Excellent clue for SYNONYM. Of course I was initially fooled into putting an emphasis on the first syllable of ‘contracts’ instead of the second. A good misdirect. Great debut of MATRYOSHKA, and what a clever clue. I also like the playful mini-theme of TIKTOK DANCE, TWISTER MAT and PICKLEBALL. Luckily I already had BIGTOP, so didn’t fall into the egOCENTRIST trap. That was fun. Thanks, Spencer.
Big and little pleasures in the box today. • MATRYOSHKA. First pleasure when the meaning of [She’s so full of herself!] hit me. Second pleasure was remembering the Netflix series “Russian Doll”, which I adored. • NEMO over OMEN! Abutting palindromes! • Enough footholds to flesh out answers that weren’t in my wheelhouse, yet sufficiently scattered that my brain’s work ethic was satisfied. • BOLERO, evoking Ravel’s hypnotic piece. • Reading [Relatively nice prison, humorously] for CLUB FED, seeing “prison” as “person”, and thinking “I don’t get it! Why would you call a nice person that?” • An answer set pulsing with energy – words I haven’t come across in a long time (GEOCENTRIST, MATRYOSHKA, BOLERO), lovely colloquialisms (YOU BET I CAN, TEA, YOU PROBLEM), and zingy words (YIKES, ZOOT, PICKLEBALL). • The brilliant clue – [Contracts, for shrinks, e.g.] – that transformed SYNONYM from neutral to special. The never-before-used clue for prolific answer ATM: [They don’t usually produce change]. A swag bag puzzle filled with lovely gifts. Thank you, Spencer – what a sweet springboard to the day!
Administrative note: I shall be away for several days, back at the end of the week. I should be able, however, to slip in my clue list on Monday. Wishing you all well! Et tu, emu.
Oops! NEMO and OMEN are semordnilaps, not palindromes. Et tu, emu.
26D To whom one might say "Not everything revolves around you!" ... DONALDTRUMP fit perfectly
I don’t know if it was easy or I was just absolutely on the same wavelength as the constructor. Can’t remember so many Saturday answers that fell so quickly. PICKLEBALL was a gimme. GALEFORCE, RACINOS, OPENLYGAY, TWISTERMAT all popped in effortlessly. Heck when I saw _____ suit first thing that came to mind was ZOOT even before I saw ZEBRA, how weird is that? Only corner that gave me a little pause was the SE but loved the MATRYOSHKA clue, my grandmother had them. I don’t know if everyone will find it so easy, I just think it’s one of those days when everything clicked for me. In any case fun and well-constructed.
@SP same here (but for different words…somehow GALEFORCE didn’t come easily for me but MANICPANIC did) Glad this puzzle came out when it did as I had started to almost dread Saturday puzzles for how much they challenge me. Overall, I found this puzzle clever and refreshing, and I’m now headed to the archives to see if I’ve yet to tackle any of the creator’s other puzzles. Happy Pride!
I never once stopped thinking that it said “Relatively nice person”. After i resigned myself to “CLUBFED”, i was surprised to hear the happy music, because that is not a nice person. I do the crosswords to reassure myself that my brain is still working well, but that was not reassuring. Surely there are others who mis-read it too? Oh well. Amam said there’d be days liek this.
@deborah Same here! Not an uncommon problem for me - you'd think I'd know by now that when I'm stuck on a clue my first step should be to go back and read it VERY carefully :)
@deborah Guilty as charged---read "person" instead of "prison".
@deborah I absolutely did! 😂
"Won't anyone help me find my sheep?" "That sounds like a ewe problem." ("It sheer is!")
@Mike Sounds like you're trying to ram this one down our throats then take it on the lamb. Pun and run?
@Mike You've been pulling the wool over our eyes for too long. I know your plan--to make everyone love puns! Well, we won't be led like lambs to the slaughter!
Brilliant. Loved it. MATROYSHKA and TWISTERMAT were so fun to find. This was a grid stuffed with great answers and fantastic clues.
