Merer, merer on the wall, What's the lamest clue of all?
@Tom Is it the clue or answer that is worser here?
@TMD It was the pejorative ERSE that did it for me. Just let it die already, it's St. Patrick's weekend. Overall, very painful cluing and I don't feel like I leaned anything.
Not a fan of this one. Way too many obscure words and phrases. Too many poorly clued answers. I'm a fan of Friday puzzles, but this one disappointed.
This is basically a reply, but I don't want to attach it to any specific comment, because it could apply to any of several comments made so far (and quite a few more that will be made, I suspect). This was in my opinion a very solid Friday puzzle. It actually played more like a Saturday for me, as I had very little the first time through, and I figured I was in for a serious battle. Having found a few things near the bottom to get a foothold, I was able to make headway, and eventually completed the puzzle at the top, which was quite sparse halfway through my solve. Experienced solvers look forward to puzzles like this one because we can breeze through a lot of supposedly challenging late-week puzzles, even though these puzzles give trouble to less experienced solvers. I can appreciate that this one might have been a backbreaker for newer or less proficient solvers, but that doesn't make it a bad puzzle. Vague cluing? A feature, not a flaw. Obscure trivia? Ditto. Please don't denigrate the puzzle because you couldn't solve it. You don't come to the crossword fully formed as a solver. It takes years, decades even, to get to the point where you can always solve any puzzle. Be positive, and you may get there. (And I emphasize "may". I don't think everyone does.) But the fact that a puzzle is too hard for you doesn't make it a bad puzzle. It just means you weren't ready for it. Factually, it was a very good puzzle.
@Steve L You eloquently state exactly how I felt about this puzzle, including starting at the bottom and triumphantly finishing at the top! In recent years I haven't finished every single Friday or Saturday puzzle, but I can appreciate how well-crafted this one was. (With the exception of MERER, that is!)
@Steve L Your comment prompted me to look again for answers that I got mainly because I have been solving lots of crossword puzzles in the last four years: SEDER, ESPRESSO MARTINI, PHILLIS WHEATLEY . . . It really does take time to get good at these. And you can’t shut your mind to new things. I agree this was a solid puzzle. I beat my rolling 60-day Friday average, but not by much.
@Steve L You have articulated much more clearly what I said last night. There is such a thrill when you come to the end of puzzle where the fills were not obvious but took some thinking, where the clues nudged the flexibility of your brain, and the crosses on fills such as people you didn't know made sure that you would see what they probably were or at least give you enough to google them. When a constructor assumes that you are an educated person who might have at least heard of, for instance, Walter Reed Hospital and why it was named for Reed, and also ensures that if you haven't, the crosses will give you enough to fill it anyway, you either have remembered something or will learn something, a quality that used to be more prevalent in puzzles than it is now. I will be 90 years old this summer and I do not have a college degree, but I solved this puzzle only one look-up (not counting a couple of checks to confirm spelling). Consider that it very likely would have been a MERER challenge for most of you and stop complaining.
Got my 1,000 day streak on this puzzle, and what a good one to use as a reference point to reflect on how much I've improved at solving these things during that time!
@Aaron Since Wordle played its 1000 game today, you started your streak on the same day Wordle began. :) Congrats! ..........................................
Ladies and gentlemen, I completed this Friday puzzle!! 🏆 There are many people I’d like to thank. Firstly, my mom for being the good southern woman who made many a meal with OKRA, and given her likely Nigerian origin, I got this clue right away. Secondly, my dad who bought us Black history board games that taught us about our people’s contributions to the world, so PHILLISWHEATLEY was a gimme. Thirdly, I will thank myself for knowing BOPS, UBERED, CUSS, ESPRESSOMARTINI, SELFIE and some more on the first pass. Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to thank Google, who led me to completion on obscure-to-me words like METIER, VERSOS, KOS, ERSE, and PEAT (as it relates to expensive whiskey). I was so relieved to hear that catchy tune because this one made me sweat! Bom dia, gente!
