“What might prompt you to flip the bird” was the clue of the week for me! Did not know BURPEE was a person. Don’t like him now. I am a Korean but “100 jeon” is an unfair clue. I am a Korean and I don’t think jeon was used in the last 50 years. It is equivalent to 1/1000 cent. The word may exist but the money does not. My two jeons. Lastly a shout out to Sienna Saints where I spent a year in my twenties!
IT'S (truly) AN HONOR, and I want to thank the crossword gods for this award I'm giving myself, for having completed a Friday with just one lookup, which was really just a quick peek at a map to confirm that my instinct was right about BALI. The reason I needed the confirmation was because I had Cooper instead of BURPEE (who I didn't even dream was an actual person.) Between you and me, I'm glad it wasn't Cooper because of what happened at my high-school after he came for a lecture. The Headmaster lost his marbles and instituted an obligatory Cooper Test at the start of every semester, and I had to complete 7.5 laps around a soccer field in 12 minutes and in scorching Summer heat. And then, I had no doubt he'd really lost his marbles when he said that for us Seniors, not passing the test would result in not being able to graduate. Well, the sleeping rebel in me would not have it, and ran 7 laps and stopped, despite there being plenty of time for the last half lap. Long story short, yes, I graduated. And the rebel in me went back into permanent sleep. And I never, ever, went jogging ever again. This is the first time I've thought of this (pseudo) trauma in 46 years, and I know I'm over it because it didn't detract at all from this amazing solving experience. And since I've given my own self an award, I would also like thank Jacob McDermott for making it possible. Sir, IT'S always AN HONOR and a pleasure to solve a puzzle of yours! Thank you!
@sotto voce Great recollection! It would look very Monty Python if you combined the Burpee and the Cooper for running around the soccer field, a kind of pushup-squat-jump-stand motion right out of the Department of Silly Walks. I can see John Cleese right now...
@sotto voce Yes! I knew I liked you. When I was in 8th grade, we were instructed to run the track for 30 minutes. Ew. My mother got a call from the gym teacher who said she was worried about me. Mom was concerned, asked why and was told, “Well, instead of running, she just…walked. The *entire time.” My mom just laughed and said, “You should hear how she got out of recess for two straight years!”
Loved it. It felt impossible at first, but slowly came into focus. That’s a sign of a great puzzle, IMHO. I appreciated the “Roman” gimme.
@Shawn That was exactly my experience, too. A very enjoyable puzzle.
I remember BURPEES from some unpleasant school compulsory fitness tests - of course I always thought they were named for the lurching motion involved. TIL it was a person, so I looked him up. His first name was Royal! So tell me: what would a ROYAL BURPEE be? a) Like a regular burpee, but you have to perform them in front of royalty. b) Like a regular burpee, but you receive royalties for every ten you complete. c) Like a regular burpee, but someone else does them on your behalf while you watch. Other suggestions?
@Cat Lady Margaret You have to wear a crown, and keep from dropping it? ; ) Enjoyable puzzle. Not a gimme, and not an impossible slog. There – second paragraph completed.
Cat Lady Margaret, I love your post, and your c) option, that definitely has the ring of royalty! As for b), I expect the non-royal burpee-er would *pay* the royalty to the burpee-ee, not collect it (at least in a world with human royalty).
@Cat Lady Margaret You could use it to describe something requiring a lot of unpleasant effort.
This is a lovely grid design, where the answers are well connected, that is, no isolated islands. There are also 14 longs (answers of eight letters or more), which not only add interest, but add a layer of fun – trying to guess long answers with as few crosses filled in as possible. And speaking of adding interest, many bravos to Jacob for taking a drab answer – OVEN TIMER – and electrifying it with that scintillating flip-the-bird clue. Random thoughts: • Sweet to see an extremely-rare-in-crosswords six-letter semordnilap (NOTNOW). • Splendid echo in GAME touching corners with RPGS. • [Long ride] for LIMO reminded me of another clue for that word that I like: [Something that’s long and steep?]. • Would have been cool if answer #6 (down) – LOVE POTION – would have been #9. One of the gifts Crosslandia bestows are those moments of astonishment where a word that lay dormant in some brain nook for decades – a word one forgot one knew – joyfully pops out in answer to a clue. That happened to me three times today, in AVILA, DOVER, and CANA. Thank you, Jacob, for wows like that, and a fill-in that pushed happy buttons and felt most satisfying – I loved this!
