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Audio genre designed to trigger tingling, for short / MON 7-20-26 / 32-card card game / Car in "Thelma & Louise," informally / Someone who's not thinking may be on this / Important consideration for A.I. programmers / Counterpart of dahs, in Morse code
Monday, July 20, 2026
Constructor: Eric Rolfing
Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- LIGHT SWITCH (in the dark) (17A: On/off device)
- SCRABBLE TILE (in ... the bag? is it a bag that you draw tiles out of? I do not care for that game) (yes, it's a bag) (27A: One with Q or Z is worth 10 points)
- POCKET CHANGE (in your pockets) (46A: Cause of some rescreenings in an airport)
Skat (German pronunciation: [ˈskaːt]), historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the ace–ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games." The German Skat Association assesses that it is played by around 25 million Germans – more than play football. [...] The pack consists of 32 cards. Many modern packs use the French pack consisting of an ace (Ass), king (König), queen (Dame), jack (Bube), 10, 9, 8 and 7 in all four suits (clubs ♣, spades ♠, hearts ♥ and diamonds ♦). Some players in Eastern and Southern Germany and Austria prefer traditional German packs with suits of acorns, leaves
, hearts
and bells
, and card values of deuce (Daus), king (König), Ober, Unter, 10, 9, 8, and 7 in all four suits. Until recently in Saxony and Thuringia, for example, German-suited packs were used almost exclusively. By contrast, regions of the former West Germany had adopted a French-suited pack. (wikipedia)
• • •
OK we're back. This theme is pleasingly silly. It's probably more accurate to say you "fumble" for the light switch (in the dark) or change (in your pocket), but then Chaka Khan didn't sing "I FUMBLE FOR YOU," did she?
Speaking of fumbling, I fumbled a bit trying to finish this puzzle Downs-only. I put Thelma & Louise in a CHEVY, for starters (2D: Car in "Thelma & Louise," informally = T-BIRD). I also balked at ATHEISM since the "no more" part didn't really make sense. You might become an atheist after having been some kind of theist, but the rejection of prior faith is not an inherent part of ATHEISM. If you disavow previously avowed principles, technically you're an apostate, although in that case you've often left one religion for another. Anyway, this is all to say that I tried to make APOSTASY work (wouldn't fit). This is the kind of mistake you make when you read Milton every semester.
So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep despare: (Paradise Lost, I.126-27)
The idea that ETHICS is an important consideration for A.I. programmers made me laugh. Since when? If the clue had said it "should be" an important consideration, sure, OK, but come on, who are you kidding, clue? (47D: Important consideration for A.I. programmers). I had some trouble with another e-clue as well: 11D: What search engine optimization hopes to increase (PAGE VIEWS). I wanted something like WEB TRAFFIC or SITE TRAFFIC and needed many crosses to realize what roughly synonymous phrase they were using today. Totally forgot my Morse code (which I've never actually known) and thought they were not DITS and dahs but DATS and dahs (8D: Counterpart of dahs, in Morse code). Couldn't remember if SKAT was spelled with a "C" or a "K" (yesterday's ELEKTRA problem all over again) (42D: 32-card card game). I spelled Salma HAYEK's name HAYAK. I think the Salma-not-Selma part of her name makes me want to make the "E" in her last name an "A" as well. I need a mnemonic. Salma HAYEK is ... not a yak. That is demonstrable. Maybe that will set me straight.
One last thing—I really thought the phrase was "no fuss no MUSS," not the reverse (58D: "No ___, no fuss!"). If you look it up, it seems dictionaries tend to favor the MUSS-first version, but not all of them. It's fuss/MUSS chaos out there, actually. The fuss/MUSS Wild West, people just ordering them willy-nilly, as the mood strikes them. I should stop writing now, as I'm starting to notice all this puzzle's EKES and DEKEs (and ETAS and LOCs and ASSNs and EEGs etc.) and I want to remember only the groovy weird theme and solid Downs. And Chaka Khan, of course.
