Tough but lovable puzzle, kind of like our two children. MANSPLAINS made me smile as it does every time it appears here, as we do have a number of mansplainers on the roster here. What did the mansplainer holding up an awl say? "This is not a drill." What did the mansplainer say to the do-gooder with a dope sheet? "Do bettor." What did the mansplainer reply when informed that "Cosa Nostra" literally means 'our thing?'" "No, it 'literally' means 'thing our.'" What did the mansplainer reply when asked to briefly define LACHRYMOSE? He gave them a whole SOB STORY. The mansplainer recounted scene by scene an episode of Star Trek in which the Klingons, Romulans and the Ferenghi all rush to the Crab Nebula for a showdown. "It was an ALIEN RACE," he concluded. When one mansplainer didn't know something he asked another mansplainer, but midway through the (longwinded) explanation, he interrupted and said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it!." When the mansplainer got sick at the Scottish restaurant after eating haggis, he engaged in a law suet against the chef. What did the mansplaining pirate do when he found ships laden with treasures? He made BOOTY CALLS on them. What did the mansplainer say when engineers failed to stop the geyser from spouting? That "Old Faithful has blown its cover." (I have another one about a mansplainer watching adult programming, but I think I'll put it on layaway.)
@john ezra Well, actually, it's "this thing of ours". ;)
@john ezra John, you've invented a whole genre. Step aside elephant jokes, knock-knock jokes, and "'Kefir'? I hardly know her" quips, now we have— the Mansplain Mot. ~ ~ *Mansplain Man swoops in with a notepad, an 'ahem', a Bartleby's and a smug expression* "Well ACKshully it's "Bon Mot", not just 'Mot", it's from the French phrase meaning 'goo—" *Becca snaps fingers and Mansplain Man disappears in a puff of vapor* ---- MANSPLAIN MOTS What did the mansplainer say in reply to the Star Wars fan who posted on numerous fan-sites that "Han Shot First?" "No, he would never stoop SOLO." --- What did the Mansplainer say to the Trekker who insisted in his fan blog "Sun Times" that the best Star Trek eps were ones where a star was about to go nova & maybe kill everyone? "No, the TRIBbles eps were the best. On TOS as well as the DS9 one. Hands down." *Mansplainer #2 swoops in* "TRIBbles don't have hands" --- What did the Mansplainer call out to the lecturer at the Textiles Industry conference who said "VELCRO Is a very useful fastener invented by a Frenchman in the 1950s, inspired by the Burdock plant's bur—" "Ackshully VELCRO was patented by an ancestor of T'Pol, member of an ALIENRACE, in Carbon Creek PA in 1957 in a very nice 'flashback' ep of Star Trek: Enterprise, many fans finding the actress/character to be quite a DOLL." __ OK my examples are rather long-winded (and geeky); perhaps you'll excuse this as I'm new to the genre (it having been invented just today)
This was at first terrifying, but as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place, it turned out to be terrific. What a magic carpet ride! –from an uh-oh near-empty grid to proud ahas, figuring out the magnificent clueing. It was hard, but it got done, and the sense of satisfaction is worth its weight in gold. Thank you, Mr. Bratton! My brain is fried, but my heart and mind are fulfilled. :-)
I have heard it said that future interpreters and translators of 21st century English will have an extemely difficult time distinguishing between a BOOTYCALL and a BUTTDIAL.
@Francis DeBernardo Should be fairly easy, as long as they keep the translation at a 7th grade level.
@Deb Amien Thanks for the attempt to curtail all the tedious posts about difficulty. Too bad it won't work. Makes me wonder if we've always been such a combination of whiners and egoists, or if comment boards brings that out in us.
@Francis I think it's the comment boards. Probably in the olden days people just complained to their spouse or whomever they were next to and we didn't all have to hear about it.
Francis, Sorry, but I think Deb's "attempt to curtail all tedious posts about difficulty" triggered a greater than usual number of comments on that subject for this puzzle. MB, It's the comment boards only in the past few years when The Times has been more aggressively promoting games. The comments when Wordplay was a blog, not a column, have a very different tone.
@Francis I don't find anything wrong with giving opinions about whether a puzzle is easy or hard for that day, but I do think that a lot of times, people just have gaps in their knowledge that lead them to find the puzzle hard, or are lucky that a puzzle contains several items that they happened to know, which means they found the puzzle too easy. There are test solvers who are employed to determine the correct placement for each puzzle. I think they do a pretty good job. When someone complains, as quite a few did yesterday, it usually means they lack the knowledge base necessary to complete the puzzle, which is fine, but not the puzzle's fault. The NYT's push to get new subscribers recently has brought in a lot of new solvers who may not be up for the challenge yet--and some may never be. But no one lacks the ability to complain.
