It's the sheer globalism of this one, its vast diversity and inclusiveness, across time & space, that really makes my inner yeti start gulping a peaty scotch to his ruin (and if you think vicuna wool is rare, try finding a yeti sweater anywhere: it's no can do in Kathmandu) OK, that metaphor got a little out of hand, but you know what I'm saying. Like the two goddesses spanning time, Athena & Oprah. Victoria's Secret crossing with celibacy. The Bard sharing space with a nitro car and a hypeman. Which Shakespearean character can best be called a hypeman? Falstaff? Marc Antony, using his oration at Caesar's funeral to whip up the crowd? And which delivers the best tirade? Lady Macbeth? King Lear? Love the elements of antiquity and the Middle East at play here, with the return of that pinnacle of crosswordese, imaret, plus the Call on the Carpet (one thinks, a la Agassi, it must be a Persian carpet the poor lackey has been called upon), PTAS -- like PITAS said with mouth full, shekels -- first I had "drachma" (from the parable in Luke) but its plural, unlike BAHT, has an "s." Just thought I'd rub it in, editors. Moving on in one direction, the Parthenon, in the other, yeti and Holi, as if we're on google maps moving our cursor from one continent to the next; next stop Nigeria, home of Orafor's parents, then to Lima, the vicuna and the Americas. It's fascinating to me that The Americas exclude North America, otherwise, wouldn't LA take the cake? Lift up the cake? Hoist it?
@john ezra fun summary. LA city on the NA coast is a mere 3.8 million people. Grows to 12 million and slightly larger than LIMA if you include all LA county and most of Orange. But it would take a Sunday grid to fit GREATERLOSANGELES.
Wow, that was a fast solve for something that seemed daunting at first. I had enough of the Downs to get toeholds in the long Across entries, so they mostly filled in quickly. Although for some reason I had thought Vermont might be the unicameral state, at least I hadn't put it in. Conclusion: fun to do, but it went by too fast.
Liz B, I second that emotion. (But I did know NEB) The few things I didn't know from the clues filled nicely from the crosses. .......
@Liz B My sentiments exactly. I blanched when I saw all the white in the grid (and an elegant grid it was). Rather than waste time trying to figure out the long spanners, I filled in a few of the shorter acrosses and then began on the downs. Although it didn’t seem particularly easy it unfolded surprisingly smoothly. I was helped greatly by guessing VICUÑA without any crossing letters. Really, quite a charming puzzle, but as you note, over too soon.
@Liz B Sigh, my apologies for writing pretty much the same thing you did. :) Went by shockingly fast for such an intimidating puzzle. Emus are the best form of flattery....
This isn't related specifically to today's puzzle, just a general observation. Some posters seem to misinterpret the motives of others who express opinions about the puzzle. I see this a lot, and it bothers me. I don't think it's bragging when commenters say a puzzle was too easy for a given day or express how fast the solve was in a disappointed fashion. If the comments are predominently saying the puzzle is too hard, or that it was easy and therefore more enjoyable, word might get out that easier puzzles are what everyone wants. Stating displeasure for a 'too easy' puzzle is really just a vote for keeping the end of week puzzles tough. There are 3-4 days each week for easier puzzles, so when the remaining 3-4 days are not challenging, it's just not so much fun. Can't we at least share the week?
@Nancy J. Yes, yes! The NYT is supposed to be the gold standard of crosswords. There are plenty of other good puzzles out there that aren’t as demanding or tricky, but the NYT is the only one I pay a subscription for because it’s supposed to be the best. Before the Times developed all the other word games that now keep me busy, I used to do several crosswords a day, including the LA Times, the Wall St. Journal and USA Today. They were all good puzzles, and some even ran the occasional special one that got away from the Times, so I know there are plenty of excellent puzzles out there. But the NYT is supposed to be the best. And unlike what some boosters keep saying, it’s not for everyone. If you want an easy or straightforward puzzle every time, you’re going to be disappointed approximately half the week. And I would want least of all for the NYT to start pandering to those who don’t get it and don’t want to get it. They say it takes 10,000 hours to get expert in anything. That’s about 28 years if you spend an average of an hour a day in the puzzle. You’re not going to get that good in a few months, or even a year or two. It’s a great feeling when you get to the point where it’s not “if” you’ll solve it, but “how fast”.
