :
143 comments:
Felt the same exact way. So outdated, ROFL for u slay me?!
Wait so did he like it or not
Doing Sunday puzzles on your phone is really bad for your eyes but as is usual these days that's how I did this one. It truly was a crosswordese fest. I did finish it cleanly with only a few write overs along the way. What I recall were ROTI/PITA, DAMN/DARN and PARA/PARI
BELIKE for "mimic" be like nails on a chalkboard.
A very clever theme with a good title but the fill was a bit brutal.
Easy. I almost paused to figure out the theme but I didn’t want to spoil my whoosh.
Cute idea, liked it, but I wasn’t paying as close attention to the fill/theme as @Christopher was.
Not only do I completely agree with everything written here, but the datedness of the puzzle would never have occurred to me, so I'm glad Christopher pointed it out. This was as fun as it was difficult... and there was very little difficulty. Honestly, I really liked NOTQUITERIGHT, and I thought most of the other theme answers were complete garbage.
Easy. Picked up on the theme right away. Liked it better than @Christopher and most of the commenters who preceded me. But I agree with @Christopher about the Big Ten. And "Civilized."
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
CInC (Copywriter-in-chief?) before CIRC for the 94D magazine fig.
SSw before SSE at 44A. I need to brush up on my Ohio geography.
At 56D, my chocolate was ReESE's before it was RIESEN.
My counting rhymes always start with EENey, not EENIE.
AORTic before AORTAL at 95A.
WOEs:
Golfer Mark O'MEARA at 16D.
RIESEN chocolates (56D).
Jazz subgenre NEOBOP at 104D.
Essays of ELIA (105A).
Old or not, I like this kind of puzzle.đđđđ
Chris pretty much nails this one. I can overlook musty fill occasionally if I’m taken by the theme or construct - but this one has none of it. Last Sunday we had the inane “dress for the job” theme and today this disjoint play. I know it must be hard to build large grid puzzles but I just can’t believe that these are the best submissions they get for Sundays.
WINONA
It became a themeless solve quickly - again I can’t see the helper circles solving on the app in dark mode - I don’t even try anymore. It is densely thematic - so the effort was there. Love seeing KESEY in the grid.
Holland, 1945
I’m not as bothered with the fill - although things like LEAPERS, JOWLY and especially OBTUSER don’t help matters. OPPRESS, LURID, TEA ROSE, CUT IN ON - there’s some solid stuff here - just not enough to carry the Sunday sized grid.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on CHOCTAW Ridge
It didn’t take long - made it through in a single across/down pass with a few stragglers. A bleak start to the solving week.
And don't forget WINONA,
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino
This was fine. As an AARP member, I don't mind if a puzzle is a little dated; in fact, too many new things (esp. popular culture) grate on me. The worst part of the puzzle for me was the western portion, where KENKESEY crossed with RIESEN and SENTA; and BELIKE, which (agree with @puzzlehoarder) was awful.
I've never seen or heard AORTAL (95A) used in medical practice. I had AORTIC in there for a long time, and finally figured out this wouldn't fit. I searched "AORTAL" on PubMed, which returned 1,414 results; I then searched "AORTIC" on PubMed, which returned a whopping 405,223 results. It looks like most journal articles using the term "aortal" come out of non-native English speaking countries.
Agree with Chris and most commenters: I had to brush away some cobwebs on this one. Also agreed: I couldn't see the circled letters in dark mode, particularly because I'm timing my solve and didn't want to waste time zooming in or otherwise peering closer to see them, so it was themeless and thus even more of a slog for me. Do better, NYT (which has multiple meanings).
when YPRES, INRE, and ETNA all crossed, I be like, “Alas, Ah Me,” this puzzle sucks.
Hey All !
Wanted to have the "oddly" Themers match the larger answers, to be "ironic", but only BARBARIANS-THINK PIECE fits the bill. Would've been neat to have had that as an extra Theme layer.
Liked this idea. Puz was good. Tough to get any sort of clean fill with the Theme running all over the grid. Disagree with Christopher on the fill. Every puz has junk, this one needed it because of the constraints.
NW and West-Center held me up a bit. Finished With Errors (FWE), having SeTATOP/eEC and NOTo/PSo. ALAS.
Neat puz, Mark. Any puz with JOWLY has to be good. đ
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
What kills me is the repeated appearance of AORTAL in these puzzles. In medicine (which, let’s be fair, is the only context in which most people use the word aorta) we never refer to anything relating to the aorta as aortAL… it’s always aortIC. Aortic arch. Aortic insufficiency. Aortic stenosis. Aortic occlusion catheter. Aortic balloon pump. The adjectival form of aorta is aortic, not aortal and I don’t care which wrong dictionary these puzzle creators are using as a reference. Heck, even Websters online redirects searches for aortal to the entry for aortic. Perhaps this is a common formulation outside the US? But the NYT typically uses standard American English spellings unless clued otherwise. /rant
I don’t think our guest host cared for this one very much, and my experience was very much in alignment with his. The whole time I was solving it I basically had two thoughts - “Why am I doing this?” and “When will this be over?”. I guess if you are a constructor and can appreciate the architecture, you might find it appealing. I stuck it out due to stubbornness and the hope that I might learn something that will come in handy in the future.
