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Chinese instrument with two strings / SUN 7-5-26 / Folk religion akin to voodoo / Satirist Freberg / What has flatter feet? / Bygone N.Y.C. music venue with rhyming initials / Lingerie brand with a Slavic-sounding name / Longtime Tribeca restaurant where some say the Cosmopolitan was invented, with "the" / Product displays seen at entrances to store aisles / Jewish mysticism, in one spelling
Sunday, July 5, 2026
Constructor: Rich Katz
Relative difficulty: Very, very easy
THEME: "Boxed Sets" — familiar phrases are clued via "sets" of terms (listed inside the curly brackets that indicate mathematical sets) —the sequential arrangement of the terms in the sets indicates the phrases:
Theme answers:
- BABE IN THE WOODS (22A: {Elijah, Ruth, Natalie}) [BABE Ruth in [between] two WOODS]
- BEATS AROUND THE BUSH (28A: {Kerouac, Dubya, Ginsberg}) ["Beats" = Beat Generation writers]
- POWER BEHIND THE THRONE (41A: {WC, AC, DC}) [WC = water closet = toilet = "THRONE"]
- HONOR AMONG THIEVES (66A: {Bonnie, Oscar, Clyde}) ["Oscar" here is the Academy Award]
- TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE (88A: {Larry, Sue, Emma}) [Larry Bird, Sue Bird, Emma Stone]
- ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES (97A: {Cinnabon, Kool-Aid, Hi-C})
- DOWN IN THE DUMPS (113A: {Landfill, goose feathers, junkyard})
The Odeon is a restaurant in New York City. The restaurant opened in 1980, in space previously occupied by Towers Cafeteria. The restaurant was founded by Lynn Wagenknecht, Keith McNally, and Brian McNally. Wagenknecht continues to run the restaurant. Wagenknecht has characterized the restaurant as a brasserie. [...] The Odeon has been referred to as a "classic" New York City restaurant. In his 1989 review, Bryan Miller commented that the restaurant was already "called an institution" despite having been open for less than ten years. William Grimes referred to The Odeon as "ageless and definitively downtown" in a 2000 review of Village, a restaurant opened by former Odeon chef Stephen Lyle. Stephen Heyman, writing for Surface, described The Odeon and other restaurants operated by Keith McNally as gradually transitioning from a "forward operating bases of gentrification" to "important parts of the city's heritage". The restaurant has been credited with inspiring imitators hoping to mimic its ambience and success. // Scenes in Jay McInerney's novel Bright Lights, Big City take place at The Odeon, and the exterior was depicted on the book's first edition cover. McInerney has said that attorneys at his publishing house were concerned about depictions of drug use at the restaurant in the novel, so McInerney sought Keith McNally's permission to portray the restaurant in and on the book. McNally granted permission assuming the novel would not sell well. The exterior was also featured in the opening credits of Saturday Night Live. A celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of the novel's publication was held at the restaurant. // The Odeon is known for its celebrity clientele. Regulars at the restaurant have at points included Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Belushi, and Andy Warhol. Lena Dunham has a tattoo of the restaurant's sign. In addition to its popularity with celebrities, the restaurant was at one point popular among Wall Street quants. (wikipedia)
• • •
 |
| [19D: Bygone N.Y.C. music venue with rhyming initials] |
If I could chuck one part of this puzzle into the sea and then shoot it into the moon and then detonate it, it would be that NE corner. Everything from ERHU EBSEN ESPNU all the way through to the improbably singular E-SPORT. Not sure why that answer hits my ear so wrong in the singular, but it does. But the real dealbreaker up there is SAIDSHH. I have "OOF" written in the margins next to that answer. The term is SHUSHED. If you can have SAIDSHH in your puzzle, then you can have SAIDanything in your puzzle. Total garbage. There are other parts of the puzzle that are less than lovely (HAREMS BRAE APRS LAB RATS, for instance), but nothing can compete, uglinesswise, with that NE corner. I liked that the puzzle was cocktail curious. Or, in the case of Angel's SHARE, cocktail adjacent (1D: Angel's ___ (distiller's term for the whiskey that evaporates during aging)). I heard a whole podcast episode once with the inventor of the Cosmopolitan, but I forgot his name, and I most definitely forgot the name of the bar where he worked. I was happy to (re-)learn these facts, as well as learn various things about the ODEON in general (see Word of the Day, above), including the fact that it is depicted on the cover of the Vintage Contemporaries edition of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, a book I definitely owned at one point in my life: those Vintage Contemporaries were a real feat of design, the first imprint (besides maybe Penguin) that I remember being able to recognize at sight.