I really enjoyed this one. It felt challenging without being brain-busting. Though to be fair, I do enjoy a good brain-bust. For me, my favorite part was reaching deep into my brain to remember that female mice are called DOES. I'm pretty sure I learned that from a crossword in the first place!
All I own is a hammer! This is not a drill! (I might have to retool that one.)
Fridays and Saturdays are often approached with ABJECT terror, but this was fun. When I made the connection between Sign of sluggishness and SLIME TRAIL, it was a lol moment. Thank you, Billy.
Yum. Downhill fast. Sluggishness. Rings to a lover. Rare shots. This is just plain fun clueing. I don’t care that it was over too quickly. It was quirky and delightful. And where was the all the gimme-fill? Guessing many will be vibing - nay, crucivibing - with Billy today. Felt like each corner was opening a new present! Happy Friday, all!
SO FUNNY! I don't understand why this puzzle seemed to solve itself, but it was one of those "can't write fast enough!" sorts of puzzles. At one point (late in the puzzle) I laughed out loud and DHubby wanted to know what was so funny...."Sign of sluggishness" and the answer (-LIME--AI-) cracked him up, too, even though he was shaking his head and rolling his eyes.. MALTA has a Popeye theme park? No SHH.....? OSCAR NOD before BID ONLINE before ON LATE And yet another reason never to try haggis.... But every reason to hope for more from Billy Bratton!! Bravo!!!
@Mean Old Lady You are such an amazing human! Fun to hear how you could not "write fast enough!" Later!
@Mean Old Lady The puzzles always go faster when we are laughing our way through them....
@Mean Old Lady Loved your comment! I coming around to the idea that you're not all that mean. I'd never try haggis either. And yet I love hot dogs and sausage. I bet they're not all that different.
Here late to balance out the "too easy for a Friday" comments. This one was hard for me. Harder than Thursday's. I'm not complaining. I did whine to the dogs a bit. They had nothing to offer when I wailed "slime trail, what the..." except a head tilt and a request for a treat. I left and came back, then was able to get in the groove. You are so right Deb, they are fun even when hard. Thanks NYT games.
Beautiful puzzle. Not difficult, just full of subtle clues that made you think and worked together in clever ways. Fun to work, satisfying to solve. Thank you, Billy Bratton. My vote for an OSCAR BID.
Fantastic puzzle. Lots of wit and aha moments, starting with the very first clue.
A fun Friday. The ER at the end of 37 Across [It erupts from time to time] led me to fill in tEmpER with certainty, causing a jam up in the southwest. But once BOOTY CALLS demanded a Y the correct answer of GEYSER became apparent and the quadrant fell into place. Last to be corrected was OPT instead of OuT.
(2nd post) Boy, there are a lot of things in the English language that "blue" can mean! Besides just reflecting light with a wavelength between 445-500nm, that is. It can mean "sad," and has done so since the 15th c.: it was usually one's heart or tears that were that color, although one's misfortune might go so far as to affect the color of the sun itself. It can be aristocratic ("blue-blooded"). It can be puritanical ("blue-stockings," "blue laws."), or conversely, prurient ("blue movies.") It can have political leanings, either conservative, over where they wear nappies; or progressive, here in Our Great Be-diapered Country. But beware--if you go too blue, you might be labeled a Red. Go figure. And of course, here in Michigan, it means that your Saturdays are spent in Ann Arbor, and not East Lansing. My first stab was for the "prurient" meaning, as I tried to make EROTICA fit; but that only goes to show where my mind is . . .
@Bill Same here, I had initially filled in SEX STORY for 13D...
@Bill Actually, (she "SHESPLAINED") a 'bluestocking' was just a scholarly or bookish younng woman--and it was meant in a somewhat derogatory sense. As my mother told me --more than once--boys don't like girls who are smarter than they are and who beat them at games. I also wore glasses.
@Bill I was leaning towards your last meaning, but it's not limited to smut. I used to have to drive across the border to Maryland to buy booze on Sunday, because Delaware still had a "blue law" on the books. So it's any kind of moral pulchritude. Go Bucks, Beat Blue!
I almost gave up on this one— but persisted, and ended up solving in considerably below my average time. That is always extremely satisfying! Not sure why it seemed so daunting at first stab… after my initial run through, the grid was mostly empty, and I was not all too confident about what I did have entered. This is why I encourage folks who are inclined to look up answers to hold off for a bit; once the crosses start falling, those “impossible” entries begin to fill themselves in!
