S&E and Jeff cast a very fine spell on us!!
For s'more Scrabble magic, there's few kan do what D. Kwong do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jClAz5H-xZ4
A dibbet about why I so enjoyed the ABIE entry:
If you've read much Salinger at any time, you've likely come across his reprise on "ABIE's Irish Rose"; in the books about the Glass family, it's either Zooey or 'Seymour' Glass who calls their mother "my fat Irish Rose". My little mother was so taken with the epithet that she forever after would sign cards and letters "Your Irish Rose" (which, of course, she was neither).
Anyone ever played Scramble in the newspaper? Where you unscramble all the letters and solve a final puzzle with the circled letters from the four words? For the life of me, I could not figure out what was wrong with my finished puzzle. As I have always known, some religious knowledge is really helpful for solving. 'Alm' did not seem wrong as priestly attire. I should have known.... Replace Scramble's 'm' with Scrabble's 'b' and I had my problem. I won't be forgetting alb anytime soon. But I play a decent amount of Scrabble as well and rarely have 7 tile words, so I call a little foul on the puzzle makers too.
A Scrabble-themed crossword puzzle is just a dream combination. I grew up playing Scrabble, as did my husband, and now we own both vintage Scrabble sets, the ones in the dark maroon boxes with wooden tiles. For some reason, Scrabble is the first thing we get out--after the candles--when we have a power outage.
Thanks for this terrific word romp, Messrs. Milton and Chen! Keep 'em coming!
I noticed the weird shape of the grid the moment i downloaded the puzzle (AL), and that's not the kind of thing I notice. But okay.
Got the anagram thing right away, at LETTERS, and the "Rack" part of the clue told me to think SCRABBLE. Everything else was easy, and the fact that the "Racks" were numbered told me the order of the theme.
I didn't notice the MIXED BAG in the middle. Maybe if all the entries hadn't been so easy ... ?
So, I'm sorry, but this one just didn't cut it for me. The only pause, and a very slight one, was between UNCUT and UNSET at 38A.
We've had discussions before about the difference between constructors' and solvers' puzzles. Jeff's column at xwordinfo about the process he went through with Sande to put this puzzle together seems to illustrate this perfectly. A lot of work, but jeepers! it must have been fun. But for me the result was blah.
But thanks for the extra effort guys. I'll look forward to the next one3.
Okay, that might’ve been the easiest puzzle EVAR. 3 minutes under my average, and just 3 minutes above my fastest Wednesday time, and that was using only the Across clues. No complaints, I think that’s the only time I’ve ever completed an Across-only solve on a Wednesday, so yeah, I’m kinda delighted right now. :D
Well, colour me impressed, Lou'ville!
Fun puzzle. Noticed the unusual layout immediately (bigger squares in print). In all modesty, some of my friends won't play SCRABBLE with me but I know we'd have some great games among WPers.
My Dad was a big Mets fan in the 60s so Tommy AGEE was a gimme, even for this Yankee fan.
New waver Adam Ant with "APOLLO 9" from 1984:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbdWt3UDXhs
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Hi Jimbo.
Just checking in to hope that your knees are holding up and that you're feeling better and are more ambulatory.
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Seconding that thought, Jimbeau!
I only read of your fall after a timedelay, and am glad you didn't fracture anything. Visible bruising? -- heat helps.
Don't forget to pat Ella for me...
First impression was the shape: Why so "squatty?" This puzzle must have the fewest entries ever. Deb?
I thought yesterday's puzzle was the epitome of cleverness, but now think this one might deserve that description. Deb is right -- a lot going on! Enjoyed the anagrams and the "mixed bag" in the center. Didn't catch the phrase "PLAYERS ARRANGE JUMBLED LETTERS" in a ring around the center until I read the constructors' notes.
My only hangup was at the finish line with 60A where I had ABII. The problem, as others experienced, was with 53D TIES instead of TEES. Soon had an "Aha" moment and finished within a minute of my best time! Enjoyeable!