Bullets:
- 21A: Kind of costume that includes a round hat and kerchief (SAILOR) — such a weird clue for SAILOR. I was like "'kerchief,' wtf?" but yeah, I guess ... conventionally, you've got the kerchief around the neck:
- 25A: "___ it and rip it!" (aggressive golfer's mantra) ("GRIP") — ugh, golf lingo. There are different "mantras" based on how "aggressive" you are?
- 27A: Product displays seen at entrances to store aisles (END CAPS) — not sure why this term came to me so easily. Seems pretty ... technical. I did do inventory work (with a ten-key on my hip!) one summer in college, so maybe store display terminology soaked in somehow.
- 75A: 30-ounce Starbucks size (TRENTA) — these feel mythical. Never seen this size on an actual Starbucks menu. Then again, I go into Starbucks as seldom as possible. It's usually an airport-type situation.
- 16D: Lingerie brand with a Slavic-sounding name (OLGA) — almost went with OLAF, which is more Scandinavian than Slavic.
- 32D: What has flatter feet? (ODE) — the best clue of the day. Kind of a thinker ... in that I had to think about it for a bit before I understood it. An ODE is a poem of praise, i.e. a poem intended to "flatter," and poetry is (frequently) composed of metrical units called "feet" (like iambs, for instance). So ... ODEs have "feet" that "flatter" ... or "flatter feet." It's ... a little awkward, but I admire the ambition.
- 75D: They might be up in arms (TATS) — LOL wish this clue had appeared yesterday (in case you missed it, yesterday I revealed that while on vacation, I got my first tattoo—and (up) on my (left) arm, no less:
- 87D: Satirist Freberg (STAN) — I know who this is. Unfortunately, I thought his name was SAUL. Also, now that I think of it, I have him confused with the cartoonist Saul Steinberg. So ... yeah, I have no idea who STAN Freberg is. Let's see ... OK, here we go. Happy 5th of July!
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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103 comments:
Very Easy. Solved without reading the theme clues. Nice wordplay.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
For eroded at 49D I had ATE away before INTO.
KILOByte before KILOBITS at 121A.
WOEs:
Lingerie brand OLGA (16D).
Two-stringed instrument ERHU at 34D.
Folk religion OBEAH at 42D (although I should have remembered it from past crosswords).
Didn't know the NOE (92D)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - if I liked cryptics I would do the cryptic. Thursday and Friday were outstanding - yesterday was very good - regression was inevitable.
Let The Earth Bear Witness
Thanks for a great write-up this morning, Rex! Stan Freberg is hilarious! I grew up listening to him. Still enjoy those skits. I am the person who says "PINGME" all the time--"Hey, if you don't hear from me by, say, Tuesday, just ping me again, would you? Thanks". I thought the theme was really fun, especially @REX the POWERBEHIND THE THRONE one. Really nice theme. 5 days with no SW.... Forget LETT and spelled it LATT for a while, so I had to hunt around the grid for a while to find my mistake. So that made it easy-medium for me. Anyhow, great puzzle, I'd give it at least 3.5. Thanks, Rich, for a perfect Sunday grid!!!! : )
That Cathedral cover!