@Nancy J. Thank you! I am sure I'm not alone in preferring, "Oh! Hah!" to "Oh, okay." Moments of enlightenment are a delight, and I think most people enjoy being surprised.
@Nancy J. It's also the case that solvers don't want all the puzzles to be the same difficulty level: yesterday, I was in quite a rush, and was happy that I solved a Friday in quick time. Given my profession, I find that I often have more time early in the week, when the solving pleasure is over much too quickly. Then what to do? Well, that's what the New Yorker is for!
What a thing of beauty! That gorgeous grid design, for one thing, balanced and uncomplicated, without a mess of scattershot black squares. My heart went “Ahh!” when I saw the empty grid. And then the beauty of the filled-in grid. A mere 66 words strewn with long answers (eight letters and more), not only those six spanners, but there are 18 longs IN ADDITION to those spanners. And yet hardly a whiff of junk – the skill that this takes! My heart goes “Ahh!” when I look at the full grid. That loveliness is bolstered by freshness. None of the six spanning answers has appeared in the 80-year-old Times puzzle more than three times, and two of them are debut answers. But most importantly, how was the solve? For me, in this stubborn puzzle, time after time, I experienced one of Crosslandia’s sweetest moments: When, with few crosses, a vexing long answer suddenly hits, an explosion of “Hah!” and “Aha!”, chased by the thrill of filling in a string of white, spurring an eagerness to pounce on what I just filled in, and a burst of confidence and hope that I’ll crack this beast yet. Thus, a terrific filled-with-pings-of-delight solve. Thank you, Adrian. This was a jewel!
@Lewis When I saw the empty grid, I thought, "I'll never get this," which made it all the more enjoyable when I somehow did. Generally, grid-spanning answers don't bode well for me.
@Lewis The day may come when I skip solving the puzzles and just read your commentary on solving the puzzles. I’d like to add that, like today’s puzzle, Adrian’s constructor notes are a thing of (inner) beauty.
Big oops! Someone has correctly pointed out an error in my post, where I said there were 18 longs in addition to the four spanners. There are actually only two additional longs! I misread a chart on XwordInfo, and I'm sorry for the mistake. Also, what I should have done was check the actual grid to confirm, and I WILL do that from hence forth. Lesson learned.
"How'd the carpet installation go?" "They did such a great job, I'm floored!" ("Guess I should hurry and get mine done too." "Yeah, step on it!")
@Mike I came here knowing you’d have piles of puns. You just can’t weave it alone, can you? I don’t mean to carp—it would be against the wools, but I think you might be a rug addict!
@Mike Those puns are beneath you. (When I told the builder not to carpet the steps he gave me a blank stair.)
time to completion: 2:44:45. what's the infernal rush anyway.
I thought I was clever for "AT A LOSS FOR WORDS", but when the downs would not fit, I was at a loss for words.
Great puzzle! 1A jumped off the page at me and I breezed through the top half, humming to myself. Then I fell flat on my face in the lower half, seemingly forgetting what language I was reading. Nothing made sense. A couple of crosses in the SW finally emerged, and the rest slowly percolated through. Whew. This is what a Saturday should be.
TIL that nuns and I have a habit in common.
Well, any puzzle that starts off with my name is more okay with me. And a very pretty grid design it is, too. Someday I will automatically be able to fill in IMARETS for Turkish inns, but today was not that day. Nice job, Adrian.
@Vaer , I have the same problem, and I’ve stayed in one. ( that was a very long time ago though)
It was one of those puzzles that seems impossible, then allows you a tiny bit of traction, like a tiny crack in a dam almost imperceptibly lengthening, but at the end you get the deluge.
Before he was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2004-2005, the amazing Emeka Okafor was MVP of the 2004 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. Before he played professionally for Charlotte, he played his college ball in Storrs CT, basketball capital of the world. (That was the second basketball national championship for the UConn men; they now have six, including the last two. The UConn women have an astounding eleven championships.) Go Huskies!