Hi Ron,
Sorry for the late answer. Despite it's squatty shape, this is far from the fewest number of words in a grid. It has 75 words, and the record to beat is Joe Krozel's 50. You can find his puzzle here: https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/29/2013
Thanks, Deb!
Really enjoyed this squatty looking puzzle. It does somehow look smaller, a reminder of how deceptive looks can be. I loved the anagrams once I was sure that was what they were. Great idea from Sande and beautiful coordination between Sande and Chen.
1
They threw us a bone after last Wednesday's puzzle! Always have enjoyed a good game of SCRABBLE and the mixed letter rack clues were a neat twist. Working on a Boggle puzzle now? Haha.
Lots of fun and a great debut puzzle by Sande Milton.
3
Deb
I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but I assume you meant to say that the LOOSE LIPS campaign "....ENcouraged Americans to be careful about what they said in public.."
1
Thank you, cuppa. I am fixing it in my column.
Abie's Irish Rose is rather important in copyright law. It formed the basis for a landmark decision by judge Learned Hand, the Nichols case. It is still commonly cited today, rather remarkable for a circuit court opinion, but not for those by Hand . It established the principle thatcharacters themselves cannot be copyrighted unless fleshed out with qualities beyond that ofa stock character. Any more than that and this will become very boring very quickly.
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Didn't know that, Mickeyd.
It's very interesting, and I think I'm going to wind up doing some personal research. (It's the curse of people who wind up reading multiple dictionary entries.)
Let me know what you discover. I am still teaching it after 40 plus years. Literally wrote the (or one of) the book(s) about it. The Nichols case is equally well-known for establishing the idea-theme-plot-sequence-scene-dialogue continuum moving from uncopyrightable to copyrightable, which is also fun.
Excellent Scrabble theme! I totally loved this puzzle. It was a fairly quick fill and the theme became evident with the four rack clues. JUMBLED jumped out at me, then PLAYERS, ARRANGE, and LETTERS. Great mix of TILES in the center.
My only problem concerned the beau of Irish Rose--never heard the song or story. I had TiES before TEES and it took awhile to find my mistake but my streak is still ongoing.
1
Same here TIES vs TEES.
I'm sorry to learn from this and other posts that "ABIE's Irish Rose" has become obscure. It is really an important part of American theatrical/entertainment history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abie%27s_Irish_Rose
When the play came out, audiences loved it but it didn't do well with the critics. Robert Benchley, who was theater critic for Life magazine at the time, apparently loathed the play and expressed that by writing: "Hebrews 13:8" a Biblical passage that reads, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
They don't write reviews the way they used to.
Smiley-faced grids are popular this week. Has there ever been a frown-faced grid?
2
In today's "Spelling Bee" you left out corundum, a perfectly common word with no capitals, apostrophes, or any such frippery.
1
Every day is an exercise in frustration...just ask your local commodore.
3
I've found that they miss a lot of scientific words.
1
Hand up here for the problem with CORUNDUM. Commonly referenced when talking about gems and minerals. I can understand if the words are very obscure, but this is not obscure.
1
I also went for Gigi before Lili, and even congratulated myself for it. Lili was the last clue that I filled in to finish the puzzle. Today marked my longest New York Times Crossword streak ever, at 31 days. Yesterday evening (after finishing today's puzzle), I published a blog post with my theory about how I did it: https://whatmeworryblog.blogspot.com/2018/05/Crossword-Puzzles.html
5
Congratulations on your streak! Here's to making it through the weekend.
1
Without pondering or pandering, I filled PLAYERS without hesitation. Having perused the comments, I’ve since discovered tines on the fork along road 23a where a sprig or two of parsley was sparely strewn about.
1
23a?? "Sprigs of parsley??" Sorry, don't follow ...
20a, not 23, sorry about that.
20A PLAYERS could've been PARSLEY, except that SCRABBLE TILES are rarely garnished.
TJ, honey,I still miss you. Regards to Camille and Leon.