I was tempted to suggest that the constructor must have some type of sadistic trait in order to subject the solvers to something like this, but I won’t ascribe any ulterior motives and just assume that he was shooting for something special and challenging but missed the mark badly.
35:57 for me, so medium challenging. It was just tricky and slightly convoluted because for each of the themers if you wanted the benefit of a clue, you had to solve the paired themer with the circles first, then read the every-other-letter word and use that as the clue to the other entry. But then they were pretty indirect… right? ACUTE for NOTQUITERIGHT! A little geometry for us about triangles there…. How ‘bout “KNEE” for CHILDSUPPORT. I enjoyed this puzzle, the redirects and misdirects were great. My last square was the E in SENTA/KENKESEY. I started with A—if I had just looked at the circled letters in that one, it would have told me it was SENTA. YACHTS as clued was great, and NEOBOP was fun! AORTAL is not really used—AORTIC, yes, but not so much AORTAL. Overall, ***.5, thumbs up from me, thanks Mark!
I get the same tired speech from my otolaryngologist about my bad habits every time I see him. Frankly, I'm tired of the ENTRAP.
The actress Berger's assistants: SENTA's little helpers.
Failing to fold the egg whites into the batter carefully is a STIRSIN.
The curious Spanish tot asked so many questions, his MAMA had no choice but to BANQUE.
So so bad. Could not believe as I was solving đ¤Ļđģ♀️
Quite fitting that 1A is ICK. An absolutely unpleasurable soup of PPP, trivia and utterly terrible fill. AH ME.
No, just no, to obtuser!!!
PHEW, NOTA THERAP YORE MAMA SANG, ALAS
What are the Oscar’s movies?! It’s a mad mad mad mad world?
It's not much better, but the international edition of NYT has the CHOCTAW clue as "Enemy of the Creek"
(deniz from thegirdleofmelian.blogspot.ca; google is giving me sign-in grief)
“a much smaller, non-positive number of things that I enjoyed”
So you enjoyed absolutely nothing (or, I guess, a negative number of things) about this puzzle?
Easy-Medium. I'm afraid I agree: there's a lot to dislike in this puzzle. I won't say it's HORrible, but its hair is completely gray. (Wait, SENTA who?) HOR reminds me of the horizontal and vertical controls of an old, definitely not HD, TV SET. You younger people will have no idea what I'm talking about! But the thought doth amuse. (And if you do remember those things, then this puzzle in many respects harks back to that time.)
AORTAL it had to be, in view of whatever those lords are doing (I put in LEAPing before LEAPERS -- GAH, what a crappy entry that is, one of a number today). Okay, here's a "fun" fact: if it's really true in the song that the true love gives 1 gift on day one, 1 + 2 gifts on day two, etc., then by the time the twelve days are done, that's 364 gifts in all: one for all but one day of the year. (That's the binomial coefficient "14 choose 3", if anyone out there GIVES A DARN.)
OBTUSER. Blech. BELIKE: whoa, jesus. URBS.
I suppose I have better things to do than itemize all of the 364 petty annoyances of this puzzle, so I guess I'll leave it there. Sorry, Mark Diehl: I have a feeling I've enjoyed some of your past creations -- I don't have good recall for such things, ALAS -- but this one just didn't do it for me.
who cares if some of the fill is "older"? why does that even matter. I liked the puzzle with the exception of OBTUSER. clunky. Had ReESEs before RIESEN also
Who are we to judge who is “civilized” when we allow such drivel as this puzzle’s fill to be inflicted on an unsuspecting public?
Me alegra que eso haya terminado.
OBTUSER puzzle top to bottom, but I did find the circled theme entries amusing. I agree with Christopher they might be backward with the clue, but alas, that nit was buried under the Sea of GAH.
Much to mock in this gem, so I'll try to find something positive. Yesterday's political discussion on the blog about a Nazi tattoo was a knee slapper, so that's good. But then of course this puzzle lays "civilized tribe" down. So, ugh.
Note to the slush pile editor: If 1A is ICH, it's an auto-reject. It's going to lead to EIN, and ACHT ... and OMEARA ... and LEAPERS. It's just not going to get better.
Well, STICKY PADS is way better. So there's that.
SWISHY and JOWLY are hilariously terrible.
People: 8
Places: 3
Products: 12
Partials: 18
Foreignisms: 10
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 51 of 138 (37%)
Funny Factor: 8 đ
Tee-Hee: TOOTIN'.