Easy it was indeed. Someone over there would have done well to STIFFEN the cluing just a bit; it was too straightforward all throughout the puzzle. I enjoyed figuring out the theme entries -- that's where the cleverness was concentrated.
TRENTA is not part of my vocabulary. I really can't be bothered with Starbucks lingo.
It was only yesterday I saw someone write "PING ME". The actual thing he said was "Don't worry about pinging me!", meaning in this case don't hesitate to ask if you need my assistance. I figure that's close enough to answer Rex's question. "PING ME when you're done" would also be plausible in this same context, where we're working on a paper together but asynchronously, so we're passing back and forth and alerting the other when work on a subsection is done for the moment.
Have a good day, everyone!
Two weeks in a row where the theme... and the puzzle overall... was incredibly easy and where you could fill in the themers before the fill. Disappointing.
{Chorus, orange, finish}
COLOR INSIDE THE LINES
Well, didn’t this just fit the bill perfectly.
It’s a holiday, I don’t want to grind too hard. I didn’t. Yet my brain got its quota of exercise.
It’s a holiday, I want to have fun, and I did as I guessed at the theme answers from their clues. I want to be kept in a good mood, and some of those answers made me smile, or even go “Hah!”.
This was not heavy and cumbersome. It was a guy with a good sense of humor throwing it into the box and saying, “Have a good time!”
And I did. Your puzzle, Rich, simply hit the spot. Oh, I would have loved it any Sunday, but I especially loved it today. Thank you!
A delight altogether. Easy fill, charming and whimsical theme, funny "grin" moments.
A fundamental property of mathematical sets is that the order of the elements doesn't matter -- {1, 2, 3} = {2, 1, 3} = ...-- so for me only two or maybe three of the theme entries worked in that sense. Arguably I'm being pedantic, but it bugged me.
I enjoyed this overall but agree it was pretty easy, like Monday easy. PINGME was OK, since I personally tell people to "ping" me when, but ESPORT (which I was pronouncing like "export"), ENDCAPS, and ERHU were... challenging. OTOH, Buddy EBSEN is a classic and a legend. Not only was he in "The Beverly Hillbillies", but remember "Breakfast at Tiffany's"? And the TV detective series "Barnaby Jones"?
I don't know if including both ODE and ODEON, and then BEATSAROUNDTHEBUSH and DRE ["Beats by ___" (audio brand)] would be considered sorta thematic vs a no-no...?
Of the themers, I agree that POWERBEHINDTHETHRONE was not quite there.
@Gary, from yesterday. (From our Dirty Old Man Dept.) "Just wear pants." Have you lost your mind?
******
Was Leda seduced by a gander?
No, ASWAN.
What Harris' hubby calls her during allergy season: KABALA
Latvian version of old Stones' hit: LETTs Spend the Night Together.
Have you decided on the party tonight?
IMAGO.
On SAIDSHH. My son worked in his college library one year, and when asked what his job was he'd say he was a shusher.
No Semisesquintennial theme? Another delicious opportunity like this won’t come around until the Tricentennial in 2076 when I’ll be long since gone.. C’mon constructors you’ve had years to work on this. 😞
I couldn’t make peace with the (lack of) the “boxed” component during the solve. I kept seeing the sets, and got the gist of the theme, but the fact that boxes seem to have had nothing to do with the grid but are the title of the puzzle created a dissonance that I couldn’t shake while solving. Strange how the human mind functions sometimes.
Back in my golfing days, I embraced John Daly’s preferred mantra (Tip it, Sip it, Grip it, Rip it). Other than that not much appealed to me (OBEAH comes quickly to mind), and even Rex called out the made up phrase today. I just couldn’t get over the math incongruity of including boxes with set notation, unless there is a component to the puzzle that I just flat out missed.
I agree with Rex’s “very, very easy,” but it was not an unpleasant solve. The things I didn’t know (TRENTA, END CAPS) came easily from crosses. ODE had a great clue. I don’t time myself, but wow, this didn’t take very long…
Very fun trying to figure out the themers. That's two really, really good puzzles in the last four days, which is a promising sign and a big upswing from the June doldrums.