Tedious and unpleasant. Themeless AND full of vague clueing feels too much like an exercise in. “I’m smarter than you!” Merer? Even my autocorrect doesn’t want to acknowledge it was a word. A Shiloh reference that crosses OSHA and Phyliss Wheatley AND a Bill Pecos reference? You might as well tell everyone outside of the continental United States to go away.
@Chin It’s actually PECOS Bill a legendary figure on the order of Paul Bunyan. Are there any legendary emus?
@Chin Don’t rely on whoever (or whatever) programs autocorrect to determine whether a word is a word.
To each his own, but this was an UNenjoyable struggle for me. I know, it sucks grumbling about somebody's work of art. But lots of deliberately vague cluing to arrive not at novel words but crosswordese - looking at you, MERER ASHEN NOTV SEDER KOS OPIE OSHA - isn't my cup of tea. Also, I'd just say "can't stand the heat" is not the best clue for WILTS. It implies the answer would be WILT. I can see it's workable either way, but DOESN'T stand the heat would arguably be better for an answer ending with S. Or just clue it differently.
@Richard But Sir Cumference was good.
@Richard "Can't" works with third person singular as well as all the other persons, so "can't stand the heat" can clue WILT or WILTS equally well. It's just one more example of the vagueness I talked about in my earlier post that is the hallmark of a late-week puzzle. There's no best here. The clue is fine. But "DOESN'T stand the heat" is not an in-the-language phrase. In other words, who says that? So I don't think it's arguably better.
Glad to see this worked for some people - to me this was just a slog of obscure facts and hints just off my wavelength.
@Henrik METIER, ZINES, MOET, JEEZ not GEEZ, MYEYE for baloney? Really?
The clues for this puzzle were horribly vague. I’ve never had such a hard time filling out a puzzle.
@Lauren That's the point of a Friday puzzle.
@Lauren Fridays are *supposed* to be hard!
Woof. I love a challenging Friday, but this was a total slog. Loads of weak proper nouns and gross fill. See you all Saturday!
Enough obscure clues and answers for a week packed into one day. On to Saturday.
“Sir Cumference” on the day after the π day puzzle is pretty amusing! Is that a Faglianoism? Should I chance it? Better not.
Worst puzzle I have seen in years. Less a crossword, more a meandering and unenjoyable journey through uninteresting trivia made difficult not through clever challenges, but rather simply deliberate obfuscation and terribly obscure cluing whose answers bear a relationship to the clues mostly in the constructors head alone.
@JD Gold You missed an apostrophe.
White rice used to contain talc: it no longer does at least in the US. Talc and sugar were for years added to rice to make it look shiny and appetizing; as far as I know it is not illegal but I think manufacturers just stopped doing it. The advice always used to be to wash the rice before preparing, and this would remove the talc. I still do it as a matter of habit - in any case, it removes excess starch (rice powder) which gives (IMO) a nicer texture to the finished rice.
@Andrew Since talc can contain naturally occurring asbestos, I'm relieved to hear it is no longer added to rice. ..................................................
@Andrew Thanks. I had never heard of TALC being added to rice and originally had sALt in my grid.
@Andrew I got it from the crosses (had salt) and then googled it because it was news to me. Learned that there can be asbestos in much of the U.S. rice grown in Texas and Louisiana (which I buy often, like Texmati) and it’s thought to be a remnant of the pesticides once used in the cotton fields. Interesting! Perhaps I will start washing my rice after all these years of being a naysayer. But never my chicken.
44% Themeless POY to Daniel, 56% to the editors. Kidding, of course. Not about the POY part. Don’t recall the last time I struggled so much initially with a Friday puzzle. Or enjoyed one as much. As Deb noted, those grid spanners were gorgeous, and ultimately streak savers for me. Great puzzle!
