Hello, Dear Reader, it's Horace, filling in for Frannie for a day. And what a day to be filling in, as the TWENTYFIVE-THOUSANDTH New York Times Crossword puzzle is celebrated!
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| Image by © Neal Preston/CORBIS |
It was, for the most part, a WINSOME grid. Nice flow, chunky corners, and some spirited clueing. To wit: HOTTUB (37A: Warm place to chill), CAST (44A: Put in play?), and PITABREAD (51A: Pocket of the Mideast). Cute. The trickiest for me today was probably 55A: Back now after going out? (RELIT). I guess they mean like a candle, but "back now" is pretty oblique. It also took me rather longer than it should have to get OVERICE (38D: Not neat), and ECOMMERCE (56A: Net sales) was tricky too!
I have never heard the mnemonic for the CONTINENTS before, but honestly, I think it would be harder to remember that than it would be to remember the continents themselves. I mean, there are only seven of them. It's not complicated.
We get a little Latin (SUBVOCE), a colloquialism (YEESH), some delicious OLIVEOIL, and a lot more. To me, this was a fitting tribute - a very clean grid with lots of fun stuff to discuss. Let's hope it's not the ENDOFANERA! Keep 'em coming, Misters Shortz & Fagliano!
- Horace
28:53
ReplyDeleteI was substantially complete in the 18-minute range, but that SW did me in. I kept entering CROWD, then taking it out, then putting it in...all because of SCRY. I mean, I have used "descry," but never SCRY. But I looked it up and there it was, meaning just what its clue intimated. Always a treat to learn something new, IMO. I liked seeing Tycho BRAHE in there, but his crossing with EAZYE wasn't particularly apt. I tried markspitz at 15A where APOLOOHNO goes, but took it out pretty quickly. I agree wholeheartedly with Horace on CONTINENTS: never heard of the mnemonic nor would I ever need to use one for them. It's like the planets, in that it's not too difficult to just remember them. THEWHO and HELIOS both went right in. And back to the SW, I had KIWIS and THOUSANDTH almost immediately, with TREE and the cross STRINGER following in short order, so it's shocking that RELIT/YEESH/SCRY/ROLE (tricky clue for the latter!) took me a full ten minutes to enter.
Hi. I'm new to your blog. I have followed another NYT crossword blog for a while now, but it got too political and mean. I am so pleased to find a more civilized and civil commentary. I had never heard of scry either, although I was able to fill it in from the crosses. Unfortunately Eazye and Brahe were both outside my ken so I could not complete the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the fold, Anonymous. Glad you found us!
Delete10:56
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellent grid, and perfect for such an important landmark. I struggled to begin with, only getting things here and there. I made things tough in the NW by confidently putting in "euler" for BRAHE. I really only got going with the SW, where PITABREAD came off of DIAN and IBMS. Strong themeless.
I would like to say that we should take Rex's link off of our blog. He has simply become hateful.
ReplyDeleteDone.
DeleteAnd speaking of the blogroll, does the Wordplay link work for you? Have I just run out of my monthly allotment of views as a non-subscriber, or has something else changed?
DeleteAnd finally, I've added "Not a Blog," which is Dan Feyer's blog wherein you can see how you compare to his times. Like on Tuesday, when I did the puzzle in 4:55 and felt pretty good about it - he did it in 1:38.
DeleteYes, I can get on Wordplay, but I'm a NYT subscriber.
DeleteI mean, by clicking on the link.
Delete