Your writing is so elegant and soothing. Especially after the frustration of Mr. Eaton-Salners tricky puzzle. I am now your devoted fan.
This was horrible. Lost patience with it after figuring out the backwards thing and it still made no sense. Nor did the explanation on a quick read. This is the first NYT puzzle I did not enjoy. The cleverness always delights. Whatever this was didn’t.
5
Sorry not sorry, I HATED this puzzle. It wasn't fun, and I don't think it should actually classify as a "crossword" puzzle. In my opinion, this is more of a writer showing off at how clever they can be -- and good puzzle writers don't have to resort to tricks. Answers to a well-written clue should be actual words.
This falls into another genre, and in my opinion shouldn't be part of a series of puzzles where the reader is trying to establish a streak. It's really not fair.
2
I love the tricky puzzles and had the first backward answer solved but could not connect “red root” to the answer! This took longer than usual but I finally got it filled in. I still had to read the information for it to finally make sense. Well done!
I had HADAT for 55-Across, which made me assume “Rubbish” was TRASH, and i was like, what the heck is a TEGNEVA?! I eventually figured out my mistake and was like, what the heck is a DEGNEVA?! My aha! moment didn’t come until I saw the GNI at 51-Across. Very clever, and very worthy of a Thursday puzzle.
My only confusion (and i wish Deb had addressed this in her notes) is 27-Down. DAH is the answer, but on my NYT app, the clue is just a dash (-). Can someone please enlighten me?
5
Gimmicky, below the level of the NYT.
3
@William Vandiver had you never done a Thursday puzzle before?
3
Broke my streak of 58, but it’s a fair puzzle. Hat is off—well played evil genius!
1
Really enjoyed this one! It was a true Thursday puzzle.
1
Can someone explain why "Note below F" is "See Me". Is it because it is a note a teacher would leave if the grade would be below F?
Otherwise, after figuring out he trick it was pretty smooth sailing, except I had CUSTOM MADE instead of CUSTOMIZED, and so the whole upper left corner was lost (sala)
2
David, yes to your guess about "See me," and I also insisted on "custom-made" for a while.
Terrible puzzle.
8
This sort of trick puzzle is 19-Across.
1
This was simply a fantastic puzzle. Hard and interesting.
5
Not fun at all.
10
I always start Thursday's puzzle with the feeling I am embarking on an adventure. This one did not disappoint. What fun!
3
The posts are repeating in the Android app, so I'll just chime in. Saint Peter oddly opened the gates in terms of the first part of the theme, and I filled in a number of theme answers (avenged, students) without grokking what was going on. Quite frankly, I was just happy it wasn't anagrams, which are my particular bugabear. Looking at the diaper-avenged pair gave me the second aha moment. Lost some time insisting on custom-made, despite having filled in odds immediately, and erased/reinstated it several times. Count me in the "this was amusing, brilliant, and made me happy" camp.
My favorite thing about this very tricky puzzle was reading the constructor’s comments and learning about semordnilaps!😊
1
I would've had a faster start if I hadn't thought something 'well done' was a FEAT. Which rendered a reverse reading of 'CUST [or COST?] OF IZED'... whatever IZED might be. Probly complicated by the fact that I think 'well done' MEAT is on the rare side, and no crossword -- no matter how good --is going to change that any time soon.
My own fault for liking the phrase 'to go haring after [something]', which got me to enter HARED for 'went after', which it wasn't SET AT to be
At first, the cluing had me running like water off a duck's back, but before long it was just another fun depot on the "Read'n'Rite in Reverse, Parse as Possible" Mystery Tour. Scenic, and with all the creature comforts. Loved each of the 43 minutes, and It won't ever be too soon for me to enjoy smore semordnilaps.
Only promise me the next time you have LION and THORN so close in a grid, you'll find a way to shoe-horn in a patent nod to ANDROCLES. Thankee, Alex E-S, always a pleasure!!
2
@Leapfinger
Apparently AE-S has worked in an oxymoron as well, since well done MEAT isn't exactly done well.
2
Can someone please explain the red root clue at 27a? And the answer for that matter. Thanks!
1
RED ROOT reversed is TO ORDER. The answer is CUSTOMIZED. That one stumped me for a while also, but I loved the puzzle. Each reveal was a satisfying aha moment.
6
Thanks so much for explaining it clearly! I was das ytterp when I couldn’t figure out what killed my first ever 7-day streak even after reading the columnist’s explanation. Live and learn!
1
Sorry. Not fun at all. Too contrived for my taste, especially when doing these puzzles to relax, not to twist my mentality into a knot!
14
@MorningLight Thursday puzzles are anything but relaxing.
2
I’ve been a crossword solver for only a few months now, and I’ve improved enough that I can usually do a Monday puzzle in < 10 minutes, Tuesday in < 15, Wednesday in < 20, etc. (I usually have to break out the autocheck for later-in-the-week puzzles - I’m still new at this!) However, I’ve found this week’s puzzles especially difficult. Is it just me?
6
@R M
Not at all. I've been doing the NYT crossword for over 40 years, and pretty much daily for the past 10, and I think this week was a doozy! Noticeably more challenging, so don't lose heart - sounds like you are doing fantastically well for a relative newbie.
7
@R M
Thursdays, in particular, can come at you from out in left field, sometimes even from the dugout or locker room. More than any other day, Thursdays are wide open, and almost anything can happen. Which is why that's the day most loved/ most despised by so many XWord addicts.
8
Listen, I scrolled (quickly) through the comments in the morning to get to the Spelling Bee grid, & I caught a few words about backwards clues, & I STILL had trouble!! Although I did get some of the long downs rather quickly & had hope! I was having trouble figuring out the backwards clues even! Maybe I have reverse dyslexia? Anyway, always something to learn, and the word play is so much fun . . . OFFS/ODDS, BCCS/BBC. Thursday is like my study day.
1
The backwards aspect made the puzzle delightfully interesting. I loved how crosses gave me so many clues. I loved seeing SOLACE reminding me of the only 45 record I was ever given with The Entertainer on the flip side.
I couldn’t have enjoyed the puzzle without Wordplay, so thank you Deb. Thanks Alex Eaton-Salners, for the Thursday puzzle thrill.