Uniclues:
1 A drawing of a horse next to a space alien in a cave in France.
2 We'll use the phrase "civilized tribe" to describe people we would ordinarily abuse.
3 Ban Shrek kicking.
1 BARBARIAN'S THINK PIECE
2 NOT QUITE RIGHT BRO CODE
3 OPPRESS OGRE PUNTER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Lassos a goose. TIES UP HONK.
¯\_(ã)_/¯
BAD. 27:02
Musk: We project sales of our new produce-watering robot, MISTER MISTER, to be in the trillions by 2027.
Reporter: Is it Eco-friendly?
Musk: ECONO, friendly yes. Although it wasn't real affectionate until we began to STIRSIN into the programming.
Reporter: There are rumors going around that your claim of using 100% tin is untrue and that there is actually NOTA bit in the MISTER MISTER.
MUSK: There is TOOTIN! I SENTA sample to a representative of a prestigious university and the ACC ACCOUNTREP ACCEDED to us saying it's tin.
Reporter: How do I know YORE telling the truth.
Musk: Because ISAYSO.
Thanks, Mark Diehl.
And the NYT Magazine has it clued as [Native people of the Southeast]. Again, not much better.
So what's CIRC supposed to mean? I had to run the alphabet at ACC/CIRC, realize that I had a mistake somewhere and look for it (it was SeTATOP - whoops), and then run the alphabet again.
I liked the concept of the non-circled themers being punny, but there's not much else to like in a grid that's so full of theme stuff held together by a ton of crosswordese glue.
The puzzle WAS kind of easy and DID have some pretty old stuff…somehow knew SENTA Berger but at the same time thought…who would remember this person? Nonetheless, once into it, I found myself enjoying figuring out the “oddly” answers…haha…at one point I thought CHILDSUPPers?
And yes, OBTUSER should be retired permanently.
OH DANG, it's Mark Diehl again! His supervocalic puzzle (phrases with AEIOU) was just a few weeks ago.
Slower time than average. I didn't mind the fill but it does skew quite old. ELIA, AMONRA (sometimes AMeNRA), classic '90s crosswordese. The punny theme was great, enjoyed the puzzle overall. Thank you, Mark!
Thanks for confirming my gut feel re aortic.
I liked the theme. I'd have liked it better without the circles (I can count all right, and both the title and the clues tell me what I'm counting). And I liked the trickiness, although I still don't understand... oh, wait, NESTS are PADS made of STICKS! A stretch, but I'll take it.
But what's with all the German? Three German words, two of them clued as "in Austria" -- could at least have used different cities! Plus a German actress, a German brand of candy. I've probably missed a few, I'm betting.
Also GAH, with a clue that could have meant anything. And the PUNTER kicks the ball, as opposed to starting the kick. It took much too long to wade through all this. I think I'll go back to skipping Sundays.
Does anyone refer to a TV as a TV SET these days?
đ¤´đ:↩️đ
đĻ⬛đ¨đģ(đŽđ¤ˇđģ♂️)
Well, I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon of criticism for this puzzle. As an octogenarian it suited me just fine and I refuse to take the objection to age personally.. True, AORTAL is a bit of a clunker (that area of my heart has more than one repair) but LEAPERS made for an easy fix. At least so far no one has claimed it would have been easy without the circled letters tho I’m sure some members of this blog are capable. I felt this was a bit of a goofy puzzle with some whimsical clues/answers, and some lesser lights like BELIKE, OBTUSER, and SENTA, but then no one is perfect.
I really don't want to see Brocode again.
Quite awful. Describing it as a slog would be a compliment. In fact I just left it after being about 2/3 done. I would love to see
Sunday go themeless for, say, a 3 month trial period. How could it get any worse?
I chuckled aloud at STICKYPADS.
Actually, the "civilized nation" clue is an important reminder of American history. They were called "civilized" because they agreed to "settle down" in towns and begin farming They began writing in their own language and printed newspapers. They organized and petitioned the government. Unfortunately, they also became prosperous, especially when gold was found on their lands. So being "civilized" became the pretext for removal and seizure of their lands and property, again.
Ha, good one! I guess Mark Diehl just did. But yeah, TV SET conjures an image of rabbit ear antennas and cathode ray tubes and whatnot.
circulation
Sorry to say this was a total slog. Maybe had it run on another day (not a Sunday-sized grid) I might have liked it more - dunno - don't think so. It did 'lean older' but then again there were no Star Wars references & no Rap names (no offense to rap fans).
Sorry, Mark :(
Now I'm off to grudgingly find my typo (sigh) in a Sunday-sized grid for a puzzle I didn't enjoy.
BTW - don't I recall today's sit-in for Rex from another (not-so-popular) write-up???
