The most satisfying Thursday puzzle ever for me.
What a dumb gimmick.
The NYT crosswords are not what they used to be. Once upon a time, when the answer presented itself, I’d instantly think, “Wow, how interesting. I’m so glad to learn this!” Nowadays I’m more likely to groan and mumble something about what a ridiculous waste of time the puzzle was. What a shame.
Maybe the WaPo puzzles are more gratifying to play.
I'm guessing this was your first Thursday NYT puzzle; that's the day set aside for puzzles with gimmicks like this. It's not everyone's cup of tea; you might prefer the Friday- Sunday puzzles instead.
6
i just came across this in the archive. far from feeling gimmicky, it was a true joy to solve
24
same here!
3
I was amazed by how well the left half of this puzzle went. And then I couldn't make a lick of sense of the right side on the acrosses. This has to have been the most frustrating crossword I've come across yet. I seriously thought I might have smoked too much! Lol. Had to read the posting to figure it out! A genuine first.
3
This puzzle was garbage. Backwards answers and palindromes. God save me from puzzle creators who are just SOOOO clever.
So, it would be "fair," then, if the first across clue was "Jumble," and the rest of the answers were anagrams?
I loved this puzzle! Positively brilliant! A Mad Hatter's hat off to you, Monsieur Trudeau.
5
Once I knew the idea, I was amazed at how Mr. Trudeau managed to pull this off with a traditional point-symmetrical diagram. If someone described the theme to me before showing ne the diagram, I might have been tempted to assume he'd need horizontal symmetry, but by allowing only centered horizontals to cross "through the looking glass" he pulled off a beautiful coup.
5
I loved it! I love "The Looking Glass" straight down the center as an in-puzzle clue, I LOVE the palindromes that cross the looking glass. That, I think, is the most elegant part. Even more though, as I find Mr. Trudeau points out here, I love that the backwardness does make sense and isn't just random trickery.
Oddly, it wasn't either of those that gave it away for me, it was "Brexit land," which I ignored on my first pass through because the spaces (too much of course for UK, too few for BRITAIN) suggested to me a rebus. When I came back to it, I had "KUE_ _". I didn't get it instantly; it was only after I looked back up at T_EN that I thought, that could be NEWT backwards.
Even then it wasn't completely clear. I thought perhaps the vertical was supposed to be flipped as well because many of the words on the right half of the grid were so atypical (ASHRAMS and RHOMBI, much less LOLCAT), and so were harder to "see" with only a smattering of crossings, and because a few of my first guesses on that side were wrong—thinking I had to force PRESTO, for example, where a simple PLEASE is all it takes.
Thanks for such a thoughtfully constructed puzzle! And thank you for such a kind offer. I've been meaning to read this past year's articles on how puzzles are constructed because I've always wanted to try my hand. If I get the hang of it I'll look you up! Meantime, looking forward to more from you!
5
Legal, yes. Moral, no.
Loved puzzle. A solo is not necessarily unaccompanied (i e in music) so that clue is a bit misleading.
2
@Clara Miller Ya, that threw me off - or put me off - a bit as well.
I thought this puzzle was brilliant!
Of course, I didn’t get it at all until I finally broke down and asked for “Kueht” to be revealed as a Brexit country. Once I did that, I realized what the trick was, and all of my words that wouldn’t work before, when spelled properly, fit perfectly when reversed.
I also thought the palindromes that crossed over “the looking glass” were kind of amazing, too. My compliments to the “puzzle chef!” I stand in awe of how this puzzle was even conceived, much less how it was executed. I’ve tried to create a few simple (and graciously rejected) puzzles, and seeing a piece of puzzle art like this just makes me green with envy.
I’ve completed nearly 1,500 puzzles on my phone over the past 4 or 5 years, and I think this is my favorite.
Thanks! I loved it!!
5
Hated this, if you do online, there should be some clue as to which are reversed. Just thought it was not worth the time.
1
@Carol Litwak. Anything to the right of the looking glass is reversed. Anything crossing through it goes both ways [palindrome]. Seems fair enough.
10
I am glad I read Deb's piece first ...
1
@Hein
You read the answers first?!?!
!ONLLEH
3
@J T to each his/her/etc own, no judgements.
was the read present or past tense, as in customary practice or just this once?
Loved this. Special kudos for the palindromes which I only noticed after I finished solving.
6
Same here - only saw them once done.
I’m still amazed at this puzzle. I loved it (after the fact, of course).
2
Really clever and fun puzzle to complete. Very enjoyable. !!enod lleW
6
Kudos to Ross Trudeau! What a wonderful idea for a puzzle, and beautifully executed, including the use of palindromes to cross the “divide.”
6
Did not like this one.
5
Unfair advantage to puzzle dyslexics.
I ceded...
3
Wow ... 2:12 minutes to solve, 2 hours of which were spent puzzling over the right half ... until I went through the looking glass.
3
OMG! OK I finally "got it" on my way to work. Made fairly short work of it when I returned home some 15 hours later.
Good thing That time doesn't count.
1
Dumbest puzzle ever. Wasted my time trying to figure out if some of these “words” were really worlds to find out that they were not.
2
I stopped last night having filled in the left half and pondered the acrosses on the right, specifically TW__ at 7A and KUE__ at 33A. Aha! NEWT (my initial guess) and THEUK spelled backwards! Today I verified that all the across entries on the right were backward, but didn't understand why till I read Deb's column. I also didn't notice that the central across entires were palindromes. Brilliant, Mssr. Trudeau!
My presumption is that constructors nowadays use software to provide much of the fill. Clearly, software cannot come up with backwards entries. (True?) If so, such a puzzle (at least half) must be constructed manually, like in the "olden days!" Anyone?
2
@Ron I believe someone already pointed this out, but briefly...
Start with two grids, one a mirror image of the other. So in the second grid, what is on the left side will end up on the right side (and flipped) in the finished puzzle. Now the software will work just fine in terms of suggesting possible entries. A fair amount of extra work as you have to cross fill both grids as you progress, but the word lists will function normally.
I should have stopped at JESTED and walked away!
Slim amphibian? TWAN, TWEN, TWIN, TWON, TWUN?