@Jannicut And all of those eleven championships have been under the guidance of the amazing (an overused but appropriate word here) Geno Auriemma, who built and continues to lead the UConn women’s basketball program.
Wonderful construction ! Hands up for ALPACA instead of VICUNA which sent me down the wrong path for way too long . TIL about HOLI the festival of colors - thanks for a fun Saturday morning !
@Cathy Parrish Sorry to do this, and feel free to ignore, but your name is awfully familiar. I'm trying to ask a question whose answer wouldn't reveal anything. Is there any chance you and I have a common friend named Jerry who was awfully good at making public speaking?
Didn't finish this one - didn't even come close. Appears that most everyone else found this one unusually easy. After reading all the comments I went back and reviewed the puzzle, wondering what it was that I wasn't catching on to - what might have given me enough crosses to work something out - things like that. And... I'm not seeing it. I'm clearly bringing up the rear here. No big deal, but I would like to at least grasp why I'm struggling so much. See you tomorrow. ..
@Rich in Atlanta I needed a ton of lookups to finish the puzzle - trivia-heavy short answers crossing with spanners are always brutal for me. Had it not been for Google and autocheck, I would not have been able to complete the grid.
@Rich in Atlanta No you are absolutely correct. Remember, many people’s sole joy in life is to rush on here and pompously state how easy the puzzle was for them…
Rich, Non-pro tip: Try solving at a different time during the day. Maybe a bit later in the morning? Or the night before? Shake up your routine a bit and see what that does. Short.
Cross state lines. Loved that one. As I worked my way down the puzzle, my husband asked, “How long do we have to keep this save-the-date card on the fridge?” About a minute later, there it was. Crazy how often that happens!
All of us Mac users are going "command P" not "Ctrl P"!
@Seymour B Moore And PC users guessed CTRL V
@Seymour B Moore I'm a Mac user but I always expect clues to presume Windoze users since they are (sadly) the majority!
"HOLI isn't mentioned in the column, probably because it has appeared in the grid 18 times before, including twice last year and twice the year before," says Barry Ancona. This is for you, Barry Ancona: Those IMARETS are happy to remain Within my fuzzy, most forgetful brain. And yet when HOLI darts across the years, It takes a bow, then always disappears. Will HOLI ever be like IMARETS? We all can hope -- but don't place any bets.
@Nancy Do a Google image search on HOLI. The colors are gorgeous. Seeing the pictures might help cement the word in your brain. It was a gimme for me today, but the last time it was in the puzzle, or perhaps the time before that, I read the clue and thought, “Oh, I know that! It’s Dili (which turned out to be the capital of East Timor).
I also want to send my condolences to our constructor, Adrian Johnson, on the loss of Finn. It is so hard to lose those we love. Grief and memories are our final acts of love. And thanks for your encouragement to annoy people with kindness! I agree wholeheartedly! All the best to you! (And more puzzles, please!)
Well, we may not all love rebuses and we may not all love clues that have been diabolically changed (I love both) but all of us do love long stacks, I'm pretty sure. Don't we? As THE BARD might have said: My heart leaps up when I behold White space! When VICTORIA'S SECRET came in I fairly leapt up with excitement. SECRET came in first -- situated in the place where I had expected to find a STORE of some kind. I also loved SAVE THE DATE CARD and its clue. I must go read the blog and find out what on earth HOLI (44A) is. And my one big nit: the clue for TIRADE (41D) makes no grammatical sense and is trying much too hard to be clever. A word on our favorite crossword gal, if not our favorite singer (5D). Love is blind, John. ONO was hardly "unknown". Neither was she an "artist". Liked this lively puzzle a lot!
@Nancy She was an artist before she met John. They loved each other.
@Nancy "And my one big nit: the clue for TIRADE (41D) makes no grammatical sense." At first, I parsed it wrong and thought the same. I was thinking cross(ly) state(d) lines. I then decided it was more like lines you would use when in a cross state. Does that help?
