Held up by an imaginary rapper named PostmanOne. 😁
@Hillary Rettig That's what I had too late last night, knowing that was probably the one keeping me from the happy music. (What do I know about ALT social media, now that I barely check my one and only anymore -- (FB) ?? ) (And that most of what I know about current slang and social media shortcuts, I've learned from Xwords -- and so ANT seemed just as plausible -- b/c, well, every generation likes to tweak current usage to their own secret code -- Woah.) Good night's sleep and MALONE seemed as good as guess as anything else, so replaced it, fingers crossed! Phew ...
Someone here really likes her caffeine, starting the day with tea and shortbread, having an espresso martini in the middle of the puzzle (why wait?), and ending with an Americano (why sleep?)! Then it's off to work, and thank God you've had your coffee because the boss is no-nonsense: "Try to keep up!" and (to the new kid, Leonardo, they just hired as an apprentice) "Stay in line!" -- Leonardo's been put on the task everyone calls the "paper route" -- hand-coloring Hello Kitty cels for the next anime Hello Kitty cartoon because when DALL-E does it, it just looks soulless. Once I asked Leonardo what he was drawing in his notebook. "It sorta looks like a helicopter," I said, peering over his shoulder. "Huh? It's a crazy straw," he said, "I just invented it." "And what are those lines?" "I call those 'stripes,'" Leonardo said, "Just made that up." "What are all those stripes, so close together?" "That's a harp! Haven't you ever seen a harp before? They've been around, like, forever," Leonard said. "You're such a lyre," I told him. Leonardo frowned. "Try to keep up," I said.
@john ezra NW stymied me. I had "CARP" rather than "HARP" that finally drove me to peek. But of course, HARP is way better, my modest english held me back. No "SCORT" start to anything that goes with tea. Arggh. Then ROTS for turns... never would have made that particular connection. And I'm too old for CRAZYSTRAW, never saw one. But I did get PAPERROUTE! Finally something for an old guy, I had one.
Top left corner had me scratching my head a bit but I was able to successfully power through and hit my 600 puzzle solve streak today!
Congratulations, @Joe!
No look ups on a Friday! I think that's a first for me!!
@Natalia I love that here we can say “on Friday” when it’s Thursday but we all know what that means. I’ve been doing the puzzle every evening (as soon as it’s released) for more than four years but I still have to explain to my husband that it’s Friday in puzzle time even though it’s not Friday.
Nicely done, @Natalia!
@Natalia I was pretty proud that I had only one lookup--Mandlikova--so I can understand your thrill!
My first Friday I completed with no help!! Yay!!
Way to go, @Erika!
@Erika Bravo! May this be the first of a long line.
Well, this was a recipe, a perfect storm, actually, for a slam-bang solving experience. I know from Malaika’s puzzles that her frame of reference diverges greatly, that her world is light years away, from mine. It’s also become clear to me that she’s a skilled puzzlemaker. The upshot is that her puzzles often have answers I don’t know, but her skill is such that I’ve got a good chance of getting them, resulting in great pleasure for my brain. Why? When one doesn’t know an answer, especially if it’s a word one has never come across, it requires the brain to make educated guesses from whatever letters that have been filled in from crosses. “Does this answer seem possible? Could it fit the clue? Will it work with surrounding words?” Thus, the brain becomes super involved, and I don’t know about you, but my brain adores this. Savors this. Today’s puzzle brought several such answers – all long – transporting my brain to nirvana. These moments of sweet labor were complemented by some glorious swaths of splat-fill. Along the way were some beautiful answers – HAND PICK, KUGEL, NO NONSENSE. There was also an impressive original clue for EEL, a word clued hundreds of times in the major outlets, but never with a “continental shelf” angle. Very happy brain, with loveliness on the side – yes, a slam-bang experience. Thank you greatly for making this, Malaika!
Lewis, We’re going to have to stop meeting like this! Again with the similar thoughts - - as always yours are far more elegantly expressed. ..