Mostly very easy, but the NE corner was curiously difficult, not knowing OLGA or END CAPS and wanting something to do with chefs for the round hat and kerchief costume.
I know Stan Freberg as the voice of Pete Puma and all the voices in The Three Little Bops from Looney Tunes!
Hand up for ATE away. I also had ShuSHed before SAIDSHH.
Agree with you.🎈🎈🎊🎊
Just loved "honor among thieves". Thank you Rich for a clever and most enjoyable solve. And ref to a wonderful movie.
{Coliseum, Davis, Machu Picchu}
{Carton, Nicholson, Container}
{Hamlet, The Glass Menagerie, Sack}
answers below
I can't decide which team I like better. The LA Lakers or the LABRATS. Especially now that LeBron is done.
I once wrestled Sonny's ex and was able to PINCHER.
Beatles hit translated to Latvian: LETT itt bee.
What they call an overly dramatic lingerie model: ABRAHAM.
Fun and easy. Thanks, Rich Katz.
Love among the ruins
Jack in the boxes
Plays with fire
Smiled as I read the review, good to have you back, Rex! I did like the theme answers more than you, though.
Agree with the take on NE. Felt like just detouring around it, but eventually had to face it.Metaphor for work.
Great tattoo!!!
I only do Sunday puzzles to maintain my streak and am very happy when they'e fast and easy like today.
I thought the theme was clever and fun. ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES was the first themer I got, and it made me chuckle! I did find the puzzle pretty easy, but not so easy that I disliked it. Some of the fill was unfamiliar: ENDCAPS, ERHU, OBEAH, TRENTA, and also the phrase NOT ON A BET, which caused me to hesitate quite a bit. So I wouldn't call it "Monday easy."
Thanks for a fun ROMP, Rich Katz!
Where's the pleasure in solving without reading the theme clues? That's the fun part!
ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES makes the whole puzzle worthwhile. Love that "boxed set".
The NE corner was my hardest sector. That HH caused me to rethink those crosses multiple times, the gamer's pursuit I assumed would be a level to be reached, hence my toP that was in there for a while. No idea on the lingerie, and I really thought the 21A costume sounded like something a mime would wear. I ended up filling the NE somehow.
Anyway, Rich Katz, I admire your creativity on this puzzle, thanks!
SAYHI is borderline acceptable.
SAYAH is where it starts to look ridiculous.
SAYIDO is... already in "please remove from your wordlist" territory.
SAIDSHH is simply an abomination.
There was a corner worse than the NE corner, and that was the NW corner. *Bad* Natick in 1D and 19D -- not really a Natick because they don't cross, but having them immediately adjacent screwed up that whole corner for me. The rest was, yes, very easy. But placing an item from the argot of an obscure line of work next to a long-closed NYC boozery is just Not On, seems to me.
Probably too easy for most, but I loved it. Maybe because I frequented
The Odeon & CBGBs in my 'youth' so I appreciated the mention. Not too many WOES but there must be some b/c I'm off to find my typo. Thank you, Rich for a great Sunday & the walk down memory lane :)
I kind of wish the clue for ‘honor among thieves’ had been {Bonnie, Blackman, Clyde}
Enjoyed the easy Sunday with a fun theme. I’ll also point out that every theme answer is stellar on its own, a fun phrase that I’m happy to be reminded of in its own rite.
I wondered if the constructor is a reader of this blog with the clue on ELON. Rich avoided criticism for bringing Musk into the grid with a clue that mocked him (or at least mentioned bumper stickers that did). Well done.