Saturday with no lookups! Not that it was an easy puzzle, just one free of excessive proper nouns.
@Adina My only look-up was what is a Chordophone? Not a word I knew. This is why I don't consider look-ups cheating. They are learning experiences!
This morning I made a comment on Spelling Bee complaining that ZOOT wasn’t accepted. Glad to see it is in the crossword! The EGO/GEO CENTRIST entry is just terrific!
@Ann My computer Scrabble game won’t accept ZOOT, either. In its defense, neither of the dictionaries I use list ZOOT as an entry separate from ZOOT suit.
I just could not see that I'd misspelled "problom" no matter how many times I went over the puzzle. I think it was a ME problem.
Thanks, Mr. Leach, for making me feel like I know more than I do. I zipped through your colorful grid without much delay, almost matching my time on yesterday’s puzzle. I really enjoyed your clues for 57A MATRYOSHKA and 10D TWISTER MAT. Ironically, OPENLY GAY was one of the last things I filled in. This weekend sees Austin’s Pride Parade, which I have marched in a few times. (Why August? Because June in Central Texas is too hot!) Thanks for the fun.
CLUB FED, BIG TOP, ZOOT suit, RICO Nasty, ANITA Dunn, MANIC PANIC, RACINOS, EBT, shofars, SRO, BEANO (what a ridiculous brand name!) - not knowing any of this stuff made the puzzle impossible to complete without lookups. I can't remember the last time a grid was so full of clues and answers completely alien to me. At least MATRYOSHKA was a gimme (after all, it used to be the most popular, Eastern European travel souvenir and novelty item). Also, why are AMPS the answer to AC units and KILO to Grand opening?
@Andrzej AC = alternating current, AMP is short for ampere Grand is slang for thousand; kilogram, kilometer, grand opening
@Andrzej AC is alternating current here, amps is a unit of measure for electrical current. A grand is also colloquial for 1,000, just like kilo.
One of those puzzles where I gave up in despair 1/3 of the way through, picked it up a few hours later and whizzed through it. Subconsciouses are amazing.
Steve, I share your amazement at how the “subconscious” works - your amazement, and that of many who post here from time to time about the value of “giving it a rest” to solve tricky puzzles. I often think about such comments. Something about today - the clues in this puzzle, my mood? - means here is where I’m going to reply. Like any good geo- or egocentrist, we are each inescapeably in thrall of our self-consciousness. I am guessing that most people are like me: I imagine I “know what I’m doing” and take a little pride in my thinking skills when I think about a clue and then think of the answer. But actually, I am clueless about how thinking works. Though I have no idea how I “come up with” the correct answers even when I am consciously thinking of them (or, for that matter how I fail to when thinking just as hard), it is only occasionally that I become “aware” of this ineffable experience of suddenly receiving (or not) conscious grasp of a thought or idea or fact. The answers simply arrive in a kind of cognitive dumb-waiter, and are handed to me. The frustration is that sometimes the dumb-waiter is on a different schedule than “I” am. Minds amaze me - conscious, subconscious, and everything in between.
This felt refreshingly straightforward for a Saturday.
I don’t know MATRYOSHKA so that annoyed me. Otherwise I would have been done in half the time. RACINOS is something I might have known but forgot. So it gave me trouble too. This is my birthday puzzle. I’m turning 50. The last few hours of my 40s. Honestly, I’ve been dreading it.
@Dan As one on the cusp of leaving the 50s and seriously dreading the big 60, I know how you feel. However looking back, 50s was probably one of my best decades. 10 years from now I hope to have a similar epiphany.
@Dan Happy Birthday Dan! I get it. This is my last year in my 70's. Next year I'll be in my 80's. So far every year has been better than the last. So we puzzle along with the confidence that getting older remains so much nicer than the alternative. Cheers!