Well, my current streak of 1,827 days works out to exactly five years (even taking into account two leap days). It would have been even longer had I not forgotten to log on to the internet one day while on a European vacation in 2019. As for the puzzle it was a smooth solve tonight although I had to run the alphabet for _ANK at 43A. Sadly I decided to end the run at W which kind of worked for the clue.
@Andrew Oh thanks for sharing your streak! Impressive! I’m at 1725, and back at 1,000 I had to email them because a software glitch interrupted mine and I was despondent. I know a lot of folks think it’s a silly thing to care about, but I asked my husband to include it in my epitaph (only half joking).
@Andrew - Congrats! I just got 2 yrs myself this week. Not sure where to go from here. 1000 is obviously the next milestone, but at this stage, I think it's safe to say "I do the NYTs Crossword everyday" whether I keep the streak alive or not. Was that the goal? No idea... but it's my reality. I do feel pressure to keep it alive when we're on vacation or if I get stuck on a tricky Sunday or something. The last streak breaker was the Sunday puzzle with ZAZZIEBEATZ (about 2 yrs ago, lol).
Girl, what a sparkly and entertaining puzzle that was! I'm especially impressed to see the symmetrically-placed Ramses the First and Ashant the First. And both of them crossing the infamous Empress O'Martin the first!
I enjoyed this one! My first pass through the clues left me feeling less than confident that I would know any of answers and I had a mostly blank grid. With not too much work things started to fall into place and the answers bloomed- and turns out I wasn’t unfamiliar with any of the answers- the clues were just so clever- as they should be.
I was really surprised when "Drip alternatives" filled in from the crossings, but my guess that it must have to do with coffee was confirmed through googling. I still have a lot to learn but at 89 already I won't have enough time. Then I found out that "drip" no longer comes close to meaning what I thought it did, "a dull or unattractive person." Yes, way too much to learn.
@kilaueabart And last week or so we had DRIPPY as a complimentary term! don't even try to keep up.
Gimme a minute. I’m not going to read the column. Not reading other comments. (fingers in ears, “lalalalala””) Just going to soak in my luxurious solve… Aaaahhhhh…(How many As, how many Hs? Nobody knows.) Egyptian pharaohs? (…please let it be RAMSES…please let it be RAMSES…) Jewish noodles? (…please let it be KUGEL…) And so on. Wildly satisfying. I cannot see a single weak link in this beaut. And woke up to picture of the beautiful baby Essie. Gave her momma a tough time, but c-section saved the day and all are exhausted, beautiful, and healthy. It’s a beautiful Friday. Now, I’ll finish my puzzles and read that this was the “easiest ever” and “do better…” Yada-yada-yada… Malaika, superb. Thank you. I hope you all have a surprisingly lovely weekend that surpasses all expectations, no matter how high.
@CCNY congratulations - Grandbaby, I assume? There's nothing better!
My wife sometimes orders an ESPRESSO MARTINI after dinner. Going forward, I will never not regale her with this clue when she does so. Sorry, Hon.
I usually don't comment here, but I have to say how much I love Malaika's crosswords! She's my favorite constructor. As a non-American, a lot of clues reference things that I've never heard of, or require knowledge of things like baseball players or local politicians. However, I always seem to get Malaika's clues, and am tickled when they reference Desi culture (none of those today though)! Thank you for a great puzzle Malaika!
Wonderful puzzle! Thank you for a delightful outing! I must agree with the constructor here in preferring human-created digital art to the works that AI "creates." I'm surprised that the editors would come up with such a clue. The creators of AI models like DALL-E have stolen so many human artists' creations off the internet - without their consent - in order to make DALL-E work, that I hesitate to give DALL-E's generated images the name "art"... Anyhow, off my soapbox now. Loved this puzzle, definitely breezy for a Thursday night / Friday. Just what I needed!