I’ve never played Clue and totally guessed at DOOR for 31A (even though Google did not reveal anything online to confirm the number of those on the board). Glad it worked out, lol. Also, today makes 201 consecutive days of solving the crossword as a (relative) beginner (and non-American). Yay me! 😃 Happy to finally be solving Fridays in the default mode**, and very satisfying to see the consistency paying off. ** Still need to wikipedia a few clues here & there, but I’m maybe at 10-20% of Fridays now? Names in particular are just simply impossible for me to infer, even with crosses sometimes 🤷♀️
Nice puzzle, but too easy for a Friday. The clues for answers SOBSTORY and BOOTYCALLS were great.
@Ash yeah, I laughed aloud at those.
@Ash I thought it was a very hard Friday! Goes to show that we all know different things. Emu food.
Dear Penthouse Forum, You're not going to believe my story, but it is 110% true. I was struggling with a New York Times crossword, and decided I needed to clear my head. So I made a call. Suddenly, 24D dawned on me. The rest is sheer delight.
I cracked up early on at BOOTYCALLS and again when I finished the puzzle and the music played. I breezed through a lot but also got stuck in places scattered around the board. Finally I just plugged in a bunch of educated guesses thinking “this can’t be right and I’m going to have a hard time spotting where I went wrong” when the music played. Also count me as +1 for thinking SexSTORY, especially in the single person clue area. It was short lived however since it was clear that answer was SOLO.
I'm totally here for the fun and sizzle of the puzzle today. It was the kind of puzzle that gave me that "Wow, words are pretty great" feeling.
Smooth solve. 5D reminded me of one of my favorite Trevor Noah routines. Trevor Noah Orders His First Taco: <a href="https://youtu.be/Vcv5_3fQRNc?si=GcmrWP_W8hWZiRz_" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Vcv5_3fQRNc?si=GcmrWP_W8hWZiRz_</a>
When I made my first pass through and had next to nothing, I was struck with ABJECT terror at the possibility of ABJECT failure... But HOLD IT A SEC, this is no SOB STORY... it might not have been a HOLE(S) IN ONE but somehow, it all worked itself out. Once I tentatively put in OVEN at 23D, I almost immediately got VELCRO and it stuck... and most of the rest was smooth PARSing. Two bone-headed oopsies were HOLE IN ONEs at 54A first, so that messed me up a bit but as I was deleting the second half of it since I knew something was wrong there, I immediately the error of my ways. Also had GEiSER first at 37A. Whoops! But BOOTY CALL set me straight once I realized hickeys wouldn't fit.... Guess that's a blue yarn for another day. My other slowdown was fell before SANK. One of the few I got right away was DOLL. I spent almost a month in Siberia in 2000 and brought home Matryoshka dolls as gifts and kept a set for myself. I have them in a place of honor in our living room, so that one came to me quickly with a smile! Fun and satisfying solve that was nicely below average yet not without some struggle. Good to remember that one's first pass through should not be considered the end of the world. ✌️ Live long and prosper! ✌️
@HeathieJ Ugh - I wrote my message above from my phone and now on my big monitor, I can see I grabbed the wrong emojis. Here you go: 🖖Live long and prosper! 🖖 Sheesh! Why do they keep making everything smaller! 🧐😉
Deb asks: Were you on Billy Bratton’s wavelength? Apparently, Deb. For me, this was more HOLES IN ONE than a SLIME TRAIL. I'll keep this short to avoid 16A. Our thing indeed.
Nice puzzle, but couldn't quite work my way through it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see that almost everyone else found it unusually easy. 15 letter answer find today was inspired by 8d: THISISONLYATEST That was an answer in only one puzzle. And... I made a late post yesterday about a constructor I found. I won't repeat the whole thing, but just give a link to her constructor page on Xword Info. Judith C. Dalton - she had 8 Sunday puzzles published between 1981 and 1993, a number of them involving dropping letters. Just some amazing stuff. Here's the link. It's worth a look: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Thumbs?author=Judith+C.+Dalton" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Thumbs?author=Judith+C.+Dalton</a> ..
It never ceases to amaze how shelving the puzzle for a while results in a fluid solve. Prior to the break, it (my effort) was more fits than starts. Still, I needed few checks and balances to get in the end zone. Thanks all. I think you will easily connect this vintage (‘89?) Grateful Dead clip to the puzzle. ‘Tis a vivid one with a twirling, calypso tempo. <a href="https://youtu.be/li4VQ8kwl-4?si=WLHgZYu8bdUZhU1Y" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/li4VQ8kwl-4?si=WLHgZYu8bdUZhU1Y</a> Happy Summer, Bru
@brutus Isn't' the "shelving" effect amazing? Especially knowing that we're not consciously trying to solve anything while we're away. It's almost as if the brain "muscles" need to relax a bit. Almost feels like cheating.
