I've noticed common answers in the NYT and Wall Street Journal puzzles before. Today there were 2 words shared by both:
NYT - 32D = "The Magic Flute," for one
WSJ - 52A = Puccini creation
OPERA
NYT - 56D = Competed in a marathon
WSJ - 30D = Competed in a marathon
RAN
Is this just random chance? Is there a conspiracy of puzzle-makers here?
Or is this a known phenomenon that I'm just late to comment on?
4
I would have preferred the "green paint" of another phrase to avoid the problematic fill. I note that "NOT SO HUMID" would have allowed BOA, SEAR, and SLATE crossing IBEAM, COATI, and EARED.
I prefer suboptimal fill over offensive fill any day.
‘Six Os’ as a solution for a decade? I’m confused. Is that a thing?
My husband and I are just getting back into doing crossword puzzles. Since when were numbers acceptable in a crossWORD puzzle. Sorry, I love fun quirky puzzles, even the new ones where you have to change the letters in the gray boxes. But numbers...this came as a surprise.
1
@Karen
Especially on a Monday! As I replied to another earlier, times (no pun intended) have changed. Be prepared for anything!
@Karen
Here's a list of all rebus puzzles ever in the NYT--including many that include numbers:
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Rebus
The only surprise is
a. if you're new
b. because it's Monday.
3
@Steve L - and for those who don't make it to that page, let's just say, numbers appeared in squares of the NYT crossword puzzle for the first time in
1954.
That's 64 years ago.
Surprise!
3
Count me on the side of the constructors, the entries, and the clues -- perfectly happy with the main meaning of words that also have secondary offensive meanings, and equally content with the use of numbers, especially in this clever way.
And kudos to Will for insisting on a 0 instead of an O.
Unlike some of the (mostly younger) commenters, I don't easily associate the "'60s," however defined, with beads and tie-dyes, or even specificallly with the music except as background. To me it was all about the struggle for civil rights and getting out of a war we should never have been in. While a lot of it was rough, there was a good feeling that we were working for worthwhile things, and a feeling that we would -- eventually -- win. The current reality is more depressing, lacking our optimism of 50 years ago.
But back to the puzzle: Delightful. Only nit was too many names, although for once I knew most of them. Not ROBYN, but pretty much all the others. Even RATSO, although I'm the one who never saw "Midnight Cowboy."
Thanks to all. ("All" includes the commenters with whom I disagreed; the discussion is good.)
Stay cool and hydrated!
7
Numerals on a Monday -- Is nothing sacred!? I'd be more arroused if 54D weren't so obvious.
Made a couple of early errors (ROut/ROME, SLUrry/SLUDGE), but quickly corrected with the crosses. Otherwise, a typical across-followed-by-down-followed-by-across-etc. solve from top to bottom. A new PR!
Love the 60's theme and so nice to see Mr. Rizzo and "The Velvet Fog" in a puzzle! Oh, and welcome back Barack. (Been missing you greatly ...)
4
Great, fun puzzle (and my fastest time ever!) I love the picture of John and Yoko, too. I was born a little too late to enjoy that era, but I am still able to enjoy the music. I wish we could have had John through all these years.
As far as the latest offense at a word in the puzzle, there are so many words that have multiple meanings. Unless the clue is making light of a slur or an atrocity, I would like to see less of the endless complaining about a secondary meaning of a particular word.
I am white, so I am sorry if it is insensitive of me to say this. (I'd say "honky" would be off limits, but "cracker" shouldn't be banned for the food usage.) Off the top of my head, I can think of several words that are "regular" words that can be slurs against women. I don't think these should be banned when used in their non-slur contexts.
I've never waded into this debate before, but I feel empathy for the constructors who should be able to enjoy the community's response to the puzzle.
11
@Marcy
How about this theoretical clue:
Elton John’s “_____ Cat” ?
