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Sikorsky of aviation fame / WED 10-14-26 / Three-season star of the New York Cosmos / Literary title character who's mostly unseen / Flora and fauna, collectively / Sharp part of a kite / Who "turned my whole world upside down," in a 1970s rock hit / "A conversation carried out by other means," per Peter Ustinov / Bygone Mesoamerican civilization
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Constructor: Jacob Stulberg
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- "YOU'RE MUTED" (17A: Response to "Good morning, everybody!")
- "WE CAN'T HEAR YOU" (25A: "Response to "Let's get this meeting going")
- "TURN YOUR MIC ON" (43A: Response to "Why is everyone ignoring me?")
- "OH, FORGET IT" (58A: Reaction to the unsuccessful "conversation" in this puzzle)
Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (25 May 1889 – 26 October 1972) was a Russian-American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. His first success came with the Sikorsky S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction. His fifth airplane, the S-5, won him national recognition in Russia and secured F.A.I. pilot's license number 64.[8] His S-6-A received the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition, and in the fall of that year the aircraft won first prize for its young designer, builder and pilot in the military competition at Saint Petersburg. In 1913, the Sikorsky-designed Russky Vityaz (S-21) became the first successful four-engine aircraft to take flight. He also designed and built the Ilya Muromets (S-22 – S-27) family of four-engine aircraft, an airliner which he redesigned to be the world's first four-engine bomber when World War I broke out.After emigrating to the United States in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution, Sikorsky founded the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in 1923 and developed the first of Pan American Airways' ocean-crossing flying boats in the 1930s, including the Sikorsky S-42 "Flying Clipper".
In 1939, Sikorsky designed and flew the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, the first viable American helicopter, which pioneered the single main rotor and a single antitorque tail rotor configuration used by most helicopters today. Sikorsky modified the design into the Sikorsky R-4, which became the world's first mass-produced helicopter in 1942. (wikipedia)
• • •
[Butt-HEAD "American Gothic”!]
[32A: Word before or after butt (HEAD)]
[51D: "American Gothic" setting (IOWA)]
Bullets:
- 52A: Sharp part of a kite (TALON) — a kite is a raptor, a hawklike bird found all over the world. The kind of kite that Charlie Brown tries to fly does not have TALONs, though it has been known to attack him:
- 25D: Literary title character who's mostly unseen (WIZARD OF ID) — "Literary" is killing me. Congrats to the puzzle on taking comic strips seriously. Is the dude in the cone hat with moons and stars on his tunic not the WIZARD OF ID? If he's "mostly unseen," why can I picture him? [LOL the answer is actually WIZARD OF *OZ* nevermiiiiind!]
- 36D: "Rugrats" dad (STU) — I think there's also a "Rugrats" character named GIL. No, wait: DIL? Yes, DIL. I've never seen an episode of Rugrats in my life, but these three-letter characters recur and recur, so I got STU no problem. (I also got STEW no problem) (56D: Hearty dish).
That's all for today. See you next time.
And to Penelope (who reads me every day and sends me texts of my typos), happy birthday, honey
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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84 comments:
That’s a lovely birthday present, OFL :)
Was putting Wizard of Id in the blog satyric?
Unseen wizard is the one from Oz, no? (It’s correct in the answer grid.)
Happy birthday to Penelope! It is the Wizard of Oz, not Id.
It’s not a bad puzzle - I just don’t really want to think about Teams or Zoom in my so-called leisure time. Rex summarizes nicely - these remote glitches typically never make it as far as OH FORGET IT but whatever.
SHADY Grove
Overall fill was fine - some nice midweek edge. PEACHY KEEN, CONGAS, GLUTEN are all top notch. I actually thought of ID first too since I’ve been reading him everyday for years. Liked the cheek of HEAD atop SEX - maybe it’s just me. I have the complete HAZEL on DVD.
Sweet Is The MELODY
Enjoyable enough Wednesday morning solve.
