Loved the puzzle theme overall and a really cute idea but some of the clues were torturous at least the way they were clued. I had two absolute Naticks, UZI and SUZIE and ADELEH and BELLE, all fairly obscure references, and since three of them could have been clued less ARCANEly it seems like it would have been fair to make at least one of the references more accessible. Anyone else feel that way or is it just me?
Lil Uzi Vert has been pretty big the past few years and has also been in the news (and on social media) a bit for various things so that one seemed fair game to me. Stranger things was super popular but Dustin’s girlfriend wasn’t a main character so that one was a bit obscure. Belle isle park is somewhat obscure as well (although I did know it for some reason despite never having been to Detroit, and at least it’s a guessable word if you have most of the letters). Adele H I had no idea about. I don’t think I’d call them full on naticks but tricky spots to be sure
@SP Yes for me too. Also TENON and CANOE. Those might not be official naticks but it felt like it to me. Still, I enjoyed the cute theme. For awhile i wondered if INTERCHANGEABLE meant the letters to the parts could be moved around the grid to make other words but quickly decided no.
@SP Looks like, so far, 41 folks feel similarly. I did not know AdeleH or Belle, but guessed that cross by going through the vowels in my head—I supposed it could have been Adela or Adely, but thought Adele was most likely. Then, I got the “close but no cigar” screen and, after searching, realized I had a SUSIE/USI cross, and fixed it. (Also, I never heard of PCP for a GP, but I guess it’s for primary care practitioner? And Mr. Ivie’s first name had to be Phil, by that point.) So, electronically, I get the win, but if I had to turn in my original paper it would have been a loss. Otherwise, I thought the many short answers made this a little easy for a Thursday, even though I wasn’t doing my best.
I spud through this puzzle!
Must object strenuously to POETRIES. Poetry is an abstract noun. "Types of poetry" or similar is the way to say this. Kind of upset that it was allowed. Ugh. No.
@Listening It’s awkward but in the dictionary. I think it’s a little like “fishes” and “fruits” and “breads” which aren’t used very often but can be especially when speaking of different types as opposed to a lot of one type. Look, let’s just face it, this puzzle required a lot of awkward fill in order to work (the constructor admitted it took a year to create) so let’s chalk this one up to some fill you have to grit your teeth about in the service of a really clever and fun theme. If the theme is good enough I let them slide as I did with this one.
@Listening Total agreement. POETRIES is definitely Not A Thing despite its presence in some dictionaries. POETRY is its own plural. Run a Google ngram for POETRY vs POETRIES. The latter is a flatline going back to the 1800s. Also, any puzzle that needs PHILIVEY to complete its gimmick section (across from the wretched POETRIES, no less) should have been sent back for a rewrite. Really, NYTCX? Now I need to know who wins poker tournaments?! You’ve got to be kidding.
Your potatoes might not be perfect. So beware the eyes of starch. (I'll make a better pun sooner or tater.)
@Mike This may be a bit of a mashup, but is it the eyes of starch or the fries of March?
@Mike Gather ye prose spuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-frying
@Mike I do love home cooking. Looks like you're on a casa roll, or at least a Caesar salad.
Strong candidate for worst puzzle of the year. Poetries? NEVER. Potato shape? Come on.
@Charles Anderson No doubt, this was terrible. ADELEH crossed with AGEE and BELLE? Looking up answers is taboo in my house so I hate when I have to randomly bang in letters to finish the digital copy. And that's just the start, Rex Parker is going to rip this one appart tomorrow. Also, I happened to glance at your location, and what do you know, I happen to be in Albany, OR at this very moment on a business trip! Hello from accross town!
@Ray Purchase AGEE is a pretty regular answer in the NYT Crosswords, so might be a good one to remember for the future (and by future I mean probably next month).
Arhat ... is a very, very, very fine hat With two dents in the crown The brim bent smartly down Now all my hair is messy cause of you (Anyone wanna tackle ARCANE?)
@ad absurdum Why not? Sorry if this attempt blows. Arcane ... is a very, very, very fine cane With two snorts up the nose It's not the life I chose Now nothing else matters 'cause of you
@ad absurdum Lol! At both you and Jim. Oh and I just got "if it blows." Thanks for the laughs, guys!