1
Or, Rolling Stone's "_____ Tonk Woman"
1
@Steve L @Wen -- I hadn't thought of that context and like both those songs! I guess in the context of honky-tonk, it's OK, but in "honky cat" it's used as a slur.
I don't think slurs (that have no non-slur meanings) should be used in the puzzle, but admit that it can murky. I remember times when people objected to IDI Amin being in the puzzle. and I thought that objection was ridiculous. He's a part of history. On the other hand, there was a time (if I am remembering correctly) when the clue for his name was jokey, and I could completely understand the outrage.
@MeanOldLady from 7 hours ago.
We constantly complain about the BEE-list, but it seems immutable, as if it were selected on the basis of arriving at a Goldilocks number of words each day [since it is presumably machine-generated, this is entirely possible], rather than simply taking a dictionary and sticking with it.
It certainly plays fast and loose with (im)proper nouns. ILIAD continued our odyssey today. But ALLAH could be rationalized on the basis that it means THE ONE GOD; just as we conventionally capitalize God in the Bible, but not when using "god(s)" in a generic sense.
Then we have TWO spellings of THAT iconic revolutionary accoutrement.
Then we have Indian bread but no Indian pulses to dip it into.
And then the odd odd adjective is thrown in. Free love may have been related to today's crossword, but a funky adjectival form of LIBIDO; well, really! I doubt you will find that word in many non-specialist settings. And yet Medical and Scientific terms, with the exception, it seems, of the external female anatomy, are largely excluded.
Frustratingly yours.
NC
39 words and 150 points.
4
@NICE CUPPA
ILIA, ILIAL
Yes. "Apollo" moonlanding is in but "India" ink is out.
@NICE CUPPA got to 34/124 (and think I got the ones you allude to) but am officially stuck. I think I'm destined to be a wanna(queen)bee
This seems to be a recurring problem lately: over the past several months I’ve discovered that finding the NYT crossword blog page is almost as bad as a scavenger hunt in real life.
This is what I’ve been reduced to(other people may have different recipes):
To get the Sunday Aug 5 crossword blog page to surface I use this URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2018-08-05.html
The Monday crossword blog page (Aug 6, i.e. today’s) appears under this URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2018-08-06.html
Notice both URLs have two dates imbedded in them: the date for the puzzle and the date of the day before. Use those date spots to create the URL for the blog for the puzzle you want. The first date is for the night before the puzzle’s day. The second date is the puzzle’s day.
Bonne chance!
@Dr W
I go to https://www.nytimes.com/column/wordplay first. Then I click on the link from there.
As a bonus, there is often additional blog posts that would show up there that might be worth reading.
Thanks! I haven't been able to find a link on the NYT web page to that particular URL, which has been a problem for a while, and neglected to save it. I have now.
Is the Acrostic not available for on-line solving prior to April 15, 2018? The April 1 acrostic and all the previous ones show up as "404 - Puzzle Not Found" when I try to on-line solve them. They ARE available to be printed however, and there are answer keys for puzzles going back to 1999 so they exist somewhere . . . does anyone know what's up here? Thank you.
Never mind!
On reviewing some of the comments regarding objectionable words in today's commentary, I am reminded of a paraphrase of a former US VP:
"niggling nabobs of negativism."
I don't know about a paraphrase,
but this *was* the phrase:
Safire is still remembered some 40 years later for the words that he put in the mouth of a previously inarticulate and later disgraced vice president, Spiro Agnew, and for one phrase in particular: "Nattering nabobs of negativism."
1
Yep, that's the real one. I was "paraphrasing" to save on verbiage. :-)
@Dr W
And the VP himjself both nattered and niggled (which I suspect has the same Scandinavian etymology -- didn't look it up -- as "niggardly").
1
Nothing like an ACM-MD puzzle to chase the Monday blahs. Especially with a quirk in the wings. (Actually lower left corner).
One quibble: I always thought a five iron was the midrange club.