After I finished and went back to parse the theme answers based on the odd circles, I was left with a "How do I feel about this?" feeling which indicates to me that I'm not very rah-rah about it but I don't hate it.
I didn't read the entire clue for CHOCTAW or I would have recoiled somewhat by the "civilized", as Christopher points out. I saw "tribe" and had a C and W in place. I think the editors saw the ickiness of the clue, trying to mitigate it with the "so-called" qualifier. Too bad, didn't work.
I had the hardest time coming up with a six-letter word for "Caressed" up at 17A. At one point I had fElTup there and was appalled but phew, it was PETTED. Still NOT QUITE RIGHT for "Caressed", in my opinion.
I liked the GIVES A DARN for PATCHES pair, THINK PIECE for BRAIN, STICKY PADS for NESTS and NOT QUITE RIGHT for ACUTE. LOW DIGIT and CHILD SUPPORT didn't click as well for me.
Mark Diehl, thanks for some ODDS for Kentucky Derby week.
That is fascinating! I think both are better than any mention of “civilized.”
TTST (thought the same thing)
"Slog" is the only word that came to mind. Ugh.
solid points regarding the puzzle overall, but this was my favourite note
solid points regarding the puzzle overall, but this was my favourite note
CIRCulation
If Rex can complain about Star Wars or OOH-RAH, then I am going to complain about ever needing to know college sports teams or athletic conferences. Also 90 year old german actresses. Also any Italian musical term (thankfully none of those here).
100% agree on the fact that the "odd letter" clues were useless. You basically had to get 70+% of the letters from crosses, figure out what word might fit, and then squint REAL HARD to see how you might get that from the clue. Like a lot of Sundays this meant the puzzle was essentially a bunch of tiresome short fill separated by unclued long answers that prevent you from getting a good flow. So the whole thing is a slog.
I got without the helper circles that there was a word hidden in the odd letters of a larger word/phrase almost instantly. But there was no way in hell I was ever going to get STICKY PADS from NESTS or GIVES A DARN from PATCHES. Even after getting the (essentially unclued) answers it took a long time for me to figure out what the relationship was.
From a cardiologist outside the US - agree 100%. Never ever heard "aortal."
Also, HDTVSET as a "man cave" fixture is a garbage answer. Almost all tvs sold in the US for the past two decades have been HD. Especially once the 2010 switch happened, almost no houses have "non-HD" tvs in their living rooms. Also, no one in the history of the world has called it that. You call it a TV. Maybe a TV SET. Maybe an HDTV. But for th emost part its just a TV. It has never been and will never be an HDTV SET.
This is a horrible answer with a horrible clue that just screams of someone patting themselves on the back for how devious and clever they are to put so many consonants together.
CIRCULATION?
I must be very lame. I thought it was ok. I sincerity doubt the double meaning of “oddly” used here has been done to death, if at all. Any Sunday NYT theme gimmick that hasn’t been done to death is ok by me.
The knee-slapper yesterday was your claim that people eating oysters on the half shell were eating dead oysterđđđ.
CIRCulation. The “fig.” in the clue indicates that it is to be abbreviated.
Rofl
I guess I'm so old I didn't recognize that the puzzle is dated. Anyway, I liked the theme, including the "backward" sort of relationship between the "clues" (in the circles) and the answers. As in, "What would be a tricky clue for KNEE?" Ah, how about CHILD SUPPORT?" I loved STICKY PADS and thought NOT QUITE RIGHT was very good, too. Speaking of being old, I appreciated that the clue for JOWLY referred to a mastiff.
Circulation
I’m not a big soccer fan, but I believe it refers to a goalkeeper who drops the ball and kicks it high and far, Ã la America football. It usually follows some sort of play stoppage. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I am can elaborate.
Circulation. Circ for short. Circulation numbers are calculated for the purpose of determining ad rates in print media.
SouthsideJohnny. I'm no expert either butI don't think I've ever heard the term "punt" in English football. I have to agree with @jberg that it's just bad. Why not clue it as Brit slang for a customer (usually an uninformed one).
Did not think anyone could be crankier than Rex but here he is.
keen reply
Yes, agree!
Solved as a themeless right from the beginning after seeing those annoying little circles.
So many comments here about "dated", "old", etc. Were classic puzzles silly games with little circles, shaded squares and such? No. These commenters are referring to clues they don't understand because they're too young.
what a day to head in to spinal surgery ! dear lewis did not have to summon kindness for this slog. wishing him well.
I had quite a bit of trouble with proper nouns in this puzzle (so it was tougher for me than for Chris and many others), but thank you, RooMonster, for pointing out this (BARBARIANS-THINK PIECE was the first theme answer I figured out, so I was expecting more!):
Wanted to have the "oddly" Themers match the larger answers, to be "ironic", but only BARBARIANS-THINK PIECE fits the bill. Would've been neat to have had that as an extra Theme layer.
