Hemant is on my can’t-miss list of constructors, and this after only his eighth NYT puzzle. One reason is his craftsmanship. Today, for instance, we have a 70-word, 30-block grid, meaning seas of white, and where is the ugliness? Where? This is extraordinarily difficult to bring off, and he does it every time. He does this not by focusing on time-worn words that are friendly to constructors but boring to solvers, but rather on words that have never showed up in puzzles before, which pays off so wonderfully for solvers. Hemant specializes in this. He averages a bit over eight Times answer debuts per puzzle. Today he had 10, including such lovely additions to the oeuvre as GO OUT ON TOP, I MISSED YOU, KINKSHAME, and LET ME EXPLAIN. In addition, he has the cluing knack, peppering his puzzles with original beauties. Today, for instance, he took an answer that has appeared in puzzles well more than a thousand times – ANTE – and gave it a no-one-has-ever-come-up-with-anything-like-this clue: [Entry fee for some clubs?]. So, when his name appears atop a puzzle, I am there. Hemant, you are a talented craftsperson and entertainer. I am so grateful that your path led to making crosswords. Thank you for another sparkling jewel today!
@Lewis Where are stats kept for how often words or phrases appear in the NYT crosswords?
Crunchy? Not really. Fun? Absolutely. The clueing was just challenging enough to make me think, but not so hard that I got stuck anywhere.
“Bad news from a mâitre d’” - made me laugh to think of the possibilities: FLOP - status of the daily special BOSS - warning of unexpected diner FIRE - kitchen is closed LACK - favorite liquor is on backorder LOST - status of your checked coat OKRA - today's vegetable
Odd and ODDER when I'm just thinking about having a PB&J and here's Deb talkin' peanut butter analogies. Dash it, I'm going down right now to get me one (blackberry preserves and Skippy on whitebread)! Working among indie rockers, who remind me sometimes of Lubavitcher jews in the purity of their orthodoxy, I've learned that bands like the Black Keys & White Stripes might start off as indie, but if they sign to commercial labels and start putting out songs played on commercial radio, or which sound like they should be on commercial radio, they're no longer indie. Just as Judaism is both a culture and a religion, so indie rock is both a kind of sound, content, technique and production values of the music itself, and also about the lifestyle choices and financial & business considerations the rockers make. My colleagues would certainly speak in SNIDE TONES about the Keys and the Stripes. If they were playing this puzzle there would have been a lot of LET ME EXPLAIN. That said, there are some GREAT potential indie band names in this puzzle: The Idolaters The Footlongs Torso Tom's H-BOMB The B-Teams Duress The Rains... I like some of duos here: KNOT next to I DOS (and what do indie rockers exchange besides vows at their weddings? Indie bands of course!); A PLUSES atop B TEAMS; SOBER crossing GLASS TUMBLER; MIST above, RAINS below; ANTE above, BID below; BARREL & TORSO, HTS above, HAUTE below. So, lots of good symmetry, which is probably why it was so smooth. Jiffy-style.
A teaspoon is a substitute for a pinch? If you sub a tsp of salt for a pinch of salt you're going to have a mighty salty dish!
@Me Sometimes it might work though. My otherwise amazing mother-in-law can't handle hot spices and if she uses any at all, it is in minute amounts. "Watch out, I made the soup especially spicy this time," she will say, meaning there are four whole pepper grains in the pot 🤣. Gimme spoons of the stuff!
@Me Salt would be an outlier though. Lots of herbs would be fine... Even sugar wouldn't be all that big a deal. But yeah, not the best cluing on that one. /Don't pinch the emus
Personal best for a Fri, not a single lookup. Not that I think it was easy, I was just on the right wavelength somehow with Mr Mehta. Love the long fills.
Unlike some of you chaps here I’m with Deb; definitely crunchy. I had very little first pass, which is always a sign of a chewy puzzle for me. Love the long entries once I found a way in, 5D and 21D were helpful for the crosses. Interesting fact re SHARKS and eventually got 51A from the crosses, thanks to having recently watched Yellowstone. TELEX was a rare gimme, it took me back to working in an office in the early 80’s. The machine was already in its way out but the two elderly brothers who ran the small company were somewhat behind the times. As the export clerk I was daily relegated to the empty top floor where the Telex was sat, typing my reams of export/import docs in the cold as they refused to heat the empty room. I left for life as a publican soon after. Life is too short to spend it sneezing dust with frozen fingers.
