Man, this grid has serious pop. Ten NYT debut answers. Now, debut answers aren’t automatically good things. They can be boring or arcane. But not these ten. I mean, look at them – ARE WE OKAY, COW TIPPER, DEPRAVITY, DON DRAPER, EASY FIXES, FLU SEASON, FRANZEN, OFFLOAD, PAYWALL, RETWEETED! Every single one of them, except maybe COW TIPPER, is so in the language, IMO, and all of them, to me, have an interesting ring, verve. All of them make me wonder, “How can this answer not have appeared in a Times puzzle before?” Freshness abounding, then, in this puzzle, especially in that center stairstep stack, containing four debuts and one answer that has appeared but once before in the Times. Wow! Freshness like this, to me, is not a constructor showing off. It’s a constructor exhibiting skill, as good debut answers are not easy to come by. It’s a constructor focused on entertaining the solver through answers and clues never seen before in the NYT puzzle. The solving enjoyment, for me, was padded by sweet wordplay misdirects, such as [Meeting places] for FORA and [Run slowly] for SEEP. Spark, shine, and play, on top of satisfying my brain’s workout ethic. What a lovely puzzle, Evans. Thank you so much for this, and bravo!
I hate to DWELL ON the DEPRAVITY of those who found the puzzle full of gimmes and never ATE CROW like the rest of us DODOS when they failed to spot EASY FIXES. GRANTED, they may not have appealed to a spouse to get the WEIMAR ERA, but STANDARDS change when we figured out DON DRAPER, after never once seeing Mad Men, and we spotted an unfaded WATERMARK in an instant. I still feel PEEVED. But let us not see this as a BARRIER to our friendship and DEEPSIX all our good feeling. I would not want us to PART ON a sad note that ended in TIERS. (ARE WE OKAY?) Nevertheless, I SAY eNERF is eNERF. Thank you, Evans Clinchy, I thought this was fine for a Saturday.
@dutchiris Thanks! I needed "granted" to finish the puzzle. I usually get the hard ones, In any case, I appreciated your post. Cheers!
OMG that was a slog and a half. Sports coaches? modes of transportation? that took some working out. Got a couple of the long spans, which helped, but there was an awful lot of alphabet guessing. I bumped into my neighbouring cattle farmer on my dog walk/break to cool my brain down and asked him if he had heard of COW TIPPING. He laughed and said it was impossible to tip a, and I quote, ‘ruddy gurt heifer if she didn’t want to be’. I could still hear him laughing two fields away.
@Helen Wright Agreed. It pains me when so many people say it's easy. Could be because I'm old, but I'd never heard of most of the proper names. Then, I haven't had cable TV for 25 years and hate sports. Like I should know who Mohammed Ali's trainer was??? Or the author (I never heard of) of a book I never heard of??? Oh, well. I keep slogging away at these to keep the emus happy.
Not a big fan of cow tipping. Certainly not if I have to do the milking, but if she milks herself that definitely merits a 20-25% tip. A one-two punch in a fight is okay I guess, but if you wanna catch your opponent off guard, try a one-three.
Hanging out with Joey and Chris back when we were all 17 was a riot. They were country boys from Greene County, PA, filled with mischief and mayhem. A day spent in their company might involve digging for arrowheads, swimming in a rain-filled abandoned quarry, crash-sailing down a steep hillock in Chris's homemade hang-glider, smoking jimson weed (headache, intestinal issues) in the ruins of an early 19th century stone blast furnace on Roberts Run a little north of Spraggs, trying to get attacked by a gang of peahens and peacocks this old couple in Carmichaels raised. But one time they came back from a weekend at home and bragged about going cow tipping all night. It was the first I heard the term. They said most livestock sleeps standing up in the fields and you could sneak up and give 'em a push, they'd teeter and totter and then crash, still asleep, to the ground. They said it was like causing the demolition of a large building, the thunderous noice of it, the brutes startled awake, bruised and enraged, snorting and lowing, struggling to get up; and the danger to the cow-tipper was heady and addictive: they were enormous, blind with rage, they could give chase, as could the farmers. To me it was utter moral depravity, demonstrating a lack of basic empathy. Our friendship cooled, ended. Now I read on wiki that cow-tipping is impossible, it's the rural equivalent of an urban legend. Takes at least 14 cow-tippers! And they don't always sleep standing. And so it goes.