My mum used to always tell me, "Lesley, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". I''ll try, mum, but it's really hard.
Oh, I just thought of something nice! The theme was actually quite clever. But I have to point out that, while THINK PIECE and CHILD SUPPORT are short phrases that occur in real life, STICKY PADS are NOT QUITE RIGHT. (I know what the constructor is trying to do; sticks and home/pad, but IRL, are there things we call STICKY PADS? Like Post-it notes? It's a big, awkward stretch.)
I guess I'm like this too. I find there is plenty to mock or complain about in the Spelling Bee, and yet, I continue to do this every day. Out of stubbornness, I guess. Not so much for the hope of learning anything new.
I didn't think it was great, but it was over in 20 minutes so that was okay. A few clusters of names, and several old ones: TASS OMEARA YPRES EZRA.
And of course, since on Friday we had ACC and I started to say how much I hate "college athletic org."s but I said because there was only one I would let it slide. So today we have two: ACC and TCU; don't know and don't care what they stand for.
Unknown Names: RIESEN SENTA ELIA. And for 98 down, it's lords LEAPING... not LEAPERS for heck's sake.
In weather news, it's summer here; forecast sunny and 28 C (82 F) with still not a drop of rain in sight. Total precipitation for the first 4 months of 2026: 17.6 mm (= 0.7"); which at this rate will give us approx. 2 inches for the whole year. Yikes!!
Yes. I had only the SW corner left, but the "Why am I wasting my time on this?" vibe won out.
“be like” — u slay me đš
@Anonymous 1:36 thanks for the brief comic relief.
I was pretty depressed by the time I struggled thought the write up.. I thought Rex had gotten cranky over the years, but this guy made him sound happy.
I did not realize until I read the write up, that the circle letters were every other letter in the words so did not catch the meaning in the title. But once I saw that the referral clues actually worked with the circled letters I thought it rather fun.
Chuckled at 40A "sticky pads" for the circled "nests".
I noticed an unusual slant toward the Germanic. Only fair since French and Italian are so common.
Bill. I really appreciated your post. I was quite taken aback by the Five Civilized Nations clue, too, and took some time to look into it. I also ended up looking into the definitions of civil, civilized, and their relation to the Latin word civis, from which they evolved.
The clue may have put a number of us "off", but it may have also got a number of us thinking. And that's not a bad thing.
One of the weird things my reading revealed was that part of their recognition as "civilized" was that they agreed to use black slaves on their properties. Not terribly unusual for indigenous groups in North America to have used slaves, but they were usually taken from conquered neighbours, not imported from another continent.
He wasn’t wrong tho
Can’t wait until someone tries to put HDTELEVISIONSET in a puzzle.
Something of a slog for me today, at 89 percent of my average Sunday time.
Most of my problems were in the NW, and I didn't really even start there. I had LIES for CONS, and I couldn't get REDDIT because I had the Alienware logo in my head. Also for 1 Across (First person, in Austria), I was trying to think of what Adam might be called in German. The clue for INS (They get the votes) was obscure. The thing that finally broke the logjam was remembering the Y in YPRES.
I started from cryptic crosswords, so I have a soft spot in my heart for this theme, even though I see the issues Christopher has with its execution here.
Other errors and snags: I spelled AMENRA first, meaning I couldn't get RIOTER, meaning in turn that I couldn't get ELIA.
BEAN crossing BRAIN (the odd letters in BARBARIAN), which then goes HORizontally to THINKPIECE—a little cute, that (though is it a dupe?).
This puzzle was REALLY bad. I absolutely hated it. The crosswordese was inescapable, the theme was 3/10 and the title was the revealer. No long answers were that interesting, either. Very very bad.
You’re mum sounds nice.
You sound insincere.
Yikes indeed on your weather! A friend of ours that lives on Kitsap Peninsula had his birthday today, and since he’s a golfer, I checked the weather. 71 and sunny. In my “eastern Midwest neck of the woods, which is usually warmer than Seattle (except in winter) the high is 61 today. I’m not a meteorologist but it seems like…the times, they are a changin’.
Ditto!
Well, the clue did include the caveat "so-called," so it does stop short of endorsing the term . . .
Haven't heard Wynton referred to as "neo bop" since the 1980s, and even then the term was often used at least semi-disparagingly.
I agree with both of you. Any time “the puzzle” allows me to learn something that I didn’t previously know…well…I LOVE it!
@Les S. More, for STICKY PADS I was envisioning the small, thin foam squares with adhesive on both sides - which I now see the Scotch brand calls mounting squares.