@Helen Wright On any given day it can really be about wavelength, I say. Sometimes we are just not in sync with the puzzlemaker.
@Helen Wright My first job out of college in 1977 was working for a company that was producing a fact book for the travel trade for American Express. In it were listings of various hotels and other tourist-related locations, and my job was to get the information from the hotels about what services and amenities they offered. Our first attempt to communicate was by letter; then by TELEX, and if absolutely necessary, by super expensive overseas phone calls. It was the first time I had ever seen a TELEX, let alone used one. It was also the last time...
@Helen Wright Mstery author Sarah Caudwell included in one of her all-too-few erudite and witty books a reference to a stodge Head of Chambers refusing to modernise by installing a Telex machine. Well worth reading for much more than the Telex reference.
Yesterday was my first Thursday without a lookup, today was my first Friday without a lookup. Either this week’s puzzles were a little easier than normal or I’m finally seeing personal improvement. Either way, I’m quite happy! Enjoyed this one quite a bit.
@Audrey today was my fastest Friday ever. Didn’t feel easy, because I never got stuck. Seems like the type of puzzle where vets will breeze through and rooks can’t figure out why. So seems to me you are improving, even if todays puzzle was easier than most.
@Audrey congratulations to you on the successful solves! In my experience, being patient and calmly curious helps to tackle these end of week puzzles. Lots of times it's frustration that makes me think about wanting to Check Puzzle. The more I practice, the more I master that emotional side of crosswords. Look fwd to hearing about your wins!
@Audrey both can be true! Congratulations on your milestones! Hip hip emu
Re sheep…sheep secrete a waxy substance called lanolin which coats and protects their wool. The lanolin is removed when most wool is processed after shearing. The lanolin extracted is also made into many moisturizing and skin protective products. Some more minimally processed wools in their natural colors retain enough lanolin that garments knitted from the yarns will retain a degree of natural water resistance.
@G L Glad you made this post, all you say is pretty accurate. Prompted me to look it up in xwordinfo to find lanolin has appeared about 25 times in NYT puzzles. Last two appearances were 2/17/2024 [Source of foul odor when wool is washed] and 9/13/2013 [Stuff used to soften baseball mitts]. Some shaving creams still have lanolin and I know these have been advocated for softening new gloves.
@G L I was just coming here to say that.
[Injury-prone gymnast?] [Jiltings at the altar?] This puzzle was easy-hard. No, hard-easy. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: Fun. GLASS TUMBLER I DO LATERS
Starting to look grim when I got all the way to 33A before coming up with anything, but then it went pretty smoothly. Nice fill, but they always end up putting an OREO in there somewhere, amirite? ;-)
I've read the comments and see that most thought this was easy. My experience was mixed. For about 3/4 of it, I thought I'd have a personal best for Friday. But then I came to a screeching halt. Everything north of TULSA (a gimme for me) at 38A was really hard won. So basically, that section took me more time than the rest of the puzzle did. But when I got it all in (without any help), I felt extremely happy and accomplished! And so I give myself a customary, HUZZAH!!!! Does it matter that so many others found it really easy? I don't know, I know that my experience was similar for much of the puzzle, and I know I couldn't have done this without help six months ago. I know there are competitions out there but I'm only competing against myself, so it's all good! Having A grades and strata instead of APLUSES and BTEAMS really set me back so in and out they went. I did have TONES, SNIDE and MIST but had a hard time with crosses. The E instead of o in IDOLATERS threw me a bit. And I was thinking along the lines of impatience for toe tapping. Victory when I finally remembered SPIN, which gave me P in IMPOSSIBLE, which helped me settle on UM NO, instead of debating Uh, oh, etc. And from there it fell. BERGS was last and made me laugh when I got it! Nice!! Favorites: KNOT and IDOS next to each other, SOBER, MAYI, and ANTE. Also, KINK SHAME because I didn't know that phase and TULSA because too many don't know about it. Cheers to the weekend! 😊
I enjoyed this puzzle with its witty yet fair cluing - which probably means many veteran solvers will denounce it as being too easy 😉 I had to look up a tiny but if trivia, much less than on an average late week day. I got the mysterious double STUF from the crosses, and didn't understand it. A quick Google search revealed it is an actual made up word, and one possibly constituting false advertising, as it apparently falsely implies an Oreo with double stuffing. Also, why would sheep shrink when it rains? Honest question.