Thank goodness for the circles showing the different parts of our toy. Otherwise ARHAT and HOSTA would have been a total Natick to me. Very impressive construction, particularly with the long non-theme entries COASTAL AREA, CHINESE YUAN and GOES NOWHERE. Perfect for a Thursday!
Reading the number of comments of complaint regarding POETRIES, which is in the OED, I'm reminded of my first wife (whom we lost to cancer, alas). She spoke only French until she was twelve, but built fluency watching TV in her teens. Nevertheless, she would regularly mess up on plurals. (You will notice that Jaques Pèpin has similar difficulties.) Her most endearing misprision was calling her lingerie her "underwears"
This was an otherwise easy puzzle with ridiculously hard spots. I usually take care to make it clear my complaints are subjective, but today I will risk it and say that the naticky N section with several proper names crossing was just unfair. I knew CAMILLA but not any of the other names, so I was forced to look stuff up. That did not feel great. I was confused by ZIN. Now I see below that it was short for zinfandel... Jesus, I would never have come up with that, and it's not like I don't drink wine. Do you really shorten every other word to something unrecognizable to non-Americans? Or was this just crosswordese? That part of the puzzle was hard for me also because even though I think I had once known skinny could mean INFO, today I could not come up with that for the life of me, and the quite arcane clueing of INS did not help in that general area, either. I needed the column to get IST for "Natural finish?" I know I will probably be crucified for this, but it was an annoying puzzle (if it was a wonder if construction, that helped little with what the fill was, in places).
@Andrzej Red wine. Jesus Crucified You celebrating an early Good Friday? I’m guessing the answer is no. Yes. You are right. We shorten words just to confuse non-Americans. That’s the only reason. I guess's English is the only language in the world that does that. Pro tip for non-Americans doing a crossword published by a US newspaper, “certain red, for short” could also be Cab for Cabernet Sauvignon. As we Americans generally don’t drink bottles that are predominately Cab Franc. If it’s five letters, the answer might be Pinot for Pinot Noir. INS would not be considered ‘arcane’ for Americans. It’s (that is shortened for it is) a very common term for ‘inside’ access to something. Okay, we’re get it. You didn’t like the west section. It’s amazing you can do these US puzzles, and it’s great to hear your non-American solve perspective. But if you are going to write everyday that you are a non-native speaker, then yes, probably, you aren’t going to be familiar with every later week wordplay. This was a no trick Thursday. They had to make it relatively hard somehow. So maybe the clues were more difficult than an average Thursday? Don’t know. Also. A naturalist is generally someone who is an expert in natural history. Charles Darwin would be considered a naturalist.
@Weak rather uncharitable comment. For reference the NYT bought the wonderful International Herald Tribune, a great international paper. It claims to play on world stage and happy to take foreign subscriptions. Non words and croswordese should be beneath its standards.
If I were writing POETRIES [sic] about this puzzle -- and I can't resist because, after all I'm a poetriesist -- I would begin with an ODE: Why is this awful? Let me count the ways... 1) POETRIES 2) Annoying tiny little circles -- which I hate to see on any day of the week, but when it's on my favorite puzzle day, Thursday, my heart sinks at first glimpse. 3) Having to figure out what the tiny little circles are doing when it's not remotely apparent to me and I plain don't care. 4) Building an entire puzzle around MR POTATO HEAD who I gather, for reasons known to someone but not to me, is now no longer a MR. What a shame. 5) The rapper who names himself after...an assault rifle. And would you believe he's yet again another LI'L? 6) ARCANE pop trivia names 7) Ugly partials: ZIN, IST, EPI, PCP, HOO Hoo boy, was this ever bad!
@Nancy Agreed on all those points. A cute idea but lacked editing. One or two more re-writes and it could have been fun.
Some of the answers (e.g., HOSTA, ARHAT, ADELEH) had me looking in the package for missing body parts. cc: emu handler
@Steven Those were the three that got me as well -- when I finally finished, my head FELT like a potato!
That was FUN. When I started working these after a many years gap I feared the weird Thursdays. No more. I look forward to them, knowing they will be fun, sometimes humbling, but always fun. This one was pure joy. A sincere thank you to Dominic Grillo for a fine puzzle.