I loved this puzzle. The clues for fills that spanned it were so clever, some actually brilliant, that it was a joy to work when I finally got my toe in the door. My first pass through the puzzle had one fill: VERSOS, and I was certain I was done. Then some X's turned up, and the paperboy's cry (which made me laugh) somehow unlocked the jam, and I started to see that my hunches on many of the fills were correct. (The coffee producer was a revelation, as was the source of that gumbo vegetable.) Exhilaration is the word that best describes what I'm feeling, now that the last fill is in and the puzzle is done (with only one look-up—sorry Liv, but I never saw the "Ring" movies). I send my heartfelt thanks to Daniel Grinberg for a masterwork of a puzzle.
@dutchiris I loved it too. I can't understand what all the whining is about. Best of all, it wasn't filled with pop stars, sports teams and car makes I've never heard of. Many of the words and clues were, dare I say, intelligent. For those complaining that the clues are too difficult, that's the whole point of late-week puzzles. It's what makes it fun for those of us who like a challenge.
@Teresa I’m with you! I don’t understand the grousing about this one. It’s my favorite puzzle in recent memory. I loved the historical and literary references.
@dutchiris I saw them each once and I could picture her face but couldn't remember her name. It came to me once I had TYLER, but I had ----gaMEREPORTS for 4D which gave me a gV at 22A which was obviously wrong. TV also looked wrong for "Ground rule?", until it didn't.
Difficult, and not in a good way. Merer is not a word. Jeez is not how "geez" is spelled. "Put on blast" means to call out someone's failures, not to insult or "bash" them. Wrong verb form for "ground rule" as well as that not being what a "hit rate" is, at all. "Careless mistake" for an intentional mistake. Ended up feeling cheated that I spent so long on this one.
@Christopher While it can be spelled 'geez', 'jeez' is just as, if not more, correct, since the word comes from shortening 'Jesus'.
@Christopher “By the end of the day, a mere dozen commenters had questioned the spelling of JEEZ. MERER still was the number of commenters who noted that JEEZ is derived from ‘Jesus’.” MERER is a word, albeit a rarely used and strange-looking one. And JEEZ is certainly an acceptable (and understandable) spelling.
“Extra, extra, read all about it! One man swindled.” “I’ll have one … Hang on there’s nothing here about anyone being swindled.” “Extra, extra, read all about it! Two men swindled.l
The last couple weeks, I have been working some very earl;y shifts, and haven't been able to get to the puzzle, or Wordplay, until late afternoon. If anyone missed my comment yesterday, Happy (late) Pi Day! Stop and pick up piece on your way home from the Senate (if you make it.) Struggled for x-ty-eight minutes, to the point of completely clearing and re-entering the puzzle, until I realized I had misread the clue to 15A as referring to the work, not the author, and Am HOME, not AT HOME, didn't bother me excessively. Talk about a CARELESS MISTAKE! *** *** *** 40D brings to mind a story. I never quite know how my profession: I will describe myself as a "baker"," especially when I want to sound humble, salt-or-the-earth; "(pastry) chef" technically refers to a management, salaried position--which I do not have--despite that even my bosses will on occasion introduce or address me as "Chef Bill"; "pastry cook," while accurate, sounds ungainly. The first time I visited Paris, in the 1990's, as the plane made its approach to Orly Airport, I was given a Carte de Débarquement to fill out. When I got to the line "MÉTIER," I confidently filled in "Patissier," and thought "Finally! A land which accords me the respect I deserve!"
@Bill There is no shame in being a baker (boulanger) as opposed to a patissier (I say this as the proud mom of a boulangère). They are two distinct art forms. Here is an article that explains this distinction between the two as the baker producing products based on fermentation (bread, croissants and other vienoisseries) and the patissier making the cakes and tarts etc. <a href="https://cooking-ez.com/difference-between-bakery-and-patisserie.php" target="_blank">https://cooking-ez.com/difference-between-bakery-and-patisserie.php</a> If you are ever in Austin Québec (on Lake Memphemagog) on a Friday or Saturday, stop by the Boulangerie Les Herbes Hautes. Best croissants in the Eastern Townships!