@Lewis had CANA and DOVER right away, but needed VACAY for AVILA and the win Great Puzzle
What a fun puzzle. Helps it's my first time ever completing a Friday puzzle with zero help from the article / Google, all in under 50 minutes. Great feeling! Thank you constructor
@Ciptir I feel pleased that I only had six cheats. But I am more impatient than you, as my cheating led to a 16 minute time! In any case, it was fun, very clever clues!
Farmers clue, though only three letters, held up this gal *way* longer than I’d like to admit. But that’s just clever, crunchy clueing. CCC. And this puzzle was chock full of CCC. Head and shoulders. Flip the bird. Appealing subject. Outside tables. And the whimsy! POPTOPLID LOVEPOTION IMONAROLL… WHIMSY AND CCC. CC says, I CANT EVEN. Fantabulous. Thank you Jacob. You’re really, really good at this business.
@CCNY Did you finally understand that clue? I still don't.
Solved the puzzle then went to lookup waftaroms. The following comic books art words are some of the others that I particular liked: -pleads: flying sweat droplets -agitrons: squiggles representing shaking -squeans: starbursts or circles representing dizziness
I smiled when I realized that BALI was low in the grid instead of Hai. Et tu, emu.
Well, this was fun for the most part, but had me really confused for a long while - it turns out I've been spelling GOT A BAD RAP wrongly as BAD REP this whole time! It didn't help that I assumed the New Testament miracle location was CAVE rather than CANA, so thanks to that one spot I almost WENT BANANAS. Still, had a great time and I loved some of the clues!
Deb and Game team, You advise beginning solvers to start with Mondays and look for gimmes. I would add work with a partner! Now that we have some experience, my wife and I do Mon-Wed separately and Thurs-Sun together. Works great!
I love a difficult Friday puzzle that is still very fair and doable. I somehow knew 15D was DOONE, confirmed by DOVER at the crossing. However, researching this after I finished the puzzle was very interesting. Similarly, I now know what a dahabeah is and how many jeons equal a WON. No idea why I thought small-time stakes were petty instead of PENNYANTE 🤪. Finished quicker than usual but got a good mental boost. Obrigada!
@Pani Korunova I've never read Lorna DOONE, but I have enjoyed the shortbread cookies bearing her name.
A really enjoyable Friday. A bunch of clues that I didn’t know the answer to but almost all of them were able to be filled via crosses or just educated guesses. Just how a crossword should be. Not too easy, nor too hard. Thanks Jacob!
A puzzle that was best approached like a grasshopper, jumping on gimmes and renovating them when they were wrong, using crosses to clear the debris, and generally just letting the puzzle help me solve it. A few head scratchers (IOT, for instance, which I initially filled in as "tie"), but nothing to seriously halt the progress and spoil the fun. I liked your puzzle, Jacob, and look forward to many more.
Not all that easy for me of course (hi suejean), but cheated a bit and managed to work it all out. Drifting... one thing I've started to notice lately is that I don't see many grid-spanning answers (15 or 21 letters) in recent puzzles. Wondered if that's really been the case, so I went back and did a review, and... From June 1 until today (that would be 49 puzzles), there were exactly... TWO grid-spanning entries (15 letters). Just seems like Mr. Fagliano must have a different standard than Mr. Shortz in terms of answer length. No big deal, I guess - just seems a bit odd. I'm outta here. ..
Rich, I'm guessing the recent lower number of spanners is more a matter of what constructors are submitting than what editors are choosing to publish. Any thoughts from our resident constructors? ########################################
I consider myself an intermediate solver - during the summers crosswords are a daily diversion. I have typically gotten stuck on Friday puzzles, but I completed my fasted Friday puxxle ever (11:46! ) . I thought many clues were unique - things I never saw before. I agree - nothing "unlocked" easily for me on this one, and I stayed in the "challenged but not frustrated" zone. I think I had success as a result of consistent practice over the past few weeks - this was a good training puzzle.
@Bill T Super impressive Friday time!
Typical Friday for me, needed quite a lot of help, but enjoyed it a lot. Nice variety of entries with clever clueing. Thanks for your hard work, Jacob.