@Gary, with love…you may need to develop another “ly” list that starts with “hilariously terrible”…but…it would be confined to single “weird” answers…đ
@tht. You know from previous exchanges we've had that I am sort of math averse, but I loved your take on the Xmas song. Except for the "binomial coefficient "14 choose 3"", which might, to me, be some sort of Klingon code. (I don't understand space operas, either.)
Well, I tried to like it, but somewhere along the solve (maybe after the URBS encounter) I wrote in the margin “This is so bad.”
On the bright side, the puzzle give us CPR, a PSA and CHILDSUPPORT, so we HADHELP.
Two palindromes and a handful of semordnilaps, but only one over four letters: KNOWS/SWONK. I thought SWONK wasn’t a word but I liked it so I looked it up. SWONK actually was a word a long time ago - the past tense of swink - to toil or labor. Swink swank SWONK.
SATATOP/POTATAS came close but was NOT QUITE RIGHT.
Entertaining combinations:
IMAGINE NODRAMA BARBARIANS
MAMA BELIKE I SAY SO: INFANT ENTENTE
BRAIN NOTQUITERIGHT: SWISHY THINKPIECE
SASS TASS
LURID FILM
NEOBOP MUZAK
JOWLY OGRE SATATOP ETNA
MISTER SWISHY SANG AWRY
So even thought the solving experience scored in the LOWDIGITs there was plenty of fun to be had with the finished grid.
Mimi L
@Anonymous 12:21 PM
The exact moment of death is a bit of a philosophical conundrum for oysters and us all. Are they dead the minute they're born? Do they die when they're being scooped from their family and ancestral home? Are they deceased on arrival at the commercial foods warehouse after a bumpy plane ride from the ocean next to a crate of socks? Is it the end when a chef with an attitude problem, an uncontrolled ego, an alcohol and nicotine addiction, and one of those oyster knives cracks him open and says, "C'mere little buddy, won't you look nice on a fancy plate in our fancy lounge where they're playing fancy smooth jazz right at this minute?" Or, are they goners as their bodies dripping with horseradish slide over my obviously over-privileged gullet and down my esophagus and into the pit where I mixed whiskey, pizza, and multivitamins? That oyster was dead many times before his little neurons stopped firing. And for those of a carnivorous bent, it's convenient to imagine he was never alive any more than the radish. The question isn't when he died. The question is if he every truly lived.
Kinda like T.Rump claiming 600% reduction in drugs at T.Rump Rx (pronounced T.Rump "wrecks"). RFKook even TESTIFIED there are several ways to figure percentages, go figure!!!
Is everyone ok with NYT games going up to $50 for SUBSCRIBERS? I print the puzzle (or rather my wife does) and we SUBSCRIBE!!! Can't even get recipes without additional fees, now games nearly doubles. BTW, Wordle, Connections and Strands each work on my phone, don't tell anyone!!!
Because the constructor preferred domething else.
Yawn. My goodness, take the loss.
Or eat the dead oysters and get sick.
love the construction the fill was awful and Choctaw was the most insulting demeaning disprectful clue I've ever seen
So much to complain about but I feel comfortable saying that in 2026, allowing Choctaw to be clued that way deserves an official retirement party for Will.
By some measurements they are the third largest surviving tribe in what is now the US - the idea that there is no other information you can use the platform for, other than the fact they were "compliant enough" with genocide is disgusting. Not that the NYT has been doing anything to suggest they are against genocide these days I suppose.
12 themers -- that's quite a haul, even for a SunPuz.
Puztheme is fine, but the ahar moment kinda got 86-ed, by includin them Circles. Shoot, the title alone sorta gives a theme-revealin reinforcer.
The Seashells have nuthin in the fillins to 86 today. Not a lot of extra-long fillins today, as the themers used up mosta that ballpark.
staff weeject pick: SSE = {Sasses, oddly??}.
Thanx for the long odds deal, Mr. Diehl dude.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I learned "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" from Bambi, but my favorite variation is Alice Roosevelt Longworth's instruction to dinner party guests--"If you can't say anything nice, come sit next to me".
I usually hate when commenters play with the puzzle answers, but these are clever!
Best Picture winners with titles containing more than six words:
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Why were the letters referred to as odd?Aside from being circled
Not going full Nancy on this one but I have to say that between the circles and the cross-referencing and the tiny numbers in my print out, this was not my favorite Sunday ever. Eventually found some better reading glasses but they did not improve much of the fill, sadly.
So it skews old? So do I. Thinking about the HOT button had my picturing my father fiddling with the Brightness and Contrast buttons, trying to find the perfect balance on our black-and-white set, which got exactly three channels. Somehow we survived. Also meant I knew SENTA instantly, only person I have ever heard of named SENTA. so hard to forget.
But today's Hall of Fame Classic Crossword Answer has to be ELIA. Where in the world have you been, old friend? Welcome back.
I appreciate the effort involved in finding the odd-letter gimmick, MD, but I'm afraid that for me this was a Garden of Minimal Delights. Thanks for some fun at least.