Once you were tethered
Well now you are free
That was the river
This is the SEA
I'm sure you just wanted to share a favorite WIZARDOFid panel with us today, right? We're off to see the WIZARD : ).... I liked this more than @REX, but I knew that would be the case, since the theme is so silly. Parsing the themers was a bit of a wrestling match for me--this took me around 20 minutes last night (during baseball). 28 down should have been clued with paintings which would have been much more in-the-language as a plural. I thought PELE must have been pretty old to be playing for a US soccer team but he was only mid-30s at the time... won his 1st world cup at 17! no wonder. Enjoyed the clue on 22D. *** from me, thanks, Jacob! : )
One minor correction... You have it correct in the puzzle at the top but incorrect in your commentary bullet lost: it is the WIZARDOFOZ, not ID.
A little comics professor humor. Nice.
I read the “Oh forget it” as aspirational, a fantasy of what we all wish we could say.
Hah! I remember being that person, new to Zoom, couldn’t be heard and had no idea how to fix it.
Nor could I hear the others, and yes, the story ended with an OH FORGET IT.
Now, mind you, I love wordplay, I live for it, and I love that most crossword themes involve it, but I also love the refreshing contrast that comes with a non-wordplay theme, as Jacob gave us today, when he graced us with a mini-story.
A relatable one for many, too, I’m guessing, either from the perspective of one who wasn’t heard in a virtual meeting, or who experienced participants who couldn’t be heard.
I also liked the good number of vague clues in the box today, such as [Hot stuff], [Tree with edible nuts], [Apartment option], [Look], [Dandy], and [Edit menu command]. That drew my brain in and got it doing the work it loves.
So thank you for the memory that I look back on with a smile, Jacob, and for a splendid outing today!
Hey All !
Also wrote in WIZARD OF ID,, and having the same thoughts as Rex. Whee! I like the short King in that strip,, also (although it's been quite a while since I've read comic strips, circa 6-7 years.)
I liked this funny progression Theme. I'm a "try something two or three times, get frustrated if it doesn't work, and quit" kind of guy, so this Theme sings to me!
High on the Blocker count, 42 of 'em (normal max 38.) That accounts for Rex 3-4-5s-ness. As grid sits, I can see the removal of two Blockers to get the count down to 40. (The one before SHAH, the one after DELL.) Of course, that would require different answers in the resulting longer Downs, but the option was there before the filling of the grid.
Anyway, good WedsPuz. Leads to a PEACHY KEEN morning. (I say PEACHY all the time when someone asks how I am 😁.)
Hope y'all have a PEACHY Wednesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I feel like the reveal would have been a better payoff if the stakes were a bit higher—like instead of “good morning” etc the speaker was trying to tell a joke, or warm up the room with an anecdote. Then I’d see “oh forget it” as a real response to their timing being ruined.
I was thrown by the Ustinov clue—is that (successful ?) “conversation” related to the failed one?
I thought the same. As for the puzzle, it was pretty entertaining.🎈🎈🎊🎊
When younger, I would try to entice dates up to my room to see my Cuban drum, but they were too smart to fall for my CONGA LINE, and they all told me to beat it.
My nephew, a bird lover, looked for a college that offered a program suited to his interest. The closest he came was Oregon State that has a Wildlife Studies major and an Ornithology MYNA.
I learned all about the Amish, Shakers and others in high school, in SECTS ed.
I'm working on a book about large personalities in photography. It will be called EGOS and Fstops.
(Old joke.) On those "Mechanic's canfuls," I learned that my mechanic was addicted to brake fluid. I said, "Marvin, that's really dangerous." And he said, "Don't worry. I can stop whenever I want to."
(This one is true.) When I was in law school, at the tail-end of "the Sixties," the grading system was "adjectival." I.e., we did not get letter or number grades. Instead, in each course, the very few tippy top students got "Distinguished," and the very few rock bottom students got "Unqualified." For the rest of us, roughly the top 20% got "Excellent," the next 30%, "Good," and the bottom 50%, "Qualified." (I don't mean to brag, but I graduated in the top 100% of my class.) Anyway, it was rumored that our Dean was opposed to the system and mockingly suggested that it should include the grade of PEACHYKEEN.