Just two lookups so that's my Friday record. Should have maybe stuck with it for a bit longer. Might have gotten it eventually. Had Cooper's test like some others here also and that had me confused. Over here that's what is part of the tests. Did not know the term LOLLS.
I’m commenting to share my love for this puzzle (10D made me chuckle!) but mostly to brag about my time - 12:34 ✨ a Friday personal record!
@Jenna That blows my mind! I don't think I'll ever have that fast a time for anything beyond Monday or maybe Tuesday. And I'm totally okay with that but it is astounding to me that you and others can do these that quickly. 🤯🤯
I was RARINTOGO and WENTBANANAS over this straightforward puzzle, which I thought had a nice mix of fun clues and interesting answers. My favorite was the clue for OVENTIMER, even though I don’t really flip the bird when roasting poultry.
@Marshall Walthew Marshall, you should, even though it’s a pain to do. Bird gets proper all over cooking.
@Marshall Walthew I was going to disagree too. You're using an oven not a stove or a broiler and the heat's on all sides. Plus, the bird won't balance upside-down. Cute clue, but no.
A delight. Love how Fridays start out feeling impossible, then gradually become more doable all the way until you're sad that the puzzle is over. This one definitely fit that bill... my favorite clue was OVEN TIMER.
@Lydia Simmons Agree fully with Lydia! Thank you, Jacob!
When the monkey lost his case, he went bananas. (He'll have to a-peel.)
Great flow to this. A nice steady engaging quarter hour tonight. Always felt like I was working but never frustrated.
Even though 1A was a gimme for me, I didn't fill it in (pen on paper) because I couldn't figure out the crosses. So I started from the bottom and worked my way up. And the NW was the last section to fall, since I got hung up for a while with VACAY. Kept wanting it to be VJDAY, which of course wouldn't have made any sense. BURPEE was a sticking point. Never heard of it in any context besides seeds for the garden I used to have. Finally got it from the crosses. Never had to do that in HS, but I did have to pass a swimming test in order to graduate. Since the sadistic PE teacher was known to push us non-swimmers into the deep end of the pool, I was the only kid with a 3-year ear infection that kept me out of the water for good. Otherwise I'd probably still be there. Waftaroms seemed to cry out for the answer, ODOR, I guess because "arom" reminded me of ODOR. When I finally finished it without walking away or having to look up any answers or even read Wordplay, it was a real sense of accomplishment.
I recall learning waftaroms from a visual dictionary of esoteric terms; the flying sweat droplets that show someone is nervous are called plewds.
Even with lots of crosses, I was very slow in coming up with the wonderfully clued SWING STATE. But at least I wasn't confused by the whole LITMUS TEST thing because a mental block prevented me from coming up with LITMUS TEST, even though I tried. My other favorite clue was for OVEN TIMER. I hope Lewis will list it this week. An early reader, I am told that I had much of Nancy Drew before I was even in school. But did I remember NED today? No. I didn't even remember she had a boyfriend, to tell the truth. Did any other Nancy Drew readers here remember NED? I'm curious if my memory is just bad or if NED is truly unmemorable. A word about IRATE. I am IRATE that the beautiful word "incandescent" -- which I associate both with warm light and with a smile that could light up the whole world -- has been twisted into meaning IRATE. Who did this??? Aren't there enough words for angry in our vocabulary? Shame on you! More rant coming: With climate change upon us, I'm afraid that the incandescent bulb must sadly go the way of the rotary phone. But tell me, ladies: Would you rather your boyfriend NED had had his first glimpse of you in florescent light...or in LED light...or in halogen light? I rest my case. I found this puzzle lively, well-clued, somewhat challenging, and a lot of fun.
@Nancy I read Nancy Drew later than you did, starting in 4th grade I think, so maybe that's why Ned (was his last name Nickerson?) stuck in my head. I didn't have trouble with him. CANA and SIENA, on the other hand ... as far as I can recall, I've never heard of either one. I thought the miracle was in the cave, making the school Sieva and the bad rap a bad rep, which seemed plausible.
@Nancy - as I read my sisters’ Nancy Drew books, Ned made an impression on me, … because he was the only boy in there, and I could imagine him to be just as lovely as I wanted. I remember Ned, very well indeed… to each their own
@Nancy For a while, NED was the only answer I was confident about! I probably started reading them in first or second grade, and I read my favorites of them multiple times, along with my Trixie Beldens. Sorry, @Francis, I left the Hardy Boys for my brothers! But they never got into reading like I did. 😉
One of those puzzles where I’m on the same wavelength as the constructor and it flies by too quickly… rare, but satisfying. Thanks for a fun Friday grid!