I know any weekend puzzle in which I’m not reduced to a couple cheats will get labeled easy, and I made it through this one with only a few trouble spots. The crossing of ASWAN and ACCRA was a guess (no one mentioned it, so it must be crosswordese I haven’t learned yet), I needed every cross for OBEAH, and I don’t happen to know NOT ON A BET (briefly worried that it was going to be NOT ONe BiT, which would be a crime since KILOBITS was already in the puzzle), which crossed LETT which I also happened not to know. But all guesses ultimately hit gold, and I finished the puzzle happy.
LoneLoveLove your tattoo, Rex!!! --Great Lakes Gal, West Michigan
Agreed!
Yes, very easy, an uninterrupted whoosh.
Breezy, fun, very clever and genuinely amusing, liked it.
I had Gats, i.e. pistols, for "up in arms" 75D which gave me Grenta for a bucket of joe from Sbucks, seemed plausible given that they do not serve S, M, L or XL
I thought it was a treat - for me the right mix of witty and zany. After some uncertainty in parsing the first two theme phrases, I got on a ROLL, and saw the remaining ones with fewer and fewer and finally no crosses. Not that hard, I know, but still fun to know immediately that it was DOWN IN THE DUMPS. My favorite was ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES, with both "roll" and "punch" changing their meanings, and not relying on names..
@Liveprof 7:26 AM
❤️ Laughing! Turns out when you're managing young people, more pants is better.
41A struck me as the weakest theme answer because AC and DC are not “behind” WC.
I thought it was a fun romp and so what if it was kinda easy? I welcome that sometimes and I welcomed it today. 10/10
Rex, you look like you are ready to join a biker gang now or maybe even prison.
My wife and I took a mixology class once with a guy called Toby Cecchini who is generally credited with inventing the cosmo. Nice guy, he now runs / part owns / sometimes tends bar at the reopened Long Island bar in Brooklyn, just down the street from us.
The only section that offered any resistance was the NE corner. Initially all I could put in was ENDCAPS. SAIDSHH was the ugliest part of that ugly section but at least I felt like I was solving a puzzle for a little while.
Thursday we had CABALA today it's KABALA, 49D was the KEY to it all.
An entertaining theme but an uninspiring solve.
This is an absolute horrible excuse for a puzzle. A couple of cute long answers doesn’t excuse all the garbage fill (mostly 3 letter answers). And when is Rex going to call out the offensive use of “LAME.” Such a joke.
I loved this one a lot, the most fun I’ve had with a puzzle for years.
{Romeo, Rip, Juliet}
What’s the answer?
Entertainin but easy-ish puztheme. Didn't quite finish without doin "research", due to the OBEAH/KABALA nat-tick. Left it blank in my solution, to honor its feistiness.
staff weeject pick: ODE - Cool "flatter feet" clue.
Nice quad weeject stacks, NW & SE, btw.
fave thing by a mile: ELON clue. [M&A wouldn't accept a Tesler as a gift, even.]
honrable mention to: MUSHU's double-U-debut.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Katz dude. Nice job, thinkin up that puztheme.
Masked & Anonymo8Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I am pretty confident that I have never heard “NOT ON A BET” in my life.
I loved this one a lot. The most fun I’ve had with a Sunday in years.
{Romeo, Rip, Juliet}
I'll leave the answer to you.
Will cede your point, if grudgingly.
Yeah, def a bit shaky. I went with latt for Latvian so the equally improbable "not on a bat"!
@Anon 7:53, excellent point. Maybe two ways to rationalize this: The 4th was yesterday, although Saturdays are themeless. But the way our nation's history and operation is being corrupted makes me (anyway) less inspired to "celebrate America", certainly less than the bicentennial.
Torn between two lovers!
Three days in a row where an answer was in a clue!
Well you probably mean TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS but what you've got there is TEAR BETWEEN TWO LOVERS
Maybe i'm being too sensitive - but - i find those elon stickers very irritating, offensive really. The issue with elon isnt that he's "crazy" - its that hes one of the most powerful white supremacists of history, throwing around his wealth to further inequality, undermine environmental progress, and other super villain pursuits.... to try to excuse having a tesla with a little quip laundering musk's evil as "crazy" is imo worse than supporting him without the cute bumpersticker to begin with. If you bought a tesla before you knew who you were supporting and cant afford an alternative that's understandable - but don't downplay wicked as batty to make yourself feel better about it...