Upon first glance, every clue I read seemed vague or was unknown to me, so I was halfway through the clues before I saw anything that I was sure of. But after I got a few footholds, it was like when you try to peel an onion and the skin just won't give until bit by bit, everything comes up, a little at a time, and the last big chunk finally gives way after being impenetrable for the longest time. I got the bottom half solved before I had practically anything solved in the top half, and then built on the footholds I did have, moving through the right and then finishing in the NE. I never knew there was ever another OPIE besides Sheriff Taylor's son. PECOS was a good early guess. BASH for "Put on blast" was a headscratcher for me...but now I know for next time. I put in a lot of partial answers in this one: ---REPORT, ESPRESSO---, --ER (for MERER), ---MISTAKE, ---RATE. Couldn't remember if the left side of the page was VERSOS or rectos, but POPART gave me the R that cleared that up. Did not know there was a CALABRIA pepper. Or that coffee even grew in VIETNAM. (Me: Venezuela is too long!) TALC in rice? I guess if you need your minerals...
@Steve L “Recto” comes from Latin “rēctō,” the ablative of “rēctus,” meaning “straight” or “right.” Me, I just remember R for R.
@Steve L My mom is another OPIE, short for Ophelia!
What fun! At first this grid looked daunting, but it proved exactly difficult enough to make me sweat but not to make me cry.
@John Deal Me too! First time through I had only REDAPPLE crossing SEDER. Except I spelled it SEDaR, which gave me REPlayS instead of REPORTS. I got a few more on second pass. Went away for a few hours and got almost nothing else. Then I started using my favorite search engine to look up the POETs, researchers, actresses, etc. That gave me enough to start to get the rest. I ended up 10 minutes over my average. But that makes up for 15 min under my average yesterday. Yes, this one was really, really hard! But I think a Friday is supposed to be that. I don't like the proper name clues, but at least they are easy to look up. :o)
Any enjoyable struggle. Slow start looking for toeholds, then a smooth and rapid finish. So rewarding to see Wheatley remembered. Thank you for the most delightful Friday.
Definitely a case of the crossword author and me being on a very, very, very different wavelength.
I might not be able to finish this one. It is all filled in, but there is apparently a mistake. Considering that the fill is almost entirely crosswordese, it is very hard to find mistakes. I have decided that I want to focus on positive commenting for crosswords, so I will say that I am glad to have learned about a POET I didn't know about.
@Jon I figured it out, I was looking for a WIMP, not something limp.
@Jon I wrote EXULT instead of EXALT, which made CALABRIA into CULABRIA. As a Down entry, it wasn’t as noticeable.
(second post today) It's unlike me to opine on matters socio-political; but reading the Wikipedia article on Phillis Wheatley, and reading *through* the facts, points out the hypocrisy of her owners, the Mr. John Wheatleys of Boston--described therein as being "progressive"--who patronized her, in several meanings of the word. Slavery is truly America's Original Sin. Can't say that in Florida.
I read a book about Phillis Wheatley in the summer before 7th grade, and though it's been over 15 years, when I saw the clue, her name and story came flooding back to me. I'm grateful to see her mentioned so that I can revisit her story and her work. Hopefully it inspires many others to do the same! Even though I got that clue, I found the puzzle quite a challenge, albeit one I really enjoyed.
Darn near impossible, and not much fun. Don't mind a challenge, but telepathy was necessary on this one.
Sorry, I did not like this one. This attitude only emerges about 2-3 times a year. Today was one of those days.