750 puzzles solved and a Friday personal best. Thanks for this Malaika! Was a delight.
Will definitely never complain when a puzzle helps yield a PR for me. Cheers!
A gold star for my birthday. Woo Hoo! Had to use the crosses to get the Rapper name and had drawl for TWANG but what to I, a transplanted Southerner know. Thank you Makaika A smooth solve.And, ko liked it too.
@dk Hand up for DRAWL, which is more authentic than TWANG (which would be more 'Western' IMHO.) People ask where my accent has gone... but I spent so many years outside of the South (and when you teach Reading, you really need to enunciate the short vowels clearly....)
There were a lot of answers in this puzzle I didn't know -- probably because they were aimed at a demographic not my own. POST MALONE; OPAL; ASHANTI; KAT; CRAZY STRAWS. And AMERICANOS, as clued. I thought that drip was a method of making coffee and AMERICANOS are a kind of coffee. But then I don't know my AMERICANOS from my ESPRESSO MARTINIS. Question of the day: How can you make an ESPRESSO MARTINI with those non-coffee ingredients? When I go back to read the comments, I'm sure some one will explain it. But, wow, Malaika, your cluing is great! It's tricky, it's always completely fair, and it does the thing I most want clues to do -- which is to provoke curiosity. Loved the clues for ISN'T (11A); EUROS (8D); STRIPE (42A); MENUS (45A); DIAL (38D). You've taken simple, ordinary words and made them special. My subway had a gAP at first. You're always being warned to WATCH THE GAP, so I'm always watching the gap -- which keeps me from ever looking at the MAP. But then it's pretty hard to get lost on the Lexington Avenue #6 line -- even for someone like me with no sense of direction. I'm sort of glad I didn't know any of those names, Malaika. It made the puzzle far more challenging and far more fun for me than it would have been for the many younger people who probably did know them. And I didn't even have to cheat. Nice job.
@Nancy Drip is a method of making coffee, but I've also heard it used to refer to the drink itself, as in "I'll just have a cup of drip."
@Nancy Drip is a method of making coffee, but I've also heard it used to refer to the drink itself, as in "I'll just have a cup of drip." Also, I was thinking tAP at first for the subway clue.
@Nancy Read the ESPRESSO MARTINI clue again. It doesn’t say that you make one with vodka and Red Bull.
There apparently isn’t a rapper called Postman One.
@Michael Not to mention that the clue is outdated, as Mr. MALONE has decided recently to be a country singer, and his current single is a number one hit on the Hot 100 and country charts: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11T6kF66dKY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11T6kF66dKY</a>
Fast and sweet, which surprised me for a Friday, when I'm prone to break a sweat. Because I start end-of-week puzzles at the bottom (it's the same strangeness that makes me read magazines from back to front,) at one point I had the whole Eastern half filled, while the West lay completely blank. I had been feeling so proud thus far, I thought Karma was surely coming for me with the rest of the grid. But some chipping away did the trick and I get to remain unusually smug and proud – which means Karma will probably put me in my place tomorrow... For now, I'll keep my smile and send out a great big thank you to Ms. Handa!
I love crosswords because some people find one puzzle too easy for a given day and others find the same too hard. Shows we all have different knowledge, experiences, and fun facts lodged away in our brains. For me, this was a fast thrill! A luck of the draw with many clues catered to my knowledge base. Next week, I’ll likely return to my 30-45 minute Fridays with one or two look-ups. But today I’m relishing in my new personal Friday record—15 minutes!! Without any wikipedia usage (lol)!! 💃🏼💃🏼💃🏼
@BJ Exact same for me! 15:01, and a new personal Friday record as well, no lookups. Not normal for me on a Friday, but I'll take it. :-)
I usually find Fridays harder than Saturdays. This was hard enough but a lot of fun. Loved the clue for ISNT and enjoyed seeing ESPRESSOMARTINI and AMERICANOS in the grid. I might know too much about Japanese animation, as I was racking my brain for obscure characters and didn’t see HELLOKITTY until it was almost filled in. I know of exactly one collaboration between Ja Rule and ASHANTI, and it’s a 2001 earworm that my siblings and I have great fondness for, so seeing them in today’s puzzle was a treat.