Congratulations on your debut puzzle Mr. Milton! Another hand up here for Gigi before LILI. Enjoyed seeing Tommie instead of James as the clue for 64A--the Miracle Mets made the summer of '69 memorable (along with the moon landing).
2
Oh those miracle catches in centerfield in game 4 at Shea.
>>the Miracle Mets made the summer of '69 memorable
Yes, in another way.
I was Deputy Director of an anti-poverty project. The Project Director and the Administrative Associate and I all shared one large office space. The other two were both baseball (Mets, I think) fans.
When the World Series came along, the Project Director decided he would take some days off to stay home and watch the thing on TV. He felt sorry for the AA, and brought in a radio for her so that she could listen to it -- All.Of.It.
What I remember is that I had to no place of safety, nowhere that I could avoid the WS and all that went with it.
Nightmare.
Please help me remember the name for a puzzle that uses all the letters of the alphabet...? This one came so close: only needed F Q W.
I agree with everyone else: slightly easier than Monday’s, great fun!!
Pangram
thanks!
Loved it. I'm not very good at anagrams (or Scrabble), so I needed at least a couple of crosses for each of the theme answers. Even then it was a struggle to try and sort out possibilities for the remaining letters.
Like others, Gigi before LILI. Other than that (and a brief hang-up in the mid-north) this went pretty smoothly, but left a big smile on my face.
My recommendations still don't stick, so everybody add one to your total today. And the programmer in me is trying to imagine how (or why) they managed to introduce a piece of code that denies the ability to permanently recommend to a limited set of users, but makes it look like it works on first pass.
6
Non-programmer here, RiA, but my question is about the randomizing (if that's what it is) of the reply sequence.
When the IT people changed everything, they had to make decisions. They decided to make the atavars tiny and round, for instance. In an earlier "improvement," they decided to change the time/date stamp into something absultely useless.
But what sort of decision was involved in changing the order of the way that replies are displayed? Didn't they have to program something to arrange the order, even if it was some esoteric "randomizing" piece of code? Is there any possible reason for this, othere than to make the comments section unpleasant for its users?
Certainly a dazzling yet dizzying collaboration, mostly on account of the fact that I was unable to get beyond words and find the magic square in the HAZE all of those 34 point values. I didn't qualify for the door prize but I am not CROSS OVER my JUMBLED mindset there...An alternate clue for 62a is 'useless one,' the local's term for the South Florida section of US 1 that is well known for monstrous traffic delays...Lou Gosset Jr. and Richie Havens teamed up to pen "Handsome Johnny." The chronology of war is track 8 of Richie's MIXED BAG album from '66.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKdLPbp0u0
I'll Pass For 7 New TILES,
Bru
4
Wow
3
Well, so, 20A wasn't PARSLEY after all.
6
26A mentions 1985 hit Lovergirl. Wikipedia says Lovergirl was 1984. Which is correct?
It was released in 1984 but became a hit (#4 on Billboard chart) in '85.
Martin, I like it when it turns out that everyone was right. :-)
"Lovergirl" by TEENA Marie was in the Top 20 at the same time as "Loverboy" by Billy Ocean.
This is a "feel good" puzzle if there ever was one. Everything about is so stellar -- the shape, the multi-layered theme, the grid art and the constructors -- that I don't have enough words of praise to do it justice.
Congratulations, Sande, yours is a debut I won't forget!
Jeff, your genius and perfectionism is on full display today! I am so glad you persevered as the end result was so totally worth it.
Bravo guys!
(I had COLONIal before COLONIST which would have been another golf answer to add to the mini links theme.)
6
Everything Johanna just wrote! I loved everything about this.
Another hand up tho for learning the hard way that PARSLEY is an anagram for PLAYERS (but even learning that was fun and noted for later!
Only thing that would have made be even happier, if that were possible, would be to discover Sande was a girl!
Andrea, you scrabble champion, you! I thought you'd love this puzzle and am so happy that you did!
While hacking through our xwd Wednesday rough one would have to be in shank-mode to overlook golf's fifth major (The 'Players') and one of El Tigre's specialties (his 'stinger')' FWIW (no,take it to the bank): TPC Sawgrass is one of the great ones and deserving of lofty bucket list status.