@Randolph I enjoyed being crossed up in the SW especially DOESNOTHING instead of GOESNOWHERE, OFFKILTER instead of OFFCENTER - both of those were confidently entered and had some cross traction and some cross clashes. Having spent much of my youth at the Jersey shore for 22D I wanted some variation of BARRIER ISLAND, nothing worked with the crosses I had. A lot of fun misdirection. ARHAT - never saw this word before, but crosses all had to be right, and the HAT part fit the theme. I love HOSTAS, grew many when I lived on a wooded acre in Connecticut. Learning about sun loving prairie plants in Indiana.
I highly recommend walking in the Virgin River through The Narrows in ZION. Definitely among my all time favorite places to visit.
Found this a bit challenging. Sitting in an emergency room at 1 AM didn't help. Just the flu, thank goodness.
This was a beautiful solve for me, one of those that goes from "uh-oh" to practically filling itself in. And what's amazing is that I can't really recall the moment of the transition. It simply happened. At some point I found out that OFF CENTER has the same amount of letters as "at an angle," but even that entry very smoothly corrected itself. Mr. Grillo, thank you for sticking it out for a whole year. Please know that, from where I stand, it wasn't in vain. You've truly brought me much enjoyment with this grid, from the delightful theme to the graphic execution and the tricky clues, and I thank you.
@sotto voce and way too close to OFFkilTER. Needless to say, I was thrown off of something
Might be a case of a puzzle that was too cute for its own good. Fun, nostalgic theme. But I was a bit thrown off by the fact that 'smile' in circles is actually smile shaped, and some of the others (hat for example) are just...there? Not to mention the obscure fill-in-the-blank nouns. This one had me rearranging my face a bit, trying to determine how I felt about it!
Decisions, decisions. Should I enjoy a ZIN or a (Cote de) RHONE with my POTATOes? Definitely a somewhat odd puzzle in my opinion. Fortunately I was able to figure out the not-a-clue clues using a combo of the crosses and the Wheel of Fortune method of filling in the blanks.
Subpar cluing, obscure on obscure crosses next to monday-grade easy fill, words that aren't words - there are few things less satisfying than a half-baked potato. You've made me a sad tuber, Mr. Grillo.
This one was...fine? I was hoping for a little more zing from a Thursday, to be honest. I appreciate the difficulty of creating this grid, but it didn't give me that brain-melting satisfaction I always hope for from this day of the week. Instead, I got a cutesy tribute to a toy. More power to anyone who had a lot of fun with this puzzle, but I was pretty nonplussed.
For me, a capital-p Puzzle. One outright guess (UZI/SUZIE – Z or S?) and many return-to’s, due to deliciously slippery cluing and no-knows. A faith solve for me, where I trusted that my inner brain would eventually inform my vexed overt brain with insight. And it did, eventually conquering thorny riddles. What three-letter word comes after SIGNAL for the train building? Is it MOM or SIS or DAD? Which currency? Which river? And so on, with the outing sparked by a sweet staccato of ebullient ahas. I like how the circled body parts attach to all parts of the potato – left, right, top, bottom, and middle area. I learned that there is a space in ADELEH. I learned and am inspired by the fact that, as he says in his notes, Dominic worked for more than a year on this, grinding out 100 versions before being satisfied with the grid – wow, and exceptionally inspiring. Thinking about Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head shoots me right back to my kid mind, bringing memories of playing it with my sister, which spurs other memories – what my house looked like, meals with the family, and much more. Seeing all this not through my adult eyes, but from my kid eyes. What a gift! So, thank you, Dominic, for a proper Puzzle and more. Your uber-dedication certainly paid off here!
Impressive feat of construction and bravo to the constructor for that, but the sacrifice of enjoyable fill to make the theme work was not worth it in my opinion. I'll take clever words over a gimmicky theme any day thankyouverymuch!
As a primary care internal medicine physician, I had to take exception to the answer to the clue 24 across, “ specialist in family medicine, in brief.” A PCP. Is a primary care physician. Family medicine specialists might be GPs, but PCP is overly broad. I, as an internist, may be a PCP, as might a pediatrician or an OB-GYN. But we are not Family Medicine Specialists.