@Nom De Plume Thanks for replying. Ok I’ll work on being more positive! I’m in Mexico City for the first time. Maybe seeing the ancient pyramids will make me feel less old! ❤️
“Plus, bonus points for the use of the word ‘mosey’…” — Oz Buffyphiles unite
@David Connell True, this puzzle was a hoot, with a little bit of nanny
@David Connell Ahhh, I had forgotten about Seth Green’s character. The name of Oz’s band didn’t age well, though…
Well... tough one for me, of course, and had to cheat a bit in a couple of places. More than a couple of completely unfamiliar answers, and some clues that I wasn't catching on to. That's all on me. For no explainable reason - wondered about a possible jokey clue/answer possibility: "Good name for a bouncer?" RICKOSHEA Nope - nothing like that has ever been in a puzzle. And of course I had a puzzle find today. I'll put that in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from August 25, 1974 by Jack Wherry with the title "K rations." The puzzle had 22 answers that never, ever appeared in any other puzzle. Anyway - some sample 'theme' answers: KNICKKNACK ACKACKFIRE KNIFEANDFORK KANKAKEE FRANKKNOX KRISSKRINGLE BOOKKEEPERS KEUKALAKE RIKKITIKKI PICKUPSTICKS QUICKKICKS Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=8/25/1974&g=138&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=8/25/1974&g=138&d=A</a> ..
Big day for the oh-so-hip I-finished-in-three-minutes crowd, eh? Talk about you're so full of yourself.... Speaking for the great unwashed, really appreciate the brilliant construction of this grid, Spencer.
@LBG I think you're misinterpreting the intent of posters who comment that a puzzle is too easy. There are solvers of many different levels of experience here, and more skilled solvers would like to see a challenge in end of week puzzles. That's how it used to be, and that's missed by many. Imagine if every puzzle was at Monday level. You might quickly tire of them if they started to feel like a fill-in-the-blank chore. Since there are 3 guaranteed days of easy puzzles (and often 4 because Sunday usually falls in that range), it doesn't seem like too much to ask to have 3 more difficult puzzles, does it? To me, it just seems fair.
@Nancy J. See your point, but just don't think it applies here. This was not, IMHO, a Sunday-through-Wednesday puzzle. Merely an observation from one who's been doing these things since the days when the Shah was in power. As ever, your wheelhouse may vary.
Fabulous. A tough nut to crack into, but such sweet meat when you do. Great long entries at 13, 17, 54 and 57 A. I hadn’t come across 13A in my life as a punk, perhaps it didn’t cross the Pond. Food dye was our go to. Fine as long as it didn’t rain. Let’s face it, it rains a lot here, so many nights out ended with multicoloured streaks running down our faces. Smiled at 37A. Sent a screenshot to my youngest who has been out and proud since he was 14. Great puzzle Spencer. More please.
@Helen Wright Helen, I obviously don’t know you but your comments generally make me think I would like you if I did :) Great visual of bedraggled but happy young punks sitting on a curb eating late-night chips with brightly colored striped faces!
@Helen Wright I am finding, to my horror, that most of the people here are actually quite a bit younger than I am. Even amongst the stereotypically elderly NYT XWord set, I'm an old fart. I was too old by the time punk entered to music scene to get much into it.
OMG, just read Deb’s column. Shows how carefully I read the clues — couldn’t for the life of me figure out why CLUBFED fit for “relatively nice PERSON” haha.
@Richard G I DID THE SAME THING! Had to go back and make sure there wasn't a typo in the clue!
Richard G, Now that you've gotten "prison" for "person" from it, you may wish to go back to the column to read that it was written by Caitlin, not Deb. Emus do not write columns
@Richard G Count me in as well. Must have read it on three or four different passes through the puzzle, too. Brains are peculiar things!
Working with incarcerated people as I do, I always cringe when words and clues related to our inhumane criminal justice system pop up here, especially when couched in humor, but this one--focused as it was on our least terrible prisons--didn't strike me as too thoughtless. And any puzzle with MANICPANIC, OPENLYGAY, and the devilishly clever clues for 26D and 35D (which it took me way too long to understand) couldn't be *bad*--even if it did force me to spell MATRYOSHKA. So thank you, Spencer Leach & eds., for a perfectly fun Saturday solve. S**** the haters, indeed!
