Well, it turns out it's really hard to come up with sentences where every word is only TWO letters long. I thought for maybe 30 seconds about writing the first paragraph that way, and got no further than "Hi, my..." But, Ms. Bowers has given us 5 sentences of this sort (one of which is split into two parts). Of course, the best by far is 16A: "Yuck! I've dated him before. Swipe left!" (OHNOEWHEISMYEX). The "Ew!" in there is so evocative. OKIFWEGOINONIT is impressive as well. The other three are SOISIT / UPTOME, DOASWEDO, and HIMAIMUP. It's fun to look at them in the grid because my brain want ..read more

On a Monday morning, it's nice when the puzzle gives a little bit of an uplift. I'm uncertain whether today's puzzle does that or not... The theme starts with 1A: Nonrenewable energy source ... and the start of an eight-step word ladder (COAL). There's a nice visual of the eight 4-letter words moving down diagonally from COOL to WOOL to WOOD to FOOD to FOND to FIND to 64A: Renewable energy source ... and the end of the word ladder (WIND). Along the way, we get the dour GLOBALWARMING and FOSSILFUEL and the hopeful GREENPOWER. But there's also 49A: Goes extinct (DIESOUT) and 37D: Botches badly ..read more

GET CRACKING [Warning - spoiler alert below] Hey, good folks, puzzle enthusiasts, and loyal readers (and likely all three at once)! Glad to be back with you for another week of New York Times crossword puzzling and reviewing. Thanks to Philbo for another fine week of blog posts. Today, as we prepare for a late lunch book club (we're making two fritattas, one with fried potatos and onions and one with asparagus and goat cheese) (oh, and we read The Vulnerables, by Sigrid Nuñez), I got to spend some time with the Sunday puzzle. When the grid opened, I knew immediately I would need to look at the ..read more

Rounding out my week of blogging is this delightful gem of a Saturday puzzle, which took many minutes of steady pressure to bring to heel.  Numerous juicy stacked long Across clues including a triple stack in the centre, lots of misdirection - great weekend fare, this! Nothing was jumping out at me until the very middle, where "Sentimental feelings" had to be WARMFUZZIES, but I couldn't think of a three letter word for "Catch" with a U in the middle, so I had that erased for a while until finally RUB sprang to mind.  Ordinarily I'd be off to the races with a long answer like that in ..read more

Hello all!  I find myself in an awkward position today, having completed (and enjoyed) the crossword and finding that I can't think of much to say about it.  Not that it wasn't a perfectly good puzzle... let's see.  Anchored by two long Across answers, both things that one might say to someone - IDONTHAVEALLDAY while anxiously tapping one's watch, and SOMETHINGCAMEUP after one's plans change.  These both share a temporal aspect - "I'm gonna be late" and "Sorry I'm late".  (The latter of which is soon going to apply to yours truly, if I don't get this blog done.) There ..read more

Well, that was fun!  I just wrapped up the Thursday crossword and then stared at it for two solid minutes before figuring out what the theme was.  In doing so, I had to enter answers to the six starred clues without comprehending them.  The revealer, the thrice-remade movie ASTARISBORN, finally made it all make sense.  We're instructed to re-parse it as six words, which at first looks impossible - but if you read it as 'A STAR IS B OR N', then aha!  It's telling us what to do with the stars on those clues.  So we have: *Assist in a foursome = MCCARTNEY if the ..read more

In a nod to dromedary camels everywhere - happy "Hump Day" everybody!  Let me get one thing out of the way, right up front:  I did *not* like 1A in today's puzzle:  FLORAS ("Groups of plants").  I really don't think FLORA is a word you can pluralize.  Having gotten that nit out of the way - what an admirable piece of construction!  The theme centres around THECYCLOPS, the one-eyed figures of Greek and Roman mythology, and in homage, the entire grid contains one single 'I', centred near the top where it should be.  Furthermore, the puzzle's clues are entirely ..read more

My mind isn't generally at its most receptive on Monday mornings - but I learned something new today - ASABOVE SOBELOW - a phrase lifted from the 9th century Emerald Tablet referring to the symmetry of earth and heaven.  As dubious as this philosophy may be, it forms the theme of today's puzzle, in which the words 'AS' and 'SO' appear in six little four-letter blocks throughout the grid, with AS above and SO below (of course).  An interesting concept for a Monday crossword and I imagine easier than usual to clue from a theme perspective.   No issues with the solve, th ..read more

Greetings Earthlings!  Seems like forever since my last contribution to this blog.  A lot of water under the bridge in the past while, including the ACPT a couple of weeks ago - which was fun, challenging, stressful, and - most of all - emotional, with a recovering Will Shortz taking the podium on all three days.  We are all very much rooting for you, Will!!   Interesting puzzle today, with an unorthodox left-right symmetry and a square pattern that, if you squint, resembles a jet plane or perhaps a down-arrow, indicative of the direction in which our planet may be hea ..read more

A fun Saturday puzzle which, judging by my time (23:39), falls on the easier side of the range. I especially enjoyed "Whimsically move from here to there" (SKIP), "One stymied by security questions, say" (BOT), "Go all over" (GAD), "Checks for clothes" (PLAID), "Fit for a queen?" (DRAG), and "They don't care for icing, for short" (NHL) - a sports-themed clue that I dropped right in. Score! Lots of spoken phrase clues in the grid - not usually my cup of ICEDTEAS - but for some reason, today I was able to SAYAGAIN the gist of the clues in the correct form (YOUTELLME, IMWELLAWARE, EASYMAN, IST ..read more