Redd's Roster of Crosswordese: Do not read if you hate DRNO

there was this article critical of old white editors a few months ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/03/fight-to-make-crosswords-more-inclusive/608212/

especially this editor's note

MARIE KONDO wouldn’t be familiar enough “to most solvers, especially with that unusual last name.”

I was I could say I stopped doing them to take the high ground, but yeah, they basically occupy some ultimately bland middle ground with various tweaks now and then here and there to make them a wee bit edgier.

(Don't tell my kitty corner across the street neighbor I said that!)

kitty corner

too blatant a provocation, sorry

last sunday’s was pretty uninspired.

today’s themeless on the other hand is extremely pleasing.

americans once you crack tomorrow’s sunday nytimes crossword we need to talk about 82 across.

Haven’t done a Sunday in months.

Friend of jaymc’s and mine who posted on this board once for a minute or two had an interesting post on social media about his solving times the other day.

why not James Redd?

I stopped doing xwords regularly a few years ago and especially find Sundays a slog.

i only do sundays when i'm streaking; i can't say i actually enjoy them

tbh all i want are fridays and saturdays

B-b-but what about Thursdays?

dnw rebuses

there was a thursday a couple years ago where like the NW was normal, the NE downs were normal but the acrosses were backwards, the SW had normal acrosses but the downs were backwards, and everything in the SE was backwards. (i am probably remembering this slightly wrong)

and, well, that's quite a technical feat! also incredibly joyless to solve, particularly on the app

Really hated solving on the app in general.

And yeah, rebus+app=not a good look

::SPOILERS:: (sort of)
Tracer, re:82 across. No, afaik that is NOT a thing here. Maybe it's some bougie molecular gastronomy thing?

It’s definitely bougie but how is the clue spelled? In my paper it’s “palette”.

Ha! Guess they fixed it for the app.

Yeah there's a note in the blog.

At first I thought “ooh clever” and went down a rabbit hole. Some kind of solvent? You do “courses” of bricks when building a wall and you might use a palette for your mortar. What do you clean that with? Etc

What blog?

I guess what is meant is Wordplay:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2020-07-19.html

I always thought the 82A between courses things was French. It's not common here but it's a good idea and I welcome it when I chance across it.

I get that palette was plainly an error. As the tired stock clerk at the art supply once said, "I can't palate another pallet of pallettes!"

But the culinary practice is right in the dictionary definition

SPOILER ALERT

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sorbet

Haven't done today's puzzle- yet! Meanwhile, back to the original purpose of this thread
DELE PELE TELE UELE

Also I see there is something called the Universal Crossword on Amy R's blog. Not sure what that is but the one I just tried was not bad.

BAST HAST OAST NAST

Maybe people hate XWORDESE because every piece of such they haven't committed to their already extensive Rolodex of such slows down their speed solving a microsecond and gives the advantage to the competitition with an even more extensive internal database?

OFAN OLAN OMAN ONAN ORAN
and, real old school
OBAN.

OBI
EMS and ENS

Speaking of LOA/KEA, I just died on the peak of OSSA/ETNA

Have I ever told you the full jeremaid of my dabbling in competitive speed solving and subsequent burnout? If not, would you like to know?

Aargh,there's no MAID in JEREMIAD, sorry (the latter of which appeared in a lucky seven Maleska puzzles, but not since)

I want you to tell us the story James Redd. Of how you flew too close to THESUN.

Heh, exactly, those SUN puzzles were my favorites for a while.

Also, Auden's poem about Breughel's Icarus or the painting itself often seem to come up in Learned League

is my weather being borked by EL NIÑO or LA NIÑA

IDUNNO might ASWELL THROW DARTS ATA BOARD

Okay, finished the NYT and the rest of today's puzzles and am reading the blog post at Wordplay now. Really like this blogger, Caitlin Lovinger, who I had never heard of until today. My solve experience was very similar to hers.

ABUT
ATOP
ABED

Exactly

I didn't know there were pictures of some of these people: https://www.xwordinfo.com/Cards?select=topcons

ALBA ALMA ALVA ELBA

Not to mention
ELLA OLLA ELEA

My times for today's puzzles were awful by my old standards. Did tomorrow's in 3:46 which is not competitive but okay for me.

Trying to turn my rise and fall in competitive solving into some kind of Behind The Music saga but it ain’t happening.

Nutshell comes back to: slowly got hooked on competitive solving, despite my wariness of it, did lots of puzzles got somewhat faster every year until one year I finished 77th, then the next year my friend stopped going with me to the tournament, my rank dropped, couldn't go to the next year's tournament because my daughter had a concert that weekendl and in the end got so burned out anyway that I couldn't even enjoy non-speed solving anymore, the thrill was gone. Still liked doing cryptics though, although hadn't done too many recently. Just did Patrick Berry's easy one in The New Yorker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWN-adiDNtM

got kinda bogged down by today’s Sunday NYT - cluing just vague enough throughout that I kept putting in wrong answers. theme was whatever. i really need to fill my days with other puzzles.

Jeff Chen’s rundown gives a little history of that type of theme.

The last Across answer in today's New Yorker crossword is DRNO