@Josh Funny. Clubfed made me immediately think about how the wealthy are treated differently. But I am much more fatalistic about such things in my golden years. I finally accepted that human nature is complex and the world changes slowly.
I kept BOG roll as an answer for way too long!
@Edward I did too! I was baffled by what on earth a ZOgT suit was for ages...
@Edward Would have been completely appropriate as it’s used almost as often as LOO, though I think a little class snobbishness separates the choice of which is generally used. I knew it was ZOOT therefore the choice was made for me.
I spent a good couple minutes misdirecting myself: I saw “Best ever, informally” and got “_ _ A T” through crossings, and thought to myself “wow, that’s a fast turnaround for them to be cluing BRAT that way…”
Whew! Definitely Saturday. I didn't know the word for the nesting dolls and needed Caitlin Lovinger's hints to finish Mr. Leach's wonderful puzzle. I enjoyed it, but my brain hurts. I started with "a narcissist" to get it to fit, but crosses nixed that one. The crosses were ok. The problem was finding a narcissistical word that started with a "g". Those two words were the only real worrisome and time consuming ones. The rest took thought, but were all words I knew, so I had memory to give me the advantage. So today I learned two new words. Thank you Mr. Leach and NYTs crossword puzzle staff. Cheers from Texas. My thoughts are with family I have in Upper New York State and all those other's in Debbie's path. Stay safe as much as you can. Turn around, don't drown.
Really enjoyed this one - some very clever clueing on the Down side (TWISTERMAT, GEOCENTRIST, SYNONYM!!, MOSEY, CLUBFED). I was given a MATRYOSHKA with Gorbachev, Andropov, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Stalin and a tiny Lenin years ago by a dear friend. But the South East corner required a leap of faith as it took me far too long to crack the clever clue and the end of the word is just the most fun sequence of letters! I don’t think there can be objections to the use of BEANO and EBT when the puzzle also includes LOO roll! Anyway, this is the New York T crossword, so I’m just grateful I don’t need detailed, station by station knowledge of the subway system. My only nit - by definition a BOLERO jacket is short and does NOT reach the waist! Off now for some Ravel with breakfast!
@Caitríona Shanahan i loved SYNONYM !!
@Caitríona Shanahan Re your BOLERO jacket nit Depends on how short-waisted you are! :)
@Caitríona Shanahan "I was given a MATRYOSHKA with Gorbachev, Andropov, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Stalin and a tiny Lenin years ago by a dear friend." I was recently given one with Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin, and a tiny Putin inside. It matches another in my collection, also with a tiny Putin inside. (Have at, emus.)
Good morning! I initially had LYRE for 47D...crossed with (She's so full of herself!) MARRYYOSELF. That gave me a good laugh. Ultimately SHKA at the end gave me MATRYOSHKA - a very nice clue. Off to the Saturday cleaning!
A "proper Saturday" puzzle in my opinion. Fairly hard although I confess I ended up completing it rather quickly. The last thing for me was the hair brand which I'd never heard of. The game gave me pause and maybe just a few moments of "panic" but was quite solvable and enjoyable in the end. However I see from a quick glance down that others had an easier time than I did. Different strokes of pen... /Panicked emus still don't understand the K
Absolutely fell to the ground laughing at the "She's so full of herself!" clue. I would have loved if you put a question mark next to the clue, would've been MUCH easier to figure out! Made me and my boyfriend's Saturday.
I guess, you do not need my voice, NYT? As an introvert, even posting an anonymous comment is a big move. And when it never appears, crushing! But I'll get over it...timidly adding a Happy Weekend to you all...oh, and the puzzle? Tough, for me, but a challenge happily accepted, and completed, with one teensy Google...cheers!