********
Happy Birthday, young lady!! To 120!!
Maybe it was my memories of trying to teach my 90+ yo parents how to Facetime on the iPad I had just bought them (and finally just calling them on their landline) - in their case, it wasn’t the mic but how to use the camera that threw them.
A fun Wednesday!
I liked the puzzle and the theme. Neat and clean. One advantage of being well into retirement is that I avoided virtual meetings. Real ones were bad enough. There was a homophone clue. Rex alluded to another, STU/STEW. There is also SECTS/SEX. Interestingly, Shakers shunned SEX. A BIOTA is twice as much as an IOTA.
I’ll be the snob: the wizard of oz isn’t particularly literary either.
I, too, went to the Mary Tyler Moore thought before getting LAYLA. I guess the "turn" and "world" thing is pretty powerful. Despite that, this puzzle was Monday easy. I also liked it more than Rex did.
This one put a big smile on my face, maybe because it is so very relatable. While the revealer may not be the most realistic response that is actually said out loud, it's been my unspoken reaction many, many times.
I agree with @Rex that the puzzle was a bit lacking on the wordplay, but I had a similar reaction to @Lewis in that the story told made up for that.
I thought the fill for the most part was just fine. PEACHYKEEN sits very pretty in the NE and was fun to parse from the clue. While I might get some hate for this, it's counterpart in the SW is *not* one of my favorite flicks, but WIZARDOFOZ is also very nice looking fill. I get there was a bunch of short stuff, but it didn't bother me.
Never a bad thing to start singing LAYLA to myself in the morning. Thanks @Rex for the clip of that one right next to the Mary Tyler Moore theme which is great ear candy. I never would have thought to put those two together, but somehow now it makes perfect sense to me! 😊 LAYLA right next to LOL was also kinda fun. Made me think of another 60's song, *Lola*.
I've only been exposed to Rugrats once, and that was "A Rugrats Passover". It turned out that it was so charming that some of the adult characters actually stuck with me, and STU was one of them. I always thought he'd be good company at a Seder.
For me, this was a whole big bowl of fun. Thanks for this, Jacob!
I think Rex was too hard on this one. The theme answers were fresh and lively and funny, and the revealer made me laugh, too. I could hear myself saying it! When the theme is this good, I barely notice the fill (or if it’s weak). I think this deserved at least another half star, if not a full one.
Still trying to learn how to play the piano coda of Layla.
I love to see SEX front and center like today, especially with HEAD right above. It reminded me of that time that Carrie Bradshaw blew 3 Amish and 4 Quaker guys on SECTS and the City.
When in Cuba, you can order your water CONGAS or sin gas. Of course they won't have any of either these days as they await their Venezuelation by the menace from across the Gulf of America.
When I was growing up, my mother made me eat a whole loaf of bread when I was bad. Now that was a GLUTEN for punishment. She also (this part is true) always replied PEACHYKEEN when anyone asked how she was. When, in later life, she needed a cane to walk, we dubbed it her PEACHY cane.
Well, I gotta say I'm kind of dumbstruck by how many commenters read @Rex's joke about WIZARDOFid, presumably including his parenthetical "just kidding" at the end, and then took him to task for getting the answer wrong. As to the puzzle, the theme, I think, strikes home to many of us who got forced on to Zoom and its descendants late in life. So kudos and thanks for turning our former agony into ecstasy, Jacob Stulberg.
Nosotros no podemos escucharte.
Super challenging for me, but I beat it finally. I like it when I'm pretty sure I'll fail and keep telling myself "it's Wednesday, you can do this." Those little pep talks keep me going.
Nobody says, "Oh forget it." You fish around poking at various icons saying, "Can you hear me now?"
I tend to think MYTHS were never facts in the first place so no need for debunkification.
Why they continue to espouse AHA when it's OHO continues to boggle.
❤️ PEACHY KEEN.