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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61 comments:
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Slice of Life or nick of Time? (5)(3)
2. They typically come in sets of four (4)
3. "What on earth WILL you show some respect for?" (2)(7)(6)
4. Overtook? (7)
5. What might add a bit of flavor to a salsa? (5)
PAPER CUT
PAWS
IS NOTHING SACRED
HOARDED
BONGO
My favorite encore clues from last week:
[Does as a group?] (4)
[You're doing it every day] (5)
DEER
AGING
As a multigenerational atheist, I too was taken aback by the “no more” part in the clue for ATHEISM. Then again, I was also taken aback by the assumption that faith is somehow exclusive to a deity. Wasn’t going to say anything about it but was quite pleased to see you point it out.
Nice Monday puzzle. Good to solve a crossword again instead of an architectural maze.
I had already uncovered the theme answers, and when I revealed I FEEL FOR YOU, then looked at LIGHT SWITCH, it was a big “Huh?”, and then came a big “Oh!”, when I realized, “Ah, when it’s dark!” And I actually pictured feeling for a light switch in a dark room.
I made a similar leap when I went from picturing SCRABBLE TILEs on the game board to the ones in the bag. And I pictured feeling for them in said bag; I even heard the sound made when the fingers jostle those in-bag tiles.
How often do puzzles draw in the imagination like that? That made this puzzle a cut above for me.
Adding serendipitous spice were a trio of palindromes (ALA, EKE, PUP), a profusion of double E’s (9!), and a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (STRAW).
A sweet experience all around, a lovely wake-up for the week ahead. Thank you, Eric!
P.S. -- Amazed that LIGHT SWITCH, SCRABBLE TILE, and I FEEL FOR YOU have never been in a Times puzzle before.
A brisk, fun Monday puzzle. Kinda challenging for downs-mostly solvers.
That Chaka Khan video is a perfect time capsule of its cultural moment, utterly charming today.
I love that Jackie Wilson song but don’t understand its relevance to today’s post. Anyone?
And Rex, if Scrabble is not your game, may I recommend the speed variant Mrs. Freude and I play? Simply increase the number of tiles on your rack from seven to nine. Skill and strategy still required, but the words are much more interesting and the game lasts the duration of one cocktail and a good jazz album.
Somehow I love "Agricultural locale" as a clue for FARM. I mean, it's ridiculous, but beautiful in its absurdity. If I can ever figure out how to work it into a conversation I think I will do so.
I played Scrabble a fair amount back in the 50s and 60s, but moved away from it after that. Memory is funny, but I'm pretty sure there was no bag involved--we just spread out all the tiles face down on the table, moved them around so we wouldn't remember which was which, and just picked them from that pool. Everyone I ever played with did it that way, not just my family. So I guess the game must have changed at some point. Anyway, remembering it the way I did made it not fit the theme; I had to read Wordplay to understand it. (I just checked the Wikipedia article on Scrabble, and it doesn't mention the bagless version, so maybe I'm imagining it?)
Now that I understand the theme, I like it. Nice long downs, too.
“HAYAK & HAYEK! (HAYEK!)” 🎵
Brilliant!
Cute early week puzzle - I like the recent concerted effort to tweak the complexity of Monday’s. Neatly themed and well filled for the most part - although the shorts really show themselves.
Depeche Mode
AUTOPILOT, SPACE RACE, CHAMELEON - all top notch stuff. Rex summarizes the fill nicely. I think the ATHEISM play was primarily off the band Faith No More and wasn’t demanding previous belief. GROVE and FARM work together well. Little side-eye to the PEP - PUP pair.
Modest Mouse
I liked it - enjoyable Monday morning solve.
Blue canary in the outlet by the LIGHT SWITCH
Wow, fun World Cup, fun puzzle, and fun Rex. Life is good. Was amazed at how the Spanish players caught the ball with upraised toes almost like catching with a hand.
Hey All !
Technically, you can't feel a SCRABBLE TILE letter, they are smooth to not allow cheating, I.e. hand picking tiles that would benefit you. Maybe early versions of the game had etched letters, but no more.
That aside, interesting Theme idea. Another Themer could've been ANYTHING IN A WOMANS PURSE.
Nice grid design. Some Long Downs thrown in to make it interesting. Nice gathering of F's in the South.