FTW!
Great fun. Made me a little dizzy. Spelled AENieD wrong which took a while to sort out.
Phew!
8
18 whole seconds faster than a Thursday average! Oohoow!
Ross Trudeau, you’re a tricky trickster. Loved it!
:-D
2
Loved it -- Before I had to leave for work, I got pretty well through the west half, but hardly anything in the east. Hmm, I was thinking during my commute, it's Thursday, and I didn't notice any tricks, just THE LOOKING GLASS in the middle. That's when it hit me.
3
I was able to solve SW without help and got enough of the revealer that it came easily. Then it took about 10 min of frustration with the E side until I realized that KUE_T for brexit land wasn’t nonsense and wrong crosses, but was reversed. Only took a few minutes for the rest to go at that point. TIL that 2 Tsp is an ounce. Woo hoo. 30 years of cooking without needing that conversion though, means it’s trivia.
2
@Mark Josephson
It's actually 2 tablespoons (not teaspoons) that make an ounce. Just saying because I would hate for this puzzle to be responsible for you ruining a recipe...
4
C:
Not so clever, just gimmicky.
W:
elzzupsiht
3
This was actually a much faster Thursday for me because once I caught onto the theme, I was able to leverage it for help!
For example, I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that the across-answers that crossed the center line were palindromes by necessity. (Which was SO COOL!)
3
@Shannon
Judging by Deb's column and other comments here, I too am pretty sure that you weren't the only one who noticed the palindromes.
3 seconds longer than my fastest Thursday time, and I figure I was distracted for more than 3 seconds wishing I could make the cursor move right to left. Post-aha moment: After filling in the NE and drifting back towards the center, thinking "What's going to happen with the words that cross the center line? Let's see, SOLOS -- okay, palindromes, nicely done."
loved today's puzzle!
3
En route by rail back to NYC from the Berkies -- got on at Hudson, pulled out the puz and finished it by Croton-Harmon. For me the main clue (7D) was actually more of a spoiler than I expected, so I finished the right half first.
Thursday structure, Tuesday difficulty.
1
Off topic but used to do that commute. Lived in Canaan NY on wknds and did Amtrak to NYP back and forth!
@Reg L
Big chuckle here. The worst part of that was during the high speed stretch between Hudson and Poughkeepsie when the cars were really bouncing on the tracks making filing the grid neatly a challenge -- whether or not you did it on-line or by pen on paper.
I asked my wife how much is two tablespoons and she said one eighth of a cup. I had to go from there. The English system is screwy. Maybe a constructor could make a puzzle with that as a theme.
Thanks to “Biscay” tipping me off, I managed to finish the puzzle... but without understanding WHY until I came to read the column!
Well, that was hideously delicious. I often settle down with these in a perfectly legal medicated state, cough cough. Very glad I didn't today - I'd have been tossed into existential panic and eaten all the groceries. Well done!
6
Working on this one just before my afternoon class, thinking "something funny is going on here," and right as it came time to head for class, all at once I saw it. What is a solver/professor to do: finish the puzzle and be late for class, or put down this work of art for 90 minutes?
6
@archaeoprof - is it even a question? I hope you came up with a plausible explanation to your class for why you were late.
4
@archaeoprof
Glad to know I am not the only professor here with this particular addiction...
Loved it! Perfect Thursday challenge
2
This was way dastardly. I honestly thought I had lost my mind. Now I know - all is fair in love and war and crosswords.
4
My partner and I had a delightful time with this puzzle. It was over a little bit too soon. May we have some more Mr. Trudeau?
4
!tsalb a tahW !sknahT
11
REVELC
2
D’oh
1
Today's puzzle absolutely outgrabe itself! Oh frabjous day!
10
Jabberwocky, I presume?
1
Rod D, I'm glad you asked. Mome raths, to be exact.
I had LOOKING GLASS and tried putting it in upside down because I missed the "the". That lead to a nightmare.
A fun solve but definitely need a little pushing in the right direction.
2
@Jsav
!
e
n
o
l
a
t
o
n
e
r
a
u
o
y
2
@Jsav *led
1
@Susan thank you. apparently I need to get the lead out of my brain!
1
I needed Deb’s help to recognize the theme, but I think it’s brilliant.
2
fun fun fun! ~ once i figured out what was going on!
2
Loved this! More, please!
2
I always look forward to Thursday puzzles, and this is my favorite one yet! Thanks for an interesting and fun solve today!
5
Wow!
Loved this. I couldn’t understand why so many clues on the east side were things I was certain I knew but didn’t fit. I had the revealer early on, but it was a long time later that the light bulb went on and I had SAEDI about what was happening. Great puzzle!
7
::clap:: ::clap::
3
I was *seconds* away from taking a DNF and killing my streak, when the theme hit me like a ton of bricks! I should have realized that something was up when the left side of the grid filled in almost effortlessly, but the right side remained mostly empty. The great thing was that having stared at and thought about the clues for the backward words for so long, when the A-ha hit I filled in the right side in about 2 minutes. Great Thursday stumper Mr. Trudeau!!
6
Fun puzzle for those of us who hold the Jabberwocky close at heart. My kid played Humpty Dumpty when he was little in a ridiculous costume I created; we both can still do the whole poem by heart.
The puzzle went faster than expected, and came in a good bit under average for me. Mostly I found typing backwards to be a challenging process. I had the answers in my head, but entering them was difficult. If time had been priority, I would have just gone with down clues -- but that would have meant missing the fun of the puzzle!
Meanwhile, College Boy -- off to school next weekend -- did this in under 9 minutes for a Thursday record. Spry mind and fingers. Grrr. I get bested pretty regularly now!
8
Did I miss something? I tried to fill in "the looking glass" going from bottom to top. When that turned out not to be a backwards entry, I was stumped. I eventually completed, but was frustrated because there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which words were backwards and which were not? Was there in fact a tip-off to the pattern?
@Kisa Only the across entries were backwards, as they were mirror images (THELOOKINGGLASS) of the words on the other side of the "mirror". When you look in a mirror, up and down aren't reversed, only left and right.