Oh, I also wanted to comment on TELEX. I knew the answer almost instantly, even though I was born in 1980, because of the technological backwardness of "communist" Poland in the 80s. Fax machines were unknown, so telex was actually considered modern technology - along with telegrams. Then came the political and economic transformation of 1989. Along with market economy and democracy came the fax machine, which enjoyed a short career in the early and mid-90s, to be rather quickly displaced by the internet, which was introduced commercially pretty much at the same time as everywhere else, but suffered initially because of inferior infrastructure. These days though we enjoy services provided over fiber optic cables and 5G wireless technology. Quite the leap. (But we have some the worst postal services in Europe, and possibly in the world. In the 90s and 00s it was not unusual for a letter to travel 2 weeks from one end of Warsaw to the other. Somebody once calculated an actual turtle would deliver mail faster than the postal "system". Nowadays regular mail is rarely used, but it still sucks, if slightly less than 20 years ago.)
Hey @Andrzej - sheep may shrink when it rains because they’re made of wool, like woollen sweaters in the wash (it’s a joke)
Last week I read a comment from someone on here who had learned to trust their gut when it came to entering answers to nebulous clues, and by golly it worked for me today, especially on the phrase answers. I did trip myself up by putting Euro where I should have put PESO, but still got the sweet victory of a PB with no look ups. Good STUF!
@JonathanT My rule is to trust your gut, but remember where you're entering a gut guess and be willing to remove it if it's not allowing any crosses to land. Having confidence in your entries is the main step to total proficiency; having the sense to abandon some of them when they aren't working is just as important.
@JonathanT — I do, and more often than not it works. If it’s wrong, just delete. I’ve found, too, that walking away then coming back leads to a lot of “aha” moments, especially with the wordplay clues.
@JonathanT It worked for me today, but my usual method is to avoid doing that until I've entered everything I'm fairly sure of. If I enter too many wrong answers it makes recognizing partly entered words much more difficult. It's how I end up getting stuck when doing a really difficult puzzle, because so many clues in those require you to kind of scream and leap, and trying to figure out at that point which ones need to be culled out gets frustrating. It is fun and rewarding when it works, though.
Chewy? Really? Nice puzzle (as usual from Mr. Mehta) but this was a Wednesday run two days late.
I did have trouble getting started at the top -- SPIN and BREATH MINTS were the first two answers I filled in -- but finished in 7:32, after Thursday's 7:24. If you struggle with late-week puzzles, keep practicing. LET ME EXPLAIN! Ten years ago this would have been IMPOSSIBLE, but now it's easy for me to earn A PLUSES. (Thank you for letting me brag about my times; I've had a tough week and needed to hype myself.)
@C-64Glad you bragged! I hope more people post their times - I find them interesting benchmarks. This was an easy Friday puzzle, which meant a 25:00 solve time for me.
This was a good puzzle. Yes, it solved quickly but part of what makes a good puzzle is feeling like you earned it. For me there were some moments that I had to think it through, and once I got to a point it just unfolded in a pleasant way. I thought some of the clues were inventive and fun, even if it wasn't a total brain burner.
Hmm, I was going to say this was too smooth for a Friday, and the column greets me with crunchy! No matter, I like both. Fun, fast Friday fill.
I usually love Hemant Mehta’s puzzles, but this one fell pretty flat. An odd combination of being easy but with bad fill. I especially think we shouldn’t encourage “anagram minus a letter” clues… really brings down the quality in my opinion.
