ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS WEDNESDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS WEDNESDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Heads up: I have tomorrow’s New York Times puzzle. I’ll post it later on today. Feel free to talk about either puzzle in the comments.
UPDATE: The Times puzzle is up, and it’s here. Enjoy.
Share the puzzle. New one on Friday.
SAX / XE- / -IOTESTS = 🙁
I wish “instrument” had been in quotation marks in that SAW clue.
Else, easy. And fun. Never heard of a MAO JACKET or TRE COOL or OUR SONG, but I worked it out. Fun.
rp
Never heard of YACHT ROCK. I laughed when I finally got the pole position answer. Good puzzle.
Favorite clue: [People mover?].
{People Mover} for NEWSSTAND is awesome.
[People mover?] was good but transparent, as all “?” clues involving People, Time, etc., are.
YACHT ROCK, however, is a phrase I really need to use more often. I’m not sure I believe it’s real, but it should be.
PIANO STOOL made me laugh out loud.
Went through the alphabet on the SA_/_EB crossing before changing the X to a W. 63A brought back fond memories, I went to the first baseball game ever played there in 1965. I think it mostly sits empty these days. 17A was my favorite clue. Great puzzle. Looking forward to tomorrow’s NYT.
Damn you Quigley…just spent the last hour watching the Yacht Rock mockumentaries. Time well wasted!
Oh yeah, forgot to add…”That puzzle was smooooth!”
Hello to you all. This is the first time I’ve been able to get and do the puzzle the day it is posted, as I’m off today for Veteran’s Day. A very smooth puzzle – I had to use google just once, on 41D. That helped me get the rest of SE, SW, and NW. Just one question – shouldn’t the clue for 20A be “Gray soldier”?
This was a team effort in the lunchroom today – I never would have come up with KLIBAN, but a lunchmate knew it as a gimme, and that totally unlocked the NW for me.
STRIPPER was clued wonderfully, but still enough of a gimme that it was my second entry in the grid.
YACHT ROCK? That’s a thing?
Great puzzle – my lunch crowd really enjoys these.
Thanks, Brendan, for a goldmine of a web site. I came here a few months ago from a link on Stanley Newman’s site, and now I almost always have an open window for BEQ. It has taken me this long to go through all the 146 puzzles plus all the other ones linked to along the way. I am enjoying myself immensely. I have tried constructing, but got hopelessly balled up and so am content to solve others’ gems of wit. There is usually at least one LOL moment in each of yours. Thank you.
or is he blue because he lost?
The Midwest got me thoroughly today. 37-Across was DATE and TRAP (very confident both times with those) before DIAL, which then opened up the rest. Nice Wednesday workout.
I enjoyed 68A because Brendan told myself and my fiancee to do just that at a BTO concert.
Maybe I know more pop culture than I though. When I saw 41D not only did I know the answer, but it came to me that he is also The Snoo in the band The Network. But I do love “Money Money 2020”.
Strange but true fact: My old band, The Campaign For Real-Time, recorded at the studio in episode 9. It’s The Hobby Shop in Highland Park.
http://is.gd/4SK8K
Glad to have you post, River.
The clues in this one kicked my puzzly posterior – great stuff! Oh yeah – YACHT ROCK? Hadn’t heard it, but I like the phrase.
Brendan, thanks for a goldmine of a website. I discovered it several months ago from a link on Stanley Newman’s site, and now you are a permanent fixture on our living room computer. It’s taken me this long to get through all 146. I was amazed and amused all along the way, and found that the crew here had many of my same reactions, although much earlier in time.
I realize that I am in rarified x-word company when I post here. So many great constuctors. I tried my hand once, but got hopelessly balled up. So I am content to be a solver. Thanks again, one and all.
oops. I thought my previous similar comment had been disappeared, but now I see it is back up. Oh well. Oh – my favorite in this is 40A. At first I thought that maybe “strapper” was slang for someone riding a subway hanging on to a strap, then I saw LEADINS and roared.