Nancy, HOLI isn't mentioned in the column, probably because it has appeared in the grid 18 times before, including twice last year and twice the year before. Sun Oct 8, 2023 104D Festival whose celebrants throw multihued powders Sid Sivakumar Tue Aug 15, 2023 24D Hindu spring festival (2) Malaika Handa Sun Jun 26, 2022 41D Hindu Festival of Colors (5) Matthew Stock and Finn Vigeland Mon Jan 17, 2022 25D Hindu festival of colors (5) Evan Mahnken P.S. The TIRADE clue is grammatically correct.
Ha! I misread and used the 38A clue for 33A, and it worked. A Yeti is certainly an "unlikely socializer". Good puzzle, Adrian. It was a sea of blank white space that I just hop-scotched through on my first pass, filling in only a few isolated guesses. Then it slowly built up. No junk, and the proper names filled in from the crosses. And a wide time frame, from I LIKE Ike to Panic! at the Disco. Emus, don't be jealous of the vicunas.
I had a great time, and am unreasonably satisfied and happy with solving this one. It was one you really had to reason out. Now it's time to get to the Saturday cleaning. I mean it this time. Don't want anyone to call me on the carpet (which needs vacuuming).
Outstanding puzzle, Adrian. Thank you. Stacks top and bottom were intimidating at first, but there were enough entry points to help. Some fun clues! Nun’s habit was a cute pun.
URIE? EMEKA? ESAI? ROEG? Far too many obscure proper nouns for my taste. The top section was impossible for me without knowing those. And can someone please explain "CALL ON THE CARPET"?
@Amy I'm not sure the history of CALL ON THE CARPET, but was familiar with the term which basically means to admonish or, as the clue indicates, reprimand someone. I would recommend filing away ESAI for later use... it seems to come up quite often as an answer and is often clued using the actor ESAI Morales.
This was another relatively breezy late-week puzzle. It did not put up much of a fight, despite the fact that I was bit tired from walking 6-plus miles through Central Park, down Fifth Avenue, across Bryant Park and Times Square, and up Broadway to Columbus Circle. All the credit goes to Adrian for somehow managing the stack three beautiful spanners in both the N and S. I'll also admit that (1) I'm a fan of Agassi and 55D was therefore a gimme, and (2) my mind went straight to lingerie for 1A and voila, the answer fit perfectly, without any help from crosses. Lucky night, perhaps.
@Henry Su edit: "somehow managing to stack ..."
Very enjoyable Saturday! This one clicked for me. Glad to see a new and interesting clue for the ubiquitous ONO.
Great puzzle. Of note, I’m pretty sure Andre Agassi is of Armenian decent. His dad grew up in Iran and changed his name from Aghassian.
Open the grid. Draw a deep breath. Refill the coffee. Started on ATARI. There are crossword answers that show up often enough that you just have to remember them. IMARETS is one. Four letter director beginning with R? ROEG. Morales? ESAI. Color and Festival/ holiday? HOLI Doesn’t make me smart, just have a bit of experience. I ended up getting the top done last and had to skim down to SAURON to really get started in the SE and worked the spanners backwards from there. Cross state lines was excellent! Alpaca before Vicuña. TEX and NEV before NEB. Que RICO! Nice Saturday challenge.
@Roger Holi was a new one on me
Fabulous puzzles these past few days! They had me singing "Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles..." as I finished – especially today's. When, at the start, I took one look at the empty grid full of spanners, I sulked. But slowly and surely, it all came together, like raw ingredients that one would never believe could turn into a beautiful cake that you were capable of baking. I ate it up, with only two lookups (names), seeing that I'm too impatient to let the crosses reveal them. And then I felt a magnificent sense of achievement at the end. Whenever I sense that the puzzle must have been easy if I, with limited experience, was able to solve it, I think of a contructor's brilliance and precision in creating a grid where the crosses are just so, perfectly fitting together, making a puzzle daunting at first but doable as we go along. Thank you for your brilliance, Mr. Johnson! Thank you for creating a puzzle that lets me feel deliciously smug for solving it, and will have me singing, "Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles..." the rest of the day.