Terrific puzzle. Smart and clever with no gimmicks.
Great Friday! One of those in which I can see how my puzzling has grown; was able to cipher out some of the longer ones and redirect some of the ones I initially got incorrect. I'm really coming to enjoy Fridays!
I'm of the 'pretty easy for a Friday' school of thought. As a Brit 5D 'NAPPIES' came easily, but it is worth noting that 'nappy' is always disallowed in the Spelling Bee: I can only assume because in some contexts there is a racist meaning. Some excellent clues. I liked 22A and I had no idea that Malta has a Popeye theme park (why??).
@Andrew The Popeye Park in Malta did some a bit terrifying.
@Andrew Robin Williams played Popeye many years ago with Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl. I am assuming that's the set, without bothering to search. ;)
Despite the first two letters of HOLESINONE and HOLDITASEC making HO HO, this puzzle was no joke. There were tons of clever but gettable clues, with my favorite being blue yarn for SOBSTORY.
One of those that seemed impossible to start with that just kept falling into place. Not a record but well below my average time, but I’m not complaining.
Between today and yesterday, two top notch puzzles! Hopefully the trend continues for Sat/Sun. This was the right Friday difficulty for me—I filled fewer than 10 on my first go, and then things came together slowly but surely for a 25 minute fill.
Proud of myself for remembering CLADDAGHS, and spelling it correctly. Sadly, one letter too short for 24D. Wrong lovers' ring. Still, got a laugh out of that one. Sailed through the top half (wavelength, indeed) but got bogged down in the SW, despite having been to see Old Faithful. At least it wasn't Mt Etna again. Nice cross of Hollywood and Bollywood.
Loved today’s puzzle. All the pieces came together nicely. Very satisfying!😀
A lot of too easy comments, while yesterday's people complained it was too hard. I found it reversed. Mileage definitely varies. I was pretty proud of guessing BOOTYCALLS on first blush. Was down to ONLA_E/_I_/_R_R/DO_S after about 16 minutes. Took me a few more minutes to resolve that. Streak up to 12 days
@Steven M. I've always been proud of my BOOTYCALLS. Not that I've had that many, but each one was memorable. Oh, wait, you're saying you're proud of *guessing* BOOTYCALLS.. Never mind.
I found this to be a mix. Some entries came easily, others took a while to develop. And I think that's typical for any day's puzzle. We each have subjects we know well, and there are times we find a puzzle that we can solve easily. Today's puzzle was quite varied, and had a few clues that I initially misinterpreted. Which then affected crossing words, and I had to go back and take a few more looks to correct the errors and that ended up putting me back on course to finish. It was a good struggle, not helped by the fact that it was late and I'd spent a few hours walking around a Disney park before diving into the puzzle. Nice one, Billy, and thanks.
I find it so satisfying to begin a puzzle with a nice long fill, like COSANOSTRA today. That set me up for a quick NW corner, and I breezed through the rest nicely, but not so fast that I didn’t enjoy the clever clues. It seems I was on the same wavelength as the constructor today, and that’s always fun.
“This is not a breakfast test.” Thus, a kinder, gentler haggis ingredient avoids a more serious situation developing. A very full-bodied puzzle, loved it! (and suet goes…)
@JohnWM John, John, John.... we *already* have a Punster-in-Residence... .....but I reckon there's always another opunning.
COSA NOSTRA = "Our thing". Somehow, I've always known that about the Mafia, even though I don't know anything else. Though I was an editor at the Literary Guild during the heyday of Mafia-themed books by the likes of Puzo, Talese and Pileggi, I somehow managed to miss them all. Missed all the Mafia flicks, too. No, I have never even seen Godfather 1. Because their "thing" is not my thing. I don't find them colorful; I don't find them remotely interesting. I don't care about their weddings and I don't care about their funerals. I don't care if they're good fathers or lousy fathers. "If you'll just leave me alone," I say to the Mafia, "then I'll leave you alone. Go swim with the fishes, for all I care." So 1A went in promptly. Making the puzzle seem quite easy for a Friday. I'm going to add SLIME TRAIL to the Mafia in my list of things I don't ever want to think about. I'm not sure what a SLIME TRAIL is, exactly, but I know it doesn't pass my "Breakfast Test". It may be as un-breakfast-y an answer as I have ever seen in the NYTXW. But the puzzle today certainly didn't lack for colorful fill. MANSPLAINS; SOB STORY (very nicely clued); BOOTY CALLS; ALIEN RACE; THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Why, a good storyteller could weave this into quite an effective potboiler of a novel -- and if he didn't throw COSA NOSTRA into the mix, I'd read it. A fun puzzle.