/rant over
Could not agree more. As its clued, NOT ONE BIT fits perfectly, but Hank Aaron's presence made that impossible
I completely agree, Lewis. This one really hit the spot today. Breezy, clever and fun.
@Chris Sims, ditto.
I can't believe you didn't react to the cinnamon roll in 97A.
@Anonymous, there's also the actor Rip Torn.
Typical Sunday, the theme is just okay but it was a slog, just so many answers to trudge through.
Hands up for SHUSHED. SAID SHH is really dumb.
And KILOBYTE before KILOBITS. 1 kilobyte = 8,000 bits so the singular is perfectly okay.
Some of the boxed sets gave me the best laughs out loud I've had in a long time.
DAV
What operation has been corrupted? For that matter, what history has been corrupted? How? By what or whom?
Not a bad Sunday solve - and I generally hate Sundays. But I had some fun with this one. Except in the NE corner, Not fun at all. I have never, as far as I know, pinged anyone. I know this pinging thing exists, I’ve just never had to use it. @tht talks about working on separate sections of a document and pinging each other to note changes. For most of two decades I worked on a system where we had live editing. The writer would submit a story, the editor would sharpen it up and deposit it on a page. I would then try to fit it, including my fantastically wonderful graphic on world economic growth, or whatever, into the space available. I might have to squeeze out a few lines of the story to fit it in. The editor would then try to squeeze my two column graphic into one column. I would change it back. No way it would work that way. People do not want to read their newspaper with a magnifying glass. Eventually we would work this shit out. No pinging necessary. Sometimes I would have to wander over to visit the copy editing corps (they were only about a hundred feet away from the graphics pit) and personally engage with the chief copy editor but mostly all this stuff was done in real time. As I said, no pinging necessary.
Also in that same corner we had ESPORT and SAID SHH and a lingerie brand and … that was just a mess for me.
Envíame un recordatorio rápido.
It was an iffy Sunday puzzle. So many short answers, lots of gunk, and a tepid theme. Still fun to fill out.
They forgot the miniskirt on the SAILOR costume.
Best possible clue for ELON.
IDYLL is pretty far down the list of my favorite words landing between HOBNOB and EMBASSY. I think I might need to move it up a bit.
Doubling up on the Jewish mysticism this week requires consulting the ethereal unknown on how we'll be spelling it this time.
❤️ SAID SHH {so bad it's good}. Flatter feet.
😩 LAB RATS. OBEAH {all religions are folk religions}.
People: 13
Places: 8
Products: 14
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 50 of 136 (37%)
Funny Factor: 5 😐
Tee-Hee: STIFFEN ... at 1A no less. Grip it and rip it. ASS.
Uniclues:
1 This is no country for Ragu or the childless / this generation alive with noodles and love / noodles noodles noodles I commend thee all summer long / to carbo-load for the task of begetting and birthing / turn on the Taylor Swift and her sensual melodies of unaging intellect / and devour the pasta and make some babies.
1 YEATS PREGO SONNET
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Helpful person's role during a late night group activity in Arkansas. REOILS Y'ALL.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was too easy (again!) but I adored the theme and thought it more than made up for any fill deficiencies. Every theme answer made me smile or chuckle. Really liked it! Thanks, Rich!
@egsforbreakfast 8:59 AM
ABRAHAM... oof, that'll be a part of my permanent memory bank.
@Sailor; you're honored at 21A. I think that warrants special mention by one who keeps score here of those things.