1
@Kisa Part of the tip off were the palindromes across the looking glass. Despite that I wondered whether the down answers were also upside down, so that held me up for a while, but after I filled a few in I realized it was only the across words that were affected.
1
@Steve Faiella
The backwards words were NOT mirror images of the words on the other side of the mirror; they were other words, but entered backwards. When Alice crossed through the looking glass, she didn't see the same things she saw in the real world, but what she saw was backwards.
If you want to do a puzzle more like the one you described, go to the Archive and look up 12/23/08. It's not strictly a backwards puzzle per se, but once you do it, you'll see how it fits in.
5
Hi Deb, thanks for your reply yesterday. I responded to your post, but I figure the system is set up to prioritize the new day's comment section. I encountered an error with the email address you sent me. When I send a message, I get this:
Address not found
Your message wasn't delivered to [email protected] because the address couldn't be found, or is unable to receive mail.
Ouch!
I’m a beginning solver, so it was actually especially fun to learn about this kind of clueing.
llA dna beD sknahT
4
HELL YEAH! I loved this puzzle. I usually have a sense of UNEASE about Thursday puzzles, because it takes me so long to get the trick (when there is one). Not today! I didn't even need ONE OUNCE of help.
I knew AENEID had to be correct and so did the bay of BISCAY. I already had THE LOOKING GLASS and I laughed out loud when I understood.
I might need to have a STELLA to celebrate. Well done, and more of these types of puzzles, please!
8
I struggled (inexplicably) with the NE corner, and quickly moved on to the center. The Looking Glass was the second answer I put in, and I cottoned on to the theme very quickly after that.
It took me a little longer to see the palindromic answers, but they tickled me greatly when I did!
On a side note, Mr. Trudeau, as a queer woman who loves to puzzle, I sincerely hope that I someday have the time to take you up on your offer!
1
LETTER BOXED:
Yesterday's NYT solution was GARBANZO-ORCHESTRA. My solution was GARBANZOS-STENCH (thanks to @Liane's bean hint in the SB thread). My solution is decidedly inferior in evocative quality, but perhaps better because it used fewer letters overall.
Today my solution is A..G(11)-G..M(5). I'm thinking the second part is unlikely to be part of NYT solution. But it's hard to say. So far the solutions seem to have the two words whose lengths are not that different.
2
@Wen My answer was the exact same today and it came far less tediously than the Bee!!!
Yesterday, it was GARBANZOS-SACHET for me.
1
Mine was Q...G, G...E.
I discovered today (and you all may already know this) that you don’t have to drag the dotted line from letter to letter. You just have to touch the letters you want and it draws the lines.
Feel free to respond “duh.”
1
@Liane - your solution is better than mine too. Just can't get the STENCH off of that one.
1
Aaaaaaaaaugh! I had SUCH a hard time with this one! I am “directionally challenged” and it didn’t occur to me that the clues would go backwards. I was getting all the downs right but then second guessing myself when the right half wasn’t working. It’s the first time in years, that I had to cheat. Grrrrrrrr. I hate missing a trick!
Kudos to the constructor for a very clever (though frustrating) puzzle!
7
@Ms. Cat The clues weren't backwards, the answers were.
@Richard
You are corrrect, sir. My mistake. I am thoroughly discombobulated today. Let me repeat: aaaaaaaauuuuuugh!
4
@Ms. Cat
Kudos to you Ms. Cat for not saying that you hated the puzzle as people so often do when they struggle.
9
What I particularly enjoyed today is that for the first half of my solve, I felt somewhat let down that there seemed to be no trick to catch on to. I had the left side filled in and several random answers filled in on the right hand side. I had THE LOOKING GLASS and all the palindromes without really registering them as such. So when my initial disappointment finally gave way to discovering one of the cleverest tricks ever, the AHA (in itself a palindrome!) was one of the greatest I have ever experienced in a puzzle! Thanks Ross!
6
Aha! I thought about the palindromes and the aha moment without even thinking “aha” was a palindrome!
4
This was one of my favorites as it had that “Aha” moment when I realized what was going on. I believe it happened to me on 7A NEWT/TWEN. The lightbulb in my head went on and then i was off! Before that I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I didn’t even realize until the end that all the answers down the center of the puzzle were palindromes (sos/mgm/reviver/seles etc)
Thanks. This puzzle made me chuckle and also gave me a sense of accomplishment.
6
Deb,
In case you missed it, one poster noted a typo (OPYT?) in your column today. It concerned 30A which should read SAEDI. I thought that you might want to correct it for posterity!
2
@Andrew totally.
Those AHA Moments are just so lovely! I finally tumbled to Ross's trickery because K-EH- could NOT be right, but I was sure of THE LOOKING GLASS and ASHRAMS; further, AENEID had to be correct, but was creating havoc.
FORETOLD before -SEEN.
The only clunker was ESCORTEE (said nobody, ever,) but the joys of MGM, SOS, SOLOS, REVIVER, and SELES more than made up for that. Just WOW.
Add that Forsythia is blooming, bulbs are up, and my lemon tree is sending out new branches, and Spring is coming--hallelujah!
Now, if only the Wee Bee would accept RIATA, RAITA, AND ADIT, we could all rejoice.
3
@Mean Old Lady - When an Arkansasnian says "spring is coming" in January - it's time to move to Canada fer sure.
But there's no such thing as global warming...
2
No, everyone hereabouts pretty much agrees about global warming (especially the ranchers and farmers)....the storms, the increasingly wet seasons, and the warmer winters are not entirely helpful, shall we say? But it's pretty typical to have the bulbs up and jonquils blooming by February. I hope my fig learned from its mistaken early bud-break last year (when every leaf and incipient figlet was frosted to death-sob!)
3
@Mean Old Lady According to forecasts, this coming Monday it will be colder here (19 F) than it will be in Fairbanks, Alaska.
I don't think we're quite on the edge of spring here yet, but who knows - a week later it might be 60.
I've been doing the Crossword actively since last fall. Outside of Mondays and Tuesdays, this is the first time I "got" the theme and solved without peaking at the daily column!
I feel like Alice in Wonderland (aka, a giant among my peers!). Loved this puzzle.
32
@James Way to go!