I wouldn't call this one easy but it was breezy. Actually most of my angst was markingTIME instead of KEEPingTIME: a marching band mistake. I laughed all the way out loud at SOBER for Unlit?. I love HOTMICS, GOOUTONTOP (my first guess as was UMNO!), BREATHMINTS and even MAYI felt cute in a MAYI have this dance. BARRELRACE took a minute to work out which doesn't make sense because I should have gotten DOMES right away, but my family has so many cranium jokes that it took a minute to get the right one. Overall one of my favorite puzzles and I even told an old friend IMISSEDYOU earlier today. Definitely same wave.
@Joya "Breezy" is exactly the word that came to mind for me, too. Same wave, you and I, for all the ones you mentioned -- right down to the insistent MAY I have this dance. Except I way overshot on the "heads" wordplay and assumed we were talking about jOhnS. Lol! Initially I thought the toe-tapping might solve to something about keeping still (even though it didn't fit). Having K___STI__ really threw me off...
Funny how a puzzle can be fun and breezy (dare I say creamy?) but one incorrect square IDOLATeRS totally hitched me up. So there was a crunchy nut right in the middle! For this silly speller, anyway. Fun one! Thank you Hemant!
CCNY, SIGH. WAIT. BETA. You and I weren't the only ones who first wanted the O there, but I did not KEEP it after filling the cross word. #####
@CCNY I looked it up afterwards, and the ER version is the preferred one in M-W. I was quite surprised. I always spelled it with OR, and I don't think I've ever seen it with ER. Meanwhile, why did the church oppose having a discount store built next door? Because they didn't want a Dollar Tree near them. (Say it aloud.)
@CCNY When you solve from the bottom up, some controversies have already settled themselves.... and that was the case here. I would have wanted the O, but KEEPing TIME was more important, as our Band director always insisted.
Am I the only person on earth who spells it "idolators"? What spelling will I find when I get home and consult my old dictionaries?
@D Bean I had "--ors" first as well. But the switch wasn't hard to accept.
@D Bean My dictionary has both spellings. I tried an O at first, which made it harder to get KEEPS TIME. But then, I have a horrible sense of rhythm.
@D Bean I'm on Team -ORS, too, but it is the nature of language to be in constant flux, and if enough people use the "incorrect" spelling or usage (I'm looking at you "Woah", and you too "Ya'll"), it becomes an accepted alternative. But I draw the line at "Irregardless"!!!
I love it when a Friday puzzle makes me feel smart. Do you know what I mean? It's not easy, with lots of clues I didn't get on the first or maybe even second pass. But I just feel so good about myself once things start clicking, and the aha moments are so satisfying without feeling IMPOSSIBLE. Exactly what I want out of a Friday puzzle!
Loved the puzz, Mr. Mehta, and I am so bummed you were robbed of [Condemn an undercover investigation?]! Seriously best clue ever.
A little too quick for a Friday imo. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great puzzle with a lot of really clever clues, but Friday-level difficulty it was not. Hoping for a crunchy/chewy Saturday!
Yes, your clue for KINKSHAME would have been more fun.
I agree this was not crunchy ... but maybe a little chewy, as I rethought A-grades and H-test as my entries for 23A and 45A. And those entries made me think that Hemant had hidden an alphabet run in the grid: A PLUSES B TEAMS C ?? D ?? E ?? F ?? G EODE H TEST I CON One can hope.
@Henry Su Hi, Henry! It's been awhile. Nice to see you again. Emus have been blocking me. Hopefully this will go through.
Tough one for me, but managed to work it out. Ten debut answers - Nine of theme reasonably familiar terms or phrases - e.g. KEEPSTIME GOOUTONTOP IMISSEDYOU BREATHMINTS Quite surprised to see that those never appeared before. The one exception (for me) would be KINKSHAME. Puzzle find today I'll put in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened - inspired by a search for HAUTE: A Thursday puzzle from October 3, 1996 by James R. Leeds. In that one the trick was all in the clues. The 'reveal' was: 33a: FRACTUREDFRENCH Here are the theme answers and clues: "The king has drowned, in 33-Across? :" LOUISCINQ "Stable fare, in 33-Across? :" HAUTECUISINE "Drag Miss DuBois to dinner, in 33-Across?:" CARTEBLANCHE "Father finch, in 33-Across? :" NESTCEPAS I'm done. ..