-
Well, other than the answers that didn’t exist at the time this certainly played like a Sunday from maybe 40-50 years ago, and today’s solve failed to bring much sparkle or energy. It’s the type of grid with circles that I find unappealing in the extreme. The “oh look, an answer that has nothing to do with the one to which the clue refers (why oddly?) has circles,” in my opinion makes the grid less cohesive. Since I’ve been at this for over 60 years, the solve felt just like old times. No surprises.
Great job filling the grid, and the theme is absolutely a type that the editors have approved for a very long time. But I always hope for humor, clever clues and a really solid trick or two in a puzzle that’s going to take two or more cups of coffee to solve. Mark Diehl’s work is usually snappier than this. Hmmmmmm, on to Monday.
@Beezer 3:14 PM
I forgot to recognize @DAVinHOP on Friday for adding "overly easy" to the -LY EASY Hall of Fame. I probably won't start a -LY TERRIBLE Hall of Fame, but by coincidence, we also have a nice "utterly terrible" today, and we have an Anonymouse worrying about SchrÃļdinger's oyster. Can I suggest we wallow in hilariously terribleness for awhile. I've seen us do it many times here.
@David - both of your posts are spot on. Definitely a “look how smart I am” puzzle by the constructor which pretty much every experienced solver here has panned.
Count your blessings with “civilized.” Imagine how he could have clued “swishy.”
I came in 20 seconds shy of twenty minutes; may be my best Sunday time yet. Wish I had enjoyed it more.
So, so bad.
I would be happy to never again see a puzzle with circled letters. They’re like eating a fish that’s supposed to be a filet but it’s full of tiny stupid bones.
@Les. Of course you know that I included that bit about binomial coefficients especially for you! JK
It's a pretty daft take, admittedly. The true love would have to be living an eternal now, where she forgets she had already given a partridge on each of the previous days, and two turtle doves on each previous day except the first, etc. Sweet gal, she means well, but she's a bit much to handle.
The games may be the only way the times pays for publication. No one READS the paper.
Would 89% of your average time mean faster than usual? But still a slog? Due to the content?
Son Volt
Thanks for linking to Ode to Billie Joe.
I liked the song when it came out as a hit , but I didn’t give the song the attention it deserved. Since I realized how brilliant it is.
The 'civilized Tribe' clue was not in the print edition. Someone probably points this out later, but I'm just getting to this. The clue is 'Native people of the Southeast.'
Colin
Obviously, the constructor searched for a variant when AORTic didn’t work.To be fair, that often happens in crosswords. Also on line dictionaries do ATTEST to use in the US. That to me justifies using it. Medical journals and crosswords are 2 very different worlds.
CHILDSUPPers -- love it! Sounds like the plural of the evil witch in Hansel and Gretel.
Sinfonian.
From my understanding, most people do not use dark mode. So isn’t it unfair to criticize the Times for a problem caused by choosing it. Especially since users of dark mode are apparently aware of the fact it can obscure circles.
@okanaganer. 27 C down here on the coast, which Siri tells me is 80.6 F.
@Beezer. Your friend is lucky. 71 F sounds like good golfing weather. I wonder why it's 10 degrees hotter up here, 2 and half hours north of him.* Yesterday was about the same. I tried to get out and remove, with pick and shovel, some smallish, unwanted alder trees (3 to 12 feet high, growing on the septic field) and had to quit after about an hour. Dizzy, almost falling over with each swing of the pick. If this is the new reality, I might have to become one of those "morning people" I've heard about. I hear it's pretty cool before breakfast and the puzzle.
* Might be that he is closer to the ocean. I'm about 25 - 30 miles in.
The print edition on the left coast clued CHOCTAW as "Native people of the Southeast". Not insulting at all.
@Les, right now, 5:41pm Pacific Time: 32 c (89 F) in Pemberton. May 3rd!
Definitely in the minority today. I liked the theme and thought the puzzle was okay overall. Since I am a very slow solver, my time is always quite long. But I get really into all the crosswords so they are never a slog for me, including this one.
This puzzle does have the added construction difficulty of requiring the squares with circles in spell out a word. which is than similar in meaning to a paired answer. That was something new to me and as M & A says new is good! And quite intricate. Apparently, this difficult gimmick required a lot of crosswordese. But it didn’t bother me. I am old so the puzzle skewing old didn’t bother me either.
Some criticized “leapers” Often we get criticism when the answer doesn’t quite match the clue grammatically but here the clue didn’t ask what the lords were doing, , so leaping is incorrect ( though very few if any would have noticed) . Of course it is a trick, which I fell for.