2
somehow the very first clue I got was THE LOOKING GLASS, so the puzzle itself turned out to be pretty easy. I'm completely tickled with the construction. Must have been an effort, but the results were worth it!
4
Yyyyyeaah. I didn't catch on to this one at all. And of course I did just fine on the left side but (for some reason, hmmmm) really struggled getting anything on the right side and had to give up. Maybe next time I'll be more attuned to the possibility of a gimmick.
4
If you run into a snag like that it’s good to see if it’s a Thursday puzzle
2
What Rod said; in fact, if there is no trickery afoot, I count it a disappointing Thursday!
4
Every time I see that the daily crossword was constructed by Ross Trudeau, I know that I'm in for a treat. I love his humor and wit and elegant construction. Today did not disappoint. As soon as I had my W in the wrong place for the amphibian, I knew something was up. Well done, and thanks for the fun challenge.
5
Did anyone notice REVIVER which crossed the mid line?
@Susan
Oops, everyone did. Never mind!
8
tricky, tricky!! loved it!
4
This was my second puzzle since subscribing, and what a puzzle it was. Brilliant! I feel like hitting myself. Several times I thought "if only I could reverse it", without it clicking in my head...
6
@Marc
Enjoy a Belgian ALLETS in celebration!
3
@Andrew
Perhaps while riding a RACTEERTS ?
2
@mjengling - I guess that means the Looking Glass was all about Erised?
3
My favorite clue was "Made jokes". I initially entered (erroneously) "JOSHED". That mistake held me up for quite a while...:)
BTW, what does "glue" mean. as in "gluey fill"?
Thanks.
1
Gluey fills are simply entries that are less than desirable because they are obscure word or partial word or partial phrases. Glue just means that it's main function is holding the crossing entries together. It doesn't provide sound semantic structural support to the grid.
3
@Algernon C Smith
Hand up for JOSHED.
I wish there was a way to favorite today’s puzzle. An elegant little masterpiece of the form. Hard to think of a better way to start the day. Bravo!
11
I dreamt I saw you last night....
9
MOL,
This one is in New Hampshire.
1
Just for the heck of it, I held my completed puzzle up to THE LOOKING GLASS wondering how it would look. In conclusion, my advice is - don't bother.
For the first time I managed to solve Letter Boxed in two words. Feeling pretty proud!
1
! NOITCEFREP
16
Really enjoyed this. Superb!
2
If I turn on the Hebrew Keyboard on my iPad will I be able to type the right side more easily?
There used to be a N.Y. newspaper called the Daily Mirror. Was it printed yaw siht?
Serious question re the constructor’s offer of assistance “if you identify as LGBT+, a person of color, or as a woman...”:
Why would such people have more trouble (or less) than anyone else constructing puzzles?
2
@Charlie B They are underrepresented in the community of puzzle constructors, the majority of whom are men. And it may seem daunting to get started. So these generous offers of help are welcome.
11
"Why would such people have more trouble (or less) than anyone else constructing puzzles?"
They would not, Charlie B.
Do you have a follow-up question?
5
@Charlie B
Concerning the Daily Mirror, from what I can see of it online, "yaw siht" is not very far off.
6
This one just fell into place ...
Not the fastest solver here, I was surprised when The West was pretty easy ... where's the Thursday Trick?, I wondered. Got a little thrill when I saw it staring back at me out of the LOOKINGGLASS.
2
I knew something funny was going on when I got the entire left half and THE LOOKING GLASS without much trouble, but was completely stuck on the right half. I struggled to figure out the theme since I couldn't make any connections with the longer entries on the left. I eventually figured out the trick with goes stag (GATSSEOG) and the UK (KUEHT). The last entry, which I wasn't able to get because I don't know any besides Roosevelt, was ELEANORS.
1
Julian,
I'm trying to understand what you're saying about your solve. How did you get the entire left half without much trouble if you didn't get 2D? And did you mean you just didn't get ELEANORS from the clue, or you did you also not get it from the crosses?
1
@Julian
No Roosevelts were implicated in the malking of this puzzle. Those names in the clue are nicknames for ELEANOR.
@Barry Ancona, I was stuck on ?LEAN?RS. To be more accurate, I had the entire left half minus those two squares.
Not a speed solver, but I do look at my times and this is my fasted Thursday ever. THELOOKINGGLASS was a gimme and the first right-side clue I read was "Brexit Land" and I had KU _ _ _. Could only be one place so I instantly got the theme. The clues were probably Tuesday difficulty (maybe Monday) so the only thing slowing me down from there was developing a system of typing in the answers backwards. Good fun!
And here's my second Velvet Underground link to this forum. Took some of the lyrics as part of my wedding vows!
"I'll Be Your Mirror"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMeZCPbM6bA
2
The crowning glory is the ladder of palindromes that tightly binds recto to verso. To pull this off, a clever pattern of black squares keeps the palindromes apart, so down words on the two sides don't have to mirror each other. Kudos!
11
When 7A just had to be TWEN...
And by then I had THE LOOKING GLASS, too...
Writing everything backwards on the right-hand side was not a problem at all.
But I did have two major problems, one in the East and one in the West. For me, "the magic word" (11D) was PRESTO, I never thought of PLEASE. And that loused up LAEM, YACSIB, and SAEDI for the longest time. You put in PRESTO and see what you come up with! And not ever having heard of a LOLCAT (whaaaaa????) didn't help, either. The only thing that would have fit -- I had the O -- was TOMCAT, and that didn't work at all.
In the NW, I JOSHED instead of JESTED (1A), and that, when I didn't know either of the pop culture clues, was a disaster. When I finally changed to JESTED, I saw ELEANORS (2D), my favorite clue in the puzzle. But when you have oLEAN--S, you're never going to see it.
Other than my problem with the completely unknown COREA and KRUSTY, I enjoyed the puzzle and pronounce it DOOGYREV.
2
I filled in THELOOKINGGLASS which was a gimme for such a long fill and finally (head slap) figured out why I was having so much trouble with the right side. GOESSTAG was deceptive because of having a G at both ends but MAE and TSARS gave me the TAG and it went fairly quickly from there.
Clever theme and satisfying solve.
