Was anybody else bothered by the cluing at 44A? The "turf" portion of a surf and turf is indeed MEAT (typically steak), but the "surf" portion is also MEAT. Unless we're dealing with sea cucumbers?
Well... people don’t typically call lobster “meat.” They call it seafood.
Answer key is for the wrong puzzle
7
9:52 PM and answer key is still locked n the past. Not to worry -- I just got an email that my subscription to the NYT expired earlier today. This is the same paper that predicted severe thunderstorms this afternoon: "Today, humid, heavy thunder- storms, high 80. Tonight, thunder- storms, mainly before midnight, low 68. Weather map, Page B10." Maybe we do need a new POTUS......
1
Flowed really nicely but I got stuck at the end because I didn't know who Katie Ledecky was and I had written SLIM instead of SLIT (so I had KAMIE).
I Did it. The missing answer key gave me that little extra nudge. Not even a google search.
Bring on the Sunday !!
Not too bad today. It's the first Tuesday crossword I've done all by my self.
Thanks Ms. Lempel!
6
@John
Congrats on your solo feat! Wonderful!
2
When Puzzlemucker looked back at SOLIDER, what he saw looked to him like SOLDIER. I spose he's a SOLIDER citizen nor I, since what I saw was the start of SOLIDERity... or, as Pete Seeger sang it, "SOLIDERity Forever"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly5ZKjjxMNM
The times sure have been changin', haven't they, Lawrence of Bessarabia?
A real treat to have a LLempel Tuesday.
4
@Leapfinger
I think I need better glasses.
(Pete was a hero in my Quakerish house, despite my father having been a SOLDIER. We sorely need his spirit now. Great video!).
@Leapfinger ain’t it da painful troot!
Super easy Tuesday as others have noted. With 10A I thought we might be having a Grateful Dead theme. Oh well. Would have been nice for the crosser on that one to have been DARK.
2
Lynn Lempel! Tral la, tra la! A STAR in the CrossWorld firmament.
5
My first completed Tuesday puzzle. Wow! I knew everything. Did it in ink even.
14
WHEW!! Another one for the “Solved” column - half my average and close to a new PB - but not quite there.
Got the theme’s revealer but didn’t pay attention to the shaded (on my iPad) squares - - so the extent of the cleverness involved came to me only after reading Deg’s WoW.
Nice puzzle.
(Let’s see when this one gets posted. I’m hittind “SUBMIT” at 1:57:30 EDT.)
1
Like Juliet I'm in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun in this Texas heat.
12 seconds above my best time due to having struck gold rather than STRIKE GOLD for a few precious seconds. Picked up the theme and revealer almost but it was still fun getting the individual theme answers.
1
@Thomas
I STRUCK GOLD temporarily as well, thanks to the grammatical ambiguity of "hit".
1
@ Thomas
And garish the Texas sun doth feel in August (a cloudless 103°F in Austin as we speak). Ah, to have a friendly neighborhood sepulchre nearby...
1
This is a SH(OUT)—Thursday, October 13, 2016, 56 across—to JOHN in NYTimes Puzzle care: He deserves recognition!
Back on July 18, I had that big meltdown with all the glitches and never-stopping timer in the puzzles, and at least two people suggested I sit right down and write myself an email (to NYTimes Puzzle Care). And I did.
On July 21, I heard back from John, and I don’t think I’ve never received a NICER, more comprehensive reply to a software glitch report in my life, and I’m 59!
I only saw his reply a day or two ago, and I finally replied to thank him.
And I see that he has thanked me for my thank you!
So, wherever you are, John, out in the Internet ether, thank you for your fine puzzle care!
7
I got my Hi, kids! moment today when I realized that there will be people who don't remember putting film in cameras in the dark and then waiting to see how the photo turned out. Yikes!
Fun, quick solve for which, as usual, I needed Deb's help with the theme.
4
um answer key is wednesdays puzzle?
15
Wednesday from August in 2018 no less
1
I find many CHILDPROOF packages to also be adultPROOF
5
@ColoradoZ -- tell me about it.
A couple of decades ago Consumer Reports magazine ran a monthly contest (for a while) to determine which commercial product aimed at general public consumption exhibited the greatest difficulty in opening the sealed packaging in which the product was enclosed. It was very popular.
This was around the time almost all non-food products -- from toys to tools and light bulbs -- were sold encapsulated in stiff and thick sealed plastic and pseudo-plastic shells. (Sheet pills dispensers weren't that far behind.)