Funny how different puzzles play to different solvers so differently. This was the easiest Friday/Saturday puzzle I've ever encountered. No silly tricks. Very few obscure cultural clues (so many puzzles are hard just because I pay almost no attention to music or cinema, and remember exactly nothing of what I do consume). Just words and word play. Love it.
The answer to 32D threw me off because we all know that the postal code for the North Pole is H0H 0H0
Is not the profile pic “head and shoulders above the rest” of the pics primarily because we pick the pick of the pics for that pic? Got a bad rap - went bananas (sorry - just thinking about the bf down below who won’t stop yelling about this puzzle 😂) Personally, I found this Friday puzzle was full of LOLLS.
Where is everyone? Fun puzzle. Quick for a Friday but very enjoyable. Thanks, Jacob Mcdermott!
Fun puzzle that turned out to be a bottom up solve and only took one third my usual Friday time. I see many 'on the same wavelength' comments which certainly applies, as well as 'not much on the first pass'.
I'm disappointed 38D is not rizz.
@Jordan I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who confidently filled in RIZZ only to sadly replace most of the letters with crossings
@Jordan I was relieved that it wasn't RIZZ. I've been waiting (with dread) for that word to appear ever since I read that Oxford had added it to their dictionary. So far, so good.
Started slow, but after a few passes through the clues I felt the constructor's wavelength. I managed to finish with out look-ups 5 min faster than my average. My favorite part? No obscure (to me) sports trivia! (especially proper names, I'm terrible with names) I have never read (or watched) Nancy Drew, yet somehow I immediately knew NED. It must have seeped into my brain through osmosis. Trixie Beldon was my go-to literary amateur teen girl sleuth, but alas she has never been a crossword clue (that I'm aware of). All in all, it was fun, amusing, doable Friday crossword. :)
@Janine Although I read every Nancy, often more than once, Trixie is also my all-time favorite sleuth!! I love that she was just a regular teen, Nancy was classy and had her blue convertible and always dressed smartly, but Trixie had her dungarees and got into scrapes and didn't want to do her chores! I only recently gave away my entire collection of Trixie's to an avid young reader in my life, who's kind of an old soul, so I know she will love them as they deserve! I did keep one for posterity. The Mystery at Saratoga! 🕵️
Any puzzle that mentions Nancy Drew is aces with me!
@Margaret It's all a part of the international conspiracy against us poor, down-trodden men, none of whom would deign to even open a Nancy Drew book. It's atrocious, atrocious I say, that men are so highly discriminated against in today's society. /s
Pure enjoyment. I felt like the constructor and I were totally on the same wavelength. I loved 3D and 29A, and a shout out for NED Nickerson, who knew that name was still rattling around in the recesses of my brain??) Thank you for a really fun puzzle!
Come to find out, there’s a romance character named after a cookie.
@Les I have a friend named after the cookie, not the fictional character, because it's all her mother could eat when she was pregnant with her.
I recently learned what the Murph challenge is and was so excited to see 48-Across...On the bright side, MURPHY and BURPEE have enough letters in common that it was still helpful for the down clues!
@Katie I’m glad you brought up the Murph Challenge, it’s quite a remarkable story. In case there is anyone out there unfamiliar with it, I’ve linked a pretty good background story below from Men’s Health. It’s an exercise routine named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Michael P. Murphy (5/7/1976 - 6/28/2005) from Patchogue, NY. Worth a read, I think…. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/2duhztj9" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/2duhztj9</a>
Pretty smooth but still fun with totally guessable longer fill. Well done and thanks. NW the last to complete as I conflated the patron Saint of headaches and migraines with Mother Teresa who I knew to be Albanian. Speaking of migraines, following the developing story of worldwide IT outages affecting systems running a Cloudstrike Falcon sensor security product. Apparently a corrupted update file is causing the dreaded BSOD* (which would be a debut answer). *Blue Screen Of Death
@John I heard that all the billboards in Times Square were blacked out because of the issue. It would have been funny if they had all displayed the BSOD. Not so funny for all the folks stuck in airports.