1
Nice one! I loved the use of palindromes in the center. It took me a while to get that THE LOOKING GLASS was the divider, even though I filled that one early on. Then I had to dismiss the thought that the down answers on the right had to be backward as well. Altogether a cool puzzle, especially considering that for a few minutes there I thought it would end my streak.
2
For the one or two of you who aren’t aware of this, I would like to point out that PALINDROMES ARE RASEMORDNILAP.
1
I was not aware! Can you explain further? Google led me to the definition of semordnilap. What is “rasemordnilap”? Is that the plural form?
1
@Keith G
Umm. PALINDROMESARERASEMORDNILAP is a palindrome.
1
@Al Zimmermann, Just like PIGSARERASGIP, right?
A guinea for your thoughts?
1
Enjoyed this puzzle immensely. It is extremely clever.
And today I learned about LOLCATS!
My only nit is with Escortee.
Has anyone, ever, said that word word outloud?
3
@L.A. Sunshine
I've seen it "escortee" used in video game contexts, usually military-themed, where a mission is to escort some hapless figures (the escortees) through dangerous territory. I wonder if it is used in the context of actual military missions. In any case, that use doesn't fit the clue given. And my computer is underlining the word as being being misspelled....
2
My mind was screaming "Stella" but I couldn't make it fit, until I thought for a moment about the Looking Glass, and with one ounce of imagination, the east side filled in like magic.
Was feeling perfectly satisfied until I read Deb's comments, and realized I had missed a layer - the palindromes!
Brilliantly played. A wonderful Thursday.
4
Long time reader, first (uh...second or third?) time commenter. Loved it, and I love even more to read how this sort of language play delights puzzlers - that the mystery, discovery, reversals and symmetries of a well made puzzle can light up the neurons as though this all meant something beyond a bunch of letters on a grid of a Thursday morning. If there is hope for humanity, perhaps it resides here.
24
Spelling Bee
33 words, 140 points
Letters - 4 5 6 7 8
A4 0 3 0 1
B6 4 1 0 0 1
D4 4
H7 2 2 1 2
R2 0 0 1 1
T10 2 5 3
There are a couple words I'd never heard of, and a few annoying omissions, as usual.
10
@Phil P - Thanks for the breakdown. I was banging my head against a last 5-letter word and couldn't find it. The second I discovered from your post that it was an H word, boom, I wrote it in. The grid is so helpful at the end of the game!
4
@David Connell
That was my last word, too, I think.
@Phil P et al
You can say that again! (apparently)
Fist time commenter!
I stared at this for so long, frustrated that BISCAY wouldn’t work and wondering what KUEH_ referred to. After a bit of help in AENEID, I got my aha moment and went about fixing the other errors.
I love puzzles with tricks like this l, especially when I can figure it out [relatively] independently. Thanks!!
7
Today was a lot of fun. I was not surprised to see multiple comments about this puzzle being too easy for a Thursday. Yes, I also found it easy, mainly because of the gimmes at 8D, 29D and (the revealer) 7D. The palindromes also helped me grok the trick. But for my money, major trickiness needs a helping hand. I believe it's right to be friendly to all solvers, not just the experts. Thursday puzzles are what helped me find this blog years ago. So there's more than one reason why I love Thursdays!
2
I'm not sure what this means, but today it seems that very few replies to comments have been posted.
Steve L,
I'm fairly sure it means that little or nothing in the puzzle or the column was in dispute, and almost everyone enjoyed the puzzle, so most of the comments are compliments and don't call for much discussion. Your comment may vary (he replied).
3
@Barry Ancona
I realize that relative newcomers will be amazed by the construction feat, but I (and probably you, too) have done dozens of puzzles requiring backwards entries, so the blush is off the rose somewhat, at least for me. That might startle some of the newer solvers.
But you're probably saying that the puzzle had very little controversy in it; I'll add that it was a bit anodyne for my taste if I could discover the ruse and enter all those backwards answers on a keyboard and still come in faster than average by a couple of minutes.
I loved this puzzle. For me, the key to the seeing the trick was NEWT.
I am, though, confused by the nit that Mr. Trudeau picked with Kevin G. Der's March 31 puzzle. In fact, that puzzle very specifically did "rationalize" which entries ran backward. The clue for the revealer refers to traffic in Manhattan. In the puzzle, the across answers alternate between backward and forward, which mimics the pattern of one-way streets in Manhattan.
By the way, I remember that puzzle more than others because it really stumped me, and I relied on this blog (and others) to help explain it. Understanding how the trick worked in that puzzle made me a better solver, and I was better able to handle the trick in today's puzzle.
9
@Steve H and everyone,
Apologies if someone has pointed this out already in the comments (I haven't been able to go through each one), but I recently completed a similar puzzle (04/16/15) in the Archive in case others want more practice.
1
Perfection! The palindromes straddling THELOOKINGGLASS took this into the stratosphere.
10
SSSSSSEY
(Best puzzle in a very long while)
UOY KNAHT
4
!ti devol I
4
Please! Stop writing words backwards!
I loved it! Thought the west was going too smoothly for a Thursday. And although I caught on/no pretty quickly, I still had fun/nuf. We have seen this before, and as in the past my biggest problem is fighting the urge to write the individual letters backwards.
2
The puzzle was such a joy, and then to read all of these wonderful comments only added to it. Never have I clicked the recommend button so many times!
I don't have much to add that hasn't been said already, but speaking of down the rabbit hole . . . watch out!
https://allthatsinteresting.com/anish-kapoor-descent-into-limbo
2
Great puzzle!
Spent a bit of time wondering if there was a city or river or mountain also named Brexit, in some place that begins KUE.
4
What would we do without clues about rappers and "The Simpsons" .
3
thomas gordon,
Look at puzzles from before rap or "The Simpsons" and see if you're any happier.
3
Loved it! 'Biscay' was one of my early entries and I was pleased with myself for knowing it, then bummed because I was wrong, then baffled because I really thought I was correct, then elated when I figured out the trick. I think that's the first time I figured out a theme early on in a puzzle.
32
@Megan..
Pleased, bummed, baffled, elated, What a great description of feeling in so many solves.!
8
Quick yet satisfying - a welcome respite from the gnard dnu mruts in the rest of the world!