A highly caffeinated puzzle, if you include the accompaniment to SHORTBREAD. My go-to recipe for shortbread replaces some of the wheat flour with rice flour--I hear a gasp up in Glasgow--which lowers the gluten content. Also, it's one of the few recipes for which I will splurge and buy expensive, European(-style) butter, with a low whey content and a healthy amount of butyric acid* Assuming semesters spent abroad are spent in the Eurozone is, well, rather eurocentric. Why not spend that half-year where they spend the sol? Speaking of which, here's an interesting little tidbit TIL on Wikipedia: "The sol replaced the Peruvian inti in 1991 and the name is a return to that of Peru's historic currency, as the previous incarnation of sol was in use from 1863 to 1985. Although sol in this usage is derived from the Latin solidus (lit. 'solid'), the word also means "sun" in Spanish. There is thus a continuity with the old Peruvian inti, which was named after Inti, the Sun God of the Incas." Or as they say in Cuzco, Money inti everything. Here's a little ditty to enjoy with your tea and shortbread (Go, Bees!): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdHMcTYtM_k" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdHMcTYtM_k</a> *Butyric acid is the organic compound which, in small quantities, makes butter taste like butter, and in large quantities, makes butter taste like rancid butter.
@Bill While we're on the topic of coffee (I'm on my fourth cup)--down in Andean South America, the standard form of coffee is a sort of americano. If one orders a coffee, for a couple of soles or Ecuadorean sucres, one might be presented with a cup of hot water (or milk) and a cruet of a dark, syrupy liquid called *tintura* or *esencia de café*, which one mixes in to taste. In a good establishment, this will be sweetened, super-strong espresso; in poorer ones, it will be a concoction of sugar and instant coffee. Nescafe sales are big down there.
@Bill Cruel teaser! David Connell shared his anise cookie recipe; I shared the cornbread recipe. Now it's your turn! I have the rice flour.
One of those puzzles where I HOP from top to side to bottom to middle, no need for pauses, but the POSTMALONE/ALT cross shot me down and I NEEDed to REZIP through the puzzle again for just one small hint to DIAL it in. Lively and clever, especially that we got to HANDPICK ETSY in the puzzle over [Amazon's Handmade] in the clues. Forget the DIGITAL ART, and of course there was DALAI in the puzzle (no [DALL-E] there). Enjoy your ESPRESSO MARTINI, Malaika. You gave us a winner of a puzzle. Thank you!
Cheers Malaika! 🍸 Enjoy your espresso martini! What a fun puzzle! I wouldn't call it easy (I got stuck in NW at the end for a while) but it definitely sparkled! ✨
@Sam Not a reply, per se. But in yesterdays comments I reply to something you wrote, decided against it, and accidentally hit "Submit" rather than "Cancel". I tried to then post an explanation, but the emus wouldn't stand for it You asked what my problem was. My response is "never mind".
A tad baffled that "digital art" is the answer for "what DALL-E creates". That might have been a neutral take when it had its boom of popularity in 2021/2022, but we knew then and we certainly know now that what these machine learning models output are amalgams of thousands and thousands of artists' works, used as training data without permission. Many of my friends are digital artists and make their livelihoods that way. The constructor notes some other neat digital artworks in her notes. DALL-E and other text-to-image models are interesting and novel tools. But they are not artists.
@Oscar Now that you mention it, maybe the clue would have been better with a question mark--[Digital art?].