I've never met a Utahn who spelled it "Utahan." And I've known a lot. That's definitely not the typical spelling.
@ALH Yeah I actually just looked this up and there was a poll done a couple of years ago with over 90% of Utahns preferring Utahn over Utahan. This was a lazy fill in my opinion. Other than that, fun puzzle. Thanks Evan.
Of DON DRAPER, Caitlin wrote, “It’s interesting how certain fictional figures remain instantly recognizable.” That’s true even if you’ve never seen a minute of “Mad Men.” I knew the answer from the O of DOLLY PARTON and the A of ATTA, both of which were gimmes. That made up for my temporary inability to summon Pat RILEY’s surname. I knew who the clue referred to and could picture him from some commercial (Rolaids, maybe), but it took a minute to remember his name. It doesn’t make up for my failure to get AMOR without any crosses. The only Gabriel García Márquez title I know is “Love in the Time of Cholera,” and I wish I had spent half a second thinking about what “Tiempos del Cólera” means instead of skipping over it. Smushed together, WEIMAR ERA is hard to parse, but it amused me to see it on top of DEPRAVITY (a great word that I don’t recall ever seeing in a crossword before). And now I know that Algeria and MOROCCO have the same number of letters. Nice if not particularly challenging Saturday. Thanks, Mr. Clinchy!
@Eric Hougland I thought Algeria at first also. I was remembering (yes I'm that old} being in a current history class in the 9th grade in Houston, Texas and being assigned to bring in the Houston Chronicle newspaper account of the Algerian Independence. It was huge at the time. I didn't have a clue what it all meant, but knew it was somehow very important to a lot of important people. Funny what sticks in our memory isn't it? Cheers from Texas!
@Eric Hougland "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is my favorite by Marquez, but the only two of his I could name are that and "Love in the Time of Cholera"
@Eric Hougland I looked it up and got Tunisia -- which didn't fit with anything. Especially with eight for the hot-dog pack. ARRGGG! OCTET!!
Nice puzzle. I was stuck on the SW corner. So I took a break to read comments and maybe pick up a clue or two. Thanks to dutchiris's comment I realized I had all but 2 letters on 38D. {Granted } didn't make sense to me at first. Anyway, that fixed the other 2 words I had partially filled in correctly and that lovely chime rang and all was well with the world. The clues were well written and clever. I had fun. Thank you NYT. Cheers to Y'all, we will be buying batteries, Vienna sausage, and saltines for the hurricane remnants coming our way next week. We need the rain, not flooding and a power outage hopefully! Wish us luck!
@Bonnie Ann We do wish you luck!! I weathered a couple of hurricanes in Galveston when I was a kid and it can be nerve-racking! Best wishes that you will stay high and dry, and don't forget to stock up on Cliff bars. Sometimes the Vienna sausages don't quite do the job.
@Bonnie Ann Good luck to you. Here in the UK we get an awful lot of rain, but our temperate climate means we don’t get extreme weather conditions. Although, the last decade has seen more violent, prolonged wet and/or drought periods. I feel for others who have to contend with hurricanes, tornados, monsoons, heat domes and the like. It makes me appreciate our dull but safe weather system.
