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Uintah and Ouray reservation people / SUN 8-9-26 / ___ People's Campaign (1968 S.C.L.C movement) / The first "C" of Vietnam's H.C.M.C. / Setting for Ghassan Kanafani's "All That's Left to You" and Mourid Barghouti's "I Saw Ramallah"
Sunday, August 9, 2026
Constructor: Erik Agard
Relative difficulty: Medium (I'm assuming it plays harder for most people since it's freestyle)
THEME: Freestyle Exercise — No actual theme, just a big, Sunday-sized freestyle puzzle!
Word of the Day: TONI STONE (57A: First Woman to play regularly in a major American men's pro baseball league) —
Toni Stone (July 17, 1921 – November 2, 1996), born as Marcenia Lyle Stone, was an American female professional baseball player who played in predominantly male leagues. In 1953, she became the first woman to play as a regular on an American major-level professional baseball team[1][2] when she joined the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro leagues. (Two other women, Mamie 'Peanut' Johnson and Connie Morgan, would later play on the team).[3][4][5] A baseball player from her early childhood, she also played for the San Francisco Sea Lions, the New Orleans Creoles, and the Kansas City Monarchs before retiring from baseball in 1954.[6][5] Stone was taunted at times by teammates, once being told, "Go home and fix your husband some biscuits", but she was undeterred. It was reported that during an exhibition game in 1953, she hit a single off a fastball pitch delivered by legendary player Satchel Paige, although the claim has failed verification.
• • •
Hello one more time! It's Eli here to close out this session of Rexplacements before Blog Daddy (I know, I felt gross typing it) comes back tomorrow. I solved this one on the train home from a screening of Fritz Lang's M at the Academy Museum (I rode the D!), and when I opened the app and saw Erik Agard's name I knew I was in good hands. Being a Sunday, I assumed that "Freestyle Exercise" was going to be a theme, something like anagramming types of exercise, but I was thrilled that it was an actual 21x21 themeless (or "freestyle") puzzle. And WOW.This just feels like a massive undertaking in construction. A pair of double stacked 21 letter grid spanners in addition to 2 symmetrical 13 letter across answers and 2 symmetrical 12 letter down answers basically create the frame. Then there's the central stepped triple stack making a very interesting grid shape. That central step practically looks like a word ladder with the endings (ONE, ONE, INE, ING, ING, ANG, ENG) but I don't know if that was intentional or just the best way to make it work. And with the possible exception of a couple more obscure proper nouns, I thought it held together exceptionally well. Let's dig in!
15D: I definitely had the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back soundtrack in college
I struggled getting started a bit up in the northwest corner. Nothing stands out as too tricky up there, except maybe the crossing of LEGATE (4D: Papal representative) and OCEANUS (24A: Father of the river gods, in Greek myth), but it's probably more about having the two spanners in the middle. It didn't slow me down too much, I just had to move around to get a foothold. Let's talk about those spanners. CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (23A: One of two in Hawaii) is fine, but not sparkly. CORPORATE SURVEILLANCE (91A: Controversial business oversight) is creepy, but I appreciate the clue calling it out as such. INVERTED ROLLER COASTER (96A: Amusement park ride in which one's legs dangle off the ground) is very cool to see. I do love a good theme park (though it's been a while since I rode an inverted coaster). But COME ON IN, THE WATER'S FINE (19A: Swimmer's invitation) really steals the show. It was easy and filled a lot of the grid as soon as I saw it, but it's a perfectly well-known phrase that you just don't get the chance to see in puzzles very often. Loved it.
Looking at the other long answers, I think the acrosses HAVE THINGS OUT (51A: Communicate through a disagreement) and TONGUE LASHING (62A: Reprimand that might be biting, ironically) make a very nice pairing. HONEST ANSWER (51D: Something that might not be well received when someone asks "How do I look?") tells a nice story, which you know I appreciate. ALPHABET SONG (21D: Number of letters?) bumps with me for some reason. Maybe it's because I usually call it "The ABCs," but it just reads weird to me. Even now, reading and writing it, my brain wants it to say "Alphabet Soup." Seems like a perfectly cromulent answer, and I like the clue, so it's probably just a me thing.