Interesting cross-fill: 24d - 30A. Now that's electric.
In regard to 25D, google reveals this:
chink1
CHiNGk/
noun
noun: chink; plural noun: chinks
a narrow opening or crack, typically one that admits light.
"a chink in the curtains"
synonyms: opening, gap, space, hole, aperture, crack, fissure, crevice, cranny, cleft, split, slit, slot
"a chink in the curtains"
a patch of light admitted by a narrow opening or crack.
"I noticed a chink of light under the door"
Origin
mid 16th century: related to chine.
So this is of long pedigree and NOT pejorative. Priority rules!
1
@Dr W
I made the same comment about CHINK about 12 hours, as did others. I refer you to the thread initiated by @JLIN.
I am also reminded of Shakespeare's hilariously personified Wall in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and the chink in the wall that allows two lovers on either side to converse.
2
@Dr W
"Origin mid 16th century: related to chine"
"Chine" was the first guess from this 16th century so-called brain.
There no longer seems to be a way to access crossword columns from the previous day. I solved yesterday's (Sunday's) puzzle without error, but still don't get the theme. Can someone clue me in?
Thanks.
@jlady
We are waiting for a nice clean way to flip through the columns! However, if you click on the dateline of each column (the link at MONDAY PUZZLE in this case) it'll take you to the Wordplay section front and a list of all the recent columns, so you can access Sunday's from there. It will get better.
@jlady
This is my interpretation of the Sunday theme. Each of the theme fill slots contains a circled letter and two sets of the same letters to make up the fill. One letter set forms a word that is an anagram of the word formed by the other letter set.
This seems rather clever and by itself is an interesting theme. I don't know why "ghosts" comes up.
1
@Caitlin Thanks for the tip.
My five favorite clues from last week:
1. Falling down in a pillow fight? (5)
2. Turns a corner? (7)
3. Provide job support (4)
4. Passes out (5)
5. Chuck in the air (6)
EIDER
DOGEARS
ABET
DEALS
YEAGER
3
@Lewis
Thanks again for your list, but I don't understand the clue for ABET.
1
@Ron
Think bank job...
@Ron
"Pulling a job" = "Robbing a bank" thus ABETTING a felony
Acme captued both my era and former employer. I was thwarted by the zero.... must have been a LSD flashback.
Welcome back from your latest covert op, dk. I wanted to put a T in the 59 square; what do I know from diets?
Sometimes a Monday puzzle is so easy that little satisfaction is gained from solving it. Today's was a refreshing change. While TOP and ORAL were filled immediately, my next first-run fill was OBAMA. That woke me up to the fact that this Monday was different and that it was not just that my wonderful weekend at Tanglewood had zapped all my crossword smarts.
As I entered my 6 and 0, I felt great sympathy for newer solvers. Entries like that could either get them to opt out of puzzling or, I hope, spark the pleasure of learning the joy of entering the constructors' minds. (I still remember my aha! moment many decades back when the answer to 'A revolutionary form of music' turned out to be 'record.'
8
Please excuse this "doeppelganger".
I did the Sunday puz riding on the bus up to Bard College to attend a Botstein-directed opera. Neither Bard nor the bus had accessible wi-fi so I had to wait until now to chime in.
Good competent puzzle with a slightly weird theme. Considering each circled letter splits the corresponding entry into to "twins" my choice for the Sunday xwrd theme title would have been "Doeppelganger".
1
51A: On my first pass, I put GREATSOCIETY which fit the crosses I'd gotten already. Took a while to realize my mistake.
5
OK, now I feel like dancing around the house barefoot in bellbottom jeans, tie dyed tee shirt, flowers in my hair and beads around my neck with "Good Vibrations" or "Hey, Jude" blaring in the background.
Thank you, thank you Andrea and Mark for putting the 60's into your puzzle and turning my Monday morning into a joyful celebration.
6
Fresh and fine Monday puzzle, pitch perfect and fun to solve.