Glad to see here others feel likewise.
7
So BREXIT is the United Kingdom going backwards. Sadly, how very very pertinent just now.
44
Grumble. It is hard enough to spell the words the right way, gurgled moT, garrulously.
Cue "White Rabbit"
Shadow, the fact that rebus puzzles make you grumpy is a sure sign of intelligence.
Thanks Ross. My college Meteorology class memory thanks you for the FORESEEN and ISOBAR cross.
3
Cue "White Rabbit"
I played it on the overnight show, dk.
1
@Barry Ancona
Feed your head!
I’ve never posted here before, since I usually need help by Wednesday and you are all so brilliant. I usually get grumpy when there’s a rebus and I often don’t get the theme til it hits me over the head. But I thought this was just incredibly clever and fun, even though I needed help with this one, too.
38
Welcome to the dark side! The more you work, the easier they'll get! And please join in the conversation!
7
@Shadow Welcome, and we’re happy you’re here!
4
Plus, of course s/he can't make us mad by calling us brilliant....
4
“Reviled did I live,” said I, “as evil I did deliver!”
39
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
1
Loved it, though contrary to Deb's prediction I caught on to the trick fairly early, but still struggled to finish (mostly on the right side). I did my usual run through the across clues and had vaguely noted that I hadn't really seen anything that looked like a potential theme answer. Then when I went to the downs and read the clue for the reveal, the answer immediately dawned on me and I had enough crosses to confirm. Wasn't sure exactly how it was going to work, but bounced down to GOESSTAG to look at the down crosses, saw MAE at 48d and voila - I had it.
Still struggled some on the right side and it wasn't just the backwards thinking/typing (though that was a bit of a challenge). There were some unknowns as clued (WACO and NYU, notably), some other things that just weren't dawning on me and then...
I do this all the time. Read a clue and somewhere on its journey through the neurons in my brain, a word in the clue changes. Today, 'prognosticated' became 'procrastinated' and 'precarious' become 'precocious.' I guess one could say that that just adds to the challenge. Anyway, worked it all out in the end.
5
I tend to rely on the down clues in general and definitely did for this very fun puzzle. I had THE LOOKING GLASS early on so when, as others have mentioned, the right side was a bit sparse in fill, I considered they might be reversed. KU EHT gave it to me having just returned from there with all the Brexit kerfuffle going on. Then seeing the palindromes emerge was a delightful plus. Soon I will not be doing this in the middle of the West Coast night.
4
I loved it—and actually beat my Thursday average. 11A (PAR) and 11D (PLEASE), along with the revealer, did the trick for me.
2
I'm so pleased that so far everyone loved this puzzle as much as I did. My solving experience was similar in that I thought that a long gimme on a Thursday was a hint that something was up, and soon spotted the reverse words, so in fact stayed on the right as I figured they would actually be easier. Like others I was really wowed by the palindromes. So far this has been one of the best weeks ever.
25
The theme has a classic feel -- one of those that can only be done once so it better be done right. And it was, and it was done elegantly. Furthermore, Ross played this perfectly for me, who has heard of "Through The Looking Glass" but never read it, so I needed the hint "...printed backward" in the reveal's clue, to understand the theme.
Being ever on the alert for backward words, this puzzle had great appeal for me, and my inexplicable obsession with double letters appreciated the mini-theme of double E's (6) and the three doubles in THELOOKINGGLASS.
You pulled it off, Ross! I can feel a Cheshire grin radiating through the comments today.
9
My best Thursday time ever! Because of my aging eyes I solve using the list view initially. After several passes through the list, I switch to grid view. When i did that with this puzzle the effect of the looking glass was very dramatic. The left half was solid text and the right side mostly holes. I had already puzzled over the right side across entries so from there it was fill in the blank. Ylevol!
3
How does the “list view” thing work, Patricia? Is that an app you’re using to do a list view or something that exists in the basic puzzle settings?
I believe the list view only appears on phones or other small screen devices. I see it on my phone but not on my iPad.
Bloody brilliant! After annoying myself filling in obvious downs on the east side, and staring at things like TW__for "Thin amphibian," I finally noticed that I had stumbled through the looking Glass, and all was good. Thanks for a great Thursday!
5
Can we have more puzzles with right-to-left Hebrew-style answers ?
After I struggling to complete the northeast corner, I finally realized that the entire right side, and not just random words , was spelled backwards.
Once I had figured out the clever puzzle construction, solving my blank southeast corner was a bunch of fun.
1
@Rod D
There are 39 of them in existence:
https://www.xwordinfo.com/backwards
Clicking on dates in this link will give you the completed grid. If you want to solve them, go to the the Archive on the main puzzle page and enter any of the dates in the list.
3
Thanks, Steve. Do they mention in the title that you need to write the answers backwards? Or is that something you eventually realize when none of the across answers work when written normally
@Rod D
Only Sunday puzzles have titles, and only a very few of them give the gimmick away in the title.
What an adventure.
BISCAY was my first fill, followed by THE UK, URSA, and GOES STAG. I thought I was smashing the right side and having a wonderful Thursday morning fill.
It doesn’t help that I somehow missed the clue for THE LOOKING GLASS on at least 3 passes of the down clues. My absolute frustration with ANAEID not fitting in and going on a Google rampage to find out how Americans spell Virgil’s masterpiece that I devoured for my Latin GCSE and thus knew like the the back of my hand, but to no success, for we’re in agreement.
I found my steam again in the SW corner. Deleted THE UK and tried to think up synonyms for old Blighty. Eventually 7D was well and truly locked in, and the K and it’s following blanks avoided and ignored for as long as I could, with the hope that I’ll get it on the crosses.
I was left wondering what slim amphibian begins with a T and ends with an N, then in the depths of my crossword answer bank for US-centric answers I remembered Baylor is in WACO. Hence the TWEN was born alongside my A-ha moment.
5
@TaraK Twen was also my aha moment! Alongside Rap/please and trying to think of any other magic word starting with ‘r’. What a beautiful puzzle today
3
I thought the 29D was going to be something about skiing, and then I noticed that if I started with the "S", and went diagonally down and to the left, and then down the middle, it *did* spell "ski" (and, in fact, nearly spelled "skiing"!). So that sent me off on a wild goose chase, trying to figure out the rules for some incredibly complicated looking-glass behavior, for a minute.