Here's my own bit of deductive reasoning: MERER is indeed an existing word because it's in the NYT crossword. There, simple. With that in mind, I'm sure I must have read it in a Shakespeare play... ("Hast thou seen a merer mortal?") Not! ;-) Now that that's out of the way, oy vey, JEEZ, and oh MAN, was this a tough one. And boy oh boy did I cheat. I needed that EXTRA help with PHILLIS WHEATLEY crossing SHILOH and OPIE. But the rest of the entries filled in from the bottom up, after a slow start that had me thinking I'd never get anywhere. And so the solve was that much sweeter. Thank you, Mr. Grinburg! And congratulations on your first themeless!
I sold The New Mexican on the street in Santa Fe for a little while. It cost 10 cents a copy...you turned in seven cents and kept three. Bigger kids with established turf around the plaza and capitol could easily sell 60 to 80 copies in an afternoon. I had a hard time getting rid of 20 which was the minimum consignment. Scariest headline I remember from that time read "Cold War Thaws"..were things getting better or were we closer to a "hot" war? Confusing for me, 11 years old.
@patk Did you say three EXTRAs or just two?
@patk Your story just reminded me of selling programs as a student to tailgaters at Penn State football games in the 70s. The only way to get rid of your whole allotment was to target vehicles as they rapidly pulled in, in rows; milling about among tailgaters after that was too late (HITRATE too low)*. Competitive juices brought out vendors’ basic natures. If you acted alone, or were too polite, obnoxious cutthroats would snipe your target from you. The best strategy would be to find a group of 4 or 5 willing to leap frog consistently with you, offering each a fair shot at a new arrival, and a de facto “union” to chastise away any snipers that tried to swoop in. *although you could, occasionally, score a beer and/or a brat from a group of tailgating alumni
Challenging and gimmick-free. In my mind, this was a "pure" crossword. Some commenters have said this felt more like a Saturday puzzle, but if you make your way through the archives, you'll find that Fridays have often been as challenging, if not more so, than some Saturdays, and typically featured very long answers. Also, I loved the reference to Phyllis Wheatley, who should not be forgotten.
What's that word "where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known" ? Hmm, oh yeah, it's where my wife lived for ten years Natick! Glad to have learned about PHILLISWHEATLEY. Had never heard of her. As for OPIE, I am familiar with the lad from the Mayberry which is how this one has been clued in nearly each o(but not all) of its 202 appearances. The swing era bandleader and musical director for the Judy Canova Show turned radio actor? Not so much. But, the puzzle is in part about learning and not whining. With that in mind, TIL: "Andy Griffith named his character's son "Opie Taylor" on The Andy Griffith Show after Opie Cates, whom Griffith and producer Sheldon Leonard both liked.[" (per Wikipedia)
@RI guy I posted the same wiki citation! but I may have forgotten to credit wiki, so good on you!
File this one under "inexplicably enjoyable." I wish I could quantify the elements of a puzzle I'm going to love--or the qualities that will make me feel like I've used my time poorly. This puzzle was difficult, filled with terms, trivia, and usages I've never seen before--BASH, SHILOH, PECOS, METIER, and ROSTRA (which I think maybe I have seen in another puzzle, but still), and devilish ambiguities like WILTS/meLTS or REPORTS/REPlayS. And, while I'm at it, CALABRIA, which I know as my grandmother's birthplace but not the namesake of a chili. Yet love it I did. So thank you, Daniel Grinberg & eds., for a very challenging and entirely (if mysteriously) enjoyable experience!
@Josh Elsewhere (well, earlier in this year's xword saga) I told of my overdose of PECOS Bill mythology... so I won't repeat it, but if you have to choose amongst WILD, BUFFALO, UTILITY, and PECOS, if 'Texas' is in the clue, now you know which to pick... aside from the 5-letter part, that is.
Hoo, boy! It's been a long time since a puzzle challenged me like this one did. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't be able to finish it. I had very little in the north, ditto for the west, a bit more in the SW and south, but then got a toehold in the W. I worked back from there, got a couple of the spanners fairly early on, and when I realized it was PHILLIS WHEATLEY that caused the north to tumble quickly, although I at first tried to spell PHILLIS with a Y. In other words, a good, tough puzzle, if not my favorite for reasons I won't go into, because I don't expect constructors to tailor their puzzles for my own personal wheelhouse. Please - no TALC in rice, please. I *still* rinse my uncooked rice, even thought it's supposedly no longer necessary.