Is SPOUSES a Themer? Technically you can FEEL FOR them in the dark under the covers if you're romantic. (You can take "romantic" how you want. 😁)
Hope y'all have a great Monday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Correcting an oversight on behalf of my younger self: https://youtu.be/ZG_k5CSYKhg?is=eK9LnkQXZNwjzcgB. I mean, they're no Chaka Khan, granted, but still.
Somewhat harder than a regular Monday but I liked it a lot.🎈🎈🎊🎊
My neurologist, Dr. Ricardo Benedict, was so quick to order electroencephalograms for his patients that he was known around the office as EEGs Benedict.
A study came out on America's obesity problem. It was a fat tome with the title: GIRTH Of A Nation.
Old song by The Byrds: TERN, TERN, TERN.
When Sukh (a name that means peace in Sanskrit) came back from his arduous religious pilgrimage, he was ill and so sore that all he wanted to do was sit in a hot bath for hours. So he put out the word: Sick Sikh Sukh SEEKs soak.
Rex needs to write more columns while he’s trashed. They have a certain “ je ne sais quoi” about them.
My initial thought was something like “ad revenue” for the SEO clue. The theme was kind of loose today, but harmless which is fine. Similar to medicine, the first principle of theme construction should be “do no harm” (except on Thursdays, which can be pretty much Wild West Day sometimes). There just doesn’t seem to be much of a connection between “I FEEL FOR YOU” and SCRABBLE TILES for example. When I need a SCRABBLE TILE, I just pick one up (unless I suppose someone flicked the LIGHT SWITCH and we are playing in the dark).
I know very little about soccer, but I think it would have been a real blemish on the sport if Argentina had won the World Cup without having even one shot on goal in the final. One thing I did learn about professional soccer is that it is pretty much unwatchable for the same reason that the NBA and WNBA are - the players basically have to murder someone to incur a penalty. I really don’t understand why professional sports embrace the “no body bag, no foul” mentality.
Loved @Rex's write-up today. His writing is so good that I started to feel a bit tipsy myself when he described his difficulty with the cluing of AUTOPILOT🍹😊
I also loved the theme today. Quirky, fun, and aha moment producing. Like @Lewis, my imagination triggered all those same moments, choosing a SCRABBLETILE, searching for the LIGHTSWITCH, and hoping to find a bit of POCKETCHANGE.
My wife is a huge scrabble fan, I am decidedly not. This causes much grumbling between us as when I do concede to play with her, I kinda make her feel bad about it. So... @Andy Freude - what a brilliant idea! Your iterations would make the game somewhat north of tolerable for me! I'm going to suggest it and report back! You may have changed a life today!😊
This started out Monday easy but got a bit crunchier than most Mondays mid solve. All the long downs are quite nice but they didn't come Monday level easy for me. PAGEVIEWS is not a term that is front of brain for me and AUTOPILOT took some crosses. I also left in *foggy* (a recent entry) for the correct PEATY for far too long.
Yes, plenty of short stuff but the theme was so cute I didn't even notice it. But I'll never, ever...ever remember a Tolkien anything, so I always need some help with that kind of fill.
I like how TERN and HEAD are side by side along with the PITY and PEATY pair.
Eric, you gave us a very cool theme, great themers and a revealer that landed beautifully! Thanks for the great start to the week!
And now on to Hugh's Monday Haiku(s):
TBIRD nears a TREE
DRIVER on AUTOPILOT
Almost bought the FARM
ASMR Rogers,
A SAGE to the TOTS has said,
IFEELFORYOU, friend
@Andy Freude - brilliant Scrabble idea! I mention in my comments how this may save my marriage!!😊
Our variant is "Triple Dirty Word Scrabble" - anywhere on the board.
Headline from the Salem Gazette, October 4, 1692:
Judge LIGHTSWITCH on Fire
I'm so good at using spacers that some call me the SPACERACE.
Seems only fitting that the Byrds had a hit with TERN! TERN! TERN! Now that I think about it maybe that's the TBIRD that her Daddy took away. Like, who could have fun, fun, fun if their father confiscated their TERN?