"And now for something completely different." Very impressed by the mix of TILES in the center. We often refer to puzzles as "scrabbly," but this gem takes that concept to a whole new level.
4
Growing up, I thought the world was divided into Scrabble people (like my mom) and crossword people (like my dad). Well, and the ones who aren't into any kind of word play -- who knows what to make of them? I wasn't much good at either one, but I have found that while my crossword ability has improved tremendously with age and experience, I remain terrible at Scrabble and anagramming.
I know anagrams are a staple of cryptic crosswords and they appear fairly regularly in American crosswords as well. So there must be crossword folks who are good at and/or enjoy anagrams. I don't know why my brain simply doesn't work that way. Probably the same reason I've never been good at spatial relations.
The puzzle was impressive and fun, even for a Scrabble failure . I was surprised to see another smiley face in the grid, but I guess it's just our tile bag (with a lid on top?).
7
I love Scrabble and anagrams as well as crosswords, but the cryptic puzzles are still beyond me. That's the only type that I generally don't even attempt. I just don't get the mindset for them.
Same here, Donna.
As a scrabble lover I loved this one. Had Gigi before Lili and being Irish struggled with ABIE for a while trying to find an Irish word or character but enjoyed listening to the song here!!
1
This was fun! A whole Scrabble game dancing all over the grid. The non-standard grid prepared us for something out of the ordinary and there it was.
I had DEE before Tay and GIGI before LILI, as others did. Some unknowms gotten only from the crosses were MORALES and ESSIE. Beyond the numerous theme-related answers, the fill was remarkably interesting - full of things you really had to know, like the golf terms, AVILA, to name two. Two e.g. clues were also not run-of-the-mill answers - USROUTE and PLUSSIZE.
Bottom line - let's see more from Sande. (and Jeff of course)
5
Scrabble and the NY Times crossword together- two of my favorite things ! I had Parsley before Players , but otherwise flew right through this one . Good fun and great theme .
2
Enjoyed the scrabble theme, congrats Sande, great debut.
2
Love SCRABBLE. Hate golf, (which is what "links" 12A, 15D, and 53D.) Therefore, a MIXED (golf) BAG for me today. TIL BBC and Justin Bieber almost share a nickname. How peculiar.
HURT before HARM (and RUNG before RANG). ROUTS before ROMPS. DAZE before HAZE.
Thanks, Deb for making me feel young today. I have never heard of ABIE's Irish Rose, so I guess I would qualify as a kid!
Anagrams were a breeze as was most of the puzzle.
2
Andrew, I'm curious about what the age range of Deb's "kids" is. I posted this reply before, but it doesn't seem to have appeared.
suejean, I think Deb's definition of "kids" is the same as it is for most of us: People younger than we are, as measured either by years (maybe generational) or by some technological advance or pop-culture reference.
But I'm curious about the assumption that the "kids" don't know about any pop-culture thing that happened before their birth. "ABIE's Irish Rose" was long before my existence, but I certainly know it. And I remember when I was young that I was fascinated by some of the older stuff -- Charlie Chaplin movies, etc.
Sande gives me hope for my puzzle based on bad Tom Swifties. I have 10 years to "git er done" said Tom with total disregard for the Kings English.
When not shooting Barbies in the Utah desert you may find me painting rocks with my medium of choice: Nail Polish. If you ever need an activity for bored children or child-like adults, this is it. One paints one's rock and then places it where it may be seen and taken home by another. Great fun is going into the local Dollar store and buying an array of polish. Bored teen clerk in Eastport Maine glances up at me and smiles, drag queen ball or painting rocks? "Do you think the whole goth thing is passe?" replied Tom darkly. Son returns another day and presents clerk with a Wednesday Addams rock.
So wanted Leprosy for 20A.
Fine puzzle, over far too soon.
Thanks Sande and Jeff
13
dk, your discussion of alternate pastimes makes me think that golf is not so bad after all...