@CaptainQuahog - Shout out to 50D for my favorite clue/answer of this puzzle. I EMUed this a 11:47 AM. Let's see how soon it posts...
MYEYE is not the MERER mirror of my soul. That would be my ARSE.
I have just completed my first across and down passes, and I have almost nothing. I also feel it will be a struggle, possibly an unpleasant one. The clues just don't speak to me, and the trivia is completely outside my Ken - unless Liv Tyler turns out to be the correct answer. I'll try to continue without lookups or autocheck but hopeful I am not. . . . Generic emu fodder.
@Andrzej Thank you Google for changing ken into Ken, that made me look real smart, like I think old-timey English was inspired by Barbie. . . . What is the ken of the emu called Ken?
I really liked the puzzle. Unlike many recent puzzles, there was basically no crosswordese ( except maybe OLE, but the clue for that one was good at least). My congratulations to the constructor. Judging by recent puzzles, that is very hard to do.
What I learned from this puzzle: 1) “Okra” comes from Igbo. 2) Vietnam is a coffee producer (and an important one). 3) White rice has talc in it. (I think we’ll stick with brown rice, even if our “foolproof” recipe sometimes leaves a few grains that are kinda crunchy.) Thanks for the fun, Mr. Grinberg!
@Eric Hougland Next time you have a steaming bowl of pho for lunch, order the Vietnamese coffee: slow drip into a layer of sweetened condensed milk. Delicious, and will give you a boost for the afternoon. You can get an iced version if it's a hot day.
@Eric Hougland It doesn’t have talc - one of the many issues with this self congratulatory puzzle
@Eric Hougland If you're using Americas Test Kitchen "foolproof oven-baked brown rice", do not use a glass baking dish like they recommend. I tried it and always had some crunchy rice around the edges. Using a ceramic dish, I never have that problem.
"I love all types of coffee!" "Even highly concentrated forms?" "Espresso-ly those!" ("That sounds too good to be brew.")
@Mike Did you try DRIP for 'Milquetoast'? emu emu emu
Uh oh. Probs ahead in our crossword future. This, for those solvers who've criticized Will Shortz, falls into the "Be careful what you wish for" category. The OPIE/LIV TYLER/PHILLIS (dig that spelling) WHEATLEY crosses were unforgiveable. But I actually didn't have to cheat on those names, though I thought I might have to. (I did check the meaning of "rubicund" to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and it did.) No, I Naticked on the BASH/BOPS cross. What kind of clue is "put on blast" for BASH? Don't get it at all. I had hASH/hOPS for my answers -- which makes just about as much sense. Those HOPping tunes can be so catchy! Very hard -- and not in a good way.
@Nancy put on blast is a common slang term these days for bashing someone on social media for example. Especially in cases where a secret is being told.
I took a bit longer than usual, but solved this exquisite monster. I would offer that a BASH might be a blast of a party that someone has put on. That was the way I solved it anyway--the B was one of my last fills, and I had an H at first, but I have heard of BOPS as catchy tunes--had to think about it a bit. In fact, I had to think about just about everything in this puzzle. Very few gimmes and some wonderful misdirects ("give a hand" has frequently solved as CLAP, for instance). Lots of folks aren't going to like it for many reasons, most of which have already been discussed, but I found the puzzle to be fair--very tough but a delight to wrestle with. YMMV, as always.
I had never heard of Phillis Wheatley but, now that I know a small bit about her fascinating story, I'm glad she was in the puzzle. But crossing her with Opie Cates? Come on folks, you can do better than a minor (merer) entertainment figure whose heyday was 80 years ago.
Ed, I didn't know OPIE Cates either, but the cross with PHILLIS WHEATLEY was not a problem (nor, for that matter, were the other three crosses.)
