This is the crossword puzzle thread

under ten minutes for the nyt saturday this week is close to a record for me, think it was an easy one tho

https://kotaku.com/new-york-times-crossword-puzzle-making-history-will-sho-1848440135

Cool. Wish they hadn’t kept misspelling Tausig though.

The very beginning of timethe Shortz Era has some bizarre puzzles by constructors from the prior epoch who only got one puzzle in with Will and then were gone. Talking to you, Tom Underhill.

The article leaves out a lot of the more damning stuff about the beanball kerfuffle, i.e. Jeff Chen pointing out the offensiveness prior to the puzzle's publication.

Also the recent "clean coal" nonsense: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2022/01/forlorn-directionless-type-mon-1-10-22_10.html

also 'beaner' isn't really a baseball term ('beanball', sure)

On March 21, 1943, the New York Times crossword clue was “author of a bestseller.” The answer: five letters long “HITLER.”

I...

Um...

I counted several times and keep getting six letters. What am I missing?

Might have something to do with the extra ‘s’ in *Taussig*

Article about the "Surprisingly Messy Culture Wars Within The New York Times Crossword Puzzle" has surprisingly messy editing

That whole paragraph about the word "gluttonous" makes no sense

Enjoyed today’s NYT but then I caught up on one rare (for the puzzle and probably outside, although it makes sense) word that had two crossings I wasn’t sure of. One I could figure out the other I couldn’t.

Kind of kicking myself because I have seen and maybe even used this word but in context couldn’t see it.

Friday was a really smooth solve with albeit with some traps to be dug out of.

yep

liked saturday's a lot, kameron austin collins makes great crosswords

Doing cryptics on my lunch break and then finishing them right before heading home has helped make it so I now average doing one a day. It helps that there are 5 (soon to be 6) weekly US/Canadian publications releasing cryptics now.

what are they? I do the weekly ones in the globe and mail and the new yorker

KAC is one of my favorites, he consistently makes hard and chewy but fair puzzles, wish he showed up more in NYT though.

in general i liked it but i was not happy about the non-proliferation answer

symsymsym, besides G&M and NY-er:

Saturday National Post by Cox & Rathvon (available free here: https://natpostcryptic.blogspot.com/)
The Browser (UK-based, but all the setters are American: thebrowser.com, need to subscribe for access)
Out Of Left Field (the guys who used to do The Nation cryptic, $4/month, https://www.patreon.com/leftfieldcryptics)

AVCX is starting a weekly cryptic later this month or so too

thank you so much! I'm looking forward to the AVCX cryptic starting. My perception is that G&M on NY-er are on the easier side (because I can usually get close to finishing them). do you think the other ones are more challenging?

AVCX Cryptic? Tausig keeps his cards pretty close to his chest!

It was announced in their recent successful kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/avcx/avcxpansion-embiggening-an-indie-puzzle-outlet

National Post cryptic is usually at the same level as The Globe & Mail. The Browser is a step up but is a bit more modern, and Left field is a further step up from that.

Cool. Just noticed the name of an ex-ILX0r on there. Maybe had some dim awareness he was doing that. Are they doing variety cryptics or just regular? Was making a bad joke about Tausig since he literally lives a block away from me. I sometimes have a very brief chat with him when we cross paths but I don’t really know him.

NYT with an unusually clever themed Monday today. Not difficult, just unexpectedly charming.

OTM. Had almost forgotten about Hägar the Horrible's wife, maybe that's for the other thread. Assuming this is not the Rebecca Goldstein that wrote The Mind-Body Problem and married Steven Pinker.

this is very cool

Fun little trick in the Sunday New York Times crossword yesterday: the central theme clue was "The better of two sci-fi franchises", and regardless of whether you put Star Wars or Star Trek, the crossing clues worked pic.twitter.com/NS4LDxwxxl

— ℳatt (@matttomic) February 7, 2022

Great stuff
think they did something similar in the 90s for the presidential election winner

Yes, Tuesday, November 5, 1996. There was one before that, earlier that year, and so far there have been 17 of these Schrödinger, or quantum, crosswords, as they are known, including this latest.

for the diverse among us: Apply to The New York Times Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship

Erik A. also has a Friendbook group you can join.

I hate how much the NYT crossword leans on Star Wars shit

I feel like I was born on some kind of cusp where everyone (or so it seems) born younger than me is obsessed with Star Wars and the entire Star Trek franchise, whereas I only ever really cared about TOS.

I don't remember it being a factor other than being the theme of one recent puzzle

have no idea what TOS stands for

lotsa SW words show up as fill with some regularity (REN, LEIA, SITH, SOLO). hate ARTOO whenever i see it

The Original Series

JEDI has been in there 42 times
YODA 56 times
HAN SOLO 22 times, not to mention the related partials

HANSOLO, I meant

ARTOO 53 times!

:)

And then of course there is ENDOR. 29 Shortz Era appearances, 143 total, although of course it is sometimes clued as, especially in the Before Times, “Home of a Biblical witch.”

Tomorrow’s puzzle okay, but not as good as today’s.

James Redd +tB is posting from the future

(Psst, puzzle drops at 10PM on weekdays, earlier on the weekend)

Yeah and that has messed up my streak sometimes. Late in the evening, I go to what I think is current - and by default it gives me tomorrow's puzzle. Unless I check carefully, this means that I might not get credit (in this particular arbitrary and probably stupid niche-world) for today.

With a halfway-decent time machine I bet I could kick all your asses at Wordle. Anyhow carry on

I hate how much the NYT crossword leans on Star Wars shit

agreed, but at least i mostly know the star wars shit -- the harry potter shit, however

feeling that post

Me too. Feel like it don't see it that often but when I do it I get a litle antsy.