3
You're in Wisconsin and you know Eastport, ME? We are heading to our annual sojourn in Lubec soon. We'll spend some time in Eastport at Quoddy Bay Lobster having the best lobster rolls in the region (determined after an exhaustive eight-year-long survey.) Ayuh.
2
For no particular reason, my favorite Tom Swiftie:
Lettuce leave, he said crisply.
2
Yet another non standard grid. Nice puzzle.
I had HURT before HARM and ROUTS before ROMPS. But got the theme easily and had fun too! I’m a big scrabble fan so I loved all the X’s and Z’s.
2
This grid is beautifully designed, and if you read Jeff Chen's worth-reading comments on XwordInfo, you'll see the tremendous amount of work that went into it.
The solve was zippy but a good zippy because it was fun, because it was so creative/unusual. Fun clues for LUG ("Car nut") and PLUS SIZE ("XXL"), which I kept trying to work from a Roman numeral angle. The MIXED BAG sideshow, with the anagrams, was just more fun thrown in.
My Scrabble comes in a box. Today's Scrabble puzzle was entertainingly out of the box. And it's all good -- very good. Thank you gentlemen!
5
Oh, what a delightful puzzle this was! My fastest Wednesday too, and that’s a small cause for celebration today.
Great idea having a set of appropriate anagrams for a SCRABBLE themed puzzle PLUS that lovely MIXED BAG in the centre. Considering I had no idea of LILI or ASTIN or UNLV or ABIE or TEENA or AGEE, it was great that it all filled up from the crosses which is, of course, a consideration I really appreciate.
Loved this and hope more such come along.
2
A non-scientific poll of my British co-workers returned nothing but blank stares at 19A (the) BEEB. Did I miss some connection that wasn't referencing the BBC?
1
I hear the BBC being referred to as the Beeb from time to time, but less often than a few years ago
2
It makes me think more of Justin Bieber.
2
Isn't there a rapper... Bae Beeb? If not, then there should be.
A delight for players of SCRABBLE, which I am, and of golf, which I'm not.
Delayed somewhat in the North: I had dee befote TAY and being a chemist, albeit long retired, ACETATE is more familiar in a different context.
3
Amitai, I had Dee and Don before TAY.
1
What an amazing puzzle. The fact that the reveal came earlyish with SCRABBLE, made it fairly easy, and even I could figure out the anagrams quickly, but I'm definitely not complaining. This was a treat from start to finish. I hope Sande keeps them coming now that his first one has been such a hit.
5
Enjoyed Sande's notes as much as solving the puzzle.
Tyler noted that there were three golf clues, but in fact there were four, and it shows amazing predictive powers on the part of our two constructors. The 4th is 51A, which has Pistol PETE, Oklahoma State's mascot. Get this; the OSU golf team is in the finals of the NCAA men's golf championship TODAY. (see Golf Channel for local listing) Coincidence? I think not. (creepy music up and full).
5
Update: OK State steamrolled Alabama to win the championship.
Fun puzzle! It's been quite a while (an ERA?) since I've been forced to sit in class watching a teacher put ACETATEs on an overhead projector, so that didn't come until I'd straightened out some of the other cluing in that space. Pretty sure of MORALES, and then figured it out with some AMPLE ALE.
A brief hangup with ROutS before ROMPS, but that resolved pretty quickly along with the rest of the puzzle.
Ditto on ROUTS.
3
Cross over also fits with today's new video from Tom Scott, about a town divided in half by the US/Canada border
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EocJm3Dry4E
Why are the emus eating my posts? Nobody knows.
2
My random post (above) has posted twice.
My original post (referred to above) has yet to appear.
Sigh.
Sigh.
Sigh.
I am a malcontent but it's only for cause.
1
And can I be the only one who thought "GAMES" was a perfectly fine fill for "sports yawners"?
(^_^)
DC, or that "sports yawners" was a redundancy.