Gunkometer--
People: 10 {one more for the peep heap}
Places: 2
Products: 2
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 20 of 78 (26%)
Funny Factor: 1 🤨
🔥 Ooh-la-la! 🔥 Before or after butt. SEX/HEX.
Uniclues:
1 Big heads in little valleys.
2 Online forums for Yucatan natives fails to inspire.
3 Fighter pilots cast a curse on your shower.
4 Doing lines under umbrellas.
1 DELL EGOS
2 MAYA CHAT BLAH
3 ACES HEX MELODY
4 SHADY CONGAS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Applesplaining. POMES ERUDITION.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I liked this puzzle a lot more than @Rex did and although I’ve been retired a few years now the theme harkened back to the unfortunate Covid years and the advent of Zoom/Teams meetings when there was ALWAYS someone who forgot to unmute before talking. On the other hand, there would also be people who forgot to mute and you’d hear magnified paper rustling or a barking pet dog. Ah…good times!
Happy birthday to Penelope! Every time I see the lovely name it reminds me of when I read the “children’s” version of the Oddysey and my older sister “quizzed” me on where I was in the book. I told her that I was where “Penna-lope” was weaving and undoing her work every night to avoid her suitors. Yes, very embarrassing mispronunciation that gave my sister a good laugh…
Love the top 100% quip!
Maybe a small nit ("nitlet"?) -- but I'm not entirely happy with 21 Across. Yes, MYTHS can be defined as "debunked 'facts,'" but that's far from the most important definition of the terms. Myths, in virtually every human culture I' m aware of, are stories that address the most important and profound aspects of the human condition (life, death, creation, love and honor, hate and dishonor, the list goes on). Whether or not they're always believed literally (did the ancient Greeks really believe that there were gods living on Mt. Olympus? Didn't anyone ever just go up there to see for himself?), they're founts of wisdom and life-lessons that continue to hold humanity in good stead, millennia after the time when they were actively sung/taught/believed. And yes, I admit I'm pretty cranky about the way this term has been degraded and trivialized in modern culture. I personall6y think the terms "MYTH" and "RELIGION" are extremely close in their essential meaning, both for better and for worse.
@Beezer. Me too! -- I stole it from JL Cauvin.
Happy birthday Penelope! It’s good to know you’re keeping Our Fearless Leader humble. A big job but someone’s got to do it.
I didn’t like the puzzle much at first but it got better while solving. The first couple of answers were puzzling, as in what is this nonsense? Then I finally had my AHA moment when I figured out 43A … which took some time because I had BONGOS at 47D and could not figure out any word that ended with IBON. All those years of watching I Love Lucy, and today I discovered Ricky was playing CONGAS. Live and learn.
I think I may have had an interesting - possibly even unique - perspective among the commentariat. Would be interested if any of the other more mature solvers had the same experience. I retired a while before video meetings became the way to do business. No one had ever heard of Zoom, and the cutting edge protocol was conference calls … or telcons as we called them. We sat at your desks with the phone speaker on and the mute button activated until you had something to say. So it actually was difficult to tell someone THEIR MIC wasn’t on unless you picked up the phone and called them on another line. In that sense, these theme answers made perfect sense.
Keeping the mute button on in a telcon was critical because occasionally someone would actually start snoring, and the rest of us would dissolve into helpless laughter, but it always brightened the rest of the day. Of course, one big advantage to that system over a video conference was that the snorer could not be easily identified. Another nice thing was that you could roll your eyes, stick out your tongue or make all sorts of reactionary gestures at the phone without anyone knowing. I mostly remember they were time-consuming, and there was always that one annoying dope who would keep talking after the discussion had run its course, and everyone else was sitting with their finger over the disconnect button until they finally just started hanging up, and the dope was sitting there alone with his boring thoughts.
I said to myself, IOTA comment on this. So -- I love your BIOTA/IOTA observation!!
I'm just tuning in on the West Coast, but applying Occam's Razor to the number of comments and the lack of a real time "he's joking" post suggests it was a genuine brainfart from Rex and the parens were added later with the LOL being aimed at himself.