51A reminded me that there was a time when we spent money on those at the bottom, rather than lavishing it on those at the top. Which was the bigger waste?
2
Two problems with the clue to 51A: The use of L.B.J. would normally indicate an abbreviation in the answer. The use of “the poor” in a clue for an answer containing “poverty” is just bad. “Johnson Administration campaign to help the indigent” would have been better, no?
4
Michael,
I don't know why 51A was clued as it was, but please consider that "L.B.J." and "the poor" are *informal* ways of referring to President Johnson and the indigent...and that WAR ON POVERTY was an *informal* way of referring to the legislation.
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on Wednesday, January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty
4
@Barry Ancona
Just a parenthetical linguistic observation. I have long -- at least as long ago as the '60s -- wished every struggle for addressing inequality and other social ills didn't get characterized as a "war."
Alas, we've never had a war on war.
Wow. I spent a few extra seconds wondering how to address the number issue in a Monday grid -- including debating using roman numerals.
This puzzle totally took me back to the days of my youth. Midnight Cowboy, SHAMPOO (the movie), ETHEL Mertz, LOVE POTION (No. 9: the song), RYAN'S Hope, CLINT over LUCKY (as in are you feelin' LUCKY?), Simon & Garfunkel, not to mention the ubiquitous green or blue PARKA that each and every one of us on campus wore throughout the college winters.
Plus, red letter day for me -- two ACME puzzles today. The other in the WSJ and only a couple of common answers.
Off to face the heat/humidity!
3
@CS
Oh, dear, no. Don't go off to face the heat/humidity. It's dangerous. Stay indoors in A/C.
Very quick solve and loved the puzzle. Bit of a brief weird experience regarding the reveal and the themers. When I finally read the clue for 54d, I got as far as "Decade that spawned the slogan..," glanced up at WARONPOVERTY and filled in 60S. Then I looked at the other theme answers and was wondering what the heck the connection was. Finally re-read the reveal clue and then it dawned on me.
Came to the comments with some trepidation for a variety of reasons, all of which have come to fruition. I understand the objections to CHINK, but would just note that NIP has appeared 268 times in a puzzle and I haven't noted any objections (and you really don't want to know how it was clued in the early 40's).
I have often said that for most of the country, the "60's" of legend started in 1968 with Tet, MLK, RFK and Chicago (and Woodstock a year later) and were pretty much over by 1972.
A couple of hundred possible music links today; this one makes as much sense anything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
..
11
@Rich in Atlanta
Great clip and an excellent choice among many.
Loved seeing Dylan use the silent handwritten cue cards that have been popular on social media - I wonder if he innovated that technique? And do I spy Allen Ginsberg lurking in the background???
@Chungclan Yes, that's Ginsberg (and Bob Neuwirth) in the background. They actually helped write the lyrics.
You might also enjoy this very wordplayish parody by Weird Al Yankovic. Bob:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQDzj6R3p4
..
Rich,
WAR ON POVERTY?
Here's a Billy Preston number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HqyEHqEYho
Fun puzzle. There are some comments below about numbers in the grid on a Monday. FWIW, I was able to solve it on the iPhone app as a rebus using SIX and ZERO.
2
@Steve H This is helpful! I'd never come across actual numbers in this fashion before - and was a little confused when I just gave it a shot and it worked. Good to know (and slightly relieved, for some reason) that the answers can be entered as a rebus. Thanks!
While the poster who didn't like seeing CHINK in the puzzle is entitled to feel whatever way he or she feels, lets look at this issue objectively:
The word in question has been used 15 times in puzzles, though only 3 times in the Shortz era. All three refer to armor; previously, armor wasn't explicit in the clue, but most of the clues referred to a fissure or the like. Never has it been clued as an ethnic epithet.