3
I managed to stagger through, but it took longer than a Thursday should have! I finished it, but never figured out the theme answers, so was happy to check Wordplay! Once I read it, I thought it was a very clever puzzle!
Very proud to have completed this one faster than my average speed without reading the notes. I also only figured out half the theme. I realized the answers were backwards but completely missed that the clues were too. I completed the answers by getting crossings. Devilish fun!
3
Could anyone explain 27D? I don't understand why - is a clue for DAH.
Thank you!
1
@Amrie dits and dahs are you refer to the various parts of morse code. A dit is the short tone (represented by .), a dah is the long one (represented by -)
4
@Amrie
I'm thinking that the clue should have been at least an en dash rather than what appeared to be just a hyphen, that's what had me puzzled. It would be the long telegrapher's press or "dah" rather than a short press or "dit" when said orally. For example, a train's crossing whistle is a Q pattern in Morse code — — • — or dah-dah-dit-dah.
1
@JayTee
The newspaper version looks like an emdash. If you use Across Lite you will only see a hyphen because AL doesn't support emdashes or endashes.
Yowsa!!!! That was brutal...However, I’m feeling sufficiently self-satisfied to have finally figured out the gimmick to keep my pet peeves to myself.
7
I finished the puzzle within one minute of my Thursday average. So it was not very difficult. I did not realize the gimmick of the italicize clues until I read the blog. I could not figure out any connection between the backward spelled “answers” and the clueing. In that regard I guess you could say it was clever, but not very. Seems like Thursdays are becoming a test lab for experimental trickery. Which, when all is said and done, is OK by me.
1
Took a few minutes to figure out the trick, but not so much of an "Aha" moment as an "oh, okay" moment, as it just seemed to lack a certain level of creativity or cleverness. The SAINT PETER clue I thought was fantastic, but I wish there had been some kind of running them to the rest. One man's MEAT, I suppose. We're onto Friday.
1
*running theme, not running them.
@Thomas
You say: "seemed to lack a certain level of creativity or cleverness"?
Finding reversible words and phrases, not too hard. But pairing them as clues and entries, I say creative and Verrry clever. That's where the real genius lies in this puzzle, IMO.
4
@Mike R
Yup, we just had redundancy within the entries as a theme. Now we have redundancy between the clue and entry (which is required, of course), except that it's backwards in both cases. Which makes it sort of a Ginger Rogers adaptation.
I guess the next step will have the theme in heels.
3
I tried to squeeze Political Arguments into the answer for Thanksgiving Centerpiece
9
@ColoradoZ, save a little space for the 'class struggle'.
This is a rare one I found too tough to finish -- I finally downloaded the answers and saw why. An example: for 46A I had INTACT and for the crossing 38A I had TRASH. Normally these both would have been perfectly good .... but they weren't. This wasn't normal, as I soon found out reading the blog and Deb's comments. I can understand a misdirection -- but not when BOTH across and down intersections are that way.
I am in awe. Now I will forever think citizen Kane was stoned.
5
Hated it, this is garbage, send your "puzzles" elsewhere and give us the Times crossword. I don't care if you're bored by it.
7
So your sayin’ celui-ci a votre bateau?
Taking a break saved me from my muddle. I had blank spaces all over the puzzle as well as what appeared to be gobbledygook here and there. Coming back after a few hours away I confirmed that there were backward spelled words and I managed to complete the puzzle.
But what would I do without you, Deb? I don't think I would ever have found the double whammy in the clues. So many thanks, once again, for your mentoring all of us.
5
I was so pleased to figure out that the "counterpoint of windows" was APPLE. except it wasn't. AISLE was the last to be filled.I also had TRASH before DROSS for quite a while....I enjoyed the class struggle and the members who meet in an alley. cute clues....
9
I got the theme very early on, because I'd seen that trick before, but the puzzle on the whole was still a toughie! My favorite clue: 63A GATE MAN for SAINT PETER. I also liked the long vertical answers, like HUMANITIES, CORNUCOPIA. However, I struggled mightily with the Northwest corner because I had FIRE for "Let go" and couldn't get anything to make sense.
Nice try, Deb, but I still have a quibble with 70A. It's a bit of a stretch to interpret "handful of golfers" as something belonging to golfers. Maybe "handful FOR golfers" would make more sense. But what's a little misdirection between friends?
3
When I finished this puzzle, I wondered what others would say about it. It was tricky enough that I had it 75 per cent solved before I caught on to the theme, and the delight in the double whammy. Before then I was wondering in what language DEGNEVA meant daiper, and then saw avenged as a backwards alternative, and then the clue suddenly esenes edam. Was surprised at how few griped about this. Not the most difficult puzzle. but really. What crosswords should be, fun.
7
That one was tough. I really enjoyed the fill here though... WHEN IN ROME and CORNUCOPIA were particularly great.
I just couldn't get the theme on this one. I needed basically all of the crossings and even once I figured out the answers were backwards, I still didn't get it. (SAINT PETER, nametag, what?)
Once I finished my solve and read the Wordplay article I was like, oh CRAP of course, duh and still had a good aha moment, just a lot later than usual.
Overall it was a solid Thursday puzzle that even though the gimmick just wasn't on my wavelength it was still fun to solve, mostly because the non-theme fill and cluing was so fun.
5
Second time this week I finished the puzzle and had to stare at it in a complete FOG, trying to figure out the theme/trick.
Great week of challenging puzzles. Keep 'em coming!
2
Our commentator must not be a gardener. Red root is a noxious weed. Unfortunately I know it well.....
1
Fun puzzle, had just the right amount of "Hmm, DE--MO--UC is obviously weird, lemme come back to that later" confusion. Palindromes, anagrams, and mixed-up letters are my jam.
Xanadu means Rush to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEuOoMprDqg
I decided to solve on my computer today instead of my phone, and the different settings caused me some trouble. (I tried to adjust the settings to match what I'm used to, but didn't get them exactly the same.) I spent way more time than usual navigating the clues and answers. I'm not a touch typist, so having a physical keyboard didn't help a whole lot, but I liked using the spacebar to switch between across & down; I'll have to try that on the phone. I was happy to finish in x9:58, where x might be 0, 1, 2, 3, ... Two more seconds would have made me yell "Aw, 19-Across!"