Lewis, My understanding is that Family Medicine is a specialty within primary care. Thus, a "Specialist in family medicine, in brief" *would* be a PCP. The puzzle is not suggesting all PCPs specialize in Family Medicine. Who's on first?
@Lewis Kanengiser, MD I got this clue immediately. Seems to me when you are looking for a PCP on insurance websites, they are often listed as something like Family Medicine rather than specialists that require a referral.
@Barry Ancona I think “many a family physician, in brief” would have been a better clue.
Reaaaaally disliked this puzzle to the point I considered unsubscribing from the app today. But puzzle addiction is real and I can’t help myself and that adds to my frustration. How many naticks and ARCANE trivia can one pack into a clunky grid…
Can we bring back Thursday tricks and rebuses? It’s been a pretty disappointing stretch. There’s nothing here but a moderately tough fill, with a lot of clues and answers that made me sigh. There’s a theme, but meh.
Seems to be a lot of varying mileage today! I've never tried to construct a puzzle before but reading the constructor notes after I finally finished, I can sure believe this took quite a bit to put together and I appreciate the effort. It may have partly been my mood or my distracted brain today but my puzzle potatoes were a bit too lumpy for my liking—additionally, there was quite a bit I just didn't know. That's on me, of course, but I found it pretty difficult to get a lot of the answers through the crossings. I don't mind difficult if I have fun figuring out the tricks (which is why I usually really enjoy Thursdays) or the clever wordplay but that wasn't my experience today. And that's okay by me! Even though it's apparently legit, I like many have mentioned, really disliked POETRIES. I was sure it was POET or POEm something but I could not imagine it being POETRIES. I didn't want to put in LGBT because there were only four letters and I can't remember the last time I've heard or read it without a Q and + at the end, at minimum. Also, I'm sure this is unreasonable but I really disliked that EAR was singular and EYES plural. Poor spud people!! What I did like was seeing my beloved EM DASH in here! That was sweet! The EM DASH is so elegant! In case you don't know this trick, on a PC, you can quickly type add an em dash by pressing alt and 0151. Similarly with the en dash but 0150.
@HeathieJ An explanation could be that the eyes always came connected and the ears were separate?
ARCANE should have been the title of this puzzle
Thank you Dominic Grillo for a cute theme and a fun solve. Had a few puzzlers and some good laughs . For entries I couldn't remember or didn't know, there were enough hints from crosses to get the answers. Your persistence in developing this puzzle is amazing!
@Sal Yes I found that reading about the puzzle by Dominic Grillo made me appreciate it much more and it was a fun solve after a very hard I think last Saturday which I probably started too late….
I did not have a Potato Head toy as a child, but I still enjoyed this fun puzzle. My favorite part was that none of the "parts" were in the correct spot, so it had the feel of a child's creative play. :) I found a number of the clues and answers difficult, so this was not a speedy finish for me, but it was not so difficult that it felt like a slog. Some of the crosses in the SE corner were a little rough though.
@Janine So the mislocated parts are a feature and not a (potato) bug?
@Janine anyone in my generation had to use a REAL potato!
“POETRIES?” Really? ”GENRES” for Apple Music heading (odd clue, and also singular). I’ve never said “TARDIER” I gotta say, “You’re not from around here, are you?”
@Michael D I just opened the Apple Music app on my iPad. The fourth thing listed in my library is GENRES.
@Michael D I thought "genres" was easy, but I'm still annoyed by "poetries"
Two chess-related clues on Sunday, with Fagliano, who claims to be a chess fanatic. Also, two "stranger things" clues on Sunday. and another "stranger things" clue today. Please tell Will Shortz to get better soon, or find a more mature editor.
Just the liturgical nerd here to say that an alb is worn by any person leading the liturgy who is baptized--lay or ordained. *pushes up the bridge of his glasses with his pointer finger* Thank you for your time.
@Dave B. Why is there never a puzzle that includes a CHASUBLE? I call it a missed opportunity. They should poll us and pick up some great tips/info.
What fun, Mr. Grillo! And I write that as someone who still remembers sticking those parts into actual spuds :-) So "palindromic family member" you say? The familial cluster of palindromes hadn't occurred to me before: MOM DAD, POP SIS NAN What am I forgetting?