Interesting discussion about the changed clue for Choctaw. Apparently most here who commented about it felt “so-called” was insufficient. White Americans of course came up with the term civilized tribes, in their minds as a compliment! What they obviously meant, the most like us of the “Indians”. But of course as some commenters noted, these nations were very successful and owned very valuable land. That doomed them. What wasn’t mentioned was the primary reason for the land theft and illegal eviction was the expansion of the slavery based cotton economy. Which was in turn another giant step towards the Civil War. So this theft and eviction was a major event in American history. It lead to the horrible forced march of these nations from the Southeast to what is now Oklahoma, in which thousands died it lead to a huge profit increase among plantation owners ( along with greater profits for the financiers centered in New York)and increased suffering among the enslaved people
The term civilized tribes was one of many racist terms that entered American history books, but it is tied together with the whole sordid story And so the thought occurred to me as Beezer said, it is important to remember it.
I've been in the Jazz community for many years and I have never heard of Neobop. I'd be surprised if Wynton knows what it is.
WOW Thank heavens for Live Prof with his fun play with some of the answers, and a few other who had sorting upbeat to say. I was shocked by the consistent hate for this puzzle. I found it at least average in enjoyment.
And to whomever it was who dissed "swishy" Taffeta is indeed swishy. And fun sounding word.
Choctow was the 'last straw' for me as well - I almost couldn't believe the times made a clue this insenstive and insulting
Did not feel dated to me, but I still did not enjoy it. Very choppy grid with a zillion 3/4/5 entries, dull cluing, dull theme.
I hated this puzzle. Nests and sticky pads? WTF?
the onus falls on NYT product & dev team to make app features usable…
Punts are not kicks that start anything. One of my least favorite puzzles in years. Just bad all around.
I came here for a sanity check on how bad this puzzle was. I’m both sad and glad to see it wasn’t just me. More than 3K NYT puzzles completed - this one may be the first I’ve truly hated. The peasants did not rejoice.
URBS produced an audible FFS from me.
ditto
Call me old-fashioned, then, but I liked this puzzle.... it was workable with no naticks, and that, my friends, is the current bar. for NYT puzzles. Special honors to "blue-blood vessel" - - almost by itself worth the price of admission!
Me too. The whole thing worth it for this one entry
For me this puzzle was touched by genius. I don’t care if it takes 20 or 30 “substandard” fill to allow a masterpiece like this to come into existence (this one through Mark Diehl).
Has anyone else commented how the puzzle exists on two levels?
I solve on a page in pen on a clipboard, and this one’s smooth moving parts and creativity transcended the page and tickled my comic soul.
For me the puzzle was an enjoyably difficult challenge, very fulfilling to complete. When I finished and read the theme pairs, I saw that in the 6 clues that started out as fill,
“oddly?” was working on two levels:
1 — Oddly, since the odd numbered letters become the clue for its partner.
2 — Oddly as a synonym for “?”
You see, if instead of a “?”, clues of this nature were followed by “(oddly)”, they would serve the same purpose, such as:
Nests (oddly): STICKYPADS
I found all six theme clue pairs to be uniformly clever and apt. They run 23, 20, 20, 20, 20, 23 letters, a lot of in play. That’s 126 theme letters, Merle territory.
Now, as far as crosswordese and other deficiencies that Chris led with and many posters seem to be attracted to, I say they are not seeing the woodland for the firs and yews.
One poster was an actually complaining about fill actually being clues, like that was a bad thing rather than a key theme element.
BTW, I see crosswordese and such as the cement that holds puzzles together. To me they are old friends doing their job. (“Hello ORSO, nice to see you.”)
Some great puzzles require more empty calories than others to give them life.
No one has commented on the different clues for 93 down. The print version asks for “native people of the Southeast”. So if you are offended by the online version, get out your pencil and do it in the actual newspaper. Also, I have been doing the NYT puzzles for over 65 years now so any “dated” clues make me pretty happy. I thought this puzzle was pretty clever except for some iffy fill.
I check this site when I’m missing an answer. But must admit I get a kick out of how seriously some solvers take the puzzles. Always feel bad for the creator who gets raked over the coals. It’s only a puzzle!
As always, thanks for the Neutral Milk Hotel link
I don't think this puzzle constructor tried and failed to use clean, modern fill; he's been making NYT puzzles since 1984, and I bet he sees this is as standard fill (and Shortz "grandfathers" the older constructors, allowing fill that newer constructors can't get away with--frustrating as an aspiring constructor, but I get it). If anybody wants a challenge, I imagine it would be possible to use these same 12 themers (perhaps in a different order, a different grid, or both) and fill it with much better fill.
đ¤Ŗđ¤Ŗđ¤Ŗđ¤Ŗ
I try really hard to be considerate, not yuck ppls yums or complain about things others do for me (like make puzzles) but Man what a Sunday Stinker! lololol
"Damn" wouldn't have worked in the context of "patch"
Post a Comment