@sotto voce Nothing like that "deliciously smug" feeling, I agree.
Wow. At first look I thought "great, here's the new editors' revenge for all the easy ones that have been fattening us up lately for a Saturday slaughter tonight". But then I was really able to breeze through the whole puzzle, with only small moments of panic. Possibly a "personal best" Saturday time (I don't really check these things or use the timer). A deceptively solvable affair! Nice work. Just barely enough toeholds to climb it with the right attitude and a few good guesses.
@B Was one of those moments of panic, by any chance, at the disco?
Perfect Saturday. Seemed intimidating at first but once things started falling into place it ended up being a relatively quick solve.
For me, 14D and 24A formed a really nasty NATICK. I'd never heard of EMEKA Okafor, but I had heard of PToS, Parent-Teach Organizations. But while PTAS was the primary organization when I was a kid, I've lived in places with PToS. Consequently, there was no way for me to know that it wasn't EMEKo and PToS, rather than EMEKA and PTAS. Sometime you eat the crossword, sometimes the crossword eats you.
@Francis Hey, you had a guess/choice: this one or the other one. I just had the same situation on Wordle. My 'super-power' is ALWAYS picking the wrong one. It's a never-fail! I always think PTAS because that's what we had in the Californiia and then Ohio school district. One of these days it will get me! My yardstick is: did this cause me to miss the cure for cancer? If I had gotten it right, would there be peace in The Middle East? So...maybe not all that tragic. Scarlett O'Hara was right.
@Francis Out of 590 appearances in both singular and plural, practically all the clues for PTA(S) have been about the school group, including quite a few about the one in Harper Valley. (Google it if you’re too young,) On the other hand, there have only been 19 appearances of PTO(S). Just one, almost 30 years ago, referred to a school group. The rest related to “Please turn over” (i,e, “continued on next page”.) Natick no more from here on out!
Today I eventually realized that LINGERIE and VICTORIA share three letters in common. Meant the the NW corner was struggle for me to unhook. Fun one!
@Justin Unhook....LOL Great choice of words... They should hiire you.
Personally, I don’t like shopping at VICTORIASSECRET. The staff is always whispering amongst themselves. After leaving, I get this unsettling, lingerie feeling they know something I don’t. cc: emu handler
@Steven My brother-in-law worked for Limited Brands for many years - my sister still misses using his employee discount at VS and Bath & Body Works.
@Steven One of the funniest skits I ever saw was Maya Rudolph playing an elderly lady with a gift certificate to Victoria's Secret. A lady of definite opinions. Wonder if they objected, because I've never been able to find the clip online.
@Steven I always get a funny look when I ask if they have this in a child's size. KIDDING!!!
Loved the grid. I am with Caitlin on the placement of THERE ARE NO WORDS, which is clever. That saying is always a contradiction in itself.
I managed to do the Friday/Saturday puzzles in less than 20 combined minutes. I thought both were too easy to the point of dissatisfaction, then I see comments about today's difficulty, and it shows how certain puzzles can more easily click with different solvers.
I was ready to declare this my favorite puzzle yet until I got to CALLONTHECARPET, which is completely new to me. Even with one letter remaining, I had nothing. Have never heard that expression! Otherwise, for me, such a satisfying Saturday challenge.
don’t want to jinx it but i’m on a roll. the past few days, i’ve had very little filled in after the first pass but then it somehow all comes together. super fun!! happy Saturday, all 😄
@richelle I don't know about you, but whenever I actually state out loud that I'm doing well, I'm in for a s***storm for the next couple of weeks. Good luck!
I know there will be people who say this one was way too easy, but it's nice to be able to finish a Saturday puzzle once in awhile. Lots of times I don't even start it. Glad I did today!
Well, I finished half of this one without needing some clue help. :/
Nice to have a gimmick-less puzzle. I always enjoy them.