In my part of the country, HOSTA is better clued as 'deer cabbage'
@RAH Please look for DC from Weston’s comment on the most effective way to deter deer from the HOSTA. It involves the application of certain male mammal specie’s urine on the plants. I think sometimes in the evenings after returning from a 66A this is quite easily accomplished. — — — — — — — —
“Pulitzer-winning author whose name is found in nonconsecutive letters of "page turner"”: how is “Agee” made up of NONconsecutive letters? Only the final “e” is nonconsecutive. Seems a very misleading, poor, clue.
@Gretchen Sorry, I am just trying to read your comment in an open- minded way. Just can’t do it. Would you prefer “partially non consecutive letters” as a clue…a little too concrete thinking from my point of view. — — — — — — — —
@Gretchen this seems pretty nitpicky. Seeing “Pulitzer” and AGE in the clue with a four letter answer pretty much points straight to AGEE.
a certain amount of proper names (or trivia about pop culture figures) are expected, but overuse can leave a bad taste in one's solving buds. its a shame to dull the experience of such a clever construction, but this puzzle was the most excessive ive analyzed so far: proper nouns suzie camilla zion tsai chinese yuan adeleh rhone uzi sela phil ivey kenya belle gibb agee hrh nin weird/unused alb poetries
Well, well, welle! What a coincidence! The morning off, what better way to spend it than solving the NYTXW, hanging with Deb and my Wordplay buds, a piece of avocado toast, then off for a walk on a CERTAIN URBAN RIVERINE ISLAND PARK! My plans, no lie! If the weather were a little warmer, I'd bike there. Here's a shot of the lighthouse at the east end: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Isle_Park#/media/File:Livingstone_lighthouse.jpg" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Isle_Park#/media/File:Livingstone_lighthouse.jpg</a> Much more productive than sitting home all morning, surfing NSFW webites. A relevant skit, brought to us by the immensely talented Wayan brothers: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1vWMvxFPSQ&t=3s" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1vWMvxFPSQ&t=3s</a>
@Bill Thanks for the link to all the Belle Isle pictures. The one with the boaters is very Sunday in the Park with George.
@Bill I love avocado toast as much as anyone, but tonight we're having our monkfish tacos with cabbage without our usual avocado salad on the side, after reading a NYT article about how, post NAFTA, the Mexican avocado trade has been controlled by cartels, has depleted water available to native farmers, and has lead to deforestation to feed the US appetite for avocados. I urge others to reconsider eating them.
This puzzle was so hard for me. But, I solved it without peeking. And, I can’t wipe the smile off my face.
I’m very tired of rap singer clues. As a septuagenarian, I’m sure it’s age related.
@Norman I am also a septuagenarian. Rap, by the way, celebrated it's 50 year history last year, with concerts, museum exhibits, and other festivities. I often know the answers, even if I don't really know the musician's work. I think your reaction is curmudgeonly, not just age-related.
@Norman I’m younger but I too only know a few rappers. Just not a fan of the genre personally.
I feel the same about having to remember Asta, the name of a dog in a ninety year old film.
Thought I’M DEAD after a first go-OVOID. But I recovered. End-of -solve graphics would have been cool. Xwordinfo highlights the various body parts, which emphasizes their shapes: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/28/2024" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/28/2024</a> Was not a POTATO HEAD head as a kid, but I admire the care Dominic took in meeting the challenge of stuffing so much theme stuff into this spud-tacular puzz, while finding room for such goodies as the two “Later” clues and the excellent clue for CANOE.
Oof, this one took me almost 5 minutes over my average, totally missed the theme. Maybe I ought not start a puzzle in the bar...
I'll defer to the majority on this one. Tough one for me and I must confess that I still don't entirely 'get it' even after reading all the comments. I remain appropriately puzzled. Too many googles and one flat out cheat (looked up the NYT answer) to count this one, so I'll go into 'no google' mode tomorrow which I'm sure will end my current (very short) streak. 20d, 25d, 36d - all appropriate for me today. I'll return now to my home planet. ..
How many Natick's can you put into one puzzle? Definitely in the top 3 for worst puzzle of the year.