🤦♂️
tht
Trenta is thirty in Italian so having learned venti (20 oz coffee ) from crosswords. I figured that was the answer. For people who hate foreign words ( I don’t) and trivia, that’s a double whammy
Colin
FWIW dupes are definitely NOT a no no for Shortz. They appear all the time
Anonymous 10:31 AM
CBGB just appeared. In the Times puzzle It has appeared fairly. often. It was a very famous music venue where many famous punk rock bands got there start. ( it sold drinks but it wasn’t famous for that). In NEW YORK This is the New York Times. after all Also the clue made it easier with the rhyming letters clue Last week there was a much harder clue.
Just because I don’t know something I don’t assume it is obscure. CBGB isn’t
Not a bad ride overall, but demerits for a double eñe foul today: both SEÑOR and NIÑA.
Struck me as bizarre for Rex to lump stone-cold-normal BRAE (“O Waly, waly, up the bank, O wary, waly, doun the brae…”) together with obscure crosswordese OBEAH…but what each person is familiar with will vary wildy at the margins won’t it.
So glad to see the link included to STAN Freberg’s album…I know it by heart.
(“The purfuit of happineff?”…“It’s in. It’s very in.”)
I’ve been meaning to ask this group for a while: Does it seem odd that “lame” continues to appear in these puzzles? I generally consider its use pejorative and offensive. Its appearance generally makes me think less of a puzzle. (Today’s use—a word to mean “really weak, as an excuse”—seems like a good example.)
nice one! Lee
Why are Grinders HEROS please? (37A)
Someone from Latvia is a LETT? Well, got that one wrong... should not have been crossed with a dubious phrase (never heard anyone say "NOT ON A BET). Also, I don't find" assume" an fair clue for "COOPT."
So for no particular reason earlier today I did the 7-5-2019 NYT xword and 24A was "Neighbors of Estonians". And here we are 7 years later, same day, same clue. Made more weird by the fact that I just spent 6 weeks in Estonia.
Anyway, insanely easy puzzle today, sigh. I did think the themers were clever, but they're so in the language that it only took a couple of letters to get them. This, and I was temporarily stymied by reading the clue for 18D when I needed 19D, already knew it was BABES.. and I'm trying to puzzle out the French to get that B in there, sheesh. 'Swhat I get for doing Sunday on paper!
Just another word for the sandwich also known as a sub, depending where you're from.
@crabby
FWIW I had the same thought
@ Gary
Me, lol-ing 😂😂🤣
Thank you
Anybody else consider grinder a hot sandwich? Yeah, it’s served on a hoagie roll, but heat is the operationsl difference. Hoagie, sub, hero are all typically cold.
har. Well, Cinnabon does sound great ... if they'll pull their punches.
M&A
Sharpen it up?
A more accomplished editor would’ve simply sharpened the copy.
Why should it be for anyone?
Two stars, and I'm probably being generous. The theme is fine if obvious, and the fill is NOT good.
100% what OFL said (and it wasn’t SHH)! My only actual erasure was Shushed for SAID SHH, which made the clunky NE corner clunkier and the only place I slowed down, but not much. No actual stop time. (Had to get a World Cup nod in here; it’s been such an exciting one thus far.)
I am so proud to have taken only a couple seconds to get the OBEAH/KABALA cross. I had KA_ALA going across and in speed mode my brain really wanted it to be “m” but I had to read the clues. Disappointment ensued. Haven’t seen OBEAH for a while rather than some of the others: obi, obea, obia or ju-ju. I love all the words stuffed up there between my ears.
While I agree with OFL’s opinions, I enjoyed the solve more than he did. I solve for pure enjoyment. Much of my enjoyment comes from the associations and memories that crossword answers evoke. I react to grid shape and elegance - or not, to clunky fill and awkward corners, but at the end of the day, I’m all about the total experience. I enjoyed this solve (and I am well aware how many times I have repeated the word forms of “enjoy”). The fact that the puzzle was extremely easy just kept the energy flowing. I had to force myself not to skip the non-theme fill and jump to the next little puzzle. This one was all about the excellent theme.