@egsforbreakfast 8:51 AM
My goodness you are a bit randyforbreakfast.
A woman was explaining to her niece why she couldn't run away to get married:
Niece: "Antelope."
Aunt: "Cantaloupe."
Close, but you want " oirte" unless you're implying the speaker is so awful that you can't listen to him. Hope you get to see Pierre.
@Liveprof 8:09 AM
Wait. You're a lawyer? 🤯
I think I probably knew this, but I think my brain broke sometime last night. I never graduated at the top of anything because the main problem with education is that there are pretty girls in the classroom.
@Rex, sex hex?
Read this puzzle as a kind of verbal comic strip—you can visualize the panels as you read the theme. Because it was light on trivia I was able to work my way through it with lucky guesses here and there—best moment was when WIZARDOFOZ came into focus from a few of the crosses. In the NE, PEACHYKEEN was a fun discovery because I never had to look at the clue—it just appeared from the crosses. I liked the light tone of this puzzle and the memories it evoked of early exposure to ZOOM and Skype and the like.
Hi @Whatsername! While I'm not yet retired, I've been in the corporate world long enough to remember those conference calls well. We had these tedious codes that seemed to be 50 digits long that we had to key in from our phone pads in order to join, that was maddening. By the time we entered them, we were late. Back then though, we thought we were very cutting edge. The question of, "Is Hugh on? Is Hugh on? Is Hugh on?" still makes me cringe... 😊
I got YOU'RE MUTED and was expecting a collection of Zoom problems, like UNCAP YOUR CAMERA or MOVE YOUR MIC, WE'RE GETTING FEEDBACK (that one's too long, though). So it was a bit of a disappointment to see that they were all the same problem. But that's a perfectly fine way to do it.
I had no idea PELE ever played in NY, nor did I know what sport the Cosmos played, but it was a 4-letter name and probably not American football, baseball, or basketball, so PELE it was.
And I was happy to see the non-lab-assistant IGOR. Here in Boston, if you drive to New York or points south thereof your best route takes you across the Housatonic River on the IGOR I. Sikorsky Memorial Bridge, one end of which is next to the Sikorsky helicopter factory, so that was a gimme.
Happy Birthday to Penelope!
The theme was easy once I had YOU'RE MUTED and enough crosses on WE CAN'T HEAR YOU, though OH FORGET IT was tricky. Mostly because I had MELODY crossing ACID test crossing GAS (GAS and [Ball] both being words for a fun time, tricky themelesses have trained me to think beyond the most common meaning of words). I also had NEEDLE (not Rex's RATTLE) before NETTLE.
Initially the theme turned me off (“Why are you making me think any more of Zoom meetings than I have to?”), but then it actually made me enjoy the revealer. I enjoyed imagining the euphoria of suddenly being off the hook for said Zoom meeting, which no doubt could have been an email anyway.
I haven’t reached your parents’ decade yet but only recently worked up the courage to do away with my landline. The angst was significant. I always liked the security of having a backup in case my cell was disabled or lost, but it got to be too high a price to pay for calls primarily from scammers. Now I tend to guard my iPhone protectively as though I’ll be lost to the rest of the world without it. Even though I’ve had cell phones and iPads for years, it still feels odd not to have that hard-wired connection.
Ah, the days of Zoom get-togethers. Not the good old days. Though I was on a weekly Zoom get-together with my friends and we talked more often then than we had in the past. We now spend more time together than we did pre-Covid so the outcome isn't all bad. Now I only use Zoom to attend events that I don't feel like driving to.
I didn't find the puzzle all that easy - I had a moment of panic in the bottom center when I didn't know the first word of the Keats poem and couldn't come up with BURY for "Deep-six" but had a last minute aha to let me finish without a "check".
Thanks, Jacob Stulberg.
@Gary -- no name calling please!! I did bumble my way through law school and a very few miserable years as a lawyer, but finally spent 38 years teaching the law and tax courses in a college accounting program. Loved it. Many pretty girls, for sure (and handsome young men), but I managed to avoid jail time.