@Mike Please don't use an apostrophe to form a plural. Naticks are bad enough without the embelliishment. The rapper crossing the TV show girlfriend got me...but I haven't yet checked the rest of the grid, so it's possible there are more errors. In particular, the CANOE as equipment for a slalom is disturbing to envision. And if the POTATO HEAD parts are INTERCHANGEABLE, does that mean the SMILE is on top of the head, and a NOSE is extending from the spot where one would ordinarily expect a HAND? That makes your punctuation blip a blessed relief, really--and Island of Reason in an ocean of obscurity.
Had a lot of trouble with the top middle section since I've never watched Stranger Things and have never heard of Lil UZI Vert. And it didn't help that I thought the 4A clue was referring to how one feels about something rather than physically lying against something. Eventually had to resort to trying every letter of the alphabet to get it! But wow, I am very impressed with this puzzle. Even more so after reading that the constructor went to the trouble of even placing the circled clue parts where a hole is actually located in the toy, but all mixed up! I think every person who cane make a crossword puzzle is amazing, but I am really in awe of this one. Thanks for a super fun one!
@Amy Don't feel bad – I'm a little slow some days and frequently have to go through the whole alphabet to get a word that makes sense 😁
@Amy I watched Stranger Things, and I didn't know SUZIE. IIRC, the character doesn't even appear on screen, but is only a voice on a short-wave radio. Initially, Dustin's friends don't believe she's real. I didn't know the rapper either, but figured he might have a machine gun in his name.
I got stuck on three squares and after trying various combinations of possible fills, I put the puzzle aside. We accompanied the grandsons to Legoland and while admiring the grounds Kathy started musing about the formidable gardening mess left behind in Puyallup. The word HOSTA was part of that conversation, a word I had no recollection of. After returning to our room, I finished the puzzle in a minute or so. Thus proving the frequent advise to put the puzzle aside and come back later.
The whole way through I kept thinking that I could never finish this puzzle, I hadn't a clue, much too hard, over my head, then, miraculously, the SW corner was done. Other fills kept teasing me through, until there were only a few holes left. I realized that I had no way of knowing any of the characters in Stranger Days, so trolled through the cast and it had to be SUZIE! But I was still left with the nirvana ace and the shady plant, so back to Google to traverse a list of 20 of them. HOSTA! HOSTA, you darling! Popped in the H and I was done. Not so ARCANE after all, and without much AGE GAP INFO or pop GENRE know how necessary. Watching while the crosses filled up the crosses was delightful. Thank you, Dominic. In another year, will you have another tangled web for us? Best get started. We're waiting.
Most aptly named World Series of Poker winner: Chris Moneymaker (no joke!) TIL that PCP is something other than angel dust.
@Bill in Yokohama Ya gotta know the health insurance lingo if you live in the USA, standing proudly with South Africa as a major country without universal health care/insurance.
UZI/SUZIE is quite the natick. Maybe Stranger Things viewers see her name spelled out in the show, but SUsIE is my default spelling for that name. The puzzle had some fun elements, but too much awkward fill to be enjoyable for me.
@Eric I had UxI/SUsIE to start, not knowing either 6D or 13A, but it did not take me long to figure out that the Z was the likeliest candidate to fix that. Luckily with the digital puzzle we get more than one chance to get it right.
@Eric Finding that S and turning it into a Z was my final solved letter, but U_I is no natick when it's a rappers name.
Nonconsecutive letters of "page turner" threw me off. Are a, g, and, e not consecutive? I know the second e is displaced, but the first 3 letters are all in a row.
@Jason That clue confused me, too. I originally tried to fit in Leopold Auer (a violinist who lived from 1845–1930), conflating him with Jean Auel, who wrote “The Clan of the Cave Bear.” But even Auer has two letters that are consecutive in “page turner.” I wonder if that clue was supposed to be easier than one referring to “A Death in the Family.” Or maybe it was just supposed to be different.
@Jason The a, g, and e are consecutive, but the second e isn't since it's separated from the other three. So on the whole, AGEE isn't made up of consecutive letters.
This was challenging but not very satisfying. Maybe because I had to guess at the many names I didn't know. I managed to complete it without lookups, but it just didn't excite me.
Nice job, Dominic Grillo, and thanks for effort. I thought your puzzle was a lot of fun. Given the absence of a trick, and the difficulty of the clues, I would have expected to see this one on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I hope we get a Thursday on Sunday. "Later! "Later Alligator