2
@Morgan Though I am a self-taught typist in 1958 on an rattly 1912 Underwood, whose keys constantly came unsoldered (Elmer's glue can replace solder, for those who give a tinker's), I can't image working regular puzzles by computers, phone or PC. My fingers just don't cooperate. There is something more satisfying by solving with paper and pen. Just call me quaint.
2
@mike, you're only mildly quaint in the present company. Some here use a stylus on a wax tablet, and at least one of our number opts for a chisel and stone.
The old grey gal, she quaint what she used to be
1
@GuyQuay is on a geeky quest to get the wordplay community on a mini leaderboard.
Each day I post two links. The first is a link to join my leaderboard. If you click on it, then you can agree that I can see your mini time every day and you can see mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/leaderboards/invite/6396732c-e7ce-4546-bc88-72a48b3eb25b
If you are new to the leaderboards and have never shared your leaderboard link, then I will be the only person on your leaderboard. To get your leaderboard to look more like a community, please share your leaderboard link in a reply to this comment. Keep in mind that by doing so you are allowing anyone who reads Wordplay to see your daily mini time. But once they connect, you get to see their time and you will also have the ability to temporarily or permanently discontinue the "time-share". If that works for you, click on Leaderboards at the Crossword home page, then click "Add Friends", and then "Copy Link". Then reply to this comment and paste your link.
The second link I post is a link to my most recent leaderboard recruitment post. This will allow new time-sharers to easily add everyone who has posted her or his share-link on previous days.
https://nyti.ms/2S8ZK2k#permid=101384776
Look for leaderboard links in the replies to the post above. (There is are 3!) Then go back to the main post and follow its previous day's link. Following the links should get you 3 additonal members ' times.
See you on the leaderboard!
1
If you’re wondering if anyone can solve a puzzle without understanding the theme clues or (for most of the time involved,) the answers, here I am. Streak preserved, with much teeth gnashing. Not my cup of tea, even for a Thursday.
6
Excellent puzzle in every way!
6
Wish 65A had been "Blood moon, to Captain Nemo?"
4
I see that my C-i-C hasn't appeared after quite a bit. Confusing.
But now I realize that I actually quoted the entry for 7D, so that's probably what got it embargoed. Alex and the editorial team may never know all the nice things I said about them.
Grrrrrrr.
Hi @Deadline,
Try refreshing the page. Your comment is right below this one.
@Deb Amlen
Thanks. I just got the email, so I'll go look for it now.
And I'll be more careful about not violating the double standard.
3
@Deadline
When it comes to the double standard, the emus tend to appreciate (demand?) deferential subtlety. That’s my ASSESsment anyway. Wink, nod, and an emuish grin.
2
Gosh I love Thursdays! Especially when I get stumped for quite a while and then discover a truly enjoyable trick. Such was the case today.
I didn't tumble at all for the longest time. I got sidetracked thinking in terms of anagrams rather than just trying to read backwards. Then, with no themers entered yet, I made a mess in California and around into Texas.
First, with just the early HEN part and the ME ending showing, and from the clue, I wanted 28D to be a phrase starting with WHEN and meaning something like "when it pleases me." Then I had TRASH instead of DROSS, which gave me HAD instead of SET AT.
Luckily an OX TEAM came along and pulled me out of the mud. Bless that little X, giving me EXISTING and showing me half the gimmick. Some intense staring at that and other themers led to a super-fulfilling Aha! moment!
Didn't know the tennis player, "Game of Thrones" guy, or "Wonder Woman" gal. I didn't read superhero comics as a child nor did I ever watch their flicks, so know the names only from XWPs. And I have trouble remembering them. Like rappers' names, they all seem kinda silly to me.
SOOTHE before SOLACE.
Do people take ASSES to the mountains? I thought they took mules.
Great clue for AISLE.
Thanks, Alex, and Will & Co. This was such a terrific way to start the day.
14
@Deadline
Gal Gadot is the actress's name and you may want to keep it in mind. Constructors seem to like her. This is the 4th time Gadot has been in the puzzle this year.
1
I’ve noticed that too and am now expecting (waiting for?) Gadot.
4
@Deadline, mules are Terrible for hiking; they slide right off your FEAT alla the time. Even worse for anything you might call mountain-climbing, which requires decent support for both foot and ankle. I'm not talking about the dinosaur-era quadruple-stitching boots I used when I first climbed: they have much lighter and more supple versions now, but I don't know if these allow the same thrill of being able to stand firmly on a rock ledge no more than one inch deep.
But remember, no sandals, no flip-flops, no espadrilles and definitely no mules!!
1
I got a real hoot out of the funny, yet profound answer to “Cause of class struggle?” clue (68A).
On the other hand, the answer to the “Handful of golfers?” clue (70A) for was a real shank IMHO.
4
Today I learned that I need to attend a remedial backwards reading class. I did figure out the theme answers pretty quickly but those strangely spaced backwards clues were almost impossible to parse.
Who knew Alex Eaton-Salners is so wickedly sneaky?
Thank you, Alex, for most this most excellent Thursday, The crazy clues were a brilliant touch!
6
ugh! I hate backwards day
10
Great puzzle. I solved it without any help.
3
I have hadn't read this blog before starting the puzzle I would have been totally lost.
1
I managed to solve this puzzle without having any idea what it, or I, was about. As soon as I happened on the first backward answer, though, I knew what to work toward--still without "getting it." I thought the capitalized clues were anagrams, which I'm no good at. Still, like someone in a pitch-black maze, I managed to find my way out--which feels like one small victory on top of another. Mr. Berlin is a devilish trickster on a par with Brendan Emmet Quigley!
3
Maybe it’s just my “mood” - or the fact that I’m about to start a long weekend and “don’t have time” for this sort of thing. Puzzle was “completed” (not “solved” - by my rules).
But I view these bass-ackwards words as “tricks” - not “themes”. (I mercifully do not remember the similar puzzle earlier this year.)
I DO acknowledge the very high level of creativity required to produce the puzzle - and the rest was enjoyable - but, until I read Deb’s words of wisdom, the bass-ackwards words were just aggravations. Without Deb’s guidance, the answers might just as well have been written in Azerbaijani.
