On Wednesday night our house got hit hard by a tornado. We and our pets are safe and uninjured, but it’s been a scary and shocking ordeal. Today’s puzzle has allowed me an escape. I want to thank the creator and editors, not just for today but also for all of your hard work everyday. Take care of yourselves, family, friends, pets and other loved ones. They are irreplaceable. Peace.
@Alan Parker - I hope all is well with you and your family, including pets. I lived in Alabama for a few years and remember how scary it was when tornadoes were in the area. But the worst tornado experience I had was that swarm in January 2008 in SW Missouri. Some scary stuff! Is your house a total loss? Please let us know how you're doing in the coming days.
@Alan Parker Thank you for checking in and letting us know! I'm not on here consistently enough to notice when regulars comment or not, but I do know I've read a fair number of your comments, and this one resonated for me! Sending it right back to you: Take care of yourselves, family, friends, pets and other loved ones. Sending, too, peace and strength!
@Alan Parker What a horrific experience and sorry it happened toyou. It's good to hear you're all physically okay --- and well enough to remind us what's important in life! My thoughts are with you as you recover from this.
Good puzzle but it took a while to make any IN ROADs. I considered looking up an answer but decided I WOULDN'T, it's not my STYLE. I decided I would SIT HERE and LEAN in and one LITTLE THING fell at a time and I came through without too many BATTLE SCARS. When I finished I thought I'd SEXT the MRS about TATAS but instead of saying ITS HOT she called me a CREEPO. Guess I'm TOO OLD.
@MikeW great clues for the last week or two. Joel is winning me over. Thx
@MikeW Not calling you out personally, but I wish this type of creative writing exercise wasn’t always top comment. It’s cringey and self-adulatory and adds nothing meaningful to the discussion. It’s also extremely spoilerific to those of us who come to the comments section for clues but don’t want the whole puzzle ruined at a glance.
Great puzzle, but there’s got to be a cleverer clue for GOATYOGA. How about “fitness class that might lead to firm butts?”
@SP A bit of a stretch for those who tend to eat everything?
I took a break from this fun puzzle to see the aurora borealis from the front of my house! Absolutely stunning. And so amazing to have the northern lights come to me after so many years of wishing I could go to them. Then, when I came back inside, the southeast quadrant of the puzzle fell into place (though in black and white rather than green and purple). Quite a Friday night!
As a crossword newbie, honored to say this is my first Saturday NYT CW solve! With almost no help- my missus came in clutch on the assist with MRS. Shoutout to the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ for the assist in helping me solve SLOOP!
@ds same here for sloop- I was thinking about the sloop john b when I entered it.
If you could pick up some cat treats, that would really help meowt. (And I'm not kitten!)
What an elegant grid to house a nice chewy puzzle, with lots of twisty and witty clues. There were lots of general knowledge questions that were outside my ken, but the couple I knew (e.g. DARESSALAAM, ALDO) gave me just enough footing to piece it all together, although I struggled mightily in the SE corner. I liked the triple Os in TOOOLD. I don’t like to carp about clues, but cats meow for any kind of food, but fair play, I guess. For any not familiar with ALDO Leopoldo, his Sand County Almanac is an early expression of the environmental movement. Leopold preached awareness of our natural surroundings and respect for same. It is simply and elegantly written. MIXTAPE, brought back memories of many hours crafting personalized sonic messages on cassette tapes for friends and family, and sometimes would be lovers. First came the planning to find songs that would make sense together and convey my message while filling up as much of each side of the tape as possible. Then came the gathering of the albums and the actual fabrication of the tape with the careful placing of the needle on the disc, monitoring the volume level and fading the songs where appropriate. Every tape represented hours of work, and any mistake was costly (in terms of repair time). It’s so much easier today when a creditable playlist can be constructed in no time flat online. Somehow though the labor involved in making them the old fashioned way made them much more personal.
@Marshall Walthew, Loved your shout out to ALDO Leopold and your memories of making MIX TAPEs — I was on the same wavelength.
@Marshall Walthew I used to make MIXTAPEs in the 1960s before they were called that, recording my favorite top 40s off of my transistor radio. Mine are long gone now, but maybe one of your old lovers still has a tape you made in the back of a drawer. I not only still paint portraits in this era of phone selfies, but I do it in watercolors. "The medium is the massage"
Simple fills—well, look at them. So how come it took me so long to figure them out? They all seemed to be next door to the fills I thought of, except that Hunny ATILLA and a couple of others that helped chip away at the frozen tundra of the rest of the puzzle. Some other clues gave me a nudge in the right direction, but it still took me a while to see what they were saying, so to speak. And TOOOLD?? That string of o's was well placed So rude. Remember, I'll be 90 in a couple of months and although, like the lady said (thank you, Bette), getting old ain't for sissies, it is mostly a point of view: You may not be the LEAD DOG, but if you ignore the BATTLE SCARS, you'll still have enough bits and pieces of the TOTAL ASSETS to see you through. Thank you Billy Bratton for oiling up the cylinders a bit and giving me a jolly evening. How many more Saturdays have you got up your sleeve? Let's see 'em.
