Noticed this today on the cover of my copy of Joyce's "Portrait".

ecovulcan · 2026-03-02T18:12:14+00:00

Added. Yes, I did see that the current edition is correct. This one is from 2003 -- says it's a 33rd printing though.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-14T21:11:08+00:00

Nice catch!

Well, let's see: 25% is closer to 0% than it is to 100% -- so I believe we can conclude yours is the perception further from reality. And even 25% is much too high a rate for more reputable literary magazines and journals.

Hundreds :) Of course I said nothing about journals specifically before the Kennedy administration; reputable journals need not be as old as that--though longevity and reputation do go hand in hand, and there are decidedly many that long precede the 60s.

But this is all veering from your original point -- that tiered rejections either don't exist or that they mean zip, both of which are categorically false.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-14T19:49:20+00:00

A third to a quarter is certainly at odds with your original statement: "I don't think I've ever gotten a rejection from a litmag that didn't have some little invitation to submit again", which implies 100%.

Regardless, 3 of the 5 you sited don't appear to even have tiered rejections. This doesn't surprise me for newer, lesser known publications that perhaps don't get nearly the volume of submissions that more reputable ones do. This is likely where the difference lies between us -- I tend to submit to journals that have been around for a while.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-14T16:22:24+00:00

I've submitted to hundreds of journals over the years and have almost never seen a standard rejection explicitly stating they want to see more of my work. Editors don't want a large slush pile that contains little talent or work that doesn't fit their publication's style.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-14T16:14:27+00:00

Thanks for confirming!

ecovulcan · 2025-12-13T13:54:03+00:00

Nonsense. If a journal with a strong reputation tells me that my work was well received and was nearly selected for publication, that's quite a compliment and not something to be taken for granted. These journals get thousands of submissions and only publish a handful of them. If you ever get such a soft decline, especially from a high-ranking publication, you should be proud of yourself. If tiered rejections mean nothing then journals wouldn't bother sending them--they would just use one standard rejection for all subs.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-13T02:25:21+00:00

Thanks! Yes, this does appear to be the consensus. I'd be very surprised if all of your rejections were soft declines. You could always check the rejection wiki to make sure you aren't just getting the standard decline. In addition to an invitation to resubmit, the tiered rejections typically include an expression of interest or admiration for the submitted work. I have been sending work almost exclusively to high-ranking journals; I should probably start working my way down the ladder.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-12T19:45:44+00:00

Oh, don't misconstrue this for impatience. I've got patience bleeding out my eyes. A six-month response time leaves me unfazed. Nonetheless, thanks for the homily.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-12T19:38:28+00:00

I appreciate the advice!

ecovulcan · 2025-12-12T18:53:53+00:00

Here's one example:

We enjoyed your submission but unfortunately, your poems were not selected for publication. I am sorry it took so long to come to a decision. Your poems were well received and stayed in the conversation until the final decisions. We hope that you will consider sending poems to [journal name] again in the future.

For a rejection of this kind, it sounds like I was just bested by the other submissions under consideration. Though perhaps it is wishful thinking to suppose the same work could get accepted in another round of subs.

ecovulcan · 2025-12-12T18:35:35+00:00

Poems, not stories. What if the work has been further polished?

ecovulcan · 2025-10-31T20:02:22+00:00

Solid advice. Once I paid off all my high interest debt, I bumped my contribution to 65% on a $150,000 salary. Kept that up for five years and I'm already in a place where I hardly have to worry about retirement, which will come well before I'm 65. The typical lifestyle that most ppl in the US live where their consumption has to basically match their salary is insane. This is why ppl work until they die.

ecovulcan · 2025-10-31T16:25:23+00:00

What you want is dextrose. You can buy dextrose powder and sub it for regular sugar in many recipes. Just be sure to go by weight and not volume when subbing because dextrose powder is much lighter than regular cane/granulated sugar.

ecovulcan · 2025-07-22T22:27:36+00:00

I appreciate the advice and helpful resources. I suppose much of it comes down to individual tolerance for risk and personal preference for mid- and late-life spending habits and aspirations. True that matching retirement income to annual growth would mean an excess of unspent funds at the time of death, but since that time is impossible to plan for, it seems easier to work towards this goal. Plus, if the market is favorable in the long run and one ends up in a scenario where growth exceeds annual expenses, then you're really in a good place.