Might have felt differently had there been a flashing circle around the “Puzzle Info” icon on my iPad - - and a title that provided a small “hint” about the included gimmick.
9
@PeterW
It's a Thursday, so those of us who've been around for even a little while and have attempted Thursday puzzles know that almost anything goes on a Thursday, whether it's rebuses or backwards entries or (gasp) numbers. So we don't expect hints or other indications, we just assume that there will be chicanery and trickery afoot, and proceed with caution.
4
Beautiful light bulb moment. Loved the puzzle. It is, I am also quite sure, the only NYT crossword to raise the topic of packing your ass for mountain climbing.
8
@Dan
That is hilarious. I tried to reply in text speak and then coded text speak but the emus said no go. A text speak synonym for ROFL.
1
Me. I'm going to burro into the background and say nothing.
Nothing, butt nothing at all.
That was a hoot! Got the gimmick pretty early with diaper/avenged, and rolled along till the NW quadrant, as others have noted, FAZED me a bit. I was going for CUT TO _____? across till I finally twigged on ASSES and got the S in place. Anyway, a clever, fun, quite remarkable Thursday brain dance.
2
When she was little, my younger daughter used to say, "How do we get out of here? Just keep going!"
And that's how I solved this head-scratching a**-kicking super-complex maze of multiple layers and crazy misdirections. Yes, this is a good old good one that rocks the house.
10
I don't know if it was intended, but that [-] clue for DAH was a terrific misdirect for me. I was thinking that the dash was part of the theme and that the theme answers maybe turned 90 degrees or made a skip. If it was intended, it was devilish and a stroke of genius; if not, at least in my case, it made this puzzle even trickier.
6
@Lewis
I gave it a smiley.
:-c)€
3
@Floyd & Lewis - yes, dittos from me there.
side note
The baseball team from Winston-Salem is called the Dash in honor of the punctuation in the city's official name (sic).
2
@David Connell
Yup! Same here!
I had SAUTÉ as taupe for waaaay too long. Also really enjoyed the clueing for SEE ME. Great puzzle! Tough, but fun!
5
Four or five letters around the lower left appeared in faded blue on my computer. It threw me off completely thinking there was another trick involved. Anybody else have that? Also, how is KANE a resident of Xanadu? Is that from the movie?
@Frank
Yes Citizen Kane
@Frank
Yes, it's from "the" movie. The movie in question in "Citizen Kane." (I'm inferring from this and other comments that there was once a flick called "Xandu" and it had Olivia Newton-John. I could be wrong.)
@Deadline
If you were to search in Wikipedia for XANADU, you can find a disambiguation page with a rather long list of citations for the name. But these three may be the best known instances:
The poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in which it is the "stately pleasure dome" of the titular ruler. This was an actual place, Khan's summer palace, aka Shangdu. Maro Polo wrote about it, and Samuel Purchas wrote in English from Polo's description, which led to Coleridge's opium-induced dream and poem.
The film Citizen Kane, in which it is the name of tycoon Charles Foster Kane's estate (i.e., house and grounds; I won't call it a home, though it may qualify as a "pleasure dome," to borrow Coleridge's epithet).
The film Xanadu, in which it is the name of a disco (i.e., dance club) around which the action of the story, such as it is, takes place.
Other citations seem to flow from these three, and indeed, they all seem to refer back to Coleridge's poem.
1
Loved, loved, loved it! Seems like quite a while since we have had a puzzle with so many layers of complexity and curiosity. Totally absorbing, and fun, fun, fun.
Last entry was the Natick crossing of OSA_A and _ANE. It seemed that several letters might work with OSA_A, but only K worked with _ANE.
5
@archaeoprof, that was my last square also, but me being a sucker for allowing all possibilities, no matter how slim, I considered that K and M were both possible, with K leading by a nose.
OT to today’s puzzle but a continuation of a thread from yesterday to a late post from Puzzlemucker.
I posted that there was a controversy over the Des Moines Art Center paying $198,000 ($66,000 per) for a piece of art which consisted of three vacuums stacked one on top of each other. PM then replied that MOMA was out-decked because the MOMA piece was just a double-decker. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81090
My question is : Did MOMA pay $66,000 less for theirs or did they just receive a discount of $300,the actual cost of the vacuum?
1
@ColoradoZ
MOMA probably paid a NYC premium. I must say that not only did DMAC get an extra deck, it got a more visually interesting piece (more variation in color and less aligned vacs):
https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/jeff_koons_10.htm
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81090
1
I was a HS student when the DSM Arts Center made that purchase. Shortly afterwards I visited the Register where the staff cartoonist (Brian Duffy?) did a rough sketch of the stacked vacuums with a Terry Branstad look alike janitor vacuuming nearby.
2
@Sam t
It was Brian Duffy. I occasionally socialized with him because a good friend of mine was an editor at the Register and knew him well. Unsubscribed to the Register because of the way Gannett corporation handled his "down sizing". http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2008/12/08/brian-duffy-was-fired-escorted-out-of-building/
He still does cartoons https://www.brianduffycartoons.com/
1
"In Xanadu did KUBLAI KHAN...." I had to run the alphabet to get that--and it was evil to cross it with a tennis player who isn't even in the Wimbledon line-up.
When I saw the -SUC at the 'end' of 17A I tumbled to the trick--having started uncharacteristically with 1D--and the rest was pretty breezy.
I think of SAINT PETER as more of a 'gatekeeper' vs 'gateman,' for whatever reason.
Slight detour when I put a LUTE in at 40D (?only 4 strings?) and some stutter-steps for the 'Wonder Woman' and 'Game of Thrones' entries.
Fun, fun, fun!
5
@Mean Old Lady - no, lute is indeed (generally) a six-stringed instrument. It can have double courses on some or all of the strings (so anywhere between 6 and 12 is found), and additional lower strings are often found. But LUTE is legit and was my first guess, quickly undone by crossings.
What a hoot!
I don’t like writing notes to myself in the margins because I want the finished solution to be crisp & clean. So I suspected the theme early but didn’t actually *write* “Red root” backwards, I just thought about it backwards, & couldn’t parse it. “Too rder”. Well, that doesn’t mean anything...
Is my finished puzzle crisp & clean? No. Pride cometh before a fall.