This gorgeous grid thrilled my Libra love of balance, and won me over before filling in my first letter. A grateful “Ahh” spontaneously radiated from me out into the universe when I saw it. Oh, sure, it creates five mini-puzzles, which is scary, because it’s Saturday, and the corners don’t get much help from the center, but praises to the constructor and editor for intelligently placing footholds to make the puzzle fair. The grid pattern was done once before in the Times, 4/18/20, by Ryan McCarty. What marked that puzzle was the pop in the center. Billy followed suit today, with seven NYT answer debuts in that section. So much skill went into making this puzzle, a 66-worder with hardly a whiff of junk, and so vibrant. I, a lover of wordplay, emitted “Hah!” after “Hah!” after “Hah!” from the wit that saturated the cluing: [Line around the Equator], [Comment with a point], [Gross home?], and [Cheerios alternative] for starters. Another “Hah!” followed the serendipitous cross of SIT HERE and a backward SAT AT. I actually left this puzzle wired, electrified by the pop, the cleverness, and the joy of riddle-cracking that this grid gave me. This was a wow. This was scintillating. More, Billy, more please! Thank you so much for crafting this!
Lewis, SAMESIES! After joining Caitlin, et al, and probably some emus, wanting SAMEhere first.
Just dropping by to say that I really liked this one. It felt a bit like a Robin Weintraub puzzle to me--first pass made me think I'd never solve it, it strained the little grey cells, but resolved itself with wit and delight. Thanks, Mr. Bratton! And Mr. Fagliano, I think you are doing a fine job filling a very big pair of shoes. I hope Will is continuing to recover!
@PuzzleDog Now that you say it, I do think it had the same feel as a Robin Weintraub, who is one of my favorite constructors!
Really good puzzle....couldn't for the life of me figure out what an IT SHOT is. Ha.
A relatively smooth solve with the exception of the SE corner. Of course I first tried SAME HERE but it didn’t last long, since I was sure of FARE, and F_H__ looked very wrong. Excellent clue for IT’S HOT and a clever misdirect with “Gross home?” (my first thought was Net). Nice crossing of STYLE with ELLE, and I love the clue "Si elle lit elle lit Elle" (If she reads, she reads Elle).
@Anita my first thought with ‘Gross home’ was sty, but then the crosses didn’t work…I too appreciate the misdirect, as we (I am a WHYY member 🤓) are the home of ‘Fresh Air’
Am I the only one excited about the clue for 42A, the Burgess Shale?! After many clues I couldn't guess, this one was an "aha!" Ok, it would only appeal to a geologist or fossil fan, but it is a very famous shale formation in western Canada.
@Nora I wouldn’t say that I was excited to see it, but it must’ve been lurking around somewhere in my head, because I filled it in without much thought.
@Eric Hougland to be clear, "excited" about this is a Nerd Alert.
As an Ethan, I’m tickled to have made the puzzle today!
@ESB Are you a member of the clued cohort? Or perhaps have a Green Mountain connection?
Me to self: “wouldn’t it be funny if this answer is GOAT YOGA?” And then: “wouldn’t it be funny if this one is ATTILA?” Ha, most of the time those predictions end up being funny but wrong. Hope all our northern friends are playing SAMESIES sharing photos of the amazing aurora tonight!
@Cat Lady Margaret What a spectacular event last night! We couldn't see any color with the naked eye, but our iPhone cameras captured the fuschia and turquoise lights playing through the clouds. Just incredible. Hope it repeats tonight (and doesn't interfere with any communications or navigation systems!).
I tried goat yoga class but the instructor would not leave me alone for more than a minute. A real nanny. But the Happy Baby asana was a different beast. I was kidding. I’m a capricious silly billy. I’m done milking these puns. cc: emu handler
SAMANTHA WHO was the first and only show to score a perfect 100 in the Nielsen Ratings. It remains the only sitcom to claim not only an EGOT, but also a Pulitzer, an ESPY, a Pritzker Prize and the Nobel Prize in Physics. When it was canceled, there was a worldwide month of silence to commemorate its passing. And now in these comments we've got all these people saying they've never heard of it? Talk about collective amnesia. Forget you, emus.