It’s nice to see an old-school (if there is such a thing), traditional crossword (with sub-30 % gunk !) and with a theme that is recognizable/discernible and actually adds to the enjoyment of solving.
It’s been a while - thanks for a very well-needed and much appreciated break from the recent string of trivia-laden grids.
It felt like a Monday here. Maybe I’m catching on again?
Why didn't you just say "dated" instead of "blew." You don't always have to be so crude. Yuk.
Mostly too late to have experienced Zoom meetings, for which I shall be ever grateful. The few of these, and virtual classes that I have done, almost made me miss actual meetings. My high school students frequently had to bail me out of tech jams, and they've been out of my life for a while.
I do know enough of how these things work to make all the themers obvious, except I had to change TURNTHEMIKEON to TURNYOURMICON. ..I know MIC is the way we spell that now but it will never not look funny to me. I did like the story line aspect of the themers and revealer.
No real slow downs at all, I did have ID for a nanosecond but of course it didn't work. I never know if its' DELL or DALE , crosses needed. Otherwise the cluing seemed Monday straightforward.
Happy Birthday to Penelope. The only other Penelope I have ever known was a co-worker and fellow Spanish teacher, one of the smartest people I have ever met. PhD in Spanish, totally bilingual, and just liked teaching high school kids. She did her grading (down to half points off) in green ink because she thought red marks looked too mean.
OK Wednesday, JS, a Jokey Story of Zoom gone wrong, but a little too accurate for me. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
MAGMA is my only Wordle fail since I've been playing, I had it all figured out and entered GAMMA! NOT! Not happy starting the puzzle with bad memories!
JAzzman: 😂
Totally agree with you about MIC. I always mentally pronounce it mick and inevitably feel annoyed at the spelling.
Jebus, how old am I that it never occurred to me that this was a Zoom meeting? I thought it was a regular old-fashioned, lots of people in one room meeting. (The answer is 70% of a hundred. I give my age in fractions of a century now.)
Easy. No erasures and no WOEs.
Genuinely amusing with a couple of fun long downs, I too liked it a lot more than @Rex did.
Very smoooth solvequest. Nary a no-know. Didn't latch onto the remote meeting puztheme aspect, at first. Thought maybe the answer to 17-A's {Response to "Good morning, everybody!"} was gonna be sometime like WHATSGOODABOUTIT.
Wow, the speaker's mic and speaker are both off? Is he receivin' a picture? Did he forget to bring his electronic device altogether? Ain't exactly THEWIZARDOFZOOM, huh?
M&A retired waaay before this kind of meetin happened much at his workplace. Even just by conference phones. Almost before electricity.
staff weeject pick: STU. Close to a no-know, since I've never seen a "Rugrats" episode. Better clue, to assure M&A success: {Start of a very recent constructioneer's name?}.
some fave stuff: WIZARDOFOZ. PEACHYKEEN. MAYA, MAGMA, MYNA, & LAYLA. SHADY clue. SEX clue.
I kinda thought U could still always see the Wiz's image, projected on the wall ... and then Toto also introduced the regular wiz version?
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Stulberg dude. Won't FORGETIT.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I agree!
For whatever reason, certain types of clues are annoying lately. Here we have two "Word before / after..." clues crossing each other! (32 across and 24 down). Also, fill in the blank and "First / last word of.." clues crossing each other (61 across and 52 down). And ridiculous clue for OILS... just reference painting for heaven's sake.
A few too many names, but fortunately all Knowns: MAYA ALLAN OAHU OZ PELE LAYLA STU IGOR IOWA ELI ETON. And we have STU and then STEW.
Loved peachy keen.
LAYLA just happens to be the name of one of our chickens. Someone decided they should all have punny names - Eggatha, Henrietta, you get the idea - and I was tasked with naming my favourite one. I'm not really good at this kind of thing so I emailed a friend and she came up with LAYLA. Thanks, Patrice.