She probably needed it for games and complained , "Daddy, it's my TERN to FEELFOR SCRABBLETILES."
What's the first thing a toddler does on a golf course?
TEETHE ball up.
ASMR Parker says, this was a weirdly fun puzzle. Nice Monday, Eric Rolfing.
Looks like we felt one bad TERN pun deserves another. Mine was surely a TERN for the worse. (I'll stop now before it becomes a TERN off.)
Es una lástima, la verdad.
Here's some other things worth groping around in the dark for...
...just kidding, please use your imagination.
I'm going G-rated as Google has been preventing me from getting some of my spicier messages through to 🦖 lately. Maybe the AI robot has too much ETHICS. Actually, it appears ETHICS are an important NON consideration for AI programmers. They've all watched Terminator and they're still proceeding anyway. I guess we learned nothing from the Black Plague or the Spanish Flu, so what's a harmless bit of data gathering from every keystroke you've ever made gonna matter?
I'm one of the people ASMR works on. Feels like the hair on the top of my head is tingling. It's quite peaceful. Many of its practitioners on YouTube are 20-something women in tank tops, the core demographic of everything on YouTube. I've clicked on nothing except lute and classical guitar videos for the last five years and even still my paid ad-free YouTube front page is still filled with cheerleaders jumping rope.
I don't recommend measuring around the middle. GIRTH news never seems positive. On the other hand, I heartily recommend a life on AUTOPILOT as it avoids so much unnecessary reasoning.
Put in UTES for Young 'uns and was sad to yank it out.
❤️ SPACE RACE.
People: 6
Places: 0
Products: 5
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 19 of 76 (25%)
Funny Factor: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: I FEEL FOR YOU. BIKINI.
Uniclues:
1 Why the ambulance is meeting you at the bottom of a ravine.
2 When astronauts take ecstasy.
3 Ask 🦖 to join the staff, again.
4 Food fight.
1 T-BIRD AUTOPILOT
2 SPACE RACE RAGER (~)
3 REHIRE ODD SAGE (~)
4 TOTS SET FREE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Jersey zhuzhing locale. DAIRY FARM BARBERSHOP.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another puzz when Guess The Revealer was beyond me, but I liked it very much. My only objection would be to POCKETCHANGE. I never have change in my pockets any more, ergo, neither does anyone else, so it no longer exists.
Technical DNF as I had ATHEIST--didn't read the clue carefully enough--and ASTR makes as much sense to me as ASMR, i.e., zero. Will I remember ASMR or what it stands for? Unlikely. Hand up for the HAYAK/HAYEK do-over.
The clue says "10___or less". Many supermarkets around here have corrected this to "10 ITEMS or fewer", but I live near a college town.
Nice Monday indeed, ER. Excellent Revealer which was a nice surprise, and thanks for all the fun.
I couldn't guess the revealer either, and when that happens, I uncover it one letter at a time beginning with the first letter, and because I read the clue for it today, I got it after uncovering the first two letters. Even though it wasn't a total win, it still felt good!
If my memory serves ME, there was no bag in the Scrabble game we had when I was a kid. As an adult, the Scrabble game DID have a bag, and it was nice to not have to turn all the tiles over and swish them around for good measure.
@Southside…I think the SCRABBLETILE is explained above…I.e. today people “feel for them” in a bag…But we are from the “no bag” days.
@Pablo, if you count that a DNF, (technical or otherwise) is it because you solved on paper? I also had ATHEIST but considered M. When I filled in last square the app said something wasn’t right, then immediately changed the T to M. I dunno. I guess upon reflection the clue really did indicate ISM instead of IST.
Very enjoyable Monday offering and it was a “medium” for ME working it with across and downs as my timer indicated my “average time.”
Thanks Rex for the Chaka Khan vids, which led me to listen also to Tell Me Something Good.
Rex, your “fumble v feel” made me think of what I’d like to think is one of my better habits…if I go to someone else’s home and enter a darkish bathroom, I use the back of my hand to locate the LIGHTSWITCH. Not for MY hygiene but to prevent my possible grubbiness from getting on the wall.