The poster says that in the grid, the word does not have context, but this is true about any word. There's no way to avoid that, and in crosswordland, people get upset about all kinds of words. Yesterday, it was the number of syllables in DIAMOND.
Following the poster's logic, they'd have to take SPIC 'n Span cleaner off the market, children could never wear Dan'l Boone COONskin caps, doo WOP music would be banned, the Dodgers player KIKE"* Hernandez would have to change his name (and the Hall of Fame Yankees outfielder could not be referred to as the MICK either). We'd even have to ban GUINEA pigs, not to mention an entire African country.
There's one racial epithet that has no alternate meaning, and it begins with N. I don't expect to ever see that word in a crossword, but it seems to me the others are fine.
* That one's my ethnicity, and I don't get offended. Some broadcasters have chosen to write it as KIKÉ, but that's actually incorrect.
21
@Steve L
"There's one racial epithet that has no alternate meaning, and it begins with N. "
Well, if you spell it with an "a"
instead of an "e" and you tack "...dly" on the end, you have an adjective meaning miserly or stingy.
And while, strictly speaking, in fact it is not the SAME word, since the sound is similar it's best avoided — especially since it's not in many people's vocabulary it's widely misconstrued.
Agreed. Words aren't the problem, it's the speaker's intention. There are bad words, disgusting words, offensive words, dirty words. If we try to eliminate them from the lexicon we lose the chance to educate.
2
@George Roberts C.
Agreed; the same thought occurred to me. You refer to "Niggardly", which has an entirely respectable and independent etymology and meaning, but is fast-becoming lost to the language owing to an accidental overlap in sound with the N-word. That's one dynamic of language I guess.
1
I really enjoyed this puzzle. And I got the “60s” thing finally, after realizing it was the only use of numerals on the page.
The use of the term “chink” as the flaw in the armor does not strike me as offensive, even though I am a civil rights attorney. The fact that a word can/might possibly be used as a slur does not mean to me that it must be eradicated from our vocabularies. It’s the context that matters. Unless we no longer care about context?
Thank you for a great puzzle.
15
@Scott F
Thanks for the comment, for the sentiment, and for being a civil rights attorney.
I was surrounded by those in the '60s, but I was afraid you were a dying breed.
1
Argh! Does the iPhone app not stop the timer when you get a phone call in the middle of the solve? How else is it that this simple, quick puzzle just ruined my Monday average with a 25:17 solve time? Talk about SLIPUPS!
2
This bright fun gem threw me back into the passion of the 60s -- some of you will remember those days -- and may that fire be alive in three months. MAKE RIGHT, RESTORE!
6
$ a.m. And 46 Comments already! Or make that 45 Comments and one rant....though Jim has a point.
Interestingly, CHINK is allowed, but the Wee Bee won't allow ALLAH; it allowed ANAL but not ANNAL .......
Always happy to see the two constructors who brought us today's puzzle.
2
@Mean Old Lady
I wondered about ANNAL as well, maybe it has to be ANNALS. I see that the spell check underlines ANNAL but not ANNALS. In use, it's often ANNALS, but ANNAL as it applies to a single year should be perfectly acceptable.
4
And then there's the 4-letter indigo dye we've been entering into crosswords forever, but somehow not accepted in the Bee.
@Wen
Agreed on ANNAL. Also, ANIL is rejected.
Most fun Monday ever! As always I pause after the first two theme fills to try and get the theme and MAKE LOVE made it pretty clear how the next two were going to start. The unique reveal was the icing on the cake. I admit to trying a rebus "no" (as in no carb) at first, even though I didn't like it, and as it was my last entry got the error message, then thought zero instead of no and knew the decade was the sixties so decided 6IRON made sense and popped in the 60 to get the happy music. Very satisfying.
3
@suejean
You made the mistake of doing the acrosses before the downs! 60S for 54D was almost a gimme IMHO.