@Lar I'm an introvert, too. Comment section are perfect for people like us. And if a comment doesn't appear, it's quite likely you did nothing whatsoever wrong. If it does appear, it does not mean than you did everything right. Emus (electronic moderations units) are fickle, picky, and unpredictable, in spite of what they'll tell you.
YIKES! Holy misdirection, Batman. There were a lot of great clues today that had me going the wrong way. My favorites were those for SYNONYM, TWISTERMAT, GEOCENTRIST, and MATRYOSHKADOLL. Even after I got the answer on the last one, it took me a minute to get the spelling correctly - that O just didn’t look right, even though it was the only thing that made sense with cross. I also got bollixed up a bit because I confidently entered bog instead of LOO, because my UK friends call it bog roll.
@Marshall Walthew I first learned the word MATRYOSHKA around 1990, when I saw a set of dolls that had Stalin enclosing Khrushchev enclosing Brehznev enclosing Gorbachev enclosing Yeltsin. (I guess Andropov and Chernenko didn’t count.)
@Eric Hougland What, no Lenin either? In any event, that’s a clever set of dolls.
Any puzzle with MOSEY in it is okay by me. I had a hard time giving up Hyena for ZEBRA, but when I finally did things went much better. Lots of fresh entries in this with very friendly cluing.
Cute to see NEMO directly atop its semordnilap OMEN. Some nice entries in this grid: MATRYOSHKA, GEOCENTRIST, MICROSCOPE, SYNONYM. Had no idea why a relatively nice *person* would be a CLUBFED, humorously or otherwise. Made a lot more sense after rereading the clue! Clever clues included "She's so full of herself!" for MATRYOSHKA, "Contracts for shrinks, e.g." for SYNONYM" and "To whom one might say `Not everything revolves around you!'" for GEOCENTRIST. On the other hand, the long clue for PICKLEBALL seemed clunky, and I might reserve "ferocious" for hurricane-force winds. Despite having never heard on MANICPANIC, I managed to solve this one unaided, in about half-an-hour. Seemed like a nice Saurday puzzle to me.
This one kept blowing out the candles, it was so breezy. cc: emu handler
Does this mean that we will be getting Saturday's puzzle on Monday?
@Bill in Yokohama "Take that, all you substandard and inadequate solvers who didn't find this puzzle to be a snap." Honestly, does anyone give any consideration at all how their comments may land on others anymore?
I will confess, I loved the non-PC, vegan-unfriendly PELTS. I will now don my emu-feather bolero, and depart.
@Bill As a PC vegan who had no problem with the mention of PELTS, your lens on this one makes me wonder about goes you see the rest of the world - thanks for the chuckle!
Nice one! Learned a few things! Crosses were generous and kind. [Full of herself] was awesome. Thanks Spencer! Happy weekend all!
Curious solve. Did not get a single long answer--across or down--on the first pass, but, though I did not rush, was done in less than half my average. So I came here to see what other folks' experiences were. Was the puzzle easy for a Saturday?Were the crosses just in my wheelhouse? Did my extra sleep last night make me smarter? The comments seem to suggest that other solvers' experiences were quite a mix. For me, the mix was within this single puzzle. Some really crunchy clues with surprising answers, but every sweep through the hints yielded more ahas, resulting in a smooth solve time. Learned a few new things, too.
Do Youbeticans live near Nuyoricans? The wrong guesses for 39D made me wish the answer was log roll. The log rolls in on minute cat hands ...
@ad absurdum with apologies to Mr. Sandburg, but cute.
Such a fun fill today! Absolutely flew by, definitely a Saturday PB. Lively clueing and fill. As a younger solver I appreciated a few of the more contemporary answers - they felt like a rare Saturday treat!
ashamed of how quickly i got MANIC PANIC as a former emo teen
@Eve that clue made me so happy! I looked them up online recently and was very pleased to see they’re still in business.
This one just flew by for me. Spencer of a year ago and I are on the same page today! Only stumble was holding onto BOG for 39D for way too long.