Last corner to fill was the NW. puffy at 4D and the 3 letter word for donkey at 5D was not particularly helpful. I suddenly channeled I CAN'T EVEN and that straightened it all out. The rest went very smoothly. Nice fill, especially LOVE POTION and a great clue for OVEN TIMER.
A fun, chewy Friday puzzle! I had litmus test instead of SWING STATE, which threw me for a while. I guess I'd rather think about anything but politics at this point.
Today I am grateful that there are still only two K-Pop artists I need to know. Unfortunately they both have three letters. However, I figured that the boys in BTS were still toddlers in 2013, and so that left the other artist. Now I have that song in my head! You know the one. It has 5.2 BILLION views on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0</a>
woo hoo! printed the puzzle and did it with my pen and my R hand/1 shoot! the shift key is still a bit of a stretch. doing my pT exercises. Much less pain in hand, though the elbow is another story... having allergic reaction to something oh--the puzzle: wow, lotta tricky clues Litmus test fit 29a perfectly, alas its a thrill fanta...who knew? Lefty can do Shift so well anyone here able to do the mighty mouse goggle maneuver with their thumb an index finger making the lens....it is one of the exercises that i find impossible...my tendon will just have to glide some other way oh, the puzzle jacob, thanks so much
MOL, Glad to hear you're getting back into the swing of things! #####
With another nod to my misspent youth hanging out in our backyard treehouse during summer or my comfy pink bedroom in the winter reading oh so many mysteries, NED was a gimme--and for a while the only thing I felt solid about. I had confidently plopped in AVILA from the get-go but later lost confidence because I struggled with the crosses. But with VACAY came vindication! I was so happy to put AVILA back in! tinyurl.com/5wd9fatu A lot of my other early ones had to go, like hard before AGED, get before YER, and IN iT before IN OT. I even had preferences before PROFILE PICS. But all in all, I finished it below average and with no lookups or helps! Now that's not exactly a brag, my averages are terrible if you care about time. My favorites were SWING STATE, OVEN TIMER, NERO, and LIMOS. Another fun puzzle that at first seemed nearly impossible without help but slow and steady won the race! I don't know that I have a specific strategy but if I do, it involves brain flexibility and willingness to accept that I might be wrong and think of another way to look at it. Even though I really did think it was AVILA, it wasn't serving me at the moment, so I took it out and let my brain flex. For some reason having the V there initially stopped me from seeing VACAY. When I came back to that blank corner as the last section, VACAY just popped into my head... And the rest followed. Huzzah!! Happy weekend everyone!
@HeathieJ I also saw AVILA immediately, and also had to let it go, and was also delighted to return to it, having arrived at "I CAN'T EVEN" 16 A - which gave me the help I needed for the rest of the top corner. And I laughed when NED came to me so quickly - I also loved Nancy Drew, but had forgotten all about Ned (or so I thought!)
Like Deb I got nowhere until LMAO (no pun intended). Then I sped through the bottom 2/3rds before struggling back through top. I plugged in and deleted and replugged and deleted so many answers that turned out to be correct in the end, but I don’t think I would have gotten the music without that exercise.
Fun puzzle! TIL "waftaroms". Not much trivia and it was guess-able from crosses. Had to think about a lot of clues but some just popped into my head. Some pops were even useful. "Cooper" (thank you 1968's Aerobics) instead of BURPEE was not! Thanks for a nice start to the weekend.
Jacob, "rizz" is way more fit for being a flirt ability in slang.
@someone born I had that first and it saddened me to change it! I think GAME works well too.
First, I want to apologize for last week's threads potatogate. Hopefully the following food fact will make up for it: in Australia they have something called "the lot", which you can order your burger with - the usual stuff, then bacon, egg, so far so good, and ... pineapple and beets.
@Lars. Sorry Lars, in Australia the beetroot is part of the basic hamburger. However, cheese is not. So, “the lot” adds cheese, egg, bacon, and pineapple. Or, of course, you can add all or any of these in any combination you choose to the plain burger which is: meat, lettuce, tomato, grilled onion, and beetroot all on a plain, soft-crust, white bun toasted on the inside, with tomato or barbecue (spicy, plum based) sauce.
@Patrick J. Beets on a burger 😳? I’m startled!
@Patrick J. Sorry, I knew I had some details wrong!