A wonderful themeless -- with most of the difficulty derived from vague or misleading cluing rather than from arcane trivia. And where there were proper names, they were mostly from my era and/or within my sphere of interest and knowledge: ELLA; PARTON; DON DRAPER. (Delightful clue for DON DRAPER! If you never watched "Mad Men", watch it now, for heaven's sake!) But some of the names from my era had vanished from my brain in a sea of Senioritis. I had the EN, knew he was a Jonathan, and thought his last name was maybe...FReiZEN? And I know you, [blank] Dundee!!! What's your first name again? It didn't help that I'd written in an "S" for the first letter, since I couldn't come up with FORA, but was sure the "meeting places" would end in "S". Until I got FORA, I couldn't come up with ANGELO. Interesting that the one thing my aging, fuzzy brain didn't forget today was something I only know from a previous crossword puzzle. COW TIPPING. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but it's such a funny image and such a NOVELTY that my always-forgetful brain refused to forget it. FLU SEASON was clued in a way that could have been a technology Beta launch. EASY FIXES was clued in a way that it would have been some sort of bASe mIX. The cluing was devious and a lot of thought obviously went into it. Thought this was a terrific Saturday.
When people claim a puzzle is easy, I'm reminded of a story I heard in grad school. A famous physicist was giving a lecture. At one point he said "It is obvious that..." and wrote an equation on the board. Then he stopped and thought for a moment. Then he sat down in a chair and stared at the board for about ten minutes. Then he walked out of the class and went to his office where he proceeded to scribble furiously at his desk. About 40 minutes later, he walked back into the class and said "Yes, it's obvious."
@Francis Ha! I like this story.
Kinda like the symmetry of ANGELO Dundee in the SW and the ol' ONE TWO in the NE. Intentional? I SAY yes... especially from a constructor named Clinchy, right? Nearly floored by this puzzle, but ended up going the distance.
“Cable inits. for cinephiles” ought to be TCM, no?
So many false starts today. 25A: COW herder 55A: dozen 56A: beta tests 60A: DOpe 61A: fASt FIXES 52D: Imho Just right for a Saturday
@MikeW I’ll go you one better with 1A: INTEGRITY … and here I thought I was of to a great start! Loved the puzzle, even if I didn’t know a lot of the people and only a few places this time.
I really really wanted the answer for “one interested in bull-dozing” to be FERDINAND. . . . . .emus, like bulls, prefer to smell the flowers
@Heidi oh I’m so glad to hear you say that. I actually tried hard to squeeze in Ferdinand too. Which is kind of an anti-Ferd ‘tude now that I think of it.
Telling you about my birdhouse would be my tweet. (After all, talk is cheep.)
@Mike I'm all atwitter over your puns, dahling!
Journalistic standards? Not in the New York Times! hi
I swear to God there's a kink in the time/space continuum somewhere: how else can it be that I floundered and sweated over this puzzle, especially the NW and the center, and still took 7 minutes off my Saturday average? I can say now that I liked it, but I would have snarled had you asked me during it.
This was on the tough side for me, making it feel like a good, solid Saturday. My first pass didn't have much more than SYN, FRANZEN and ACELA and a couple of wrong answers, but the bottom and the NW gradually came to light. For some reason, the NE was particularly unyielding. ONE TWO, SYN and ONTO were all I had. I refused to let go of thinking of "Refuse to let go" in a physical sense. The obvious NOVELTY broke it open, leaving me wondering why it took so long. Thanks for an enjoyable challenge, Evans.
This was one of those days when I wasn't making much progress, took the dog for a walk, came back and things fell into place. I have watched only a couple episodes of Mad Men, but that answer came easily because who could avoid knowing about this show? Same with the Rock Hall of Fame: I'm not a country fan, but I know who she is, and the story was big at the time, not long ago. I am as mystified as she is as to why she belongs in the Rock Hall of Fame. I see some comments about this puzzle being "bro-centric". I am 70 year old woman and didn't feel this way. I did have trouble with the Three-peat coach. I could picture him, but could not remember his name. Even with the first name help. This happens to me more and more - thank goodness for Google.
@Chris Walking the dog always helps me reset my brain too. I swear he sighs when he sees me put my device down, especially if it’s the third walk of the morning.
Well made puzzle. With some nice misdirections - I had "stud" for poker game and "eight" for hot dog buns until those became untenable. Plus I initially decided "FLy SEASON" must be a thing.