5 smiley clues for me today (besides a big smiley over the whole puzzle), my favorite being 68A “Cause of class struggle?” TEST. Ha!!!
A Natick for me, unfortunately, at OSA?A & ?ANE, which I guessed incorrectly. (The KANE/Xanadu connection didn’t come to me. Neither of these is in my wheelhouse.)
Thanks, Alex! And by the way, this solver would never have remembered that gateman is name tag spelled backwards. I may not even that tomorrow.
Happy Thor’s Day, Everyone!
:-c)€
6
Not impressed,just plain weird.
8
I couldn't finish this puzzle and even after I revealed the solution and read Deb's blog, I still don't understand it!
Diaper - avengened?
Red root - customized?
Name tag - Saint Peter?
I've been solving crosswords for years, but this particular puzzle's
solution escapes me.
@RM
Clues are backwards and need to be parsed
Re-paid
To Order
Gate man (Pearly gates))
3
Both the clue and the answers are reversed.
Diaper -> Repaid :: denegneva -> Avenged
Red root- > To order :: dezimotsuc --> Customized
I actually used the understanding to help me solve 2 of the theme entries. It was certainly not intuitive, not obvious, and doubly devious.
2
@RM "Diaper" read backward is "repaid," which can mean "avenged." Red root" backward is "to order," = "customized." "Name tag" = "gate man" = "Saint Peter."
2
Wow -- was the trick well disguised or what??!! I finished the whole puzzle -- not with ease, mind you -- dutifully writing the italicized clue answers backwards, since that was the only way it seemed they could go. I used letter pattern recognition to complete all of them, since I had no idea whatsoever why this was happening. But when I had DEZIM-------, I knew that answer would go backwards and I did the same elsewhere.
Before coming here to find out what the bleep was going on, I decided to look at all the theme clues more carefully. And then I saw it -- I think at "went on" first (51A) and then confirmed by "name tag" (63A). The backward clues were so, so, so hard to see -- at least for me. The disguise was brilliant. The execution was genius. A superb puzzle! Kudos, Alex!
11
@Nancy
Me too. The letter breaks were tricky. I had to write them down in reverse to parse a couple of them.
:-c)€
1
I've been enjoying the puzzle for years but this is my first time reading this blog. This puzzle drove me crazy! I was able to complete it but I had no idea why my answers were the correct responses to these clues. Now I know that the puzzle designer is an evil genius. And I thank him.
16
@Wezilsnout
Welcome to WordPlay! Your name is HILARIOUS! Love it.
3
@Mean Old Lady - was that your hint to the Spelling Bee pangram?
@Wezilsnout
Welcome to Wordplay, and hurry back.
2
Another Thursday puzzle where I filled in the grid, got the Congrats and had to go to Deb's blog to see what the theme was. Oh I saw the backwards spelling but didn't make the connection to the clues also being spelled backwards, so I muddled through.
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red rum but we finally finished it unawares.
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@JD
Red rum indeed, with an order of beets on the side.
I stuck with 'apple' way, way too long.
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@Nick Schleppend Me too!
In a FOG the entire time, but I got it by the end. Without coffee!
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I have solved @nytimes puzzles for forty years. This was the first time I did not understand what I had done. My beret is off to Alex Eaton-Salners.
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FWIW. this was fun . .
Do others have the right word pop up way before you can explain what's going on? AS if the so-called right brain is going" aha! Got it!" while the left part is still stuck muttering to itself that that it isn't logical? ( until it is)
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@cheryl
Yes! It's an odd feeling of knowing before you know. Almost ESP, like@
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A little unusual that we had "peg" twice in 64 Down (PEG) and 69 Across (MPEG). That's contrary to convention in my experience.
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ROK,
I don't think it's "contrary to convention" unless the letters in question are the same word (i.e., the PEG of MPEG is not a PEG). Just yesterday, "tow" appeared in both 46A TOWs and 26D chinaTOWer.
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Rosebud.
..
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@RiA
du Besor...
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I eventually saw the backwards answers, but didn't take the time to figure out the theme as crosses were filling everything in. I had almost filled the grid (4 squares unfilled) and figured I'd best suss out the theme to finish the puzzle. A-Ha!
This was a fun solve for me. Always love tricksy Thursdays!
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Greetings from Grand Lake Stream ME. On line after a one year effort and what is my first puzzle: A Thursday with a trick!
Miss-spelling Humanities cost me the gold but I was so happy to be out of Bizarro World I did not care. To add insult to injury I read this little stunt has a name.
Lest I grumble on....
Got the trick with Saint Peter and the rest fell like “dumb-in-os.”
Thanks Xela
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If the theme answers didn't have to have symmetrical pairs, LOOT could have been clued, in italics, "Revel" or "Was".
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@Lewis
The only flaw in your observation is that the theme answers do not make sense in reverse; only the backwards clues do.
Since the symmetrical answer was MEAT, you could have clued it STEM or something similar, but since the entire premise is moot, it's probably best left the way it was left. (And yes, I realize that it would be better if STEM were the entry and MEAT the clue.)
However, that would be one level further, if any constructor wants to take up the challenge: clues and entries that both make sense backwards and forwards.
@Steve L -- Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I don't think MEAT would work in any case, as it spells "taem" backward.
@Lewis
My bad. I was a little quick on the trigger. Or tired from working in the heat.
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LETTER BOXED
J-S(4) S-L(10)
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@ColoradoZ
C-S (7) S-T (9).
Did not get yesterday’s. Puzzle brain on vacay with rest of me.
Last full day in Maine. Current streak: 9 days crossword free. Laptop has never left its sleeve! Weather is cool at last and I am grateful for it.
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@ColoradoZ
M-L(10), L-Y(8). I too struck out yesterday but no vacation to blame.
Today I stayed with the long but somehow compelling image.
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@Liane
No puzzle withdrawal symptoms?
I struck out yesterday until Dorothea posted the letters which turned out to be NYT solution. Who da thunk that YOWZA is an actual word in M-W?
Can we stop using “semordnilap”? It’s not a palindrome! Well, at least this puzzle had no Harry Potter clues.