Excellent weekend puzzle, IMHO. Maybe more like a Saturday than a Friday? FWIW. I got a small handful of words on my first pass, then it looked utterly impossible on my second pass, then turned out to be doable, one corner, then another, then a bit more, etc., with no need for Google or other cheats -- aside from asking kid a Spanish phrase, and that didn't help much - it wrongly gave me "tu ES" as "you are." It did take 3 sittings and walking away twice. The one about things that fall off the a shelf was the last answer to fall, and I didn't get how that answer fit the clue until I saw it filled in.
I loved this one. I’m not ashamed to admit I did a little googling. Very enjoyable.
I'd say my absolute favorite kind of puzzle: almost NOTHING on the first pass; GROAN; then just a few; then more because the crosses are kind; more; finally ALL DONE with no look-ups (though I'm not fanatically against them, mind you). There weren't too many proper nouns, but I didn't know most of them (14A 18A 45A 6D). I did know 47A--been seen recently in other puzzles anyway), and I consider myself woke enough to know 38A and 43A. I will never know Marvel comics, having had a violently ant-comics mother. She went ballistic when I reported in 5th grade that I had filled out a survey and said I'd read more comics that year than in previous year. This was honest, but totally because I was spending more time in an orthodontist's waiting room--the only place I ever encountered comics. (Now that I share this memory, it occurs to me to ask whose survey that was and why? 50's comic scare era?)
There were lots of bright clues and fun answers tonight. I caught a break with a couple of music clues (INDIEBANDS and SPIN) and more or less solved the puzzle in a clockwise fashion, finishing up in the middle of the left side of the puzzle. The longish downs were hard enough to challenge me a bit, but really opened up the puzzle for me (especially GLASSTUMBLER).
Fun puzzle and the original kink shame clue was great. Just a minute of two off my PB for a Friday. I must have been on the same wavelength as the creator as this flowed like smooth peanut butter…
Happy Birthday crossword puzzle to me! I liked this nice breezy puzzle and completed it on close to record time with only one lookup (just the spelling of IDOLATER, which I had never seen before). It was a delightful change from the last two Fridays which I felt were slogs. Thanks for a nice little early birthday present!
What an amazing puzzle! I love when a puzzle just clicks, it feels like I’m on the constructors wavelength, and today was a great one. Pretty good finish at 9:55, bit fast for a Friday Do emus shrink when it RAINS? Food for thought
@Noelle I feel the same about this one! 10:46 for me. Always feels good when one can crush out a Friday and the coffee is still warm. RIP George Carlin, one of the masters.
Last week most puzzles were unusually hard. This week most of them are unusually easy. Or maybe I was just slower than usual last week and smarter now.
I started in the SE with Les MIZ and ZEUS (Hi, Paladin) followed by RAINS...but then I thought the 47D Question might be MIND? So I took out RAINS....and shortly had to reinstate it. That was an early glitch--easily corrected. Later I attempted to offer a 'something TOKEN' for the Subway fare ....Tsk. I was inspired by 41A to ask DHubby to place a bet on which candidate for what party would have the first embarrassing incident...but he wouldn't bite. It won't matter to the 8Ds anyway. MESS for "Fiasco"? Oh dear....how inadequate! Is 30D really a thing? How sad that there's always a new way to disparage, marginalize, insult, or belittle anyone with a difference. Speaking of....I wanted ODDLY instead of ODDER. ....and with that, I vote for 2D as Best clue/entry *and* Best positioning (next to 3D). Another winner for Hemant Mehta!
It was a breezy solve for me –as it seems thus far that it was for many others – but I'm sure that, for beginners, it will afford the crunch that Deb explains in the column. I'm not complaining about a breezy solve. I love them, as there's still much to figure out, but in a way that makes me feel attuned to the constructor. Thank you, Mr. Mehta. You never disappoint, and today's puzzle reinforces the notion. INDIE BANDS reminded me of Kostars from way back when. It was a side project of two members of the indie rock band Luscious Jackson. There was only one album, released in 1996, Klassics with a "K", and this is one of the songs on it. Here's "Red Umbrella" — <a href="https://youtu.be/gmGFd7Q1_4E?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/gmGFd7Q1_4E?feature=shared</a>
Fun puzzle, though I agree that it can be solved quicker than most Friday xwords. I enjoyed the FOOTLONGS entry especially, since I do indulge once or twice a month. TIL that the plural of plus can contain two OR three s’s. The former looks wrong to me, but who am I to argue with Webster, millions of writers and our esteemed editors.
