Thursday: True Dedication to Theme - 23 February 2023 New York Times Crossword

[@kathleenquinn955]

Ron Weasley, best friend to Harry Potter

[@rosiefay7283]

Lots of clothing-related answers. The explicit ones you noted, CLAD IN, PUTS ON and DASHIKI, plus TOGAS and COATS.

[@rosiefay7283]

Note the vertically symmetric placement of the thematic answers.

[@purplegill10]

28:04 as someone into video and photo editing, we definitely still use macros. They're beyond helpful when it comes to reapplying super complicated transitions

[@absurdism101]

What a fantastic theme - loved this today! Once it clicked, the rest was a breeze.

[@cartermyers123]

go jays!!!

[@listey]

I feel like Asti is fast becoming the official alcoholic beverage of the NYT crosswords.

[@samakafrisco1759]

ALE though...

[@BenRHarsh]

​@@samakafrisco1759I don't agree because Ale is far too common in every day language. An official word of NYT crossword needs to be relatively short (3-6 letters), uncommon in typical use and relatively common in NYT crosswords. You could calculate a value from (NYT crossword frequency / common use frequency) and the highest value in a category gets the title.

[@travisfrasier21]

It was tough watching you have the TIA clue highlighted for like 20 seconds while you explained the symmetry but didn't realize you hadn't looked at that clue yet at 23:21

[@kathleenquinn955]

Daniel Ainge is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and professional baseball player. He still is a household name in the Boston area (where I live), where he played for the Celtics from 1981-89, about a decade of his 14 year NBA career. Ainge started alongside Larry Bird, et al. The Celtics, who won the NBA Championship for the 1985-1986 season, are regarded by many to be one of the best teams in NBA history.

[@ThorHC11]

Ainge also served as the Celtics' executive of basketball operations from 2003 to 2021. In December of 2021 he took up the same role with the Utah Jazz.

[@kckcmctcrc]

Yep, that was one of the very first words I filled in.

[@heatherwhaley7623]

Slightly more difficult. I solved it without fully understanding the theme. Reasonable good solve time.

[@MohitGupta1698]

To Ron To Blue Jays…The clue is the maker’s confession that he has no words to commend Ron and Blue Jays like the other clues.😂 So smart!

[@timegentleman]

I don't understand what is smart about this...

[@ThorHC11]

This is Joe Deeney's 16th crossword for NYT.

[@chorl]

Robin Roberts is a cohost of ABC's Good Morning America. She used to be a sportscaster for ESPN.

[@spencerfeathers1105]

Ah, ok I figured out that they all started like that but didn't make the connection to odes. As much as I can fill in "odes" in the NYT I couldn't tell you anything more about them!

[@Telegnostic]

Pesach, the holiday marking the Exodus from Egypt, is the Hebrew name for Passover.

[@timegentleman]

The first syllable in "zwiebelkuchen" is pronounced to rhyme with tee, not with tie. As opposed to German for 'two', which is 'zwei' and rhymes with tie. The way I remembered it at school was that with "ie" and "ei" you pronounce it as if you're saying the second letter in English - "zwie" rhymes with "e" and "zwei" rhymes with "i".

[@emmamemer]

I got Toronto Bluejays, but got confused... The Cerulean bird line came before Harrys friend line. Really threw me off. I thought "Jay" was Harrys friend. I was even thinking of Ron as Harrys friend, but the order was backwards. Just didn't work in my mind.

[@rosiefay7283]

9:11 This clue is unfair, because you're not obliged to use that particular letter as symbol for an angle.

[@peter.c.bailey]

Friendly reminder that "bits" is a sort of neologism meaning "binary digit" so you weren't far off reaching for "binary" first. Rotary is indeed dialectical for "roundabout" mostly used in the far northeast of the US (Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, etc) Also, I think you unnecessarily struggled with ETD as the clue specifically points out "at a gate" an airport location where, perhaps arguably, travelers are chiefly concerned with departure times.

[@nixhixx]

ETAs are there too, for people waiting at a gate for their loved one to arrive.

[@peter.c.bailey]

@@nixhixx Maybe a super small airports, sure, but unless the waiting loved one arrived themselves on another flight, nobody is waiting at a gate for someone to arrive - you can't even get through security without a boarding card in most major airports. Gate monitors almost exclusively show the ETD of the very next flight, and will occasionally show the ETA of the exact plane that will land and then again depart. Anyway, sharp-shooting and nitpicking aside, I think the "gate" clue was fairly strong direction to consider ETD over ETA.

[@ChrisRemo]

I would agree with you on the merits, but I feel as though that exact line of logic has often led me to assume the wrong choice of the two!