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@Andy - semordnilap is the precise term for "not a palindrome" - it is only used when the string of letters have a different reading and meaning in one direction from the other.
level is a palindrome (with level)
lever is a semordnilap (with revel)
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@Andy
We can't, because it *is* an actual word! :)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/semordnilap
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@Andy
Well, no, it's not a palindrome. And that's why it's a semordnilap. I don't think word geeks will stop using a very cleverly thought-up word like that.
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I used to "Live in a studio" when I first moved to Manhattan. It was 60 dollars a month.....
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Joie,
You'd be ON AIR paying that today.
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@Joie
In 1997 I lived in a studio in the Bronx for $650/mo.
Now Broadway shows cost $650 and dinner in a burger bar costs $60.
:-c(€
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Floyd,
You can rent a studio in the Bronx today for under $1500/mo., which is less than a 3% annual increase over the $650 you were paying in 1997.
https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/bronx/price:-1500%7Cbeds%3C1
[We also must see different shows and eat in different restaurants.]
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I thought backwards fairly early on, but was lacking a couple of key letters in each of the words so I couldn't make sense out of them in either direction just by looking. Also the clues were in all CAPS on my iPad in Across Lite, so was thinking that might play a part.
Too late to make a long story short; I finally tried writing what I had for 63A backwards and it all became clear. I did the same with all the others and the clues, what a satisfying AHA at last feeling, love my tricky Thursdays.
Perhaps I'll celebrate with a CABernet Sauvignon this evening. I prefer that to a CABernet Franc.
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Best puzzle in ages.
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One of my very favorite Thursdays in recent memory! So much delightfully dastardly cluing—I fell for most of them. Stayed in the bafflement stage longer than usual, which led to a commensurately large cloud of smug.
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I totally agree. Great theme, great clues, very few groans. This must be so hard to create!
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Handful of golfers should be handful FOR golfers
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Kevin,
Did you notice the clue's question mark?
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@Kevin Davis
Too straightforward! :)
Handful OF golfers works, as Deb explained, if you don't take it literally. It is a golfer's handful, not a hand full of golfers.
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@Kevin Davis
In this case, OF = "belonging to". Since the clue leads you to understand the clue differently than is meant, it's an example of misdirection, nothing more.
In other words, it's a feature, not a flaw.
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It took me a wile to get the theme, but I enjoyed that challenge. Very clever!
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Spelling Bee
44 words, 188 points 1 pangram, no bingo
4 5 6 7 8 Tot
A 4 5 2 - - 11
H 2 2 - - 1 5
L 3 - 1 - - 4
R 3 4 2 2 - 11
T 2 6 5 - - 14
Tot 14 17 10 2 1 44
Just keep your sense of humor, remember one rope but not the other, and numismatic variants.
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@mikew
The t line does not add up to 14. Thanks for the grid!
@DH
Must be a typo because if T= 14, the total would be 45.
I'm merely amazing tonight. Bah.
@mikew Thanks. There are 13 T-words, not 14. (Total is then 44). 3 currencies, a number in a word, three th-words , the usual knocking sound R7, a funny anagram - and the rest are pretty easy. I thought I had the anagram with my first word, which was Lythria (a genus of moths), but, sadly, it was not accepted.
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Somehow I noticed pretty quickly that the italicized clues could be read backwards and so those probably need to be entered backwards, though it took a few crossings to confirm. I have a decent Thursday streak going now though, so maybe I'm just getting used to Thu trickery at this point. (Yay!)
Top center was last to fall for me. REACTS instead of BLURTS, so CUSTOMIZED took a while to land on, and guessed at a few of the others.
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Just when I’d barely begun to tolerate the rebus, now I have to look out for backward clues and answers?!
I think maybe I should just skip Thursday puzzles.
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@Bill in Yokohama
There are a lot of other tricky things that also happen on Thursdays. Better just to be aware that something never seen before might be coming and roll with it.
Unless you don't like puzzles, which would be weird, considering that you do crossword puzzles.
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@Bill it took me a long while to enjoy Thursday puzzles and be able to complete them. Now I can even finish the Friday and Saturday puzzles. keep at it and you will get better.
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Steve,
Bill has been posting here for a while, and presumably doing Thursdays for at least that long, so I'm fairly sure he knows Thursday may be a trick of any sort. I'm reading "just skip Thursday" as an ironic recognition of today's challenge, not a literal call to retreat.
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Solved this fairly quickly (two cups of coffee) but got little satisfaction from it. This is all me and not AE-S but I'm not amused by what seems like enigmatology for its own sake. Figures there'd be an actual term for this sort of convoluted construction--seminordnilaps, indeed.
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@Leslie
This will come off as snarky, but I am curious about your use of “enigmatology for its own sake.” As this is a crossword *puzzle*, meant to puzzle the solver, I’m not sure what “sake” enigmatology would have other than to be enigmatic, i.e., to puzzle the solver.
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@Leslie
SEMINORDNILAP is indeed what you call two words that are spelled the reverse of one another, such as the clues and their unstated counterparts. No need for an S at the end, though, the pluralizing S is at the beginning.
However, that word doesn't apply to the backwards entries, as those are just backwards words and phrases, gibberish when viewed in the wrong direction.
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@Leslie
I myself got a kick out of seeing "GNI_____" emerging at 56A and having the lightbulb go on: Thursday puzzle -> ING -> backwards!
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A nice palate cleanser to wash out what I/we endured last Saturday ... liked the theme and challenge!
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I was POLEAXED by this puzzle. Not even praying to ST. UDENTS or PETER could help me.
Completed but not solved.
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@vaer
Also, was mixing up Xanadu, Timbuktu and Kathmandu in my mind, though I did know that Xanadu was the fictional place, but could not fit Olivia Newton John into the puzzle. Totally forgot that Xanadu was the name of Citizen Kane's Hearst Castle.
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Had the K so entered (kublai) KHAN. Made for an interesting SE.
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Like some others, I didn't figure out the theme until after I filled in the grid. I had a delayed sense of enjoyment. As a teacher, I loved the "see me" answer though it took a while to see it. Funny, all I could remember about Xanadu was Olivia Newton-John but still was able to stumble to the answer. I'll have to put this on my "to watch" list. I thought the puzzle was very challenging.
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@Robert Kern
Wrong XANADU.