Well this did not work at all. Loads of US trivia as entry points. Look-up-ageddon for this Brit. Some, frankly, arcane phraseology. Deeply impressed that the use of the word “sheer” in a clue made VS barn-door obvious. By the 10th look up realised was no longer really in the game. THERE ARE NO WORDS means precisely the opposite of speechless. As it’s the classic start to a speech with lots of words. SCOFF is generally mock or deride and involves speaking and not generally laughing before I get grammatically corrected. One for the folk for whom these clues are obvious indicators but not one for me. Sunday is another day.
@William James I've always thought that about SCOFF, too. And yet, when I have Closed Captioning on, it often says someone "scoffs" when it just sounds like a laugh to me. I suspect the word is evolving, like most words.
I found it *mostly* pretty easy (for a Saturday), but got hung up bad in the NW, not being familiar with the phrase “call to the carpet” or with vicuña, imarets, or Brendon Urie (or is it Urie Brendon?) and finally not being certain if it might be an E rather than an I as the fourth letter of Celibacy, gave a LOT of squares to tinker with before I finally hit on the right combination. Definitely tough when the unknown entries are foreign language words and an uncommon name, leaving many possibile plausible letter combinations. I mean, I didn’t know EMEKA or ESAI either (and pretty impossible to guess) but at least 17 across ending in C_RP_T almost certainly had to be CARPET. .:.:.:.:.
@Jeb Jones It’s Brendon Urie. But at least Urie Brendon is plausible. (I’m looking at you, Bash Dana.) !!!!!
@Jeb Jones ESAI Morales shows up here a lot, because he has three vowels and an S. Usually clued with La Bamba or NYPD Blue. I didn't know he was in MI; I think I saw the first one and thought it was ridiculous.
Lots of AHA! In today's solve. I tried IT GEEKS before correcting my course; likewise SCORNS before SCOFFS... and those were the sole misCALLs. 16A....the dead give-away that you're listening to a teacher (or parent) who doesn't know any better....or, not yet, anyway. (Also, "I'm counting to three," and the like.) Slightly weird clue for CELIBACY (a choice people --including nuns--make, yes; but a 'habit'? (Yeah, yeah, a failed pun. Is there such a thing as CTRL D?) New term: HYPE MAN. I've only been to classical music or 'pops' concerts... crowd energizers are not really necessary, for some reason. In fact, folks going to rock concerts (or hip-hop, or what-all) already seem to be pretty excited, so....why....? Never mind. Still really tired out from the past two weeks. Hope our SE Texas solvers are safe! Whew.
@Mean Old Lady Now you've given me a new profession to pitch--I can imagine going out to front of the concert hall stage, after the concert-master leads the tuning, but before the conductor enters, and leading the audience in a chant of "Mah-Ler Six! Mah-Ler Six!"
Challenging but doable, with the exception of two Naticks: IMARETS/URIE and EMEKA/PTAS (which could also have been PTOS). If you know basketball, obscure Turkish words, and last names of relatively unknown musicians, I guess it would all come together, but I wasn't able to complete this one without help.
I liked it, it was great! My one quibble would be the natick for URIE and IMARET, both are non-English loan words and not the best cross.
@ArchStanton I am wrong, URIE is apparently an English name, apologies for the error.
I started off doing ordinary crosswords in the local paper, ( nothing like the NYT’s), where you ended up seeing obscure European rivers and weird unknown words like IMARET, which you committed to mind. I get a kick out of a constructor or editor paying homage to old-timey puzzles when I see good old IMARET.
I knew instantly that the 1A clue referred to lingerie, but VICTORIA’S SECRET didn’t spring to mind. Neither of the other spanners at the top was obvious, so I think 21A NEB was my first entry. The bottom section went very quickly. Perhaps my biggest mistake was assuming that Andre Agassi (55A) was an Italian-AMERICAN. And when all I had of 1D was the final NA, I briefly considered the possibility of a fur-bearing iguaNA. Thanks for the fun, Mr. Johnson!
Cross-guessing Brendon at the Turkish inn was the triumphant final act for me today. There are always words, I just may not have ‘em.
Looked scary at first, but came in at less than half my average. One of those days where it just clicked into place!