I remember being faced with replacing the lock and knob assembly on the door to my CA house, and I bought a door knob-latch-lock combination all held together in a hermetically sealed transparent cocoon for that task. It took me 20+ minutes using heavy duty metal shears to open that sucker to the point where I could get a couple of fingers inside the casing and begin the process of removing the contents without straining myself too much further. A couple of large screwdrivers also helped.
6
@Dr W
😂 Although I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time your re-telling of it is hoot
1
First NYT puzzle that got solved without any outside help! It just all fell into place, mostly from the CROSSings - which seems quite appropriate today. And it only took 13:56 (not that I pay any attention, but this was rather fast). Either the puzzle was easier than usual, or my mind is learning to function in crosswordese? Anyway, thanks to Ms Lempel for a fun few minutes this evening!
4
The smaller pleasures of cruciverbalism (for me at any rate) include an occasional and rare standout pattern in the filled grid. The 2x2 block where 7D and 8D cross 14A and 16A is one such.
1
@Dr W
HUH!!! 7D and 8D do NOT cross - - and neither can two across answers.
Please clarify.
2
@PeterW
But two down entries can cross two across entries!
@Andrew
D'OH!! I get it now. Thanks.
Total superSTAR of a puzzle - shiningly done, Lynn Lempel! And just in time for the Perseids.
Here's a fun song Superstar by Jamelia with some dancing.
https://youtu.be/mRIvm4H4ojs
1
Nice puzzle, with a quibble ripe for plucking: "surface" in clue 45A is superfluous.
Also -- there's a John Donne poem implicit in this ....
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44127/song-go-and-catch-a-falling-star
1
Lynn Lempel is the Queen of Smooth. There is no SOLIDER constructionist, especially for these early-week brain soothers.
Only no-know was KATIE, but that was CROSSED with gimmes. Only misstep was BEEF before MEAT.
MORNING DEW for some reason reminded me of "The Swamps of Home" from "Once Upon a Mattress" (original Carol Burnett version):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Udydm_Mf4Q&list=OLAK5uy_lx8ZzYNUbvHGYFaQyPTI9HznUx2juKdDw
This coming Saturday, August 17, is the annual Clear the Shelters adoption event. This is a nationwide effort, so there is sure to be a participating shelter near you. https://www.cleartheshelters.com/
Many (all?) are waiving their normal adoption fees (although, of course, donations will be welcome), and some I believe send the adoptees home to their new families with complimentary food, toys, and the like.
Thanks to all involved for a nice puzzle, entertaining and relaxing. And congratulations and best wishes to all who adopt a loving and needing pet.
5
Dl, perhaps, 55+ years ago, the tune that you thought about inspired Bonnie Hobson.
https://youtu.be/qgl0YfJiz80
1
"Kist, the studded dog of David, burst a neutron beam during shooting wars in the ship chamber, gazing at the struck super. The falling Red Giant cluster spangled and lit the TV chart at the opera that evening."
Please let me know if the above quote makes any sense to anyone. Much obliged.
Kudos, Ms. Lempel.
2
@Laszlo
Well, here is one attempt:
"* Kist, the * studded dog * of David, burst a neutron * beam during shooting * wars in the * ship chamber, * gazing at the * struck super. The falling * Red Giant * cluster * spangled and * lit the TV * chart at the opera that *ry evening."
Read the symbol (*) as "star".
4
I'm board
hee hee hee
@Laszlo
The suspense is killing me! Please tell us whether Dr. W. got it right - - - or CLOSE to right.
I think there might properly be another * in front of "chamber".
Nice puzzle! I enjoy Lynn Lempel's clear yet interesting fill.
2
Matched my personal best for a Tuesday. Although I didn't understand the star-crossed cleverness until I read Deb's column. Little slow this morning...
3
The real star today is Lynn Lempel who does, and always will, shine bright in Crossworld.
14
from Lyle Lovett’s If I Had a Boat:
And now the mystery masked man was smart
He got himself a Tonto
'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free
But Tonto he was smarter
And one day said, "Kemo sabe
Kiss my ass I bought a boat
I'm going out to sea"
9
@mary hartigan
Thank you! I love that song.
The star crossings spell out
L
O
C O O L
O
which is c
r
a w e s o m e
z
y
4
Thank you, Lynn Lempel, for this smooth Tuesday,
and thank you, Deb, for Earth, Wind & Fire!