PS - I also initially put Soviets for the Pioneer Day clue, which is also a correct answer.
After the first pass through the across clues, all I had were ERIN, OCTET, ACELA, and ELEARNING, the latter probably only because I work in that industry, and I was pretty worried about how this was going to go. But on the downs things started clicking and I made it in pretty good time. Despite living in Iowa, which I would presume is prime - pardon the pun - COW TIPPING country, I'm sad to say I've never met someone who has actually done this. I'm guessing that's because cattle lie down to sleep, and attempting to tip a cow that's awake might be a losing proposition for everyone involved, aside from the cow.
Actually surprised that everyone else found this one unusually easy. Tough one for me and had to cheat a bit, but managed to work it out. Weird puzzle finds today - three Sunday puzzles with a similar theme - all based on DIS... Some sample answers: TABLEOFDISCONTENTS ELLADISENCHANTED DISBARANDGRILL SERMONONTHEDISMOUNT DISCOUNTERCULTURE DUCKANDDISCOVER CABBAGEDISPATCHKIDS GOLFDISCOURSE DISGUSTOFWIND TRUMPDISCARDS And there were more. I'll put the links to those puzzles in a reply. ..
Started puzzle of Friday night, got stuck, finished quickly on Saturday morning after waking. It’s amazing how the mind continues to process information while you sleep. Puzzle was a good challenge with some great cluing. I especially liked PURCHASE AT A BAR OR AT A BUTCHER SHOP and WORD WITH SOUND OR LANGUAGE. i would have never made these connections. Also chuckled at the answer for ONE INTERESTED IN BULL-DOZING. Thanks to Mr. Clinchy for a fun challenge.
Fresh and fun Saturday, lots to love here. And regarding our esteemed constructor's comment, I still dial a phone, even though that feature disappeared decades ago...
@Chungclan I also "hang up". I sure do miss being able to slam the phone down in anger, but that has the potential to be expensive! LOL
Interesting that DEPRAVITY is front and center in this grid. I was slowed by my need to enter WEIMAR REPUBLIC, so I tried WILSON ERA even though that wasn't fair to Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover, but when you're desperate.... COW HERDER? AWRY? ALGERIA? FAST FIXES? BETAS? PAYOLArats? I think I set a record for most wrong guesses. Last thiing into the grid was the awful, mind-bending ELEARNING, which just Would Not Parse! (The parse that refreshes?) COW TIPPER was my favorite entry. Question: is there really such a thing as an 'Evans Clinchy'? Now I need to lie down with a cool cloth over my eyes.
That NE was sticky *if* you’re no rocket scientist and refuse to drop Beirut. Some people may have done this, I can’t be certain…because of all my rocket science schooling. But I’m sorry to those of you who saw that B and just ran with it. Crunchy, misdirecting, Saturday with many a ONETWO punch! Loved it.
@CCNY My god, CC. What Bible are YOU reading? What atlas do you consult?? Although BEIRUT is, upon reflection, cute. Humorous and wacky. Entertaining. Even reassuring, given my level of confusion. (See Comment above. )
This one was tough! One of the most difficult in my recent memory. All sorts of vague clues, very clever misdirects and near-naticks. Had I tried to work out this one on a printed copy my erasures might have worn holes in the paper. Finally filled in all the squares after two hours with a few breaks, but only got the "close but not quite" result. Went over the grid repeatedly looking for a typo or other mistake. Finally decided to try ZETAS instead of BETAS, and got the happy music. I'd had no idea of the crossing author's name and had been satisfied with FRAN BEN, as awkward a name as that sounds. Well, I'm on a few meds right now that are leaving me a little lightheaded, so I'll be happy to tell myself that some of my difficulties were due to that condition, in hopes of preserving my self-esteem.
This one had lots of fresh answers and solid clueing, so I was surprised to fill it in very smoothly for a Saturday. I was helped greatly by being a big fan of Mad Men and by having recently read Jonathan FRANZEN’s Crossroads. It also helped that I had my annual helping of hot dogs on Independence Day, and thus knew that hot dog buns come as OCTETs.