Didn't see anything about a Zoom meeting in the grid and since I've never done one, the theme was opaque for me.
Zoom does take me back to the psychology of Sensation and Perception where it refers to the interpretation of an object's retinal image that is stationary but shrinking in size The resulting GESTALT is that it is an object that is moving directly away from us.
The opposite, Loom, is where a retinal image is stationary but increasing in size. Its GESTALT is that it is an object that is moving directly toward us. It will automatically produce a protective and avoidance reflex. A great example can be seen when a baseball batter fouls the ball directly toward the screen behind home plate. The people behind the screen in the path of the ball will instinctively flinch, duck, throw up their hands, etc. This reflex is found even in infants.
So even though the theme was a swing and a miss for me, I did enjoy reminiscing about Zooming and Looming.
Gary
I got to your post too late yesterday but your riff on the parents who held an out of control reveal party literally caused me to burst out laughing ( and I almost never do that when I am alone!
Today’s puzzle I also liked better than Rex. I thought it wasn’t that easy.
I really liked this puzzle. Very entertaining:
Few names, sports, movies etc!
Anonymous 9:38 A M
MYTH I can see your point if your description is the only meaning of MYTH. Like most words myth has more than one meaning. Myth also is used to refer to “a fictitious story, person or thing.” to quote a reference online. Crosswords , as puzzles do not have to rely on the first definition and routinely use one further down the list. So it is a valid answer
@Les, I'd love to meet Layla!! It never occurred to me but what a great name for a chicken!! Good going Patrice!!
I have some issues w the Southwest.. -- Maze for Haze.. Glum for Blah.. and perhaps i'm off base, but I'm not crazy about the clue for awol.
pabloinnh & Whatsername
I have exactly the same reaction to MIC every time I see it. I totally missed the change and keep pronouncing mic as mick also. I gather it was the preferred spelling among professionals and eventually it forced its way into the general public. I hate it
Agreed…good one Jazzman!
Omg. I see above I misspelled Odyssey…🙄 Well…it WAS quite odd.
I confidently wrote in ASPECT for 10D (Look). Then immediately cursed out the editor for the clue to 16A. "PEEK isn't a glimpse, you dodo!" Then, seconds later, my head-slap when I saw SHAH.
Like many previous commenters I missed the Zoom meeting thing. Being somewhat unhappy with my work situation, I took an “early retirement” buy out in 2009. But I must say that I probably would have preferred Zoom meetings to the in-person events I was forced to attend before my exit.
I’m sure you’ve all seen at least one of those “newspaper movies”, numerous people gathered around a boardroom table, with one guy at the head asking, “OK, what we got on the city front, Doug?”, and “National desk, what’s the latest on the PM’s affair with his assistant? Good keep on it, We’ll expect a rough version before lunch.” All very exciting if you’re in a theatre and not in the actual room.
I represented the graphics department. “Les, what have you guys got for us today?” “Whatever you need. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s how we work. Submit a request and we’ll do our best to build something.” Boring. Every day, the same f**king thing.
I think I would have preferred Zoom meetings. Especially if they would have let me work from home. I could have clipped and lit a nice Robusto and sipped my double shot latte and not wasted my time dealing with people who thought they were re-enacting The Front Page or the Paper.
Anyway, I found the puzzle amusing. Even if only because it brought back memories of me not wanting to interrupt my wife’s Zoom calls (she was still working) and sneaking in behind her computer and making a “finger to my closed lips” kind of gesture so I could grind my morning coffee.
Actually enjoyed the OH, FORGET IT sigh, though I might have said something more crude also beginning with an F. Thanks Jacob, for a fun Wednesday.
Indeed. Makes me wonder why the abbreviation for "bicycle" is not "bic".
Liveprof, I WISH you had been one of MY law professors! My tax prof was a real meanie! And just to say…that statement totally true…but I did like most of my law professors. Even the one who “grilled” me mercilessly in class after I’d missed one week of class (I had my first bambino)…later…he said “Ms. Beezer…I am so SORRY…I didn’t realize YOU were the pregnant student!…Read up on this case…I’ll call on you next week…” Haha…he had initially thought I was just “skipping class”!