Well, HELLO KITTY, yes I will join you for tea and SHORTBREAD, but only if it’s my MIL’s recipe. She made the uber treat. Sadly, there’s no such thing as a decaf ESPRESSO MARTINI. I haven’t touched caffeine for over 30 years, or I’d join you in a heartbeat. An interesting Friday offering. Yes, a little on the easier side but it doesn’t have to be a brain melt every Friday.
@Helen Wright Huh! Decaf espresso beans exist, so why not? Maybe it's because they're just MOSTLY caffeine-free, not 100%? There was a brand of ground coffee that called itself 97% caffeine-free and I always wondered if that was good or if coffee normally was only 6% caffeine anyway so 3% was not such a big difference.
62 Across should be PLAGIARISM.
Not a very hard puzzle for me, for a Friday; less than a minute longer than the Thursday puzzle. I did have a brain fart in one place, though. For 17A, I was pretty sure that it had to be CRAZY STRAW, but the cross (ROTS) didn't compute for me. So I just left that square blank and moved on. I came back to that last square after I filled everything else it, and I said to myself, [Turns], ROTS, must be a shortening of "rotates"...totally forgetting that ROTS is a regular word that means "turns", like that produce sitting in my produce bin after we've eaten out a few too many times in a row. I guess the twists and turns of the CRAZY STRAW clue just had me stuck on physical turning in circles. All on me. Ninety-nine out of 100, nay, 999 out of 1000 times, I would not have hiccupped on that cross. I was actually surprised I had guessed right. Must be tired tonight.
Any puzzle with SHORTBREAD is okay by me. Any tea left in that caddy from the other day? Very breezy. Barely needs an easy mode version. Got tripped up briefly by thinking [Predator on a continental shelf] was a SUB. Watched The Hunt for Red October one too many times, I guess.
Not at all easy for me (hi suejean), but managed to work it all out. Way off-topic puzzle find today, but at least mildly interesting. A Sunday from July 2, 1995 with three 21 letter answers. Quite surprised that one of them appeared for the first and last time and the other two only ever appeared one other time. Anyway... BORNONTHEFOURTHOFJULY THESTARSPANGLEDBANNER IAMTHEYANKEEDOODLEBOY And some other cross referenced answers: FROMSEATO SHININGSEA PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TOTHEFLAG Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/2/1995&g=64&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/2/1995&g=64&d=A</a> I'll shut up now. ..
It occurs to me that ccrossword constructors have been much too lax with our instruction in the French language...to wit: 27D "French for 'eight' "..... took me every one of the crosses! Step it up, folks! And then there's 55D, "Let me tell you...".....which I see spelt as GURL or GIRRRL all over the place. And all those directives! TRY TO KEEP UP! STAY IN LINE! HOP! POST MALONE? POSTMA LONE? POSTMAL ONE? ESPRESSO MARTINI was the last straw: how to ruin both your cup of coffee and your drink! (Note to self: avoid Difford's guide.) Of course, I enjoyed the puzzle very much! Except for the (no doubt moray) EEL and the SHARK ATTACK.
You have no cause to complain, @Mean Old Lady! The NYTXW finally, FINALLY gave unfortunate me -- who made the exceedingly bad decision to study French instead of Spanish in high school -- a French language clue. "Oh goody, goody," I cried, as I plunked HUIT into the grid without a moment's hesitation. And only then did I stumble across the two (2!!!) Spanish language clues at 22A and 63D. Ratio: Two Spanish to one French. So you, MOL, are still in the chatbird seat while I remain behind the HUIT ball.
Yay! My fasted Friday ever! Less than 9 minutes!
Fresh and fun. My daughter is home for the last summer before she graduates from college, and invited an early childhood friend with some mild learning disabilities (can’t read, but is a terrific server at a neighborhood bistro) to our mountain cabin for a long weekend of hiking, kayaking, playing cornhole, and grilling fish and vegetables. Summer!
Doubt if a paper route is a classic first job anymore. It’s probably a disappearing job sad to say.
@John Dietsch I was thinking more of "grown-up" jobs. "Mail room or "copy room" but of course they were too short anyway.
