This Puzzle Took a TTIIMMEE (You’ll see!) (New York Times 11/26/2020)

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There’s a misconception among non-solvers that the Sunday puzzle is the hardest the Times puts out every week. While it is the biggest, the honor of most difficult belongs to Saturday. But I would argue that the Thursday puzzle is usually on equal ground. The Thursday puzzle often incorporates themes that break the rules and push the boundaries of how they should be solved. Today’s puzzle was a great example of that. 

First of all, I really enjoyed this puzzle. It was a head scratcher. By the time I finally figured out what it was asking me to do, I had already clocked in over an hour trying to piece it together. But when it finally clicked, everything fell into place.
 

Like most late-week puzzles, this one offered a few foot-holds to get started. 5A “2019 voice role for Beyonce” … NALA; 16A “Basic skateboarding trick” … OLLIE; 33A “Big-tongued comics character” … ODIE; and 35A “1992 biopic staring Jack Nicholson” … HOFFA are all gimmes provided you know the trivia. The down clues were a little stingier, but still offered a few easy answers in 2D “Mystery writer, for short” … ANON; 29D “They move in a charged atmosphere” … IONS; 59D “Betty Boop, e.g.” … TOON. From there, harder clues won out, and even when I filled in a letter in one of the themed answers, it didn’t help much.


Two timely holiday clues were represented in the grid today. 40A “Celebrated Thanksgiving, say” … FEASTED and 43A “Sight at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” … SANTA. While this year’s Thanksgiving feast may look a little different due to COVID-19, these reminders of normalcy were much appreciated.


My favorite clue/answer pair of the day came from 3D “It’s commonly used to make a product.” Thursday is usually the day when solver’s have to think outside the box and really pick apart what the clue is telling them. On an early-week puzzle, one would assume the clue is talking about a physical product, one that might come out of a warehouse. But today, the author (Mr. Neville Fogarty) was looking for something a little sneakier. The answer TIMESSIGN forced me to consider other possible meanings for the word ‘product.’ I liked this clue so much, it will be one of the puzzles I post to Instagram today.


By the way, if you haven’t joined the guild yet, the Solver’s Guild Instagram page is where I post daily crossword clues, logic puzzles and riddles. If you love puzzles (and you’re here, so you do), give me a follow. *End of shameless plug*


Finally, on to the theme of today’s puzzle. 71A “Word interpreted literally in completing four of this puzzle’s answers” can thankfully be started easily enough with the aforementioned Betty Boop clue and 60D “Close-fitting” … SNUG. The answer “LONG” isn’t represented in the themed answers themselves, but it provides just enough of a shove in the right direction to get you there.


The first themed clue 18A “Oboe or flute sound” stumped me until I realized it had nothing to do with the instruments themselves, and rather was a spiritual sequel to the earlier 9A “Gym leader?” … SOFTG. The answer it was looking for, VVOOWWEELL, could also be read as LONG VOWEL.


And the same went for each of the other three themed entries:


29A “Home to around eight million Americans” … IISSLLAANNDD


47A “Circumlocutory” … WWIINNDDEEDD


61A “Some winter wear” … JJOOHHNNSS


Long Island; Long Winded; Long Johns. Yeah… this puzzle took me a Long Time!


The pay-off for taking the time to solve this one was well worth it, and one of the reasons I always look forward to the Thursday puzzle each week. No other day provides the dopamine rush of a good AH-HA! moment quite like a Thursday.


Thursday puzzles also don’t skimp on the obscure crossword-ese. If you’re having a hard time with clues like 70A “Aphorisms” or 21D “Lead-in to la” see the completed grid below.


I finished this puzzle in just over an hour and ten minutes, dragging my Thursday average down quite a bit. Did you solve it faster than I did? Leave your comment below. Happy Thanksgiving and happy solving!

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