Coaches and sports and poker and trivia - just not my kinda puzzle. Another commenter called it a "bro" puzzle and that was my feeling as well. I don't mind struggling through trivia here and there when there's a payoff of fun wordplay or clever clues but I didn't feel that today. Hopefully tomorrow's will be more lively and fun.
@Gregg I really detest American sports terms and trivia in the puzzle.
@Gregg Understandable if a puzzle doesn't connect, but no need to dismiss the value of it for those who have an easier time with it. Anyway, Dolly Parton and Jonathan Franzen and Don Draper are hardly "Bro" friendly.
For us opera fans, fun seeing Love in the Time of Cholera clued. As Marquez subtly hints in the first chapter, it’s a mashup of Tannhauser and Don Giovanni.
Remember when hot dog buns always came in octets and hot dogs themselves could only be found in decets?
@EPW Yes, and it's still often the case. Why in the world would they do this? You would think that the bread maker (actual bread, not money) who came out with ten packs would have cornered the market, but it didn't happen for decades. I always thought it was one of the odder things in life.
Was totally stumped by SYN as the answer to 33A. Thought this was some new internet slang I didn’t know. The big aha when I realized it just meant SYNONYM! Fun puzzle but gave up early and used check puzzle. Even so was amazed at how a few answers jumped out at me after a break.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment. emus
Hey, you are in the puzzle today! This was one of the BARRIER comments you’ve made. But I doubt it could be the BARRIEST. For that, it would need to use “SRSLY”!
I was certain that {tactic for driving digital subscriptions} was wordplay or something else related to the quality of games that the NYT continues to advance. It's a strategy that is working with a staff of exceptionally gifted and dedicated game nerds more or less keeping the NYT subscriptions coming. It's absolutely why I still ubscribe to the NYT.
Colin Jost joked abut that very thing at the WHC dinner.
Found this one very challenging! Solved it unaided, but needed almost two hours with one break. SW corner nearly killed me, with DOPES and DOLTS before finally seeing DODOS. Excellent Saturday puzzle.
This one was fairly tough for me. The southeast came pretty easily but after that I had some trouble. I am proud of getting DON DRAPER from only the clue and the PER from crossings. I've never watched a single minute of the show, so that was kind of fun. The northwest came next, helped by pretty immediately putting in ARE WE OKAY and TARMAC. Although I'm not a big one for sports questions, I usually know football because I used to be a big Packers fan (I don't think there's a lot of *former* Packers fans out there but I've become a bit anti-NFL, in general). Anyhow, I could not think of anything football related that would fit so I immediately thought of other touchdowns. I slowly worked through the middle, but the northeast and southwest were killer for me and because I really had to shove off soon, I broke and did one look up in each, for FRANZEN and RILEY. Having eight for so long in the southwest was certainly a barrier, as was swerve instead of ONE TWO in the ne. Ah well! I really liked the clue for ROUND! Just wish I would have come up with it earlier. That was a real good one I thought!
Loved the stacks - 2 x 3 x 7 , 2 x 3 x 8 and 1 x 5 x 9 . Some great clues - loved 10A bar / butcher order. I had 'bozos' for nitwits for far too long. I enjoyed this, which went a bit more quickly than typical Saturday puzzles.
Am I the only one who had BETATESTS before FLUSEASON?
Danny Sprung, I *thought* it, but Ella quickly said “scat” to those particular bugs. …as emus scatter.
@Danny Sprung No, you are not the only one! L
@Danny Sprung same! Through me off for quite a bit
To whom it may concern: It's "Utahn," not "Utahan." Thanks.
@Justin this one threw me, too, and I Googled it after I finished to see what was up. Seems like either variation is generally acceptable, though Utahn may be more commonly used by actual Utahns.