@John Dietsch Classic cars are also not modern either. That is the whole point of using "classic" here.
I blew my personal best time for a Friday puzzle out of the water today. Such a fun puzzle, very satisfying to solve and now I'm feeling great heading into the weekend. Thank you Malaika!
Completed in just under 20 minutes, that's the fastest I've done a Friday puzzle! Super fun and a personal redemption for me given I struggled quite a bit on Wednesday's and Thursday's earlier this week.
This was a perfect Friday puzzle for me, great clueing that was challenging at times but not terribly frustrating. I did look up the actress, KAT Dennings, and I got some things with help from the crosses. I don’t think I would have seen GIRL for “Let me tell you . . .” on my own. Nor would I have know about the example for DIGITAL ART. Thanks, Malaika Handa, for the challenge and the fun. I will watch for your name on future puzzles. I wish everyone a good weekend. The severe weather, from hurricanes to extreme heat in many places, is pretty scary.
Not my fastest Friday ever, but definitely the earliest I’ve ever completed one. If not for FinK instead of YANK, I might have had a personal best. I enjoyed this puzzle very much. Thanks Malaika Handa. Well done.
“What connects money to everything”: I had the I, and even though I knew it was wrong, I wanted IPAD there. You know, the IPAD that is used to ask a tip from you whenever you get an ESPRESSO MARTINI, a SHORTBREAD, some DIGITAL ART, a HELLO KITTY tchotchke, or, basically, everything. (Correct answer was better, though!)
@Cat Lady Margaret Besides....the only people who say that have enough to make ends meet and then some....
I NEED to say that this felt like it had a travelling theme. STOWing my luggage, with a pocketful of EUROS, ordering SHORT BREAD with AMERICANOS. HANDPICKing a SPA, and walking with a STRIPEd bag, just to take a selfie with HELLO KITTY. Very fun.
That was terrific! I had a few bad guesses in the NW corner that made it the last to fall, and I had trouble getting a toehold all over the puzzle but there was *just* enough to get going, which is exactly what you want from a crossword puzzle. Well done!
Very thankful for the note about the Dall-E clue, because going through the puzzle I was MAD. Left the last three letters blank as long as possible. The fact is that software doesn't create anything. It is a tool, used by himans to create things. And in this case, by copying other things created even more directly by humans. Calling out a specific company just made it feel worse, like product placement in a crossword. Here are some ideas for a different clue, not perfect but at least accurate: Electronic music Special effects Rings, to a jeweler Fake nails Binary beauty 7 segment displays
@BamBam The constructor talks about the original clue and the change in the Wordplay blog :)
Certainly a “light and breezy” Friday for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I enjoyed the puzzle. Even though I dislike coffee, ESPRESSOMARTINI was great as clued. Unlike others, I found this to be a steady solve. I finished under my average, but far away from my personal best for a Friday
i got so far on my own today! got espresso martini early and 3/4 of the grid fell into place after that. then came here for the rest haha. satisfying
This was a really great themeless! Very breezy indeed. I'll definitely search up some more of Malaika's puzzles in the archive, since this one was such a delight.
@ajs2 She's also one of the regular guest bloggers for Rex Parker. Here's a link to her most recent post: <a href="https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2024/07/like-architecture-of-alhambra-thu-7-4.html" target="_blank">https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2024/07/like-architecture-of-alhambra-thu-7-4.html</a>
Very super cute! The top left corner had me tied up for a bit but once I figured out the wordplay “forever homes” I was good to go. There were a few answers, like GIRL that I plugged in laughing thinking it couldn’t be right and then cracked up again when it was.
@Joya I’m glad you figured out SPCA, but I don’t see much wordplay in that clue.
The puzzle was fine, but I bristle at the idea that anything Dall-E or any of these other scraper/regurgitators create is "art" of any sort.
@Marcelo I had the same reaction -_-