34D: Last Beatles single before Paul McCartney's departure
I mentioned the proper nouns earlier, and that's probably the only real fault I can find here. I called out TONI STONE as the word of the day above. That's a name I'm surprised I don't know. Well, not surprised in a male-centric sport like baseball (especially since it involves the Negro Leagures), but it does seem like my kind of trivia. I'm also surprised I don't know SHENG (76A: Stand-up comic ___ Wang), but I guess I'm not as tuned into the stand-up scene as I used to be. I'll have to check him out. Also not sure how common LEIDEN (13D: Dutch city with a namesake jar) is, but I do know that I spelled it "Leyden" when I made a Leyden Jar in high school. None of these broke the puzzle for me, but I could see them causing trouble.
There were a couple of other fun bits I had highlighted in my notes. I feel like of the various silent letters, SILENT A (72D: Diamond component) is probably pretty rare. Nice trickery in the clue, too. Glad to see CIS (91D: Prefix with normative) highlighted after the puzzle I blogged earlier in the week. Time of day clues are always a little pedestrian, so I appreciated that the clue for TEN AM (10D: Time that's an artist's name backward) gives a bit of fun trivia. Also, 10am at 10 down is a nice coincidence (unless it was on purpose, in which case, that's crazy subtle). The clue for BEE STING (66A: Honey boo-boo?) also made me laugh a bit.
Overall, I had a lot of fun solving this puzzle, and Erik should be proud of this grid construction.
Stray Thoughts:
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
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Stray Thoughts:
- 32D: Group in support of a queen (ANT COLONY)— Look, I've seen A Bug's Life, I know ants are supposed to be our friends. But we're dealing with some pest control issues at the house and I'm in no mood to think about a colony.
- 54A: Display perfect timing, much like dancers (MOVE AS ONE) — I was trying to figure out why I was hearing this as a song instead of a sentence, and I realized it's from Yorktown in Hamilton ("Take the bullets out your gun / What? / The bullets out your gun! / What? / We move undercover and we MOVE AS ONE"). I guess that show just lives there permanently.
- 26A: Jamaican folk song about dock work (DAY-O) — I've probably posted this video on this blog in the past, but I don't care. Watch it again!
I think that's all I've got for today. I've had a lot of fun this week, and I know the other Rexplacements have, as well. I hope we've done a good job holding down the fort while Rex has been away. Until next time!
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117 comments:
34:01 for me, so medium challenging... Had nuncio before LEGATE for a long time.... so that massed me up in the NW. Ended up skipping my way across (FLU and AXIS were easy) and then down the East side (ANTCOLONY, LETITBE) to the bottom, which was the first region I got. WARIO was a WOE, so that was my last clue to fill in down at the bottom. Came back up the left side and finally finished in the middle and then back to the NW where I hacked away until LEIDig got fixed to LEIDEN and LEGATE filled itself in. I agree with @Eli, great puzzle, thanks, Erik!
Mostly easy for me. I thought this would be more DAUNTing than it turned out to be given the author. Instead I ambled through it without much serious resistance.
@Eli - TONI STONE was a major WOE and SHENG was also a WOE.
Smooth, breezy and fun, liked it or what @Eli said!
Easy-Medium, I guess, but I found it boring. Not much crunch, not much that was interesting. Liked it a lot less than @Eli did.
* * _ _ _
Overwrites:
I had a Papal nuncio before LEGATE at 4D.
Misspelled the 13D Dutch city LEIDEN as LEyDEN.
WOEs:
Rapper AFROMAN (15D).
NENE Leakes at 37D.
Maybe the next time it appears I'll remember the purple yam UBE (62D)
Comic SHENG Wang at 76A.
Needed every cross for the Pillar of Islam at 85D (SALAT)
I don’t dislike a Sunday-sized themeless - I just don’t expect one here. Evan has become a master of the big grid themeless - I do his puzzle every week - I didn’t need another one.