In reference to Deb's comments about the relative difficulty of puzzles as we progress through the week. This was, for me, so much easier than Monday (done in half the time) and somewhat easier than Tuesday. So, I am hoping that Saturday will take only twenty minutes. Fat, chance, I know. I think Mr. Shortz likes to mess with our minds.
11
Also on the subject of relative difficulty being in the eye (or fingers or whatever) of the solver, I also found this one much, much easier than Monday.
And I don't mean this Monday. I mean any Monday. Any NYT. It was basically FITB, no thought required.
I'm hoping for some real killers starting Thursday and running through (at least) Sunday.
Loved the grid size and the theme that kept on giving! Lots of interesting grids over the last few days. And someone is clearly a golf fan, I think 3 words were clued with golf?
Got stuck for a long while in the top-middle. It was because I had HuRt instead of HARM, giving me the nearly correct RuNG instead of RANG, and the strange looking MIAStA while sounded like an Italian dish and not a bad atmosphere.
Half of my solve time was trying to find what was causing the top middle to be so funky, but correctly getting MIASMA made me confident on ESSIE which made me confident on MORALES which made me confident enough to run the alphabet on ACETATE, which I'm not sure I'd ever heard or seen before but sounded more correct than anything else.
2
Miasta, for what it's worth, is Polish for "of the city" or "municipal."
"Theme that kept on giving", a perfect description, Tyler!
2
Miasta sounds like a Mazda sports car owned by a wealthy snail.
FUN FUN FUN! (now that daddy took your T Bird away). This was a breeze for me after several days of struggling. Will had it right when he said it's your state of mind among other things. I had all the anagrams except for PARSLEY which was definitely not playing with all the other PLAYERS. That was a minor glitch which I haven't had, as I say, for several days.
I fell in love with Leslie Caron in 1958 because of Gigi (thank heaven for little girls) and Lili remains unknown to me. But it wasn't even a glitch. Just a learning moment, as with Roseanne. I wonder if my state of mind, and therefore my crossword ability might follow current events?
Great puzzle.
2
Another killer theme today. SCRABBLE, JUMBLE and anagrams all in one puzzle. What's for a Wordplayer not to love? I especially liked the SCRABBLE racks describing the essence of the game's theme when read clockwise from the top.
Thanks Sande and Jeff. On the Fun scale, I'd rate this puzzle Triple Word Score!
4
I was intrigued by the unusual grid shape--17x13 with bilateral symmetry really stands out. It feels a lot smaller than a 15x15, but it really isn't. This was fun, and a nice fresh idea.
I'm really bad at anagrams, but was able to get enough letters from the crosses that the words fell into place.
This was a faster than average Wednesday for me (but the timer has me down for a bogus 1:02 fastest Wednesday, so I don't know how close I really came to my fastest time). Words just filled in smoothly as I went. And I remembered things like which Leslie Caron film was LILI and which one was GIGI.
Someday I would like to visit AVILA.
1
Liz, you can email the NYT crossword folks at the feedback link to see if they can reset your score for Wednesdays. Particularly if you know what day it happened.
I was on a plane once (no Wi-Fi) and solved the Friday. Got the music and everything. When I re-opened my laptop onto the still-open crossword in the airport during my layover, it instantly "solved" again with a solve time of 1 second. I emailed them right away and fretted on the second leg of my journey, but by the time I got home at the end of the day they had reset my 1 second score and all was right in the world again.
Good thing because that error would truly have made me less inclined to play; I'm super motivated by scores and tracking times over time.
2
Also what made that one particularly frustrating was that the time I had gotten was legitimately my fastest Friday! I provided them with my actual time and they set it to that. I would have accepted not getting that score if it meant not having a 1 second solve time but fortunately that didn't need to happen.
It's been 7 months since I set that high score and haven't beaten it since so good thing I recovered it!
I think if you reopened the puzzle and reset it world have wiped out that time. Then you just solve the puzzle again except for one letter and then put the last letter in when you reach your original time. I know that works for getting the time right again for that particular puzzle but I'm not sure if it actually removes the bogus time from the records. I suspect it does though.
The problem with that is that you can't close the puzzle all that time.