This went by very quickly, until I tried to guess the revealer without reading the clue. Couldn’t do it. I’ve only played Scrabble a handful of times very long ago and did not remember the bag part. Now it makes sense. (LIGHT SWITCH TERNs on.)
Scrabble can be fun but the games can get contentious. And you’re presumably playing with friends and family so there’s the potential for lingering hard feelings. It’s probably safer for casual players to only play with other casual players. Let the Scrabble Zealots have their own space.
I liked the extra interest SCRABBLETILE provided - it contains the charming CRABBLET, and it ends in the reverse of ELITE.
There was a fair amount of short fill, A LA ALA, but if you look you can see the corner-turning palindromes ALALA and PAGAP at the intersections of GALA/ALA and PAGEVIEWS/GAP.
Try saying PEATY PITY 3 times fast.
Etymonline says CHAMELEON comes from
Greek khamaileon, from khamai "on the ground" (also "dwarf"), + leon "lion”. Ha! Dwarf Earth Lion - that’s going to bring a smile every time I see one. Though I see them more often on a TREE, so maybe I'll go with just Dwarf Lion. More accurate, concise and still smile-inducing!
Almost forgot - I had the same response as @Rex to the ETHICS clue. One NYT headline today was “A.I Drones Are Coming. We Are Not Ready.” What a MUSS. It's a NEWERA all right.
I’ll SEEK a SEER or a SAGE some other time, right now I just want some PUP PEP GLEE.
Thanks for the distraction, Eric R!
Mimi L
Like @Roo, I think SPOUSES could be a theme answer - a different kind of FEEL, but it works in my opinion.
My old Scrabble game didn't have a bag in which you would FEEL for a tile - you had to turn them all upside down in the cover of the box and pick from there. After playing a few games with someone who had the bag version, I converted a Crown Royal bag to use in my game, much more convenient.
I created a mnemonic for ASMR the last time it came up in a grid - it appears I need a mnemonic for my mnemonic - couldn't come up with anything today.
Eric Rollfing, I found this theme very fun, thanks!
Slightly easier than medium for me.
No WOEs and RAvER before RAGER was it for costly erasures (although spelling CHAMELEON was an adventure in checking crosses).
Smooth grid with some nice long downs, liked it.m
Croce Solvers. - Croce’s Freestyle #1131 was a tale of two puzzles for me with an easy top half and a tough bottom. Good luck!
I spent most of the World Cup build-up (until semifinals) rooting for anyone who hadn’t won it before, so I wan’t sure who I was rooting for in the final. The vibes around me were somehow both pro-Messi and anti-Argentina, and since Spain definitely played the better game I was happy enough to see them win. I actually enjoyed the watching of the game, even if it was scoreless until the end, but I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t played enough soccer in high school to appreciate just how good they were.
The puzzle, on the other hand, was light and fun, so enjoyable in a different way. I knew the spelling of HAYEK easily since my Czech great-grandfather chose that spelling for Hájek when immigrating and my relatives who have that name are always frustrated with the language-and-pronunciation confusion it creates. Conversely, like @jae above I realized I didn’t know how to spell CHAMELEON and made a couple wrong turns there. Didn’t know MUSS, ASMR, RAGER, or LOC, so their respective areas on the grid caused me some brief problems. But overall a fun and peppy Monday.
Good stuff, with a couple of exceptions:
1. Our Scrabble game set has never had any kinda bag come with it. It is probably 45-50 years old, tho. Bags are more 21st-century technology, maybe?
2. ASMR. This no-know pup has had 4 appearances in the NYTPuz: 2 Saturdays and 2 Mondays. Both Monday puzs were by this here same Rollfing dude. Very uncomfortably deja-PEWIT-like. [shudder]
Anyhoo ... was torn and eventually went with ATHEIST/ASTR.
Stared ar LIGHTSWITCH & SCRABBLETILE for many a nanosecond, tryin to image what the puztheme was gonna be up to. No luck, even when later they chipped in some POCKETCHANGE. sooo ... nice ahar-but-huh moment, when IFEELFORYOU offered up its sympathies. M&A immediate reaction: Ewww -- feelin up one's tiles?
staff weeject picks: PEP/PUP.