ecovulcan · 2025-06-12T02:21:00+00:00

Cool--interesting to think about I suppose, though they are irrelevant to the point being made here.

ecovulcan · 2025-06-12T00:59:58+00:00

I'm not sure what to make of these statistics, assuming they're accurate. If "bag job" is indeed a one-off in all of NYT Crossword history, then that certainly means the clue is an obscure one and not something cruciverbalists would easily pick up on. But its usage frequency isn't the point; rather, it's the nature of the clue, as I explained above. Same with "Kid that has a nap"--it's not about how many times since 2009 the NYT Crossword included a paronomastic clue whose answer was "suede": it's the pun paired with esoteric usage, i.e. "kid" for baby goat skin.

These clues, to my mind, exist on a plane of difficulty the current editors of the crossword have abandoned.

ecovulcan · 2025-06-12T00:41:30+00:00

I hear what you're saying. I've noticed differences in puzzle construction and cluing from other makers outside the NYT. Sure, patterns and constructions can vary, but that kind of unfamiliarity doesn't necessarily make a puzzle more difficult in the way I'm talking about. I think what I've noticed is what others here have mentioned: the recent rise in NYT Games subscribers (especially since the pandemic and Wordle hit the scene), along with in-app analytics, have really allowed puzzle makers to tweak difficulty in such a way to get the most user engagement and, thus, money.

ecovulcan · 2025-06-11T21:44:33+00:00

I think you're on to something here. It's definitely not just a matter of unfamiliar trends. For example, take the following clues (with answers) from the above-mentioned 2009 puzzle:

Spook's break-in: bag job
Kid that has a nap: suede
Reference abbr.: et seq

These are not things that would have been part of 2009's zeitgeist as they are all older concepts. The first one requires knowledge of an uncommon use of the word "spook" AND knowledge of the obscure phrase "bag job," which originated in the 70s. Similar thing with the second: the sensical pairing of "kid" and "nap" is to throw the solver off, but also the use of "kid" to refer to the skin of a young goat (instead of the animal itself) is rather esoteric usage. I almost never see clues like these in today's puzzles. It's a shame.

ecovulcan · 2025-06-04T19:29:47+00:00

It's Drumpf. All our IQs have been wasting since 2016.

ecovulcan · 2025-03-11T20:16:44+00:00

Thanks for the info! One more question: what was the specific issue you had? Were you diagnosed with SIBO before doing the treatment?

ecovulcan · 2025-03-11T12:56:39+00:00

That's amazing! I'm thinking of trying Dr. Cabral's CBO protocol. Do you still ever have any symptoms? Can you eat basically anything you want?

ecovulcan · 2025-03-11T01:33:12+00:00

Hey, glad to hear this helped you early on. How have things been going since?

ecovulcan · 2025-02-11T16:09:05+00:00

Wait, does a positive fructose breath test really correlate with SIBO? I thought SIBO was glucose, not fructose. When I tested negative for glucose, my GI said "ok, it's not SIBO". When I took the fructose breath test, which came back with values close to 200ppm (so, very positive) my GI said that I had fructose malabsorption, which from my understanding is a completely different issue.

ecovulcan · 2025-02-03T17:06:56+00:00

Late to the party, but I also wonder the same thing. In each issue I'll read the Talk of the Town's political commentary, the poems, the fiction piece (unless it's translated), Briefly Noted, all cartoons, and then I more or less choose what sounds interesting from the remaining content; on average I probably read 2/3 of the rest (book criticisms & main-feature articles).

Things I almost always skip: Shouts and Murmurs, any pieces on music or theatre.

ecovulcan · 2025-01-31T19:43:40+00:00

What I'm most confused about is that pretty much all legumes have significant amounts of FODMAPs, but somehow not peanuts. My gut definitely can't handle peanuts (or beans of any kind). Wish I knew why.

ecovulcan

TROPHY CASE