D. BOON
What a gorgeous grid, stagger stacks in the middle, abutting spanners above and below. The typical Sunday grid has 74 blocks and 139 words, and this one has 58 blocks and 128 words. You’d expect a presence of ugly fill in such a low-count grid – but not if it were made by Erik. His grids are unfailingly clean.
And even with the difficulty of filling a low count grid, Erik put in a dozen NYT answer debuts for spark, my favorite two being ALPHABET SONG (with its world-class clue) and COME ON IN THE WATER’S FINE.
Everything flows in this grid – no scary islands to fill in. Even that huge tablet-shaped area in the middle is entered by four long answers.
Plenty of answers and clues to love; I never felt bored. A shining, sterling, fun-to-solve beauty, which is the rule of your puzzles, Erik. Nothing but quality in them. Thank you, and please, keep creating!
If you want to see some Sheng Wang, this bit always comes up in my house whenever we have avocados: https://youtu.be/OgkSO8GnGKE?si=skJ5oBFWgiZT3KSv
Often when we have this type of grid shape, we’ll have cascading threes or maybe fours. But being a Sunday let it be big enough for the waterfall if fives, which was much nicer.
50A has me flummoxed. Beaver's home is Mayfield.
Medium. A couple of clunkers - Pilgrimage and Almsgiving are not really RITUAL activities, and ROSTER implies a list, not the members.
Yes. This. More of this, please. This is what a Sunday puzzle should aspire to be: medium difficulty (so it offers some resistance but doesn’t take forever), plenty of fresh fill and clever clueing, and no contrived or corny theme to get in the way. When I saw Erik’s name I knew this was going to be above average, but he exceeded my high expectations. Bravo, Mr. Agard!
ROSTER is a unit noun. It doesn’t indicate plural. “Ones who’ve made the team” indicates plural. Since I know how crosswords are supposed to work and I know there are words and word variations that I don’t know, I assumed I was about to learn something. Alas, all I learned was that sometimes the editors mess up a clue.
Loved your including Harry Belafonte with the Muppets! Great start to my morning.
What a wonderful puzzle! Here's some dreadful wordplay that, in the spirit of our new Attorney General, does it injustice.
Sad memo heading at SNL: For LORNE.
What "Ladies Night" seeks to bring in: MOLASSES.
Recent trend at the NYTXW: MORASS.
The off-switch broke on the merry-go-round. Now it WHIRLS without end.
I went straight from the luau where I HULAED to the bar-mitzvah where I horaed. (Probably should have changed out of the grass skirt.)
Selecting your finest outfit for the prayer meeting: SALAT dressing.
We loved our trip to the Netherlands and especially recall watching the sunrise and sunset at LEIDEN with happiness.
Unlike the Wheel of Fortune contestant who bought a vowel, ISOLDE.
Erik Agard is a national treasure. What an incredible puzzle.
Hey All !
Themeless SunPuzs are not really my cuppa. I appreciate the insanely tough-to+fill-ness of it, but I'd rather have a Theme, however wonky it may be, on a Sunday.
The stacked 21s are impressive, and the fill is amazingly clean. The center INGs did give ma some agita, though. There's 6 of them there, along with a nearby BODING and just plain ING. Those scoring at home, in the Downs, you have ING, ANE, INE, ONE, ONG, ING, ING, ING and the Acrosses have ING, ONE, ONE, INE, ING, ING, ANG. But it all ended up cleanly filled, so you can take that nit with a grain of salt.
Better than I'd be able to make a Themeless SunPuz, that's for sure.
Good ole Erik Agard with another winner. He RULEs.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Eli, thanks for the Muppet reel. Brightened up my day
This was a tough puzzle for me. I regard it as an oversized Friday.
A very enjoyable Sunday. In fact, probably one of the two or three most pleasurable Sundays of the year so far. It was very nice to ride along with an elite constructor who is clearly at the top of his game here. A lot of the clues could be characterized as Robynesque, which is no surprise for Erik, but still high praise indeed.
When I first saw Erik’s byline, I thought maybe he would be a little too esoteric for my tastes - and with a larger Sunday grid to fill, including a bunch of grid spanners, there is bound to be be some gunk here and there - but at the end of the day, Erik did a Sunday themeless about as well as it can be done. Kudos to a constructor who has clearly mastered his craft.