2
Thanks, Lynn, for a Tuesday that was SOLIDER than most Mondays. I clocked 13:05 even with my German Shepherd desperately trying to herd me out of my recumbent solving position.
I enjoyed the BEA Arthur clue. So glad she was able to cap off a terrific career with a TV show (Golden Girls) that brought joy not only to me as a kid but also to young people today. It helped me to see the older generation as multidimensional instead of just, well, old. I really loved her in Mame!
https://youtu.be/TD_stjC-qYA
I didn’t look at the link to Wednesday. Did it look difficult? Off to play more catch with my doggo!
3
If anybody needs the answer key before Deb fixes the link, you can see it here: https://www.xwordinfo.com/
9
@Barry Ancona
Thank you—couldn’t find my mistake (slim instead of slit) ;)
Thank you kind sir! I couldn’t find my mistake and was stymied by Case of The Incorrect Answer Key.
Smooth, easy solve—but I didn’t get the theme, even after I finished the whole grid, because I got “star crossed” first, and kept trying to make equivalent phrases out of the other theme answers, and that does not work!
3
I was ON FIRE zipping through this lively Tuesday puzzle until I inserted the last letter and did not get the happy music. Turns out I had SLIm crossiing KAmIE instead of SLIT/KATIE. It seemed reasonable. Hey, I got MATT BIONDI the other day no problem, so I have some Olympic swimmers cred. Enjoyed all the STAR CROSSings.
1
@vaer
SLIM was the 58D entry, so that would have also been a dupe.
1
@Andrew
Guess I should have taken my brain off autopilot a little sooner.
1
@vaer
I got KATIE only because I had correctly entered SLIT. But wasn't she in a fairly recent puzzle? Or maybe it was an acrostic.
I needed everything available for MATT BIONDI. But ask me about Olympic figure skaters!
1
Answer key is for Wednesday.
2
@APH of 2018 :)
@Bryan DeMuth HaHa! Didn’t catch that!
Head’s up that the link to the answer key takes you to Wednesday’s answer key, not today’s!
1
Will just echo what everyone else has said. Very, very smooth solve. Don't know if it was a record for me (I don't keep track) but it had to be close. I didn't get every single answer when I read it, but I kept moving the whole time. I can't recall the last time I didn't have to stop and ponder for a bit (or take a break) before I finished.
And... the last two answers I filled in were STAR and CROSSED, so I had no idea what the puzzle's theme was until I finished. I don't recall that ever happening before either.
Nicely done.
8
You can check your stats on the website. They keep track of it for you!
@Ryan I do the puzzle in Across Lite, not in the app. I have no interest in my stats. I just like to solve puzzles.
8
"I just like to solve puzzles."
Amen!
10
Smooth as silk, as always with LL's puzzles. With the plus of two double-o palindromes, and a bevy of 4-letter semordnilaps (IRAS, ENID, LONE, AVID, STAR, and IRIS), and the 5-letter double-proper-name one OPRAH..
I would like to thank Lynn for bringing my wife to life in this puzzle. My wife, who is ANTI-MEAT, SABLE-PROOF (would never wear it), disdains FIRE ANTS, and for whom OPRAH is KEY. My wife Susan, who is my GOLD-STAR, ALLSTAR, ROCK STAR.
12
@Lewis
And, IIRC, survivor of a Diva attack.
1
My favorite part of the blog today was the NPR article linked to by the ED about the Lone Ranger (sorry Deb!!) :) I was brought back to my childhood watching the TV series!
Fun puzzle from Lynn today (as usual!) with my only "icky" answer being SOLIDER, which Lynn did mention in her notes. I get it though... sometimes everything else is so good you just sigh and accept an outlier like that one... :)
7 seconds off of a personal best, not due to my skill, but due to the great entries and clueing in this puzzle, which is really what Tuesdays are all about. Thanks Lynn, Will, et al!
2
New PB for a Tuesday - 13:13 on the 13th. Should I be worried?
5
@Alan Hunter
I'd avoid walking beneath any pianos that are being hosted from the sidewalk up to the fifth floor just to be safe... :)
5
Nice one Lynn. Over far to soon.
Up early to watch falling stars. Thwarted by clouds and moon light. Maybe tonight.