I steadily filled in more of the puzzle with each pass until I was left only with a mostly empty NE corner. RILEY was a gimme, but I just wasn't on the same wavelength as the constructor on the rest. SYN was glaringly bad fill. OTOH, the cluing for AMOR was the best I've seen.
@Eric Why, why, why? Why do you think SYN was glaringly bad fill? (Conversely, what was so clever about the AMOR clue; it was simply a factual fill-in.) I agree that (particularly for New York sports fans), RILEY was a gimme.
Well I did much better than expected with this one, so I'm happy. Following Deb's advice regarding chocolate helped. COW naPPER, before TIPPER. And it took a while, but I finally remembered FRANZEN. That book sat at eye level on the bookshelf near my apartment door for months, if not years, taunting me, because I never read it. And Caitlin, I don't know if the clue for Ms. PARTON is that deep a cut. It was well covered in the media, and our very own NY Times had an article linking to many of the songs so you could listen to them.
Am on a streak but so busy this week that I haven’t been commenting. But today is a Saturday and solving this puzzle was so satisfying. Especially the long ones: ARE WE OKAY, STANDARDS, FLU SEASON, ELEARNING, WATERMARK, DEPRAVITY Agree with Deb on DON DRAPER, and I never even watched Max Men! Favorites today : NOVELTY, TARMAC, DWELL ON, BETHEL (though it took me a while, as I originally thought Carriers not BARRIERS) Kudos Evans!
Not sure how it’s TMC and not TCM.
@Daniel Charchuk Exactly. What is a TMC? Doesn't exist.
@Daniel Charchuk This being Saturday, it's the less well known The Movie Channel, run by Showtime: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Movie_Channel" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Movie_Channel</a>
A lot of people celebrate Pioneer Day. These (unfortunately revisionist) holidays are all over the West. Took me forever to choose a state rather than a group of people. And a state outside Oregon Territory!
@Reader As did the Soviets, which was my first stab at that answer. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_(Soviet_Union" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_(Soviet_Union</a>)
I felt good when I completed this puzzle in 12 seconds less than my average. It had its challenges; I would not call it easy. I call it satisfying. Different strokes for different folks. How many times have I found a puzzle difficult when others breeze through it? Did not "know" many of the answers but the crosses helped get me through.
A fairly quick solve without feeling easy.
Yes it was a good clue for AMOR - but I would have tried ____ Towles (author) perhaps with a reference to 'A Gentleman in Moscow' and/or "The Lincoln HIghway' - two f the best novels I have read lately.
@Andrew The novel clued is a great one.
This is a "bro" puzzle - too many male-oriented clues and answers. Boring.
@Vernon Male-oriented? Any examples? I thought the fill covered a lot of ground, so I'm not seeing a particular bias, but I could be missing something.
@Nancy J. While I don't necessarily agree, I suppose Pat Riley, Don Draper, one-two (punch), and cow tipper could be considered such.
@Vernon Hmmm, I don’t agree, I found it to be an easy Saturday and I don’t play poker or tip cows! And am def not “bro”ey but I instantly knew RILEY DON DRAPER and TARMAC (I usually find Saturdays v tough or don’t even try them)
Pretty dire… Since when is a BULL a COW? ERA was a republican period in one country - some geographical pointer possibly in order? Trivia was impenetrable and not really guessable from crosses. Had read one of them fortunately Always interesting when it clicks with some and the “not quick but did it in 3 minutes 45 seconds” brigade…”slightly slower than my average For this who were in the - chapeau. Unmitigated slog over here with more than a couple of look-ups.
@William James IMHO it's not difficult to come up with a country at the center of the world stage with notable regime changes in 1918 and 1933.
@William James I guess the constructor thought tippers tip both sexes. Since it's likely a myth, who's to say?
@William James Very late to this, but if one were tipping cows, one would hope the bull in the pasture was asleep.
Was having trouble remembering the WEIMARERA, but then as I typed in DEPRAVITY the light went on! Roc, Ani, Emu, any day I see one in the grid is good