The top row gave me only FLU to start, but then the puzzle threw me a little encouragement with COME ON IN THE WATER'S FINE, and I started feeling good. All the obscure proper nouns filled themselves with crosses (except WARIO, where my eddies were WHoRLS at first, so i had to rely on tha analogy with Mario).
I don't see how either almsgiving or pilgrimage is a RITUAL, but I took it on faith; and I have no idea how a LEGATE differs from a Nuncio, but I had the L by then. That reality star was pretty obscure, but at least he wasn't clued as a goose.
55-A, NLRB was pretty sad, as that agency stopped encouraging unionization years ago.
I have to say that my grid was awesome in itself--intimidating indeed, but I was sure this constructor would do a good job of filling it.
Darn, I wasn't signed in. The comment complaining about the disfunction of the NLRB was mine.
For some strange reason, I first thought “freestyle” referred to swimming, and both COME ON IN THE WATERS FINE and SWAM did nothing to disabuse me of that notion. Not to mention OCEANUS. But it didn’t last long, especially when CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT came into view.
I suspect Rex would have been far less enthusiastic about this puzzle.
“a massive undertaking in construction” … “Erik should be proud” - but absolutely not enjoyable to solve. Worst puzzle ever.
I find Erik’s puzzles to be pretty hard. This one is no exception. Yet, it was a fun solve. 19 across foreshadowed my liking to work on it.🎈🎈🎊🎊
Good writeup today (y)
I might as well get the ball rolling on the SILENT. A in diamond. To save other commenters the trouble of writing it out, you can just pick a number from the following list. Where I grew up it was pronounced:
1. Dye uh moan
2. Dye ah moaned
3. Dye min
4. Doy um man
5. Other
If there's one thing the NYTXW doesn't need it's MORASS.
83A and 83D seem like a kids puzzle: IRULE and IHOP. Who am I?
TONISTONE was the first non- AFROMAN to play in the Negro League.
Is a BEESTING in a seedy bar a DIVESTING?
I'm a theme guy myself, but a giant themeless can't get a lot funner than this. Thanks, Erik Agard.
Really well-executed puzzle
DIVESTING crossing PALESTINE!!!
Keep the politics out of the puzzle.
Animal homes have various terminology; den for bears, for example. Lodge is the term for the home of the beaver.
I generally expect Sunday to be lighter and easier than Saturday because of the Sunday theme, but that was not true for me this weekend. I can hardly complain, however, after revealing my longing for stack puzzles yesterday. This grid was a corker! Thanks, Erik.
My flair on the Jeopardy Subreddit is "What is a hoe?", so I of course loved the clue on 29 across. I also appreciate the constructor/editors going out of his/their way (I assume) to clue ODS in a way that doesn't make light of drug deaths.
JNKMD, maybe you're doing a bit, but if not: 🙄
Well said, I agree . Usually Sundays are a letdown with forced themes- better a theme less than a boring theme
Ha!
The OED cites the equivalent of "die-uh-mund" as the first phonetic transcription of "diamond." However, the funness of the puzzle overides the stinkiness of the clue.
awesome puz ! i had 'hash things out' for way too long. Have things out ?!!
After some hits & misses from the NYT lately (MOSTLY misses) here comes a Sunday by one of my favorite constructors, Erik. And not to gush, it was a joy. What I didn't know - WARIO, SALAT, CIS, AFROMAN - I was determined to stick with it & (finally) get. (AFROMAN was classic Agard so I should have known :)
Thank you, Erik for a very enjoyable Sunday & to the NYT - for finally giving me a Sunday by one of my favorite constructors (the other would be Robyn W. - maybe you're reading this?
I hear ya. Nearly DNF'd myself by finally seeing it was a SILENT something and stuck in a D, thinking of the final one, which kept me from seeing the obvious TSAR forever. Sheesh.
Don't you mean Erik? Or did I miss something - who's Evan?
Whooshed through this one for a PR on Sunday.