@Ed Actually I kind of liked a non-Andy Griffith clue for OPIE, and I learned a little something. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq9ewzSxFWU" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq9ewzSxFWU</a> "Andy Griffith named his character's son "Opie Taylor" on The Andy Griffith Show after Opie Cates, whom Griffith and producer Sheldon Leonard both liked."
Confidently entering CARELESSEDITING on the first pass was just my first mistake.
Six grid spanning entries, oh my! I was very intimidated at first, but thought it's probably not as difficult as it looks. I was wrong, it was exactly as difficult as it looked. Oh well, it's not unusual for me to have to resort to Google on a Friday, and this was definitely a Friday puzzle. :)
Yesterday I was guided to another Pi Day puzzle by my lovely fellow commenters (A Tom McCoy Sunday puzzle from 2015) and wanted to finish it before I began today’s twisty, crunchy romp. As I always find, older puzzles provide a greater challenge. And although I was solving daily decades before 2015 - and even remembered the puzzle itself (!)- it was certainly more difficult today than it was 9 years ago. Then I came to today’s brilliant themeless and felt like I hadn’t left the archives! Lovely!! What a morning for this nerdy-wordy gal! Last letter to fall? The S in ESP. I clearly don’t have the gift.
@CCNY That puzzle is on my list of recommendations from commenters here. But now I have to wait longer to do it, since I know what the trick is. I’ve been mostly going through the archives from November, 1993, forward. After three or four years of that, I just finished 2005. Maybe by the time I reach 2015, I’lll have forgotten the trick to the Tom McCoy puzzle.
@CCNY same last letter due to the crossing of ROSTRA and the vague cluing for ESP! Very fun challenge overall. Definitely checked some answers after getting them through crosses. And confused EirE (for Ireland) and ERSE for the language.
EXTRAEXTRAEXTRA I made a CARELESSMISTAKE (more than one actually) and I can’t blame it on too many ESPRESSOMARTINIS (never having had one). NOTV for me, I guess. This was a fun puzzle with some clever clues. TIL about a bandleader with whom I was not familiar, OPIE Cates.
@Marshall Walthew In my case, it was An honESt MISTAKE that held me up. But the lovely LIV TYLER soon bailed me out. (Lucky for me there aren’t that many actresses in “The Lord of the Rings.”)
@Marshall Walthew This was a toughie for sure! I heard only EXTRA EXTRA before, never EXTRAEXTRAEXTRA *sighs in crosswordese*
What a gorgeous, gorgeous grid, Dan! Love your 15s! Today’s toughness more than made up for yesterday’s ease! The 7 Down clue and answer describes the era we are now living in: Alters the narrative, in a way: REWRITESHISTORY
@Professional Sniffer very interesting point! Obviously yesterday's puzzle needed to run on 3/14, but I wonder if anticipating disappointment in an easy solve the editorial team decided to make Friday harder than usual?
Intuition begins where knowledge ends, or what's a crossword for? (Apologies to Mr Browning.) Like an hour in the lion's den, Daniel. Keep them coming.
I found this even more difficult than a typical Friday puzzle so needed lots of help. I’m definitely going to try and get the Phillis Wheatley book, hopefully on my iPad as I need the larger print. I did enjoy all the spanners.
This was such a toughie. But my first gimme, strangely enough, was “Decks and floors, informally?” Immediately thought of KOS, and have no idea why, since boxing, or fighting in any form, isn't my thing. And MASONJARS just popped into my sleep-deprived brain. Maybe because just yesterday someone posted a picture of them on a FB Word Nerds page, with the question of why we call this canning! Yes, it was tough, and I was ready to throw in the towel thanks to the NW, until suddenly it was done! Good workout for a Friday puzzle. Thanks, Daniel!
@Times Rita same on KOS except I first tried TKO. I think it's one of those crossword short entries that automatically come after doing the NYT crossword for a couple of years!