My first puzzle in a while. Got through it OK. I got a chuckle out of "Mythical rock singer."
Yikes. Total mystery. Staring at all white. Could not finish. A worthy Saturday puzzle! Thanks. Peter.
Beautiful puzzle! Came together very nicely on the solve
Never have I ever been so startled by the music! Four little puzzles, pretty smooth. Middle? Nope. I chiseled and crawled and pecked and tossed in letters like was seasoning a soup, for which I had no recipe. And then 🎶 ⭐️ ! Scared the Skittles out of me! Now there’s a Saturday NYTXW.
Enjoyed this one just as much as yesterday's. Great cluing, and ended up saying several times "Oh!! It's the simple answer." "Meowed" was really fun!
Loved this one! Fun, challenging, but also relatively swift with a lot of entries that made me smile. I entered "girl, same" instead of SAMESIES which messed me up for a bit. Same era, different phrase. Oops!
Themeless maybe but a total vibe. Loved it!
This was a tale of two puzzles. I was zipping along, thinking, "This is going too fast for a Saturday" and then got really hung up in the SE. With just MIX TAPE and the S of SAMESIES in place, I figured So spooky was a good idea at 50A. It took some time to back out of that. Little by little it came together, and both SIREN [Mythical rock singer] and IT'S HOT [Line around the equator] elicited an audible "of course!" kind of sound. Quite a few really great clues in this one. In addition to the clues for SIREN and IT'S HOT, "Comment with a point" for THAT ONE, "Rocks" for FISTS, and "Pop back and forth" for DAD were some favorites. I enjoyed this offering from Mr. Bratton, and look forward to his next one.
@Nancy J. Aha, I just now understood "Rocks" for FISTS as I read your comment, goes back to game with Paper and Scissors, clever. Loved this puzzle, clues were tricky, my favorite ITSHOT
This really is a wonderful puzzle. I had to cast about for a toe-hold, and finally I found one at 2D (a word foreign to me....) So many misdirects, unknown shows, and things that I am TOO OLD to know.... Wow! And yet I got it in good time. So many T's (as in Teasers)! (Billy Bratton, I'm sorry about the curse I put on your head and hope that you don't mind being bald; I've heard it wears off.)
@Mean Old Lady It took me a while to find the right combination of neater cats on tidier rugs to get the NW corner. Slovenly emus
@Mean Old Lady I had to go back and look up what 2D was, thinking, what could possibly be foreign to MOL!? You got me! Hahaha! Made me laugh! And lately I can definitely relate with that being a foreign concept!
Almost nothing on my first tour through the Acrosses--only MIXTAPE provisionally. Then the Downs came in smoothly in the corners, and broke the center open just enough. For me, a highly satisfying solve with a bunch of great clues and entries (I co-sign on MEOWED's brilliance).
@David Reiffel I had a similar experience — was in despair after going through the acrosses, but ultimately ended up with one of my fastest Saturdays. There was a nice back-and-forth between the downs and acrosses. I’m still trying to figure out “fists,” though.
@David Reiffel Same here. I'm used to not getting much on the acrosses for Saturdays though. I have no idea why the downs always seem easier to me nor why, since they're easier, I don't start with them.
@Les FISTS are rocks in “Rock, Scissors Paper…”
Excellent fun, not too much pop culture, just good witty clues.
The only time I've been to the Equator was at Mitad del Mundo, just north of Quito, Ecuador. Because of its altitude, it has a year-round average daytime high of 70^F, and nighttime low of 49^F; best to keep a sweatshirt handy. Like all tourists, there's a photograph of me with one foot in the northern hemisphere, one foot in the southern. OTOH, biting into one's llapingacho (potato pancake) too soon after it came out of the skillet, one might exclaim "IT'S HOT!" Unable to parse it correctly, I wondered if the hip-hop themed sitcom was SAM AN' THA WHO? It took a comment by @Bafanu, below, for me to understand FISTS for "Rocks", which prompts me to share that, even though I've tried on multiple occasions, try as I might, I *cannot explain the game rock-paper-scissors* to my Partner!
@Bill So, you were 'above it all' there at The Equator.... .....and we saw snow on the ground atop Mauna Loa. Altitude trumps heat..... Have you tried explaining using the Japanese words?
