Increase What Is at Stake

For a minute I thought 10 down was DRINKATION as a variant of staycation.

The interesting aspect of the puzzle is that it has two solutions, one recognized by the author and one apparently not recognized by the author, solved by using rebus, a recognized puzzle tool. The two solutions were probably only painful for those doing the e-version as it resulted in staring at a puzzle that seemingly was solved but the expected kudos did t arrive. Those who did the paper version, and solved with rebus, are probably going to be none the wiser unless the examine the answers. Although I am relatively new to the world of NYT puzzles, I would suspect that Mr Larson has done something that has not been done before, creating a puzzle with two unique solutions.

Definitely annoyed. Finished the puzzle and had entered all the 'ante' clues as rebus online. It did not recognize them and when I checked the puzzle (in desperation) it marked all the rebus entries as errors. Boo!

As usual, I was late doing the puzzle; so most of my comments would just mirror what has already been said by others. I was one of those who had to change my multi-letter ANTE fills back to just plain A in order to get the happy music. I also had to come to Deb's blog to learn that UP THE ANTE was a literally correct way to find ANTE in the vertical crosses. To me, this raised the level of the puzzle from excellent to outstanding. Then when I also learned that this is Mr. Larson's debut puzzle, my admiration exceeded all bounds at the way he connected ANTE to DEBUT in the third theme answer. Congratulations to you, Mr. Larson; I suspect that your name will become a byword for superior puzzles in the future. Also, a hearty welcome back to Deb, as we are about to usher in the New Year.

I saw the rising ANTE right away on top of WADPOSTER. That sent me looking for similar tricks on the other themers, and I saw it was ANTE everywhere. Filled in the rest with great dispatch, and the revealer was obvious. Total time more like a Tuesday. Mind you, I admire the cleverness of the puzzle, but I could have used more of a challenge on a Thursday. Still, Gary's persistence is admirable. Please keep it up, we want more.

Welcome home, Deb. You were missed. I meant to close yesterday's CiC with a thank-you to Caitlin for her yeoman job filling in during your grueling extra work. If she happens to look in and see this, I hope she takes this as belated gratitude. She took really good care of us. Apropos of chocolate (never far from my mind), I may have mentioned that I worked for a couple of years in an office above the Godiva store down in the Seaport. With so many debuts lately, we'll have to build an extension onto the Constructors Stable. Welcome, Gary, with congratulations for a fine puzzle and awe at your perseverence. Like others, I fell into the rebus trap. Unlike others, I kept messing up which letters were in the (non)rebus, winding up with entries that would have had double As or none all, and other bad things. But all was well in the end. Never heard of DRINKATHON. Is it like a pub crawl across the pond? WET ONE (the brand I keep by my desk) before WET NAP. Didn't know the Soviet sub or ANA from SNL. Is TAG UP a Thing? Having trouble typing because my fingers are so cold. Bundle up, all.

Fun theme, fun solve that too me a bit longer than usual. Loved it. The mobile app didn't like the rebus answers though. Had to just put in "a" for those squares.

Clever. I fell into the rebus trap before solving, too - and not for lack of noting ETNA/ANTE early on, either.

Marvelous puzzle, interesting all the way, with one “Aha!” moment after another. Thank you, Mr Larson. FWIW, my niece and nephew have named their new baby boy ELWOOD. @Deb: please put me on the mailing list for the next Godiva cruise. Oops, I mean the next crossword cruise.

Another commute from Hades this morning in the LIRR--broken rails, trains cancelled/taken out of service (that was my fate), up to 90-minute delays. And winter's barely a week old. Oh, and did I mention that the second round of track replacement in Penn Station begins this Monday, and will continue until the end of *May*? Enough kvetching, The puzzle had me confused at first, thinking we were dealing with a pretty lame (as in one-way) rebus affair. When I caught on to UPTHEANTE, my opinion changed dramatically. Still made a couple sloppy mistakes: EDOM before MOAB, and misplaced 'S's and 'R's in INDISARRAY. Congrats to this Gary Larson. UK rocker John Parr was a two-hit wonder in the 80s. "St. ELMO'S Fire (Man in Motion)," his theme song for the brat-pack movie of the same name, got all the way to #1 in 1985: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOvMpND2OZY Bonus points to anybody who can name Parr's other Top 30 hit (without Googling).