2
I saw what was going pretty soon, including the palindromes. This went pretty quickly but was an awful lot of fun.
4
!nuf tahW
9
I recently did the tournament puzzles from 2012, and I crashed and burned on #2 because I didn’t pay attention to what the title, “boustrophedon,” was telling me to do until too much time had elapsed. So I’m very much on the lookout for twists and turns at the moment, and that plus knowing how Thursday tends to roll around here helped me get this one wrestled to the ground in a respectable (although not spectacular) time. Brilliant puzzle, especially all the palindromes straddling THELOOKINGGLASS!
5
What a beauty. The ah-ha moment when it fell into place made me smile. It was Brexit land starting with a K that was doing me in for a while. Thanks for the fun Thursday, Ross.
6
Very clever puzzle! I like it.
4
I enjoyed this puzzle so much that I'm posting here for the first time!
I was bamboozled until I noticed what KU spelled in the Brexit clue. Brilliant!
21
It was actually a best time (Thursday) for me. I was pretty sure of BISCAY but it didn’t fit and I had THELOOKINGGLASS so it followed that reversing entries was on.
Your discussion of 30A misspelled SAEDI. Elbadnatsrednu...
5
That was so fun!!! Thank you! I love ending the day with an upbeat and quirky solve.
5
One of my favorite puzzles. Didn't realize the truth about the other half of the puzzle until I was stumped trying to figure out which Brexit Land started with a K. Then, I realized I had to change the direction of how I answered some of the clues!
3
Completed in more of a Tuesday time with no errors (at completion). Hooray! Of course I had to juggle some letters around to finish the puzzle once I realised why seemingly obvious answers for the across clues did not fit their intersecting down clues. I realised that LOOKING GLASS ran down the middle of the puzzle and it also tickled the noggin to see that the letters I desperately wanted to put on the left of my across answers were dangling furtively over in the right hand side.
Seeing that the answers that had worked were palindromes gave a wonderful "a-ha!" sensation.
Thank you Mr Trudeau and the editors for a fun puzzle.
1
Wow, what fun and how incredibly clever!
THELOOKINGGLASS was a gimme and with the palindromes starting to show up in the middle, I figured something was up.
Then when RAP, PLEASE and BISCAY didn’t want to cooperate I looked down the rabbit hole and realized “Nothing’s impossible”!
Thank you Ross. I don’t know how you do it, but keep them coming!
14
and Elke
The LAEM was my first tip-off , and THE LOOKING GLASS confirmed it. Liked seeing the palidromes providing the wall/barrier/fence in the middle.
LAEM/MEAL means that now I am busy preparing sandwiches for a trip tomorrow kitty-cornering the continent. Will make lox ,not on KRUSTY rolls, but on (T)SARa LEE's bagels.
Purpose of trip : to celebrate an 80th birthday A younger brother. Two brothers born in the same town, one is Czech-born, the other Hungarian. Very mobile borders. It is now the Ukraine.
Clever,neat puzzle.
13
Excellent puzzle. One of my favorites. Just finished. Wasn’t as easy for me as for others here. Loved some of the clues. Knew I was right on Ursa Major and goes stag, but was very confused for a while. And how many synonyms are there for England, esp. starting with a K? Finally, I got it. Thanks for the challenge and the fun.
3
For a brief moment I thought I had learned the name of a new slim amphibian, the twen!
16
@Helene So did I! I went so far as to try to find a picture.
6
Nicely done ... got the theme with the timely Brexit clue.
After that, it was a breeze resulting in the second fastest solve this week, next only to Monday.
1
I DID think I had lost it! So took a break and the came back a few minutes later and the Looking Glass hit me over the head- then solved quickly...Fun puzzle and especially liked the palindromes!
1
Solving the acrosses left to right (like I often do), I had JOSHED, NEWT, and RAP. But seeing no immediate answers for 15A and 18A, I focused on the NW, which fell pretty quickly with ELEANORS changing JOSHED to JESTED.
The double O's from ANTIHERO and SOS gave me the revealer fairly early but I didn't figure out what was going on in the East until I broke through the mirror with GATS SEOG. Thereafter, all I had to do was to enter all of the across answers I knew I had (e.g., BISCAY, MEAL) SDRAWKCAB, and the grid came together smoothly.
No real stumpers in the fill (even SAEDI did not elude me). The only thing that threw me off until I got the trick was K.U. EHT. I kept wondering whether I had missed some detail in the current events regarding YAM ASEREHT's political woes.
5
@Henry Su
I was pretty sure of STAG but was presented with GATS, so made up GATSBIED (all those parties he threw without a date) and then grokked to oh-it’s-not-just-palindromes when what clearly had to be NEWT clearly began with TW. Fun!
3
Brilliant puzzle! My progress was similar to other commenters. Left side filled in easily and the right side had GOES STAG, URSA, BISCAY and not much else. My aha moment came after deleting GOES STAG and realizing from the downs that it would start with GAT___ Strange coincidence I thought - then I saw the palindromes straddling THE LOOKING GLASS and the light went on!
I much preferred today's LOOKING GLASS to the recent WALL.
5
I also did a double take seeing KRUSTY with a K under COREA with a C!
6
Did you dislike the WALL puzzle? It seemed a little gimmicky to me, but enjoyable.
@Rod D
Actually I liked the WALL puzzle very much. My comment was simply that as an image I prefer a LOOKING GLASS to a WALL. And I did find today's puzzle to be exceptional as compared to merely enjoyable.
Sometimes, when things aren't going too well, you just have to stop clue/answer solving and just look at the big picture.
Left side pretty much filled in, not much on the right. Kinda odd. But we have a single grid spanner, 7d . LOOKING GLASS, with its clue ending in "printed backwards".
When I was ten, my four year old brother, who was just learning to write is name, would fill a sheet of paper with TOMs and MOTs. He knew his letters, but not their order. Or so I thought. When seen in a mirror, the MOTs became TOMs and the TOMs became MOTs! That's when I discovered the transformative power of mirrors. Still a vivid memory sixty years later.