TONTO and other sidekicks are often one dimensional, not that The Lone Ranger’s 2D was much better. TV got a lot better with shows like Twilight Zone, etc. A recent viewing of some show let me know TV has returned to those days of yesteryear as the scenes resemble pages from a flippy book, all be they flipped slowly, very slowly. Truly the idiot box has risen to new lows, prattled Tom paradoxically.
On to Wednesday
3
@dk
Congrats on your move dk. I always read your comments. I assume you’re no longer ‘mean’ now that you’ve moved to Mississippi?
H.G.T.,
You've either made a reference that went over my head, or you're conflating two new residents of Mississippi, one of whom remains "Mean."
4
@Barry Ancona
My mistake, conflated in error.
51A. Flight amenity that costs extra. Before SEXISM,I had MEAL here. Hopefully as time goes by, SEAT will not become another legitimate four-letter answer to this clue.
2
@ Dr. Panda
Not just WIFI or MEAL. Without crosses, nowadays it could’ve been a toss up of SODA, NUTS, ROOM, WITS...
1
@Dr. Panda
How did you get SEXISM to fit into the four letter slot? ;)
1
thank you, puzzlemucker, for the youtube video tribute, and thank you, masked man!
deb, please amend this reference, "...Mr. Lempel even crossed her revealer...".
1
Wait a minute. The SPOON was a co-conspirator. All these years and I thought the utensil was the dish’s abductee. I never should have skipped kindergarten I reckon...A soothing twofer of ballads will ease my angst. Ladies first as RAVI’s Norah opens for El Debarge.
https://youtu.be/elKwdbL3A9Q
https://youtu.be/MwtxXF2cnv4
STARstruck,
Bru
8
@brutus
As a kid I had always assumed that the dish and the spoon had eloped... the marriage ended though when the spoon gave birth to a spork.
11
@Steve Faiella
Yes, that “other fork” was apparently quite a dish!
3
@Andrew
I always thought of it as a Huck & Jim situation.
1
I pretty much said everything in my reply to Doug. I think this was the fastest I've ever done a puzzle, but enjoyed it very much. I like having a lot of theme fill, and all the theme answers were good.
3
SPELLING BEE
30 words, 119 points, 1 pangram, bingo
4 5 6 7 8 Tot
A 1 - 2 - - 3
E 3 - 2 - - 5
H - 3 1 - 1 5
L 2 - 2 - - 4
N 5 3 - 1 - 9
V 1 1 - 1 - 3
Y 1 - - - - 1
53
@x Easy and non-controversial today. The last H-5 eluded me briefly until I remembered to treat 'Y' as a vowel.
5
@x
Thank you for the grid. Needed it, as I have never seen that Y-word in my life (and I grew up around farms, albeit not on one).
Another puzzle where one answer seems completely out of place. Annoying, when considering the words in common usage that are not deemed acceptable.
6
@x Thank you for grid! Its amazing what a difference it makes when you know the first letter and the number of characters.
Quite a bit of variety in the first 2 letters today, considering there are only 30 words.
First two letter hints for today:
3-AN (3 total)
2-EL, 1-EN, 2-EV (5 total)
1-HA, 3-HE, 1-HY (5 total)
1-LA, 3-LE (4 total)
8-NA, 1-NE (9 total)
1-VA, 2-VE (3 total)
1-YE (1 total)
17
LETTER BOXED THREAD
After going through many variations I landed on E-D(10),D-K(5).
Cheers!
2
@Kevin
Got the same! Quick one today.
@Kevin
I found T-E (7), E-D (6).
That made uo for yesterday’s dismal attempt.
2
@Andrew
Nice and neat, a 'perfect' solution with minimum letters.
and Elke
Had fun ADDing the STARs, including a GOLD STAR , to the theme entries.
TONTO, ROSS, RAVI, BEA were all from my ERA- thanks.
The recent PITON and today's ICE AX are (sadly) no longer in my ERA--now an IRA withdrawal is my KEY activity.
Nice how WIFI abuts WIFE- but I wonder when Lynn was last on a flight-- nowadays EVERYTHING "costs extra"...
Time to get up early for the Perseids. See if we can see as many meteors as there were STARS in this clever puzzle.
3
WIFE only one letter away from WIFI...SEXISM?;)
The link to the answer is currently set for Wednesday’s puzzle.
5
@Jim Cohoon It's not even tomorrow's! It's from August 2018.