Chink? You’ve go to be kidding me. Seriously? For god’s sake can just leave some words of the word list. I know it has other meanings but so do you. And the fact that one of the other meanings is a dude, racist slur, you would’ve think that would be enough. But i guess because no one hurled them at you while they tried to beat you up then you don’t really care.
6
@Jim
It never occurred to me, and I suspect I'm not alone. Of course, now I can't unthink it, though you weaken your point ( and others' sympathy) with the final sentence. I imagine CHINK is off the word list now.
3
Jim,
You may wish to read last night's discussion...
@Jim
Agree with BA. Take it easy on the constructors. No slur intended.
Kind of a Monday rebus with training wheels. Just the slightest taste of what some future Thursday (or Saturday?) -from-(h-e-double hockey sticks) can be like.
Typical initial mistakes:
routs/ROMPS
goofups/SLIPUPS
mails/SENDS
1
I had routs for ROMPS and because I was solving initially using only across clues, I couldn't find my mistake--I was sure it was correct.
@Blue Moon
Hand up for two of 'em.
I'm new to the NYT puzzle. I knew what a 6 iron was, and I knew the decade in question. I was looking for a way to express it with letters to no avail. I am baffled that more people were perplexed by a 6 iron rather than having a number be a value for a square in a crossword puzzle.
4
I was worried that this would happen with new solvers, and thinking that this might have played better on a Tuesday with a little tougher cluing.
@Anthony
Sorry for your confusion. We who have been solving for a time have recently learned that anything goes now. We had a Wednesday puzzle on July 18 with rebuses (more than one letter in a cell), something usually reserved for Thursdays and Sundays. Just this past Saturday we had entries that read across then down, again, a trick usually employed only on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Hang in there Anthony!
I have a subscription but when i click on the link to the other similar puzzle it says i have to have a subscription to see it.?
@Jill
I have had that problem, too. What I have done is go right to the bottom of the page and click "Send Feedback" and ask for help. It always works, and the NYT staff are very responsive. I strongly suggest not calling the subscription department because it is focused on selling or renewing subscriptions.
and Elke
While I have no difficulty recognizing a 'clothes' IRON (not that I like using one), I cannot tell the difference between a 6, 7 or any other number golf club.
Bottom line : was making LOVE, NOT WAR in the wrong decade.
OTOH- OBAMA said 'Yes, we can. So there.
Liked that new little trick- -numbers in a Monday puzzle.
Thanks for some diversion from the SLUDGE in the news. Need a crack water engineer to clean up that mess.
2
I really liked this one. I think it's cool when an unconventional element, such as numeral entry, can be in a Monday puzzle and still allow it to be a Monday puzzle.
All the late-1960s references took me back to my high-school years.
Caitlin, I appreciate your pointing out that the new "Disneyfied" Times Square is still Times Square. I've spent some time there this summer taking a music workshop once a week and just prowling around the area. Despite its having been sanitized, it still occasionally gives me a welcome frisson of danger and sleaze.
4
@Dave S
I think these particular numbers are clear enough for a Monday puzzle. I think most people thought "sixties" and how else to enter that except numbers?
@Dave S
A lot of the Disnification, or at least the results of the Disnification, sometimes make me nostalgic for the hookers and pushers. At least they didn't block the sidewalks as much as the cartoon characters and the tourists stopping in the middle of the foot traffic to take selfies.
That's my grumble for the day.
Oh! Plus people playing soccer.
Where does one find the answer to last Friday's meta?
I give up: what *is* last Friday's meta?
1
@Barry Ancona
Do you think he means the Variety puzzle? Because of course the answer will come out next Friday...along with new puzzles...
Well, MOL, if that's what don meant and he comes back to the comments, he should thank you for giving him the answer.
[Holds breath; turns blue]
“Will and company liked the idea, but wanted an actual 0[zero] instead of an O and also a different 6 entry, since “the 6 would be a shot in the dark for solvers who don't know their pool balls.” Valid points, but oh my goodness, this ratcheted up the challenge significantly!”