Agree that WADPOSTER gave it away. "Saw" it wasn't a two-way rebus, but I filled it in anyway cuz it just looked better with ANTE room. Fo' yer information, I'm pretty sure a WADPOSTER is one of those 4-POSTERS where your chewing gum loses its flavour on the bedPOST overnight. [Just realized the cleverosity of pairing ANTE and POST.] I'm another who didn't see the rising ANTEs without blog input. Neat trick, but it does make me think of hiccupping in the middle of saying the word. Jeff Chen thought 3 themers to be on the sparse side, and suggested a few more ANTE-containers, but the hard part would be fitting downward ETNAs to meet them. I wouldn't get in a swivET NAgging the point, as there may be a secrET NAme or two that would fit (I bET NAnook is one of them). We can let nabobs decide, but Baby Bear and I thought it 'just right' asis, ante omnia. Misled by one recent puzzle, I led with TOUcan and TINcan as 'can openers' until another puzzle reminded me of the ringTAB that simply 'opens cans', sigh. Useful to have the PUMA and SNAKES labelled as BITERs. ANTEaters, I'm told, lack the necessary dentition. SINFERNO: a wonderful word, and almost certainly 'a thing', if only ante litteram. GaryL, I admire your staying power as well as its product. Looking forward to more of your Grand Larsony.

I'm confused--I thought I had the puzzle finished correctly with ante as a rebus. I thought rebuses only had to work in one direction, with the first letter only needed for the other direction. Is that not right? I searched the puzzle quite a while looking for my mistake, before finally reading this column and finding the correct solution.

Nice puzzle. Nice comments. Happy holidays, all!

There’s another way to interpret the theme answers: as eruptions of Etna.

A very clever puzzle! I, too, thought of the cartoonist when I saw the name of the author. But I'm now happy to know about two talented Gary Larsens. I expected a rebus when I got to the DEBUTANTE BALL, but figured out the trick pretty quickly and was good to go from there. (I had to back up to figure out the WANTED POSTER.) It is a pleasure to have themed weekday puzzles. More, please, Mr. Larsen.

Some (a)musings: If 31D is a Yorkie, Pomeranian or a Chihuahua, does that still work? And BTW why not put just last name in for 32D?

Besides a tee for me, I can rest assured of at least one other thing you did not bring back from the cruise Deb......a tan! Until recently, (sugar blues) you could have handcuffed me to that Godiva bar for the duration and I would have been just fine with the bondage...My solving was, only slightly, IN DISARRAY until the reveal settled things down. 46a was the last to fall as that parsing was TENSE but not so tight as to BLOW the solve. "You SHOOK Me" but you didn't break me, Gary Larson et al. Thanks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sMBiRzML-g Playing the part of a "WANTED" POSTER, I will link this clip of George Thorogood on Bandstand in HD as his Delaware Destroyers pick up the PACE from Led Zeppelin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIcHhGpJZ0w Anything But SAD, Bru

Did not immediately see the ante but eventually raised it after the reveal. Congratulations, Mr. Larson, on a spectacular debut.

I've stopped watching the NFL because after a hundred years we no longer know what a catch is. I may have to stop working the NYT crossword because it seems we no longer know what a crossword is.

There's a vintage story associated with 5D that might provide a chuckle or two: http://tcrc.acor.org/jokeframe.html?joke=joke28

What fun! Wonderful debut, Mr Larson. This was a new puzzle trick for us...knew that something was 'up' with DEBUTABALL, and like others at first t thought, aha, a rebus. But not so fast. another layer of fun to come! Really liked the longer entries, TURNABOUT, HASACOW, MOPPETS, DRINKATHON. And loved the clue for ANI. Rich's Upper Peninsula winter story evoked memories of crossing the windswept quad in Urbana en route to the library (back when its facade was its facade) and ice skating with our kids on Prince Pond in Downers Grove. Guess this is what reading Christmas letters does to me.

Fun puzzle -- and I think the constructor and Will S missed a bet by not switching the down and across clues and fills so that the grid is flipped across the diagonal running from upper left to lower right. This moves the top edge squares to the left side and the bottom edge squares to the right side, and so on. And for why? Well, now the "rebus" reads down (or up!) making 55A pretty much literally true.