With today's theme, a better clue for 10D: Sometimes heard with Dark Star
Good examples of which: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/opinion/grateful-dead-dark-star-anniversary.html
Recommended pairing: Devil's Lettuce
2
I agree, very easy and fast fill. Still, for a moment I had Robin instead of TONTO, and when I changed it, for some reason I thought about non-Cherokee singer Ed Ames, who was not TONTO (that was Jay Silverheels, as mentioned earlier, who was a member of the Mohawk Nation) but played Mingo on the TV show, Daniel Boone. Pretty silly.
I'll look for some Perseids in the morning, but we are pretty light-saturated here. We did get a nice look a a waxing moon and a bright Jupiter nearby over the weekend.
I like the theme today. https://youtu.be/a6GiX2dh6WU
@Ann
Here's my contribution to the musical star theme. More Perseid than crossed.
https://youtu.be/w4iGKjO9A-g
@vaer
I like it! That's the only kind of shooting I want to hear about.
Lots of good musical inspiration today.
1
too tired and too lazy to go searching, so I'll ask instead: Does the Bard himself refer to Romeo and Juliet as star-crossed lovers or is that what they have been called since the earliest theatre critics' reviews? Good night, good luck, so long, and thanks for all the fish.
2
@Robert Michael Panoff
If Deb had included the next two lines of the Prologue:
"From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;"
11
It’s from the opening chorus. Though I believe it was “star-cross’d lovers.” Also too tired to google it or get up and pull it off the shelf.
2
@Al in Pittsburgh Beat me to it. Ha.
1
Maybe it was just in my wheelhouse, but this seemed exceptionally easy for a Tuesday (even a Monday). Took about 40% as long as Tuesday average and beat my Tuesday PR by over 3 minutes. Was this typical or was I just lucky that there were a lot of ‘60’s references (ROSS, TONTO, BEA) and none from the 21st century?
7
I, too, thought this should have been a Monday. I don't know what my previous best for Tuesday but I had the same result as you. 8:36 today vs. 20:16 average, 40% of my average. My Tuesday average should be lower but sometimes I'm a lazy solver early in the week when the puzzles are so much easier.
@Doug, Even I thought the puzzle was amazingly easy, and assumed Lynn intended it for a Monday. One of these days the constructor is going to answer my question about what day they had in mind for the puzzle. It was clearly difficult to construct however with a lovely theme.
1
@suejean
I would imagine that different constructors have different takes on this, but mine (admittedly I'm just a fledgling constructor but it's how I work), is that I try clueing my grids at Wednesday level, but assume that an editor will re-write the clues to match the day they want it to run. It also depends on the fill content... some words are not Monday/Tuesday friendly so if there are enough of them then the grid would be later week.
3
Solider? Really? That’s just lazy. It doesn’t even show up on a Google search. It assumes you made a typo and meant soldier. Surely you can do better than that.
2
@Mickey Topol
I gave that one the side-eye, too. That would get the RED PEN from me if a student did it.
@Mickey Topol
My Google search says "Did you mean soldier?" but then gives the definition for SOLID, in which is included, the comparative form SOLIDER. Then in the first ten hits, there are three dictionary definitions listed.
The inflectional “solider” is as grammatically valid as the periphrastic “more solid,” even if the latter is commoner [grin] in modern usage. The periphrastic approach to comparative adjectives is not even native to English (I believe it made its first appearances post-12th century), but rather borrowed from French. It was originally introduced to create double comparisons, such as “more better,” for example.
Yeats famously used “solider” to describe Aristotle with respect to Plato. His editor thought it was a spelling mistake, too.
12
Spoiler alert! The link to the solution leads to Wednesday’s solve...
3
Not much of a spoiler; it's a Wednesday in 2018.
1
@Deb Amlen
"I did not know . . .that there was something called “Idylls of the King.”"
Hi, Kid. I guess Tennyson has been dropped from the canon as another DWM, but I'd have thought that the Arthurian Legend in all its forms still held a significant place in the development of our literary and ethical tradition.
Maybe you were just being modest and fooling with us?
6
@ Al
I think Deb may be fooling with us since I am certain I’ve seen ENID clued as Geraint’s beloved in the NYT puzzles before.
Having said that, I associate the two of them with the original Welsh legend — and laboring through Chrétien de Troyes’ version of it in college. Full disclosure: I’ve never actually read Tennyson’s “remake...” Yes, it was required and I’m pretty sure my dog ate it.