Nah, this took quite a while but it was not unenjoyable. I finally found my higher-powered reading glasses but the numbers still take some work. Worst clue misread was seeing "Up" for "Lip" and missing the obvious SASS for too long.
The long answers were the most helpful in this one, except for the to-me unknown CORPORATESURVEILLANCE, which sounds icky. Put in GETBACK off the T and left it for too long, I should know better. Unknown names again--TONISTONE, AFROMAN, and SHENG chief among them. Also I found out about SALAT.
Very impressive piece of work, EA. I will be Eternally Amazed at anyone who can come up with a grid like this. Thanks for all the fun.
58A: who are Lazenby & Dalton?
Different folks, different strokes… I prefer themeless and smiled when I saw the author and title as I figured it would be challenging and themeless. Nice start to Sunday.
I totally agree! Sundays (and most other days lately) have been let-downs. This was a joy from our Erik!
BTW - thanks to Mr. Ezersky (SB) for engraving TOMATILLO in my mind (in addition to his usual 'anal' :)
I disagree. A roster is a list of the names who made the team. You don’t need multiple rosters for one team, nor do you need multiple schools for one group of fish, or multiple gaggles of geese. I believe it is a very appropriate clue.
The "a" is definitely NOT silent. The pronunciation in the Mac dictionary is ˈdī(ə)mən(d). To omit the schwa is just lazy speech.
Another winner from Mr. Agard. When I see Eric’s name on a puzzle, especially a Sunday, it’s truly an event.
POOL is also in there. I agree there's a definitely swim/water subtheme!
A ROSTER is a list of names of a group or team. I think the clue is fine.
This is a great puzzle. I was disappointed at first to see it was a themeless—I like Thursdays and Sundays for their wackiness—but I should have known Erik Agard would make it fun. Such great cluing, for BEE STING, SNOWING, ALPHABET SONG, and many more. There were several things I didn't know, including ING, SHENG, TONI STONE, AFROMAN, and NENE, but I got them all from the crosses.
My biiggest problem was knowing whether to go with TSARS or Czars, because for me the cross could have been either SALAT or SalaC. So that's the one thing that tripped me up.
I did have to look up the word cromulent, which Eli used in his writeup. I see that's a made up word from The Simpsons. Well okay!
Themeless Sunday? And by Erik Agard?? What a treat!!
Donna. I was going to add that to @egs' list because that's the way I pronounce it. Agree with you about the funness.
Lazenby and Dalton played James Bond
@jb129. I've been stewing about.the Ezersky/anal comments from you and others for some time. Just because occasionally A, L and N jointly occur in the nearly random letter draws that make up each SB (I'm aware that certain letters seldom or never are included) doesn't, in and of itself, suggest that Sam has an ANAL fixation. The letters C, M and U probably appear now and then. Even A, W and T. Nobody seems to jump on those. Do you know something about Sam that I don't know?
I saw SHENG Wang at the Montreal comedy festival a few years ago and he is well worth checking out. In demeanor and cadence he reminds me a bit of Mitch Hedberg, but his humor is less absurdist one-liners and more traditional story telling / observational comedy. I think he has a special on Netflix or Hulu or one of the streaming services.
Evan Birnholz has a 21x21 every Sunday in the Washington Post, though I usually associate him with themed or meta puzzles.
I love "salted nits"
I, too, thought we were in for a swimming theme.
Very clever, clue.Lazenby, Moore and Dalton all played James Bond In the movies. So the “Bond” in between those other actors is Moore.
OK with this one, but not enthused. Also had nuncio before LEGATE which really slowed my progress. Agree that ROSTER and RITUALS are misclued.
Exactly. A roster is a LIST. The names comprise the roster. The clue for roster should indicate a singular word.
The challenge for me was to get around the grid beginning with ATALL x ACCORDS working from crosses and not skipping around or looking ahead to check crosses. That made getting into the center section challenging, as there aren't a lot of entry points. Satisfying to finish.
Do-over: WaIST before WRIST. Help from previous puzzles: WARIO. No idea: SHENG, SALAT. I liked ANT COLONY next to IN A HURRY, since they're always a-scurry and noticed the parallel HAVE THINGS OUT and TONGUE LASHING.