@Bill SAM AN THA WHO! That’s gold Bill, gold. Bravo. Emus can’t rap
Loved this one, found it clever and witty and laughed out loud at the clue for 49D. I learned a lot and many of my fill was due to crossings, which is a sign to me of a great Saturday. Maybe I’m slightly in the gutter but SIREN, SEXT, GOTTHESHAFT, ITS HOT, and TANTRIC in the same puzzle seemed a little 🌶️ and a lot of fun. Great start to my Saturday!
@Niki B *Mild Parental Discretion Warning* Let's not forget STUDS, TITAN, sowing wild OATS (perhaps on the RUGS?), MEETUPS, all while maybe listening to a Barry White/ Bill Withers/ Eartha Kitt MIXTAPE. And perhaps CASHGRAB if it's a "business thing". Also I dunno but GOATYOGA just sounds awfully suggestive in some vague way? And I'm not even gonna go there re 43D. ~ ~ "Oh ETHAN, SITHERE! IMCALM!" Soon: "THATONE!! THATONE!!!" 20 min later a piercing cry: "Ethan! Ethan! Ethan! ATTILA!!!" - - - Sorry to all those folks at the breakfast table... But it's a very nice gutter!
Really enjoyed this one! Challenging but fun with a tickle of joy upon figuring out the tricky clues.
"Engage in a hot exchange" is one of the more clever clues I've seen. Loved this one!
Can't be a coincidence that a constructor named Billy seeded this puzzle with GOAT YOGA. Et tu, emu.
@Lewis there is actual a theory on this phenomenon called Nominative Determinism. There once was a fraternity pledge at MIT who was rolled over and over to mark out the distance over the Mass. Ave. Charles River bridge. His name was Smoot. So the standard measures painted on the bridge were/are Smoots…about 6 feet long. After Smoot graduated he went on to become president/chairperson of a couple of societies of standardization for industry. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism#:~:text=easily" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism#:~:text=easily</a>%20verifiable%20sources.-,Definition,possibly%20subconsciously%2C%20made%20themselves%20fit.
No cigar - not even close. Just couldn't get anywhere with this one. Actually surprised to see that most everyone found this one quite easy. One appropriate (for me) answer that dawned on me this morning, inspired by 41d was: SLOOPJOHNB - Never been in a puzzle. Oh - and I'm still getting paid for 17d. And... puzzle find today was also inspired by 41d - a Sunday from February 24, 1991 by Arthur S. Verdesca with the title: "Craft-Y Shenanigans." Some theme answers in that one: SLOOPERIOR SUNYACHTSEN FERRYGODMOTHERS THEBRIGSLEEP KETCHASKETCHCAN Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/24/1991&g=38&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/24/1991&g=38&d=D</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta Oh, and meant to mention that.... CLOSEBUTNOCIGAR is also 15 letters. Been an answer in 9 puzzles, most recently in a Monday from June 23, 2008 by Andrea Carla Michaels* and Patrick Blindauer. One other 15 letter answer in that one: WINSOMELOSESOME and two 14 letter answers: YOUDIDYOURBEST WESTILLLOVEYOU *and... ACME was also an answer in that puzzle. ..
@Rich in Atlanta I absolutely did not find this one easy. Not at all. I'm stunned anyone found it easy.
I haven’t been reading the comments section that long but hilarious how whiny it can be no matter what the puzzle is. I started thinking it was too easy in the beginning and then got really stuck in SE. I still think it was the good kind of hard and the clues and answers are pretty brilliant. What’s up with the emu references?
@Mark The emus refer to electronic moderation units, if I remember the acronym correctly. They monitor the comment section. Mostly that's fine but short comments from frequent commenters often get stopped by the emus... Probably thinking it's spam or a troll or something. So people pad their comments with silly references to the emus to try to get them through the filters. Some other people get very bothered by the emu padding and think it's just a conceit... But the long delay and/or possible never posting of comments by emus is very real. It's very puzzling to me why it bothers anyone because it's pretty benign and there are so many real things to be upset about in this world but there you have it. This is a long enough comment that it probably doesn't need emu padding even though I have commented several times today.
Can't ever remember a puzzle that was both this hard and this quick. I was surprised when I got the happy music and even more surprised that my time was less than half my rolling average. I pretty much guessed at the last two letters and conclude these were correct only by a fluke. Now want to go learn more about a certain rock bed. Thought the clue for 30A was inspired.
@Lynn I too thought it felt more challenging than it turned out to be. I was surprised to finish it in a quicker than average time. What’s so “inspired” about the clue for 30A? It seems straightforward to me.
TIL that I share my name with a crossword creating app. Now I might have to try my hand at puzzlemaking!