4
@Sam Lyons, lol at your "I'm pretty sure my dog ate it", which reminded me of Groucho Marx's pithy observation: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read".
Which made me realize that, once your dog had eaten it, of course you were off the hook!
2
@Sam Lyons
I must admit that my reading of many of the variations might be described as "selective browsing" to support my Merlin fetish.
Congratulations on making it through Chrétien cover to cover.
Tennyson's Idylls remove all supernatural elements from the tales, alas.
Cute theme, but shockingly simple fill for a Tuesday.
6
Pedantic... but was anyone else put off by the answer for 17D not being an abbreviation (“College V.I.P.” for DEAN)? I’d think PROF or maybe BMOC.
2
@David G
I was OK with it, VIP being so ubiquitous.
3
I guess the same, but the other way around, can be said about the clue for DNA? It is an abbreviation.
NYT XWP conventions (as I understand them):
Abbreviations and acronyms *not in common use* in their shortened form are to be hinted at in clues. DNA, RADAR, SONAR and the like do *not* need hints.
There is no converse (i.e., initials in a clue do not require the answer to be an abbreviation).
5
enjoyed it! lots of STARS! I also liked seeing SILENT FILM STAR even though they were not CROSSED!
1
I ran through the top half but there were some head scratchers in the bottom. “Baffling question”? “Back of a boat”? “Averts”? These seem less than spot on.
1
“Backbone of a boat” at 53A. Maybe a bit more sensical?
2
Doug,
As Irene suggests, a more "spot on" reading of clues often "Averts" a "Baffling question."
And let's give it up for POSER, today making its 100th appearance in the NYT Crossword.
3
Two other stars in the puzzle:
SILVER star - Jay Silverheels (TONTO)
SILENT star (e.g., Lillian Gish, HARPO (OPRAH))
Everytime I look back at SOLIDER, the I and the D change places and I see SOLDIER.
Lynn Lempel is an XWORD STAR! This Tuesday was as smooth as Diana ROSS and the Supremes singing “Back In My Arms Again”.
Speaking of ROCK, here’s Pete Townsend live with “SLIT Skirts”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa_JM287Lhk
8
A few notable facts about Jay Silverheels, who played TONTO:
- He was Mohawk, born Harold Jay Smith, and grew up on the Six Nations Indian Reserve near Ontario Canada
- Silverheels was his nickname as a STAR lacrosse player and he adopted it as his stage name
- He played on Canada’s national lacrosse team and was inducted into Canada’s Lacrosse Hall of Fame
- Later in life he began to publish poetry inspired by his youth (I looked but could not find one of his poems)
Here are a 2-minute excerpt from a documentary titled “Jay Silverheels: The Man Beside the Mask”, followed by his Wikipedia entry:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5r18caxQK8o
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Silverheels
17
@Puzzlemucker, that brought back some memories!
2
@Puzzlemucker Thank you for the information and the links!
2
From ages ~5-7(in the thrilling days of yesteryear when cameras used FILM), I thought it was the LONG Ranger....in NYC, MWF at 7:30PM....can't remember the station...WOR?, WJZ?, WABC?....
4
@BK
Yeah, I remember the "Long" Ranger, too. In 1941-42 I think I had the idea for a while that it was the horse. But I'm pretty sure it only came on once a week in the SF Bay Area.
I was surprised to see 5D and 14A not only in the same puzzle but crossing. And the clues both refer to the noun, spoon. If 14A would have been clued as "snuggle, in a way", for example, it wouldn't be so repetitive.
@Fritz
We had A-BOMB and ATOM in yesterday's crossword, albeit not crossing. But the precedent is there, and with a 100% repetition rate thus far this week.
Whizzed through this like a shooting STAR and enjoyed the theme. Comparatives might be odious, but I wouldn't ask for anything SOLIDER for Tuesday's challenge.
4
Nice! I liked seeing all the CROSSED STARs. And it reminded me that tonight is key viewing for the Perseid meteor showers. I better go out and check the cloud cover (and the moon)!
6
@Liz B
Set your alarm. Best viewing begins at moonset, which is about 4:46 EDT.
Then the sun starts to rise. I gather that there will be 23 minutes of dark sky.
1
@Liz B
I remember earlier this morning from one of my news emails that the meteor shower will be live streamed by NASA, for those of us who can't see it because of light pollution or tonight's almost-full moon. I just went back and can't locate the information that I had seen, but apparently there are any number of ways to see it online, depending on where you are.