...and what about those solvers who don’t know our golf clubs?
6
Colin,
I think the problem Will had was with the *clue* for 6BALL, not the entry itself. I've played pool and I don't play golf, but I don't know how one would easily clue that particular ball (or even a generic _BALL). "Solid green game sphere" isn't promising. On the other hand, *without* knowing golf, I know putter, wood and iron, and only one will fit and cross. I don't need to know that a 6IRON is a midrange club if I get the 6 from the cross.
2
@Barry Ancona
Would even veteran pool sharks know the colors of every ball?
@Barry Ancona
Plus, if you hadn't looked at the down clue/entry but had ?BALL, wouldn't you automatically enter "8"?
All I know from golf club IDs that that they have numbers followed by some sort of description -- IRON, wood, mashie, putter, niblick, maybe more.
There is only one rule of crosswords. One LETTER (not number) per square. I've been grumpily tolerating the themes with more than one letter per square. And now this.
9
@J
Not the first time numbers showed up. Perhaps you just haven't done enough to see all of the outrageous gimmicks that have come to pass under Will's stewardship of late. This one is actually quite uncontroversial.
6
Hear, hear.
1
@J: Hopejully, it won't be too much additional effort to grumpily tolerate numbers as well.
3
Argh! In my haste, I put an O (Oh!) where a 0 (Zero!) should be, and then spent four minutes trying to find the one remaining error.
Fun puzzle. I liked it.
6
Fun Monday puzzle! I was confused by 54D at first, plus I don’t know golf, but I was so excited when I figured it out and got the completion. Very quick and enjoyable puzzle. I loved the 60s and the references to that time.
1
Totally enjoyed solving this Monday Puzzle!
Thanks!
A small thing: I would have preferred Wordsworth to Frost for the poetic clue:
For OFT when on my couch I lie . . . came more easily to my mind than a line by Frost.
Worked though.
3
A little surprised to see numbers on a Monday, but other than that it was a smooth and _very_ fast solve. I'll admit to ROUTS before ROMPS and almost put RIZZO in for RATSO, except I already had SNAKE in place.
Will said, “the 6 would be a shot in the dark for solvers who don't know their pool balls.”
Will, the 6 is equally a shot in the dark for solvers who don't know their golf clubs.
Happily, the theme declared itself with a minute's thought, and the puzzle was completed with a smile. Enjoyed it.
10
Had one mistake I couldn’t find. Drove me crazy till I realized I had used the letter o instead of the number 0 for 54D. Didn’t think lying on the couch doing a puzzle could so so exhausting.
5
Was that supposed to be therapy? :-)
Well I thought this was a fun romp with a neat twist, not that John and Yoko appeared to be doing much romping.
I grimaced when I read "Clean Air Act" org. Let's hope clean up its own act.
I groaned when I read the parallel TV soap clues for 49D and 50D, but the crosses were easy enough to guess the names.
Otherwise it was a light, tight, spritely Monday.
Oh, I noted ELS in the South East corner, so often clued as the golfer Ernie Els. That might have provided a nice cross-reference to the 6 iron – but maybe too much for a Monday.
5
@NICE CUPPA
I put DEN for 61A Bear's home, but I thought it might be CHI. But then 64A had Chicago in the clue so that threw it off. It would have been interesting to have the two next to each other.
@NICE CUPPA
"RYAN's Hope was a soap. "I Love Lucy" was a sitcom.
Glad not to see ELS, so I didn't have to relearn his name. Cross-reference wouldn't have helped.
Those of us solving the puzzle on an iPad cannot enter digits in the puzzle.
1
Is there a “more” button on the keyboard that lets you access numbers and the rebus? If not I will report this as a bug. Sorry!
I entered digits just fine on my iPad. There is a 123 button on the bottom right of the keyboard, just to the left of the Rebus button. Hit it, and you will be able to enter digits.