@Nancy Totally with you on mafia nonsense; every darn one of them, intentioned or not, just burnishes a stupid cult of schmucks worshipping the pretend behavior of these low life street thugs. Who cares? Why give them such huge gusts of oxygen? Why do such otherwise talented movie makers and writers persist in this low end drama pool? They even have a neutered one as the star of General Hospital (the soap opera). It's ludicrous and depressing.
Best clued puzzle in a long while.
Top notch cluing for SOBSTORY and BOOTYCALLS! I disagree with all the suggestions that this should have been a Wednesday puzzle. It slowed me down by two minutes over my average Friday time. Well done, constructor.
Great puzzle for a Friday struggler. For whatever reason i was tuned in. So chuffed when I knew the first clue.
Started slow, but ended fast. Easy, breezy Friday.
Here's a connection IYKYK: VELCRO was invented by Vulcans! Now, some people are going to tell you that it was invented in Switzerland in 1941, by hiking enthusiast George de Mestral, but don't believe them. Velcro is alien technology, which was introduced to Earth in 1957, when a Vulcan anthropological research vessel crash-landed in Pennsylvania Coal-country. Flouting the Prime Directive--or whatever protocol serves the Vulcans in these pre-Federation days--Second-in-command of the vessel, T'Mir sold the technology to an entrepreneur in Pittsburgh to raise cash to fund her Landlady's son's college education. <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Carbon_Creek_(episode" target="_blank">https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Carbon_Creek_(episode</a>) An excellent episode in an otherwise dismal series.
@Bill Your link didn’t quite work, so here’s another. <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Carbon_Creek_(episode)?so=search" target="_blank">https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Carbon_Creek_(episode)?so=search</a> I wouldn’t call “Enterprise” “dismal” — it had some characters that were kind of fun — but it is the weakest series in the canon.
@Bill Just a side comment.... I remember when VELCRO was very new and VERY expensive, but it was revolutionizing things for children with CP or other handicapping conditions that made ADLs diffiicult. By the time I had my own children, it was everywhere. When we needed lace-up shoes to go with our daughter's bracing, it was difficult to find (circa 1985 or so)....
@Bill Whoa, I just now read your comment right after posting mine which includes an allusion to that same episode! One of my favorite episodes of Enterprise. Nice casting, acting, writing, with a twist of wit and a lot of heart. Like Eric, I too feel that "Enterprise" was not actually a dismal series, I think it had some good casting, good acting, good writing, lots of good stuff... and re Eric's "weakest" comment, in many ways I find that (IMO) Voyager is the weakest of the classic series, with some sloppy and sometimes annoying showrunner decisions and writing and Treknobabble and overuse of various schticks etc etc. But Voyager too has some shining episodes as well. I really like ENTERPRISE's earlier seasons with the standalone episodes, I think there's some very nice stuff in there. Deep Space Nine has grown on me so much over the past few years, with the showrunners in that case respecting the audience's intelligence (unlike so many instances of Voyager) and coming up with many excellently-written DS9 episodes and having a wonderful sense of humor and some droll, understated in-jokes (like Morn, the "talks-your-ear-off" ubiquitous barhound alien who never speaks a line) Anyway, "Carbon Creek" is one of my favorite eps! *brightly* "I Love Lucy is on tonight!"
Lots of fun, this puzzle. Started off slow but things started to come together with very fun clues.
One of my first fills was "ratedR" for 6D. That kept the whole top of the grid empty for me for quite some time.
Based on my solve times, I think this puzzle should have been swapped with Wednesday
@Bill in Yokohama You got a good chuckle in me — I remembered learning English as a second language and being corrected that “Wed-nes-day” is too formal!
@Bill in Yokohama Based on my solve time this should have been an extra-hard Saturday! Your mileage may vary.....
One of my favorite puzzles so far. Started out deceptively hard (I only got two clues on my first pass) but I ended up finishing in about half my usual time with no look ups. Made up for the unsatisfying struggle that was yesterday's puzzle.
Thanks to Billy Bratton for an enjoyable puzzle! I spent the longest time flyspecking, finally found that entering BARk for 32D ("Biting comment") left me with the crossing OSCARkID, which seemed odd but plausible. (You might hear a bark before receiving a bite, and maybe someone nominated for an Academy Award could be considered an "Oscar kid" ... 🧐 ) Of course the correct answers for both clues make a lot more sense!