Hello Rick, as components of the Five Pillars of Islam, pilgrimage (hajj), and almsgiving, of charity, (zakat), are considered essential practices. I liked how Erik incorporated these into the grid via two clues at 56D, and 85D, prayer (salat , also salah).
The center came in last for me, and the very end was when I replaced HASH THINGS OUT (which I liked), with… HACK THINGS OUT (which was okay, but not as good), and eventually had to concede that it was merely HAVE THINGS OUT (which felt limp by that point).
Before I realized it was themeless, I was trying to figure out of there was some king of theme with all the -ING words in the middle: TONGUE LASHING, BEE STING, BODING, LAVISHING, DIVESTING, DEFEATING, and of course ING itself.
A roster is a list of the members.
At first glance at the empty grid I thought ‘A swimming pool! ‘ 19A seemed to confirm the theme, but no.
My favorite clue in this puzzle
Overall I thought a fun puzzle that had rare whooshes for me as I recognized common phrases from a few crosses. There were some names I just didn’t know, like UBE and SHENG and TONISTONE, and some I could not recall but were familiar after I got them with crosses, like WARIO and OCEANUS. Wanted HAshTHINGSOUT but settled for the bland HAVETHINGS….Had no problem with ROSTER and RITUALS—although the purists among us may have a point the answers are in the ballpark.
What a weekend of treats. First Kameron Austin Collins and now Eric Agard. Two of my favourites. And Eric gives us a themeless Sunday. Not a bad idea.
Two of the four horizontal spanners were pretty dull (CORPORATE SURVEILLANCE and CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT) but the others sparkled.
A few nits: HULAED. It just looks awful. I know it’s gotta be right but it’s clunky.
I don’t think I have seen Ho CHI Minh City represented by H.C.M.C.
And a few unknowns: SHENG and TONI STONE. Nice to learn about her.
Today I learned about SALAT and that almsgiving and pilgrimage are not, as I had thought, pIllarS, but, rather, RITUALS. Oops, just looked up the 5 pillars and guess what; they are indeed pillars. Religion confuses me. I guess pillars are simply rituals so the clue is correct.
Thanks, Eric Agard, for a really good puzzle.
“Can you show me the ‘One’s who made the team’”. Or “Can you show me the ROSTER”. Perfect substitution. No issues in my mind.
I appreciate having a themeless Sunday for a change, but two of those grid spanners were a real buzz kill. CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT and CORPORATE SURVEILLANCE just landed with thuds.
Several Unknown Names: OCEANUS, LEIDEN, AFROMAN, NENE, CHI, NLRB, TONI STONE, UBE, SALAT.
On the wildfire front, evacuation alerts have been extended all the way to the southwest of Penticton. Still no alert or order for Penticton itself, but everyone is a bit on edge. Plus, the smoke is so bad there is no point in going outside. Our air quality index is "10+" out of 10, "Very High Risk". So much for summer!
I tried establishing a theme following 12 letters XII and seeing Number of letters. I first wrote in ALPHABETXXVI. That quickly got corrected.
I agree with Anon 11:41. Evan rarely runs a themeless (maybe once this year so far). His grids are usually slightly easier than a typical NYT Sunday, and the themes are usually easier to discern as well (which is a big plus for me). The Meta components can be quite challenging when he includes one.
I don’t think the clue is actually violating number agreement. ROSTER is singular grammatically, but it’s a collective noun referring to a list of multiple people. “Ones who’ve made the team” describes the members/names that constitute the roster, not multiple rosters. Crossword clues routinely use that kind of metonymy. You might prefer a more literal clue, but that doesn’t make this one erroneous.
Anon @12:12 - I still don’t follow where you are going with this. How would you rephrase the clue? Either “ONE who’ve made the team” or “Ones who’ve made the TEAMS” ? The first one doesn’t make any sense and the answer for the second would be ROSTERs. Can you elaborate ?
Molasses, LOL
0 stars. Sundays should never, ever be themeless- I'm not sure they'd even let anyone besides Erik Agard get away with it.