Steve,
If Robert "was able to stumble to the answer," I'm fairly sure he came to realize he had been thinking of the wrong XANADU.
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@Barry Ancona
I was just looking around the stately pleasure dome for someone other than Kubla Khan, who had already been eliminated by TEES.
I thought of, but quickly recoiled from, that New Jersey shopping mall that was touted as being terrific but stood an unfinished eyesore for years.
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I take no SOLACE in the 10 minutes added to my time searching for the reason I wasn't getting the Happy music. I was sure it was a software glitch. I then found that SOLACE is no longer spelled SOLICE.
That,of course,also changed the crossing from DIH to DAH. D'OH.
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@ColoradoZ
27D - (DAH) was one of my smileys today. Nice clue.
:-c)€
@Floyd
Could someone explain 27D to me? I'm clueless.
@Amrie
DAH - the sound of the dash in Morse Code.
I mentioned Alex Eaton-Salners at the Durham gathering of Wordplayers as one whose style I found myself out of sync with. Nonetheless, I got his trick after two of the themers filled in and used it to solve the rest. I'd say it was my favorite puzzle from him so far. Though perhaps on a day with backward-reading answers he should have avoided the word "HEM."
Deb's mention of Marx in her notes brought to mind this song parody which was done by two colleagues of mine, a pair of brothers who made it to promote a seminar they were presenting on Marx. "I read some Marx and I liked it..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyqJ9wxZ9L0
For those who need a little Solace, here's Scott Joplin's Mexican serenade as heard in "The Sting":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOwachalNNw
As I reviewed the finished puzzle I discovered the strange and (for my numerical fascination) satisfying coincidence of my solve time, 14:39, for a puzzle that brought my streak to 1,439.
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@David Connell
Congratulations on your streak. I find that amazing.
I once had a 14 and another time I had a 39
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@David Connell
Thanks for the Joplin. I was feeling a little raggedy after that puzzle. Noice streak.
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Very impressive streak and solve time.
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I really enjoyed gradually untangling the trick in this one, first inferring that the answers must be written backwards, from some of the crossing letters, and only later realizing the clues were also backwards, explaining my poor luck in guessing the backwards answers.
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Solved it without understanding it.
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Once I figured out the italicized clues were backwards, the gaps in my puzzle started filling up. Unfortunately, I got hung up on 59D, which I was certain had to be Kubla KHAN, especially since it followed so nicely from OSAKA. It took a while for me to get that bottom right corner in order.
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Ever since the "One Way Streets" puzzle of a couple of years back, I have been on guard for gibberish in the grid being an indication that something may need to be reversed.
The added twist today is the theme clue ruse: The italicized clues also need to be processed backwards and reparsed. The revealer, then, is that nonsensical theme entries were emerging from the crosses.
Didn't get it right away, but what's a puzzle without being a bit... puzzled? But befuddlement just piques my interest. Very pleased to have solved this one.
Veteran solvers might recall Alex Eaton-Salners puzzle of 02/02/2017 for an earlier version of his take on misdirection. No doubt, there are many others as well.
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and Elke
Wow and Wow. The emus must have gotten a BCC to read everything backwards -- how else did SESSA and PARC pass their muster ?
Sneaky puzzle, caught on only at ST.PETE'S. Seeing SEE ME and NTH and CAB and KOI and ON AIR again preserved some shreds of my sanity with which to parse INTOTO as IN TOTO not INTO TO.
Thanks for reminding me of my Dodge OMNI- one of the early US
front wheel drive cars (and hatchback,too).
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@Robert
I always want my old Dodges to be Darts in honor of the Car Talk guys.
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@Robert
Other repeat answers from recent puzzles:
AISLE, ASIS, TEST, TEES. INTOTO and GADOT have each appeared 4 times this year. OMNI is the winner with 7 appearances.
This is probably the puzzle with the mostest repeats this year.
Possible theme for a future puzzle--every puzzle answer has appeared at least twice within the last 6 months in previous NYT xwords
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Let's be honest. Occasionally (not often) the puzzle-maker lets his/her ego get away from him/her, and lets pride in his/her own cleverness trump the readers' enjoyment. This is one such. I solved it without understanding it, and it wasn't really fun. Thanks, Deb, for the explanation, or I never would have gotten it.
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@John F. Daly
If we’re honest, I think we’d say our appreciation of a tricky puzzle, like this one, depends largely on whether we managed to solve the trick. Like me, you solved the puzzle without solving the trick. But others who were cannier than us (in this instance) solved the puzzle and the trick and seemed to have enjoyed doing so immensely.
Puzzles are meant to be puzzling. Otherwise, we might as well just be filling out questionnaires. IMO, constructors should not be faulted for being good at being puzzling.
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@John F. Daly -- Would you explain, please, the leap you made from not understanding the puzzle to the constructor's ego being the cause?
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@John F. Daly
Some solvers’ enjoyment may have been lessened if they found the theme baffling, but others’ enjoyment was increased by the same thing.
I don’t mind being baffled so long as the explanation is accessible & “fair,” which this one seems to have been (many people here figured it out... eventually!).
:-c)€
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Like, let’s say I have 500 out of the 1,000 characters limit, the error message comes up:
“Oops, something went wrong. You comment was not published. Try again later.”
🙄.
Wow, that WAS a confusing puzzle, until Deb explained it. Thanks, Deb👋!
My longer comments are not being allowed to be published! Why?
Was I banned?
And it was a compliment, to boot!
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Hi @David Scott Pearce, You have not been banned, and hi back!
If you are having issues with the commenting system, please drop a note to [email protected] and ask them to forward it to the community managers. I’ve experienced it too and have reported it, but they will prioritize it differently if readers start writing in.
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📣Thanks, Deb!
Here’s another little bugaboo I encounter on this commenting system, but it’s actually VERY annoying!
I proofread & [TRY TO] edit my comments. That’s the good, old-fashioned way.
But you can’t do that easily in this system!
If one puts the cursor into the comment text at the editing point, after each letter added or removed, the cursor skips, UNCOMMANDED, to the end of the comment!
This is not expected behavior and ridiculous. THIS very sentence here is a perfect example: I wanted to add this sentence to the paragraph above, but I have only two options: either ERASE all I’ve written up to the edit point and LOSE IT, or keep using two key strokes per letter, for EVERY letter or backspace!