Hi-lites not in the bag: CHAMELEON. AUTOPILOT. SPACERACE. Weird-ass ATHEISM/T ?-marker clue.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Rollfing dude. Good job, but better ASMR clue = {Messed up Mars landing??}.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
@Lewis--This is a good idea and I will try it (if I remember). Thanks.
@Beezer-I do solve on paper which means I don't see spiffy graphics or get any happy music, but it also means I don't worry about streaks or times.
I think the Scrabble bag entered the picture in the 60s or 70s. I too remember just laying all the tiles out and picking out seven. That was to my advantage because our family played so much that I memorized the back of the wooden tiles and could pick and choose. But then my dad found an old Crown Royal velvet bag (remember those?) that we just dumped the tiles into ... much easier but I lost my edge. ... I could still hold my own but no longer had that leg up.
@Lewis. Thanks for the cycles - from reading the Clues of the week. I particularly agee with you on "Slice of Life or nick of Time?" and the two encores.
I havne't read all the comments and I sort o f skimmed Rex's comments but not see the one objection I had. How does one "feel for" particular scrabble tiles?
Otherwise found the revealer apt and amusing
@Beezer. I'm not a big Scrabble fan and we only played occasionally in our house. I don't recall a bag. I looked it up to see when it was introduced and Google AI tells me it has been part of the equipment since 1948. So maybe we "no bag" folks just misplaced the thing.
@LorrieJJ. Yes, years ago Crown Royal was my preferred tipple and I still use those little bags to hold things like my beard trimmer and all its attachments together when I travel.
In the late 60s we used a Crown Royal whiskey bag.
@JonB3, I gotta give that variant a try!
Another house rule we like: if you draw three of a kind (more common in nine-tile speed Scrabble), you can opt to put one or two back in the bag and redraw. Helps wrap up the game by the last bars of “Flamenco Sketches.”
Really great book on competitive Scrabble: "Word Freak" by Stephen Fatsis. IMO far superior to any similar crossword books.
LIGHT SWITCH and SCRABBLE TILE are whatever, but I FEEL FOR YOU is a solid debut answer. I liked how the revealer was re-imagined here. I was solving Downs-only and I got LIGHT SWITCH and POCKET CHANGE before SCRABBLE TILE or the revealer, so I was pleased to find out that the theme was actually more interesting than my initial guess.
The Stumper once had [Does as well as others] for DEER. No question mark (it’s the Stumper), masterful misdirection.
Well this solve had a bizarre ending. As usual, I tried solving down clues only, and as usual there were a handful of them that I just couldn't get. A typical problem area was having SITE VIEWS for 11 down, which gave me these three acrosses: SCS, IHI, and TAP... huh? So I fixed that, but eventually running out of patience I clicked Reveal Incorrect Letters... at least I think I did...
But what happened is Across Lite started marking every single letter with a red triangle, each time popping up a dialog that said "The puzzle is complete!" and halting totally until I clicked OK. After doing this about 30 or 40 times, I shouted "good grief" (or something a little spicier) and went to Task Manager and forced a quit. Then reopened the file and... totally blank. So I clicked Reveal Complete Solution, and for the life of me can't see where I had any errors!
Plus, what is with the tricky answers on Monday lately? NEW ERA (as clued), RAGER, SKAT, ASMR (which I can never remember), and the sneaky clues like for ATHEISM. At 7 down, the only Cohen characters I could remember were BORAT (too long) and EDNA?... Dame Edna actually, and that was someone else. Yikes!
The Scrabble bag (or lack thereof)comments brought back many memories because everyone I knew used the Crown Royal velvet bag, seems that there were alot more of them around in my day and they were just perfect for that use.
Sorry, Stefan, not Stephen.
Only connection I see for Jackie Wilson is 15A: Elite
@Southside J, you make two good points. Rex's write-up was particularly humorous today; thanks for commenting and inferring a possible correlation with his inebriation.
Second is that Argentina winning yesterday's game (or "match" as I've been corrected for the WC duration) would have been a blemish. But for a different (maybe two) reason(s).