The spanners are fine, and there are some cute clues, but the preponderance of -ING answers (not to mention an answer that's just ING!) totally sucks, as does crossing SWAM with a clue that mentions swimming.
Agree on the crowded inging, though it helped my solve :)
can't help marveling at Erik's grid -it's a work of art imho - bravo Erik
Yeah, caused me to put it away for a bit. But it is the NYT, so it’s on me for subscribing.
Had work things out , then hash things out , then finally talk things out before I finally getting to have things out.
Saw some nasty looking reports on the fires in BC. Stay safe--a lot of us are thinking of you.
Loved it, thank you Eric! Great to have an actual crossword, as opposed to a gunk-filled puzzle.
Best Sunday in a long time. Had hash things out before have things out.
A very pleasant Sunday. For me, that is 2 in a row...I enjoyed last week's as well. Beautiful grid, enough cluing distraction to be challenging and those 21-letter stacks. are you kidding me? The grid itself is a wonder. Just to look at. Would've liked to see Rex's take....
I was really confused because I stays tight it was “hash things out” and never heard of “have things out.” Have I been saying it wrong all along?!! Wouldn’t be the first time.
I'm firmly in the "What a great Sunday puzzle!" camp. This was one of the best in a very long time. Challenging enough to be interesting, clever enough to be fun. It held my interest all the way through, and gave me several moments of "Ooh, that was a good one!"
I also like an occasional themeless Sunday and this one didn't disappoint. Hit the sweet spot for me by being challenging without being an esoterica loaded GROAN INDUCER.
I liked the yin yang of 53A TODAY/53D TOMORROW and 33D IN A HURRY/34D LET IT BE.
Not familiar with HAVE IT OUT for 51A "Communicate through a disagreement". Maybe HASH IT OUT?
I notice that a constructor's grid fill friend did SHOW UP where it's most often found. While the letter S has a frequency of around 6% in standard English (cornell.edu), it takes up 50% of the bottom row squares. Three of the four entries there are plurals of convenience (POC) themselves while they also enable a bunch of POCS in the connecting Downs.
Pillars are fundamental doctrines and frameworks of the faith. Rituals are physical. and or ceremonial acts and liturgical expressions to practice and express that faith. They are separate things, easily distinguished.
Me too
Eli, mix 4 parts white sugar with one part Borax and add water to make a paste. Leave on trays, plates, jar lids or whatever for the scout ants to take back to the colony. Nontoxic to other insects and to birds.
And this puzzle was a real masterpiece of construction. Congrats, Erik.
Erik sure knows how to make a grid this size come together with blissfully few 3 letter words. love how you had to sit back and just get on his wavelength once locked in it was smooth sailing...
Wow. Just wow.
I came to this late today, since we were on the road, and I did not have my paper paper (and NYT Magazine).
Very much enjoyed this puzzle, but some of the names held me up for a spell.
You people are hilarious 😂
What politics? LOL you are seeing shadows — and telling on yourself in the process
Metonymy! Wonderful.
Rick
Ritual comes from rite as it happens.Among Among it’s several meetings is ceremony. (Merriam-Webster). Close enough for crosswords.
Liveprof
I loved both molasses and morasses. Especially the latter.
jberg
About NLRB exactly right
And what’s worse, in the Trump Admin it applies to virtually every agency!
Morass, also LOL
The first thing I wrote in this puzzle (we get the Dead Tree Edition on Sundays) was "Good constructor".
Erik didn't disappoint. Being themeless it allowed him a lot more flexibility to include a bunch of long phrase-answers without bogging down with crosses to support a fixed theme.
We maybe expected just a tad more intrigue in the cluing, especially since he touted as much in the intro; but no refund sought and pretty sure that Rex would have been generous with stars.
Cliff
Here we go again Just because a commenter pronounces a word one way doesn’t mean that every one else says it the same way So far, sari sorry fit my accent Lawn/ Lon did not. DIAMOND silent A did. But all three are okay because they fit a significant % of the population. End of rant.
FWIW Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes
Paul Simon. 2 syllables Also Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds for a British example.