So seeing 7d as a revealer, needing both the clue and the entry, the theme was, umm, cracked. The once puzzling entries were quickly filled in.
Thanks baby brother!
8
The opening words of the Aeneid, in the Oxford University Press edition:
Ille ego, qui quondam gracili modulatus avena
carmen, et egressus silvis vicina coegi
ut quamvis avido parerent arva colono,
gratum opus agricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis
arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris…
(“I am he who once tuned his song on a slender reed, and leaving the woodland, constrained the nearby fields that they might serve the farmer, grasping though he be, a work welcome to the tiller of the field; but now of Mars’ bristling arms and the man I sing who first from the shores of Troy…” Aeneid I, 1-5). This four-verse segue from the Eclogues and the Georgics to the saga of Aeneas was omitted from the canon by Virgil’s literary executors after his death, and most subsequent editors have followed suit. How the Aeneid begins depends on whose edition you are reading.
8
Fascinating! My high school Latin class edition began with “Arma virumque...” I had no idea there were variant texts.
4
I was stumped for awhile why the left was so easy and the right so confusing. loved the puzzle, with the mirrored words down the middle as well as the reversals. very clever. and the ease of this one made up for Tuesday.
1
Quick and fun. Only one look-up, and a pre-solve visit to Deb wasn’t needed! A Thursday record!
For once, I picked up on the theme right away. I cheer for a Big 12 team, so I knew Baylor was in WACO, and I bake often, so ONEOUNCE was a gimme... until it wasn’t. I’m interested to see who thought this was too easy for a Thursday, and who welcomed the break!
5
I thought the puzzle was perfection.
Perhaps a few trickier clues could have been used. But I think it’s easy to overdo that and make the puzzle more of a grind than fun.
OK, Deb, I'm back now a half hour after clicking on "you can always learn" about LOLCATs. So what were you saying?
13
@Wags Rather appropriate that you went down a rabbit hole, I'd say.
5
@Wags
Thought of you filling in 44D.
2
Yrev looc. I stared at KUEH_ for what seemed like minutes before I got it and the rest then fell (sort of) like seonimod.
6
I loved this! First realized the “writing backward” trick with PLEASE and RAP/PAR; confirmed by BYSCAY crossing PLEASE and AENEID; só moved to the other side and turned the few, isolated entries backwards, until I got to COMOESTA crossing ETRE, and realized only one half was backward, like a mirror. So what about the words in the middle? SOS and SOLOS!Delight at the palindromes: what a subtle, delicate touch! Then the looking glass in the middle. Perfection.
As for BREXIT.....end of days! Chaos! Almost envy you guys: you have Trump but you also have Muller....
13
Great puzzle!
1
The lack of vertical symmetry does a nice job of obscuring the reversal.
5
A quick solve for me, too—but fun! TheUK was the aha for me, too.
3
SODUK. And the palindromesemordnilap are a really nice touch!
4
Beautiful puzzle! The symmetry of the words crossing the revealer and the twist were both magical!
7
Somehow I got a fantastically gfast time with this one. Makes up for a lousy week hitherto. Great ingenuity, hats off to this puzzle.
2
Got the theme from KU EHT. a couple of weeks ago there was the WALL with the black squares down the middle, and this time, THE LOOKING GLASS, non-black squares down the middle.
The five sneaky palindromes: SOLOS, SOS, REVIVER, MGM, and SELES camouflaged the trick quite nicely. I think the clues were eased up because of the trickiness of the theme.
No real problems with any of the entries, even ESCORTEE and REVIVER.
6
@Wen. It was KU EHT that made me wake up to the theme too. I had already played around with trying to do the down words backwards too but quickly realized that didn't fit the pattern.
Huzzahs for Ross Trudeau.
did the left side quickly and then stared at the empty right side with great UNEASE! all of a sudden it dawns on me to GO THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS and do the opposite! good IDEA.
5
Got the revealer early so suspected some shenanigans given it runs down the center of the whole puzzle. For a second I wondered if it reflected on both sides, but the grid was not vertically symmetrical.
I did get stuck a couple of times thinking, "That *must* be it!" until I saw how it worked. Ended up well below my Thursday time, but lots of fun!!
2
Easy but fun. I didn’t notice the palindromes until I saw David’s comment.
1
Enjoyed that a lot more than yesterday, although doing backward entries on an iPad is a real pain. Smooth construction, but rather easy for a Thursday. I grew up doing English cryptics, and I solve by doing across clues and then down clues, and I got the central down on the first pass, at which time I suspected what was going on. After I realized I needed to run PLEASE and AENIAD through BISCAY it was plain sailing. (Notoriously not always available on the Bay of Biscay.)
I was tempted by "seat" instead of MEAL for 22 across, given you often have to pay for seat assignments these days.
I felt some delight when I figured this one out - nicely done!
6
Twas brillig...
Music for post-solve contemplation. Go ask Alice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
8
Fact Boy hasn't appeared, so I'll take this one on.
Lenin isn't interred. His body is on display in a mausoleum. Interring involves burial in the earth (in- ter-). He is entombed in Red Square.
The trick of the puzzle was fun, but it fell in Tuesday time for me; would have been Monday time but for having to spell backwards.
But I really loved the answers that crossed the center line; those palindromes were delightful to see unfold.
11
@David Connell ... OK so who is buried in Grant's tomb? Complete answers only, please.
2
@David Connell
Ah, I see you pointed out the palindromes already.
@David Connell
I feel your pain but, etymology notwithstanding, most dictionaries support interment in a tomb.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inter
1
Very clever but too easy for a Thursday!
3
"GOES STAG" was my aha moment, and it all fell into place quickly after that. Beautiful puzzle, and lots of fun to solve!
6
Somewhat clever, but fell early.
4
This was quite fun. Fairly early on, I realized that I had a lot of words on the left side of the puzzle, not that many on the right side, and most of what I had on the right side didn't make much sense. When PLEASE and AENEID didn't work with MEAL and BISCAY, and GOES STAG didn't work with MAE, it was clear that we had gone through the mirror. At least I eventually got all the letters in the right places!
8