This one was doable, once I’d cracked a corner, but I’m afraid I didn’t find it joyful. Not sure why, but it lacked pizzazz.
Weird puzzle. It solved with no real sense of purpose. Fills were not so much “Ah Has!” as “oh that fits” and “I can sort of make the clue work at a stretch”. The level of general understanding to get into seemed a bit obscure as well - wrote some odd things in that did not change. Drank a nice cup of tea so I suppose it was a good one.
Billy asked if I'm happy with it. No, I'm not. As Caitlin said, this was like a bunch of different puzzles. While I eventually managed to get all but the SE without any lookups, (even SAMANTHA WHO) there was no way I would ever have come up with SAMESIES. Even if I had gotten the Equator clue, which may have happened if I hadn't thrown in the towel, I would have thought SAMESIES was just ridiculously wrong. As it should be. I guess I'm showing my age. Yes, I know Saturdays are hard, but this one didn't cut it for me at all.
That SE corner was a bear. SAMESIES held me up until the last two letters, and don’t get me started on FISTS. And while it may be obscure for some, SAMANTHA WHO was my entry into the puzzle. Love Christina Applegate, loved the show, and glad to see it get a little love here.
@Heidi When I got the first 3 letters, I remembered the name of the show (big help) and when I googled it, I realized that I had actually watched at least a few episodes because of the fine cast.
Tough puzzle, but I have no problem with that. It's Saturday, after all. The grid is aesthetically very attractive, but the way it creates "five separate mini and midi crosswords"??? That I have a problem with. Somehow it doesn't feel like a "real" crossword. And the cluing of FISTS as "Rocks"??? I've seen the rock/paper/scissor explanation, but I find it unpersuasive (or just poorly clued). "Dukes" might have been a better clue.
Linda, They are less frequent these days, but a trip to the archive will show you other crosswords with isolated areas. A trip to the pre-Shortz archive on xwordinfo.com will show you many more. The ones with single-square entries are really nasty. "Dukes" would be a Monday clue for FISTS. As you said, "It's Saturday, after all." Happy solving!
@Linda I loved everything you disliked. Tsk It takes all kinds, I hear. I especially liked 43D! Just the other day played that with PhysDau--we both showedd 'Scissors,' and burst out laughing...it was completely wordless and spontaneous--just a wee touch of mind-reading...
OMG, that SE corner gave me no end of trouble. Overall this puzzle "rocks"! Thanks for the Ingrid link. Will check it out.
Was great until SE... saved by my teenage son, who threw me SAMESIES. (I was trying hard to make SAME HERE fit). That opened it all up and I had a great laugh at IT'S HOT. Didn't see the Aurora last night, but my other kiddo works in Northern Ontario and was treated to the show of her life.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. I think I was on the same wavelength as the constructor. I see that many struggled with SE but that was the first section I solved. Next was NE, NW, then center. SW was last. I loved the clues pop back and forth, partner in a picture, and place left of the units. I loved the answer LEADDOG which I got right away being from Alaska.
Fastest Saturday for me so far, but I’m not complaining!
Weird how I feel like I adapted to the new editor. I find myself making guesses that I wouldn’t have with Will. And they’re right more frequently than wrong. A few weeks ago I might not have solved this one. Did Joel make this one easier or did I learn his style? Anyone else feel this way?
Agent86, This struck me as a very Billy Bratton puzzle, and I doubt it would have been much different, if at all different, with Will editing. The last week or so, the puzzles have been easier. Just before that, many puzzles seemed harder than usual. But that pattern can be found throughout the Shortz era, so it too is nothing new.
@Agent86 says "Did Joel make this one easier or did I learn his style? Anyone else feel this way?" @Agent86 -- In a word, No! My appraisal on The Other Blog is so negative that I dare not post it here.
If I want trivia, I'll go to a pub on trivia night. This was just boring.
Surprised to finish this one fairly quickly in about half my average Saturday time, especially given how the construction divided the grid into distinct sub puzzles as Caitlin said — a design that usually gives me fits. Got SAMESIES only on the crosses. It struck me as a bit cutesy (cutesie?) but fair. Agree that SAMANTHA WHO is pretty obscure, but the descriptive clue led me to the answer once I had a few crosses in there. When I had the starting G for 33D I thought “no way there is something called GOAT YOGA, is there?” but the crosses proved my skepticism to be misplaced. Still find that a bit twee but it’s clearly a thing. Thanks Billy for a fun Saturday diversion.
@Nat K Yes - Goat Yoga is a big thing. I'm not too keen on the idea of getting pooped on, though.