Well, I complicated this for myself (quite unnecessarily) by finding that ANTE ran UP the grid in one of the long Downs, so I went hunting for more, never mind that the trickery was said to be in certain crosses. Nickel finally dropped.... thank goodness, because we're packing for a few days with PhysicsDaughter (so that the Football Buddies can watch college bowl games together without having to phone every 2 minutes.) I shall be otherwise occupied....

Just the kind of Thursday trickery I love, and from a DEBUTANT(E) to boot. Like so many before me, thought rebus, but once I saw that 30A had to somehow include DEBUTANTE, I went back to the WAD and could see the upside down ANTE. (BTW, speaking of the "upside down" -- I love Stranger Things on NetFlix.) Excellent construction and fun solve. Love how SHOOK and H-ANDS are kinda together in the mid-East. Then, it follows one would need a WETNAP and then something to DRY those H-ANDS. Finally, apropos to have the BOY for DEB's return appearance. Welcome back, DEB. Hope you had a BALL.

When I got to 55a, UP THE ANTE, I rushed back to 20a and 30a, looked closer, and turned my A into an ANTE rebus. My, I'm clever said I to myself. Found the third one and voila, done! Did I see the ANTE going up? No. Doggone, I always get three-quarters of the way through the constructor's "trick." I had to go back and revert my ANTE rebi back to A's. Loved DANTE'S INFERNO, IN DISARRAY, and, of course EONS.

Loved this puzzle . Got the trick at DEBUTANTE , though like others thought at first it was going to be a rebus . Please submit again Mr.Larson . Remember Abe Beame as the inheritor of John Lindsey's New York - the charming mayor who left Queens submerged in snow and blackouts !

I had ETA for 37 across and ANS for 42 across, which makes an interesting alternative for 29 down answer for Unorganized!

I felt dumb a couple of times during and after my solve and I think that's a tribute to the cleverness of the constructor. I started off well in the NE with a couple of downs enough to give me BEAME (note below). I was blanking on MOPPETS and the 'tweet' answer, but I had all the other downs, so I was left with WAD_O_TER (note 2 below) at 20a and... that was leading me nowhere. Wasn't getting anywhere with 30a so left it behind. Thought of the right answer at 46a but wasn't sure how it was going to work (THE INFERNO? - wish I'd typed that in, it would have helped), so just moved on. Had some struggles in a few other places but really should have enough to work things out. Chipped away slowly and finally got the reveal and decided... that it was a rebus. So did successfully fill in the 3 theme answers at that point, but never noticed the ANTEs going up until I got here. Duh. Congratulations to our constructor on a memorable debut, and welcome back, Deb. I trust you had a great triip. :) Note 1: I've always remembered BEAME because he was NYC's first (practicing) Jewish mayor, and I was surprised to learn some years ago that Atlanta had one before New York did. We also just elected our second female (African-American) mayor - get with it, NYC. Note 2 - I wonder how many other folks have a WANTED POSTER as a significant piece of family history. I think I've mentioned that before; my youngest son even has the photo tattooed on his forearm.

Thought at first this was a rebus puzzle, but I filled it out anyway. Didn't "get" it until I got to the theme clue. So clever and a lot of fun, if a bit too easy for a Thursday.

Strange how the mind works, at least mine. When I got to the reveal, I immediately went back up to 30A and popped in the ANTE going up, so had DEBUTANTE BALL. But when I went to 20A, I didn't even notice that I already had ANTE in the grid! It also took me quite a bit of time to get he third themer as I had a couple of wrong letters. This was just the kind of tricky Thursday I love and really hope it doesn't take Gary 40 more tries before we get another puzzle from him. Sounds like a great trip, Deb, but sorry you didn't make it to North Yorkshire. Welcome back.

Congratulations, Mr. Larson! I knew something was UP early on. Very enjoyable.

Excellent debut puzzle, with a terrific theme that took me in completely. WADPOSTER, which came out of the crosses very early, could only be interpreted as W[ANTE]D POSTER, so I obligingly filled in a rebus square. Then, looking through the grid. I found the other two missing ANTEs and treated them similarly. My erroneous conclusion: It is OK to ignore the rebus in the DOWN entries. After I had finally filled the grid, I kept combing it for errors but could not elicit the congratulatory message until I erased the three [ANTE}s and substituted A’s . Annoyed with the app’s apparent failure, I turned to the blog, and had to read the article (Welcome back, Deb) before I saw the raised ANTEs. Doh!