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@David Scott Pearce
I don't find I have that problem, so maybe it's your operating system, your browser, or something similar in your setup that is causing it.
Here's a suggested workaround: Keep Word or a similar program open and compose your comments in it; then, when you're done and have edited to your satisfaction, cut and paste it into the comment box.
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I discovered he theme gradually, with some early suspicion, but no real confirmation until about halfway through. The problem was not that the clues were just backwards, but also had to be re-parsed to have them make sense. Like a few others, I wanted CUSTOM made, but with ODDS and FREE in the way it wouldn't work. Got SWIM CAP (had CAP for the longest time) and the light finally went on and I finally finished the puzzle with FAZE/SEE ME.
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I managed to slog through the puzzle without grasping the theme. I depended on downs to solve and did realize that some fill was backward. Hello there SAINT PETER... I just couldn't get my brain in analytical mode. Deb's column saved my mind.
I really liked some of the down fill. CORNUCOPIA and CHATTERBOX IN the northeast along with the HUMANITIES and WHEN IN ROME in the southwest were marvelous pillars. I also enjoyed BLURT, ECONO, WHO and DROSS.
:-)
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The theme was tricky, but that wasn't what swelled my time to half again as much as usual for a Thursday. It was that 4x4 NW corner. I wanted "custom-made" instead of "customized," which ruled out the "odds" I wanted for 1-down from the start. I had "cap" but couldn't get the "swim," and for a long time clung to "cede" instead of "free." This was my hardest solve in a long time.
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Right there with ya! Then cede lead me to ices in place of OFFS. What a mess.
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I'm still pretty new so this backwards thing was a first. But once I figured it out, it was a head-smacker (and I mean that in a positive way!) After that, everything made sense and was fun to finish.
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@Beth White
Jeff Chen could not remember a puzzle where both the answers and clues were backward. They provided a list of 39 NYT puzzles with backward answers, dating back to 1964. Kudos on figuring it out and solving.
List of puzzles with backward answers: https://www.xwordinfo.com/Backwards
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@Puzzlemucker - the thing is that an answer filled in backwards clued by a clue written backwards would be a triviality, an annoying conceit. This puzzle required the clue to be able to be (mis)read as a sensible clue, yet await reversal before fitting the answer. So it isn't just a matter of backward for backward, but something on another level entirely.
I wish I had more than one recco to put on your reply post to John F. Daly, btw. Well written!
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@David Connell
I wasn’t trying to suggest otherwise, but you’re right to point out why perhaps there have not been such puzzles before (at least in the NYT): very difficult to construct.
(Thanks for the compliment).
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For some reason I figured out the trick almost immediately, and after that it was easy, and also fun. Kudos to Alex.
For some other reason, Sao Joao di Meriti (a northern suburb of Rio de Janeiro) didn't ring a bell, despite my having lived in Rio for six years. Not a part of town where I ever had to do any business.
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@Wags
Even without knowing the suburb, SÃO is always a good guess as it's the equivalent of SAINT/SAN/SANTA.
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@Bob I'm pretty sure he knew that; he didn't say he had any trouble figuring out the answer.
@Wags
Opportunity for a new novel? Maybe featuring a young lady from a south-side neighborhood?
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Rich,
Forget Thursday puzzles; I sometimes have trouble understanding Thursday comments.
On first reading, I took Bob's comment the same way you did. On reflection, I'm not sure it was intended as advice for Wags; it may well have been a general observation.
Elsewhere today and often, people express *post-solve* difficulty getting an answer and somebody will explain it to them. Sure, if they say "I solved it but I still don't get it," explain away, but otherwise...
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Couldn't grok the theme until the very end when I finally saw SAINT PETER. Suspected it was something about backwards spellings, but the words that were showing up didn't appear to relate to the clues. When the gate man broke it open I had the rest of the puzzle done in 30 seconds
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Faster than average solve. Did it without knowing the theme (knew the answers were reversed words; didn’t know why or how they related to the clues). After solving I figured out the trick to the clues. Oh well.
cottoned on with AVENGED for REPAID (DIAPER). Then things went pretty quickly. The FOG lifted!
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Wow, that was a bit tough. If it wasn't for recognizing that there was SAINT PETER spelled backward and then realizing the clue was also spelled backward, I would never have gotten the theme (Oh, the HUMANITIES!).
A little surprised to see OSAKA as clued - she's pretty fresh name and I hope she will stick around long enough for this puzzle not to be dated so quickly.
Had KNIT CAP before SWIM CAP. Good fun.
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I have nothing clever, funny, or enlightening to say about this puzzle. I had to read Deb’s column to understand the read-clue-backward trick. Nonetheless, I completed the puzzle (in faster than Thurs. average time) and enjoyed it. After reading the backward clues, I now feel abashed but even more appreciative of Alex’s sparkling achievement. (Great long fill too: WHEN IN ROME, CORNUCOPIA, HUMANITIES).
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Doesn't it make you appreciate how hard Deb's job is, having to write something engaging every day? No matter how easy she makes it seem? And Caitlin's weekend gig too, of course.
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@Wen
Good point, and they both make it look easy.
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I solved it in pretty good time, after guessing that answers to the italicized clues had to be read backwards. I never did get how to read the clues, though!
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I completed it by filling in backwards words which fit, and then spent a few minutes trying to figure out what the clues meant before I read the column. I was finally successful.
2
Whelp, there went my streak.
2
Solved it but still pretty much clueless.
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I was happy with myself for figuring out what was going on before getting too frustrated with it--that doesn't always happen! STUDENTS was the one I saw first. The only one I had real trouble with was CUSTOMIZED, which I had as CUSTOM MADE for too long. But ODDS and FREE were the only things that made sense for 1D and 2D, so it was a mess for a while.
DEGNEVA sounds like a Russian athlete or ballerina to me. And DEZIMOTSUC and RETEPTNIAS sound like they ought to be. . . well. . . something.
7
I had the same problem with CUSTOM MADE. I knew that the end had to be wrong, but all I could come up with was WARE, so the NW corner was the last to fall. I figured out that the answers were in reverse before I figured out the clues. Clever!