That was so good! I really loved this one. Plenty of great and even funny fill. I’m looking forward to more like this
I had a wide variety of four letter words ready for “exclamation of exasperation”, several starting with C. But CMON wasn’t one of them. Also wasted a long time trying to make ING fit in 33D, as in “running dog.”
MATRYOSHKA and TIK TOK DANCE were particular favorites, but nice overall. Thanks, Spencer.
@Nancy J. To those who doubt that sacrifices are demanded by the emus: The above was posted early this morning. I thought it was long enough, but they ask for more and more. Next, they'll be looking for body parts.
Hah! That'll be the day, when I start on a Friday or Saturday puzzle with any kind of ultraconfident affirmation, or anything that remotely resembles YOU BET I CAN. It's more like MANIC PANIC, which slowly gives way to surprise, and then uncontained bliss, with every entry I get right. I had to get the name of the nested dolls, MATRYOSHKA, from the crosses, despite having received them as a present in 1985. A journalist friend brought them back from a trip to Moscow, purchased at GUM Department Stores. "Please note the wrapping paper," he said, "It's part of the gift, since you're a Design student." All I saw was rough butcher paper, with a dingy off-white background, and a blurry pattern in dull red and dull green. "That's their gift wrap," he added, with a sly smile on his face. "A taste of the Soviet Union's graphic arts at its finest." I kept that gift wrap for the longest time, as if it were some kind of archeological treasure – which, well, in the design world, it was. This recollection, along with that of all the ROFL occasions of playing TWISTER, threw some additional spice into an already spicy puzzle, filled with smart misdirects, and so fulfilling to solve. Thank you, Mr. Leach! Go ahead and be proud. You've earned it!
Fun puzzle, just chewy enough. Thanks, Spencer. But, what the heck? 33D was a bugaboo for me. I ambival, I diffid, I diverg. I prud but I won't viol. Nothing evids or incids. (Some might insol and say the constructor indols. But I retic.) Please, fellow solvers, I urg, make it coher and cog. I can't think of any verbs to which you simply add ENT to make an adjective. I'll probably think of some once I hit submit.
Linda Jo, So, in the end, did it depend on whether you had already hit submit or not? :)
@Linda Jo I ran through a similar list in my head, arding to cog of the answer.
@Linda Jo Yeah, I have *no* idea what they were thinking with that clue. Your lampoon is perfect.
I have to say for the Mini Crossword that frisbee discs are explicitly not used in the sport. Frisbee (company) is a disc maker (of very basic throwing discs) and its name is trademarked- hence the sport simply being called disc golf. There are a bunch of professional throwing disc manufacturing companies who specialize with using precision-made molds and plastics.
@Chris That's gonna be hard to fit in the grid...
@Chris Today’s Mini clues and puzzle were just awful IMO…
@Chris I know right? Innova and Dynamic didn’t work. Though I do remember way back in the early 90s there were people who would use Ultimate Frisbees on the disc golf courses we used to play on so I guess it works. Amatuers!
43 Down, about the camouflaged animal, is wrong. The animal’s pattern ward off reduce insect pests, not predators. Their predators’ vision isn’t sharp enough to even see the pattern from very far away, so it doesn’t affect their hunting.
@Nathan What if the hyenas' current camouflage evolved eons ago to protect them from previous predators with good vision? What we are looking at now might be just the remnants of an evolutionary change that was so successful, it is no longer needed.
Nathan, Rather than "wrong," how about "not considered the most likely" reason? <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191031-the-truth-behind-why-zebras-have-stripes" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191031-the-truth-behind-why-zebras-have-stripes</a> striped emus
I had the north/east corner filled in very quickly, but definitely found the rest of the puzzle Saturday level, so needed my usual lots of help. Learning about the dolls was a bonus; I’ve always been fascinated by them.
@suejean I have finished everything *except* that corner. Next time let’s each do half and trade answers.