LOL..... nyt puzzles mention Israel like every week. politics are already there. personally i was happy to finally see a Palestine mention
If you’re a Heated Rivalry fan, 38D played very differently! Lol
By time, this was on the slightly easier side of normal today, at 75 percent of my average time. I'll say, though, that it didn't feel that way; I had trouble getting traction into the center. This didn't make it unenjoyable in any way; I liked the seeming challenge, and the moderately good time is a bit of a cherry on top.
I quite liked "Honey boo-boo?" for BEE STING, and similarly "Time that's an artist's name backward" for TEN AM. On the other hand, I'm not sure I wanted HONEST ANSWER to be the answer, but the puzzle didn't care what I wanted, at least not here.
ON A for "___ shoestring" must have raised the hackles of at least a few solvers, I imagine!
I guessed HEISTS pretty early on, but couldn't believe that was it, so I left it out of the grid for a few minutes longer. Along the same lines, I waited a bit longer for ROTIS vs NAANS to work itself out. And TALE too. Actually, there were quite a few answers I guessed correctly that for some reason I didn't venture to put in, which probably would've cut the time down a bit further still.
Errors: WORK (THINGS OUT) for HAVE. CONEY (briefly) for COVEY. JIMMY (even more briefly) for SHENG. Fewer than usual, certainly. But early progress was slow, despite the relative cleanness of my solving.
Unpleasant and incorrect comment
Sunday themes are usually cringe so more like this please.
I love & live for silly theme puzzles esp the Sunday Times, so today was a nicely med challenging puzzle, but disappointing for my day - sometimes it be like that!
Ven, el agua está estupenda.
Pretty tough going for me but faster than usual so maybe I was thinking about something else. Really enjoyed the journey but a themeless Sunday will never be for me.
Done in by the DAUNT / LEIDEN cross and I shouldn't have lost that one.
❤️ Wonk.
People: 12
Places: 2
Products: 8
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 37 of 128 (29%)
Funny Factor: 8 🙂
🔥 Ooh-la-la! 🔥 Long handled tool. Edging.
Uniclues:
1 Where nudists gather for dinner at camp.
2 Tweet tweet tweet. {Translation: You stupid idiot.}
3 Making unplanned pregnancies in Hondas.
4 When I say I'm smart, good looking, and kind.
5 What the kids are rockin' out to.
1 HAVE THINGS OUT LODGE (~)
2 COVEY TONGUE LASHING (~)
3 CIS ACCORDS RITUALS (~)
4 HONEST ANSWER IT IS NOT (~)
5 ALPHABET SONG GROOVES
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Thought when you've needed the long red one for awhile. AW, C'MON TETRIS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I expect a themed puzzle on Sunday. Not happy about this one at all.
Here, here! Mere mention of Palestine shouldn’t get people up in arms enough for three exclamation points!
No one bats an eye at the many Israeli and Jewish faith questions (I know so many Hebrew words just from doing the crossword), but one mention of Palestine is “politics”. Wow.
Thanks for your contributions this week, Eli. I thoroughly enjoyed your analyses and opinions. Special thumbs up for homage to Harry Belafonte and the Muppets! Jim Henson’s crew is pure joy to watch.
Fun to have a wide open themeless today. Easier than many Agards and the grid spanning hodgepodge of gettable material yielded nice toeholds. A few crunchy bits, but always a fair cross to help out. One of the most enjoyable Sunday solves in recent memory.
Unless it’s Beaver Cleaver. He lived in Mayfield, as pointed out .
Too many crossers. But still a fun solve.
No salat - The Five Pillars of Islam are Shahada (profession of faith), Salah (prayer), Zakat (almsgiving), Sawm (fasting during Ramadan), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
lol Salat dressing
Isolde
Do you know what barghouti was convicted and imprisoned for? That's apolitical to you? You equate that with religious trivia?
Hated this. Please no more! Too many long multi word answers with 0 appeal and 0 aha in them . No surprise just made up junk phrases. Not on a Sunday! Bring me a theme puzzle every time
Elegant, masterful construction. Kudos Erik! An absolute joy to solve.
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