Interesting article in today's NYT about the poor sportsmanship on the Argentine squad. On top of that, the Argentine president is a close buddy of Trump, whereas "Spain is hopeless" and home to "bad people". The better team, thankfully, won.
I like to watch the competitive Scrabble games on YouTube. Some of you Spelling Bee masters would probably do well at a Scrabble tournament.
Roo
I asked a veterinarian whether killing shore birds for sport was an ethical pursuit. He replied, "TERN"S ABOUT FAIR PREY."
Oh yeah, just remembered another problem typeover: for "Lettuce unit" I had LEAF not HEAD, which gave me TLOR and SENFS... but I'm pretty sure I fixed that. ("Senf" is German for mustard; TLOR is *almost* believable as The Lord of Rings... but surely not.) It was last night; can't be sure.
Unusual Monday - I liked it a lot but didn’t understand the theme until I came here! I didn’t know ASMR or HAYEK but they emerged.
I enjoyed watching the masterful Spain team play - finally there was a ref who dealt with Argentina dirty tactics. I know nothing about football/soccer but I’m told Argentina is sometimes referred to as fifatina, and fifa means fix in for Argentina. So if someone has an alternative view I’d like to hear it. All high level sports are so dangerous they are a guilty pleasure to watch. I did FEEL FOR Messi.
LorrieJJ. Yes. For just that reason we had to paint the backs of all the tiles because there were a few with different colored wood. I can still see that light green color. So there was no bag before the 1970s.
When the tiles are in a bag, and you reach in to pick them.
The puzzle was a breeze — my fastest in a while.
Re Scrabble with or without a bag, I haven’t seen this mentioned yet. During the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, the six US diplomats hidden by Canada spent their time playing Scrabble. They played so many games with the same set that they learned to recognize individual tiles by the wood grain pattern on the back. Must have been in the pre-bag era.
The extremely limited SB vocabulary is problematic for competitive Scrabble. Plus, placement on the board is an important element in Scrabble.
This puzzle hit the sweet spot for me. It has balance. Rather than themer bloat, having three theme entries and a reveal leaves lots of room for some interesting fill, especially those four nine-Downs. Good stuff there, right?
I guess at the very end of the game you would FEEL FOR a single SCRABBLE TILE. We always just put them upside down in the box top. I think that method is preferable because it's easier to pick out the specific number of tiles you need after each play when you are looking at them rather than feeling for them.
I was surprised to read that Rex isn't a SCRABBLE player. Seems like there would be considerable overlap in the Venn diagram circles for crosswords and SCRABBLE.
I have a pretty good understanding of things neurobiological, having taught Physiological Psychology, later called Biopsychology, for many years. Never heard of ASMR until its recent appearance in the NYTXW. Sounds a little suspect to me. Sent me to cousin googs where I learned it was coined by an online forum participant who wiki describes as an author and football commentator. None of her three books are neurobiologically related. I think I would just call it "the tingles".
Ii remember playing Scrabble as a kid. in the Sixties. Don’t remember a bag being used, Crown Royal or otherwise. I didn’t even think of trying to ID the tiles if I had I might have been tempted…… I
Now, I don’t play much Scrabble. Usually when my extended family goes on a trip together. Somewhere along the way I must have run into the bag option. But I didn’t get the theme till I read Rex
I carry coins in my pocket maybe once or twice a week for the businesses which charge for credit cards. I found the puzzle fairly easy but some parts were tricky for a Monday. I remembered the A in ASMR. M I vaguely remembered so I got the cross right. Eventually I’ll remember all 4.
Good puzzle. Happy that most people liked it.
Had the good fortune to have the vowels in HAYEK in place before seeing the clue, so no guessowrk required.
This is, I think, the third time we've had ASMR in a puzzle an I still have no idea what it means. I really ought to look it up some day.
We watched the final in a little bar off of Route 33 near Elkton, Va. We had been hiking in Shenandoah and knew we could not get back to our hotel in time. Turned out to be a really nice place - welcoming and fun, with a few other soccer fans already in place when we got there. I think we were the only ones rooting for Argentina, but we all got along. And lets face it, Argentina sucked in that game. So glad we stopped in.
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