Welcome back, Deb, and thanks for mentioning "The Far Side." How I miss that wacky, wonderful collection of craziness. My all-time favorite panel has to be this one: http://www.armoton.com/farside/larson131.html

and Elke Congratulation to the newest DEBUTANT puzzle constructor- Gary L. Have to admire the persistence. Caught on at DEBUTANTE BALL , which made DANTE'S INFERNO easy. Even remembered Mayor BEAME and Loretta SWIT. Am wondering whether, when in that INFERNO , one cAN'T Eat a comb.Are there catacombs in that place? With that cold spell , which originates in Siberia, and is travelling across Canada, people might just wish for some of the heat of an INFERNO... Andrew- heard on the news that it is -25*C. At -40* it does not matter whether you say C or F. Deb- welcome back. You did have to mention that your cruise boat had a buffet of GODIVA chocolates. Well, last night in my post , I mentioned that I was looking for my CACHE, which I did not find. Not to GOAD you.... A challenge, and fun.

I too thought of The Far Side cartoonist when I saw the constructor’s name. I thought that we might have been in for a wacky puzzle. My first thought was some kind of rebus since for 1a Ed Koch was the only 70’s NYC mayor I could think of. I tested the down clues and ETNA persuaded me that no rebus was possible there. By the time I got to 55a and got UP THE ANTE, I saw immediately that ETNA was in fact ANTE up. I had also thought about DANTE’S INFERNO while attempting to solve the 46a clue, so that was my AHA moment and the theme all came together at that point. I didn’t know that a DRINKATHON was a thing. Sounds frightening but “‘tis the season” I suppose.

“Vantage”, “Lemme” and “Oumo” added about twenty minutes while trying to reckon “muppets” or “moppets”. Happily discovered the theme and thought I was home free. Nope. Googled Beame, so that was okay. Finally ceded and looked at the blog, discovering the “lemme / oumo” twist. ha. lolz.

Well, that was fun. As others have noted, interesting to ponder how such an idea got cooked up.

It's a Thursday for sure. I thought it was a rebus at first. Very interesting entries - like IN DISARRAY, TURN ABOUT, UOMO, PETNAMES, DRINKATHON, MOPPETS WETNAP (to moisturize the DRY ROE, though with all the drinking in the NE, 10A and 10D are contradictory), HAS A COW, even ELWOOD. Interesting how BLOW is next to ETNA. And no doubt people have PET NAMES for SNAKES 30A even describes the puzzle itself (without the theme gimmick) - it is a DEBUT and A BALL (to have one, doing the puzzle, that is). I liked the puzzle very much (even as I swore at it and the constructor). Good job, Mr. Larson! And, welcome back, Deb! Caitlin did a great job for sure, but definitely good to have you back.

Fabulous debut, Gary, so good we will forgive you for not being the cartoonist. Hope it only takes you 40 tries to get the next one published. Deb, glad to have you back. Toddle off to the gym, now, and don't go near that scale until at least February.

I didn't get the ante trick, even with the revealer. I also had to reveal the A in AN I. So total fail for me. The puzzle was well done. I just over-thought it. Oh,well, there's always tomorrow.

I think crossing WADPOSTER with ETNA in the NE gave the theme away a bit too easily, but it was a very enjoyable puzzle overall. I would have loved to see a constructor's note, though: What inspired this unusual theme?

Well, Deb, speaking of UP THE ANTE, did you slip into the Empire Casino during your crossing, or was the chocolate bar enough gambling for you? I solved this puzzle quickly, then needed a bit more time to understand what I had solved. Happy Thursday, and welcome home.

clever puzzle. Hopefully we can stay out of DANTE'S INFERNO in 2018. staying optimistic!

Good puzzle. But don't the rebuses usually work both ways? Favorite clue: 52A - Volcanoes develop over them. Love it.

This was a fun little outing but way too easy to crack open. I got it on the first themer and confirmed it on the second, zipping through in 58% of my Thursday average time. It was only the Blues Bro. who held me back a bit. Welcome back to Deb, and thanks to Caitlin.