@Sherman that's the English language for you - at times it can make us all feel like a bunch of ases! ...
Don't mean to be evincing SNIDE TONES, but IDOLATERS seems a much ODDER spelling than isolators. Sue ME. Was ALMOST DONE with this grid pretty quickly until getting stuck forever in the NW. Has got to be Chu, right?? KNOT!! SIGH.
I love it when some early guesses are actually correct. INDIEBANDS and LETMEEXPLAIN gave me a toehold, and FOOTLONG gave me a laugh. I also enjoyed the sneaky way Oreo managed to be a part of the puzzle, even when it wasn’t. Chewy or crunchy? I’d rate it chunky. Big enough to gnaw on, but not overbaked.
Took a bit to find my way into this one, TULSA, UDON and HAUTE were the toe holds. But eventually a smooth solve with a bit of crunch in the NE. Also "almost" finished Natan Last's New Yorker from this past Monday. I say "almost" because I was defeated by . . . . . . HANYAYANAGIHARA for ["A Little Life" author] crossing SEGNO for [Repeat symbol, in sheet music]. Some things one either knows or doesn't.
@John I got HANYA only because I figured out every one of the crosses. The New Yorker definitely includes entries that would be deemed to obscure for the NYT. That one was, in my opinion, one of them. Avid readers may disagree, but this was not an inferable name for anyone else. And I'd bet even some who actually read that book might not be able to reproduce that name perfectly.
@John It took me a few lucky guesses to get HANYA YANAGIHARA, whom I’d never heard of. As Steve L noted, that’s not a name likely to appear in a NYT grid. I tried the G because SEGNO “looked Italian,” though once I saw it, I recognized it. I solved it pretty quickly for a Natan Last New Yorker puzzle.
Lovely puzzle, and a satisfying fill. Usually, Fridays are a bit too hard for me, but I could fit most of this in quite quickly! It took me so long to see BERGS, kept thinking of bookshelves! I wasn't a big fan of HTS, which had me stumped on the top-left corner for a long time, and I eventually pieced IRR together, but I personally think it's a bit of a stretch. I loved WAIT, MODEL, FOOTLONGS, HOTMICS, RAINS, IDOLATERS, MUSEUMTOURS, BREATHMINTS (!), KINKSHAME, ERAS, TORSO. Lots of really clever hints! Overall, it's a fantastic Friday puzzle! Thanks, Hemant!
@Connor IRR is the standard store category for clothing with some defect large enough to notice on inspection (and so discounted), but small enough to pass unnoticed when wearing. Or perhaps only in the US and where I shop.
This was terrific! It wasn't too much of an ordeal as some prefer, but I think still Friday worthy.
Ooh! An anagram! "Crazy bears tin them with no end of patience for hiding smells (5,5)" As a cryptic might put 22d
Tied my Friday best at 9:20. Not a tough one, but enjoyable wordplay. Hat tip to the Friendly Atheist for a fun one today!
I never sent a 29 across but I recall my father talking about them. That is a word I have not heard in a long time.
I thought this was a nice pretty nice puzzle, coming in at about 80% of my average time. My only nit to pick is the very awkward clue for BREATHMINTS.
One of my final clues which when I got on crosses I had a chuckle, was BERGS. I was picturing what could fall off a bookshelf... Did anyone else get stuck thinking of books? If you're done w the puzzle, check out the berg-related NYT article from earlier this week - After Breaking Free, World’s Largest Iceberg Is Stuck Spinning in Circles <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/science/a23a-iceberg-antarctica-spinning.html?smid=nytcore-android-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/science/a23a-iceberg-antarctica-spinning.html?smid=nytcore-android-share</a>