Me too re MIke vs MIC. And happy birthday to wonderfully named Penelope. If you can abide Rex/ Michael, you must be a fabulous person. (I didn't mean that to be as mean as it sounds. Really. But, admit it, he's got to be annoying, right?)
Something tells me PEACHYKEEN is often used sarcastically. Like many here, I also liked the puzzle better than Rex. Apparently, he was bored with it so I understood where he was coming from. For me it was harder, and kept my interest. There were quite a few spots for multiple answers and I repeatedly guessed the wrong one.first I do think Rex doesn’t understand how awkward Zoom et al. can be for older people like me. The scenario presented makes perfect sense to me!
We Boomers started the process of loosening standards concerning public profanity and off color humor. And I agreed. But I have to be honest that the wannabe dictator, also a Boomer, who has very few limits in his vocabulary has caused me some second thoughts.
The clue/ answer butt HEAD today surprised me but I think it’s okay. Don’t remember if the cartoon character ever appeared.
Based on their editorial policy, I don’t think they will go any further.
I'll have some of what M&A is having!
@pabloinnh 10:09 AM
Thanks! I am still making some pretty horrible Spanish, so I do appreciate your help. Pierre tickets acquired for Friday.
The fact that "SEX" in the very center also referred to a "conversation" like 56-across made me think it was part of the theme, which suggests a rather special sort of Zoom call.....
28-down clue: Mechanic’s canfuls…..Shouldn’t that be cansful?
Sorry if this is a repeat. I thought I had posted it earlier.
Like many previous commenters I missed the Zoom meeting thing. Being somewhat unhappy with my work situation, I took an “early retirement” buy out in 2009. But I must say that I probably would have preferred Zoom meetings to the in-person events I was forced to attend before my exit.
I’m sure you’ve all seen at least one of those “newspaper movies”, numerous people gathered around a boardroom table, with one guy at the head asking, “OK, what we got on the city front, Doug?”, and “National desk, what’s the latest on the PM’s affair with his assistant? Good keep on it, We’ll expect a rough version before lunch.” All very exciting if you’re in a theatre and not in the actual room.
I represented the graphics department. “Les, what have you guys got for us today?” “Whatever you need. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s how we work. Submit a request and we’ll do our best to build something.” Boring. Every day, the same freaking thing.
I think I would have preferred Zoom meetings. Especially if they would have let me work from home. I could have clipped and lit a nice Robusto and sipped my double shot latte and not wasted my time dealing with people who thought they were re-enacting The Front Page or the Paper.
Anyway, I found the puzzle amusing. Even if only because it brought back memories of me not wanting to interrupt my wife’s Zoom calls (she was still working) and sneaking in behind her computer and making a “finger to my closed lips” kind of gesture so I could grind my morning coffee.
Actually enjoyed the OH, FORGET IT sigh, though I might have said something more crude also beginning with an F. Thanks Jacob, for a fun Wednesday.
I don’t recall seeing so many kealoas in a puzzle. DALE/DELL, ALOT/LOTS, NAVE/APSE, BIOTA/BIOME and MAR/TAR. I felt compelled to point that out since no one else did. You’re welcome.
My pal Miriam Webster says both are accepted but canfuls is preferred. Personally, I like cansful better.
I loved this theme. I was laughing so hard when I figured it out.
As someone who dabbled in crosswords on and off (overwhelmingly off) for several decades and started doing them daily only a month ago, completing this puzzle was the first time I ever earned a laugh at a theme. I was quite amused by it. Much like you, my wife was not.
Hi, I’m a novice at crosswords although I’ve been doing them for years. Mostly Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m venturing into Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. So forgive me if my question is lame. But why is 24 down Sea? I get the Red Sea but See Green? Please explain.
Easy Wednesday. Much easier than yesterday's puzzle, so should have been swapped.
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