- Tom
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I was able to complete on an iPad. There’s a 123 key next to the space bar.
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Purists might object to the characterization of The Magic Flute as an opera, since it is technically a Singspiel, a play with spoken dialogue punctuated by musical numbers. The heyday of the Singspiel was the reign of Kaiser Joseph II (the “too many notes” guy in Amadeus). He fostered Singspiel written in the vernacular hoping that it would supplant French opera, to which it was in many respects antithetical. One of my colleagues in grad school took an opera course in the music department and chose as the topic for his term paper a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. The prof explicitly told him not to do it, since G&S is not opera. He did it anyway and got a C, the grad school equivalent of an F. Moral: don’t mess with purists.
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Wonder what a Mikado would have done to that music professor ....
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I was wondering if anyone would question “opera” for The Magic Flute. I was sure DC would be the one.
Regardless of the context of the clue, can two white constructors and their white editor not use the word "chink" in the puzzle. It just looks like "chink" in the finished puzzle with no context. Is it that difficult to just edit that slightly so it doesn't look like there's an ethnic slur floating in the middle of a puzzle?
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@JLin
That usage never occurred to me until you pointed it out. I would agree with you if the word had only one (derogatory) meaning, but CHINK has 2 perfectly acceptable meanings whose etymologies (16th Century) have nothing to China. The phrases "a chink in one's armor" and "the chink of glasses" are well-ingrained into the English language. Should we delete them from our lexicon?
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@NICE CUPPA but the grid doesn't show "a chink in one's armor" or "the chink of glasses" it just shows "chink" sans context. "Chink" with no contextualizing "...in one's armor" is more often than not a slur I've been called more times than I care for. So maybe that's why that usage occurred to me more readily than it did to you.
JLin,
In the Shortz era...
...CHINK has now appeared three times as a stand-alone word, always clued as an armor flaw;
...WOP has appeared nine times as a stand-alone word, always clued as Doo-____.
I guess I should be three times as offended as you are, but I'm not offended at all.
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Fun Monday, smooth and sweet.
24D could have been clued as related alternative to covalent - I wonder if that would be easier.
Great to see RATSO and CLINT who were both iconic in the 60s too. And of course, the WAR ON POVERTY was also in the 60s.
Others entries that were close - ETHEL and LOVE POTION No. 9 in the 50s, EUNICE with the Special Olympics in the 70s.
I noticed a quirk - on the crossword landing page (https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords), it lists Andrea Carla Michaels and then Mark Diehl. But on the puzzle page, it was Mark Diehl and then Andrea Carla Michaels. What's up with that?
There is some different logic there that’s eccentric — it also happened on yesterday’s puzzle but not another collaboration last week. I’ll ask someone about it, it is curious.
@Wen
A covalent clue for IONIC would _so_ not have been easier for me! Art historian through and through, here.
I've noticed that when there are co-constructors, when the puzzle appears in syndication 5 weeks later, the order of the constructors' names is [sometimes? frequently? often? always?] reversed from the online version. Okay, I've noticed it once or twice. Maybe something similar is going on here--equal opportunity?
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@Wen
When collaborating, we usually put the person whose initial idea it was first. Both of us do equal work so it doesn't specifically matter if it gets reversed, but it can sometimes be a sticking point...Ask anyone who has worked in Hollywood or worked on a medical research paper!
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A number fill in the SE instead of a letter fill violates the easy Monday rule. Is nothing sacred?
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It solved as a rebus for me!
BrianJ,
What do you mean by "it solved as a rebus?" Did you use the rebus key? What did you enter in the 54 and 59 squares?
Thanks!
Apologies! Column’s a little late — I had 2 typos in the url. Happy Monday!
Caitlin,
YouTube won't let me watch the Midnight Cowboy clip.
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Never mind!
(Just had to click again.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjYoNL4g5Vg
@Caitlin
Thank you for the wonderful writeup!!!!
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