Are you old enough to remember The Captain and Tenille? His signature outfit included a ship’s captain’s hat. I thing they may be the yachtrock exemplars (though, in fairness, Toni is terrific jazz singer).
[People mover] is great.
Please include a People clue next time that has nothing to do with magazines just to bug Rex.
First, sorry about the multiple replies to Karen. Didn’t occur to me that the page wouldn’t update till I signed back on. Doh!
Wow, what a puzzle. Started with great hope in NW–enough long semi-gimmies and a lucky guess on enol. Then ended up crawling on hands and knees across broken glass clockwise. Took nearly an hour. Heck of an hour, though. And my brain almost exploded trying to get your “pole position” clue–best of show.
My only cavil is with 30A. Aren’t outdoor tracks “laned” as well?
p.s. to river: yes, Union soldiers blue, Confederate soldiers grey.
Great puzzle today. My first no help hard one. Took me 45 minutes, but damn it I did it by myself. A bunch of stuff I didn’t know, but with some time to think it all came to me. Enjoyed the STRIPPER clue once I decided it just didn’t have anything to do with a gondolier.
Hey, I’ve heard of yacht rock! That’s, like, the first time I know one of those phrases that I assume everybody but me knows. I was surprised as hell when I punted on the last two squares (the C in TRECOOL and the B in KLIBAN) and saw the happy pencil man appear. Took me 23 minutes, but still. (I don’t get the “Blue soldier” clue, either.)
MAO JACKET is a cool answer. Took me forever to see it.
I know yacht rock!
Starting with MAO JACKET and ending with YACHT ROCK, this may be the puzzle of the year. The last entry made me laugh aloud as I actually went to a “Yacht Rock” costume party in Silver Lake (in LA) last year. Great stuff!
It certainly does sit empty at a significant annual maintenance cost to Harris County. It also eats up a mess of Reliant Stadium parking. The original name, before it was called Reliant Astrodome, was the Harris County Domed Stadium when it opened in 1965. I caught my only ball (even if was batting practice) there after almost 50 years of going to Major League games and my 5 year old grandson snags one at his second game at Minute Maid Park.
Tried to post this last pm (I usually hit the NYT at 9:00 CST), but Liliputed my internet pages by hitting Ctrl+- instead of Shift+- trying to enter “44D black__”. Anyone out there know how to toggle back to non-microscopic screen size?
Anyway, as to your most excellent puzzle, I was able to get through it in only 55 minutes (is there an irony emoticon?), googling liberally. Got lucky early on–in my initial random walk through, looking for semi-gimmies, I found 44D. Grew up in Denver, skiing, so got a first approximation of the theme almost immediately. Gave me lots of traction until I jumped to the conclusion that 1D “Union Symbol?” was “diamondback”, thinking of revolutionary-war era flags (don’t tread on me…). Heed the question marks! Ended up fine except for an error in 60D. Got a google hit on “linguist pai” (I had started with “chalk” on 65A)–Nikhila Pai–and decided to wait for the morning light to see if “whalk” was actually a word (by that time, my xword-bred “awn” synapse had finally fired).
SW kicked my ass!
Glad to add YACHT ROCK to my vocabulary.
Had RIAA for MPAA, which cost me some time, and guessed that Marijuana Awareness Month had to be April (4/20), which cost me some more…..
Just to be clear, I was posting re Mr. Q’s Thursday NYT puz (should that be two zs?).
This puzzle was very entertaining for all the reasons already stated. I also thought your Thursday NYT kicked butt! It was a great puzzle and was actually one of my faster Thursday efforts in a while. I managed to catch the diamond theme fairly early on. I think my brain is wired to sniff out rebus themes more easily than some of the other theme schemes. Thanks, Brendan, for providing us with quality puzzles week in and week out! I think I need to figure out how to do that “tip the constructor” thing! 🙂