Sometimes a decent Sunday theme is dragged into the muck by unbalanced, or just plain awful fill. If I have to spend lots of time solving, I’m not going to want to gush about a clever theme, I just want the slog to end.
When I encounter a truly clever and expertly curated theme, I want to let it shine and bask vicariously in the constructor’s (or constructors’) individual or collective genius. This is me vicariously basking. Congratulations Mr. Katz! Your idea is original and clever. I sat for quite a while post-solve admiring your theme and its elegance. It requires a bit of analysis followed by appropriate admiration. Even after over 6 decades of daily solving, I am pleased to be so delightfully surprised by originality. It reminds me how much I adore the ability of expertly employed language to educate, entertain and inspire.
Kudos to constructors. I’d love to be able to construct but my brain just doesn’t work that way. Sure, I know we have all kinds of technology to make the technical aspects of constructing easy, but computers cannot create the kind of puzzle we enjoyed today. Thanks again, Mr. Rich Katz!! I enthusiastically await your next.
ChrisS and many others
Not on a bet
It is old. I am in my seventies. and when solving it rang only a faint bell.
Most citations are old. ( it took me a while to find them.). So a thing but barely.
@dgd. Thanks for the information. That makes a lot of sense, and that thought hadn't occurred to me. For anyone out there who reads my comments, it should be plain that I hate neither foreign words nor trivia!
On the other hand, I'm still not planning on mastering the lingo for ordering at Starbucks (I don't make a habit of going there).
Quite a bit easier than usual for me today, at 50 percent of my average.
I like the theme—I just want a bit more variety in the wordplay. Also, I'm not sure I understand what the braces are doing; to me, braces indicate an (unordered) set, so some of the wording doesn't work well in that case. But that's a quibble.
I had an embarrassingly long spot of trouble seeing why LA BRATS were small test subjects. OBEAH is a new one for me, as is LETT; I thought Lithuanian, but that's obviously too long to fit. I guessed ARSENAL off the bat from the "powerhouse" part of the clue. I too am not a fan of SAID SHH, I'm afraid, but on the other hand, I'm always happy to see ERHU in the puzzle, despite its unappealing look to non-Mandarin speakers.
Errors: COWBOY for SAILOR. Technically CABALA for KABALA, but I knew that was tentative. KEATS for YEATS, that was actually the last one I fixed to finish the puzzle. That's a pretty spare list for me, in line with the faster time.
N.B. the spelling HEROS. This is specific to HERO qua submarine sandwich. The other sort of HERO, referring to saviors and white knights and the like, is pluralized as "heroes".
Ken Freeland
The sense of assume someone else’s identity. Co-opt works
@crabbyeabbye and @Smith. I'm lame and it doesn't bother me in the least. Just means I get to park closer to the supermarket entrance than you.
Incredible that it is beyond the keyboarding abilities of the Times employee who made the print-out version to have the “mathematical” squiggly brackets in the theme clues.
I really enjoyed the theme. I agree the puzzles are too easy lately.
Loved the (kinda punny) theme answers. LOVE Gene Kelly - thanks for the NY NY clip.
Maybe you could explain the difference for us?
Your tattoo looks great! Been debating getting a Great Lakes one myself for a couple years.
Puzzle was disappointingly easy, as I was saving it for a train ride, but oh well.
Ha! I have great lakes stickers on my cars as a subtle jab at drivers here in Portland OR ‘cause no one from here has a clue about how to drive in snow, and people freak out if there’s a single clap of thunder. Take that!
@Les S, LOL, me too!
@Smith 5:37PM - some very unusual stars (or something) aligning in your world!
Yeah but boxed sequences wasn't going to work. I didn't even think set notation when I read the theme. I thought it was like a boxed set of books, video tapes or CDs.
Totally agree with you, he got Trump to invite all those white South Afrikaans to come and live in the US. No question asked. Virtually stopping all non white immigrations from any other country.
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