I immediately entered HIGHLANDCOO as that's what Scots call them, and coo is also what most of us do when we see a video of one of the wee ones running up for a scritch.
@Dave S I left that last “w” out waiting for the cross, thinking it might well be COo. I also put an “L” in there for a wee bit as I was thinking of lISTERIA, but remembered this was a bacteria, not a plant (as in listeriosis).(Gram negative rod named after John Lister, the British surgeon who pioneered antiseptic techniques.)
I'm starting to find that Margaret Seikel is one of my favorite new constructors. Her puzzles are always very challenging, yet fair. I liked the clue for AORTAE a lot (and had a hunch that she was going in that direction). ATRA before AFTA and Dark AGES before SIDE before MODE slowed me down just enough. My take for the logic behind NINTHS is not that .3333 is one-ninth of 3, but rather that .1111 is simply 1/9, .2222 is 2/9, and .3333 is 3/9.
Steve, Your take and Caitlin's take seem to me to be the same take. Her "one-ninth of 3" and your "3/9" are the same thing. Do emus see this differently?
@Barry Ancona I’m with Steve on this one although essentially they are close. Can someone help me with AARON… is this a Biblical reference?
@SP I assume it is Aaron Burr
@Steve L I think it's a lot easier than all this. I think Steve L. says it in the last paragraph one ninth = (1/9)= 0.11111... two ninths =(2/9)= 0.22222... three ninths = (3/9) = (1/3) = 0.3333333... four ninths = (4/9) = 0.44444444.... five ninths = (5/9) = 0.555555555.... six ninths = (6/9) = (2/3) = 0.6666666.... seven ninths = (7/9) = 0.7777777... eight ninths = (8/9) = 0.88888888... nine ninths = (9/9) = 0.999999999... = 1 The last equation raises a little controversy.
@SP Aaron Burr was the third vice-president
Said the bell curve to the uniform distribution, "Try to act normal." (When statisticians sleep, they catch some z-scores.)
@Mike More edginess from the sidelines. (🧮 I knew I could count on you.)
A nice, challenging puzzle, that to my surprise was over more quickly than I anticipated, despite several wrong turns (atra before AFTA, shetlandcow before HIGHLANDCOW, tuneup [?] before FUNRUN). I enjoyed the clues for SEEDCAPITAL, PLUMBERS, and LETSDANCE. As proof that the universe works in mysterious ways, while pondering “directive to get down,” the playlist I was was listening to on shuffle came up with Josh Ritter’s Getting Ready To Get Down, and presto, I had my aha moment courtesy of external stimuli rather than my own reasoning. It was great to see Maureen “Moe” Tucker get a spot in the puzzle. As a female drummer in a rock band, and a very influential rock band at that, in the sixties she was a real pioneer. As a young teen in the sixties making the transition from top 40 radio to fm rock hearing the Velvets for the first time was an eye opener for me. Hearing Lou Reed sing Heroin awakened me to the fact that the world was a darker place than my little suburban cocoon, and that music could be about much more than the simple emotions most often plumbed in pop music. That was one of my first steps on a journey that continues to this day.
@Marshall Walthew I came here to say the same thing: I’m delighted to see “Moe” clued in this way. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her appear in a puzzle and glad Margaret Seikel corrected this oversight! (Also thrilled to see a puzzler who loves the Velvets AND Josh Ritter. The latter was a college classmate and it’s been fun to see him go from campus coffee shops to much bigger venues.)
@ES Jack I’ve seen Josh several times in a variety of venues, including a couple of performances for our local public radio station, and I’ve gotten to meet him a couple of times. He’s a genuinely nice guy who really appreciates his audience and whose performances always radiate positive energy and joy. Back in the aughts he was one of the musical acts my teenage daughter and I could agree on.
@Marshall Walthew aw, I love that! Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree. Nice to have points of musical connection. ☺️
I think I burned two or three thousand calories on that one. You could fry an egg on my forehead. It smells like bacon around here. I'm out of breath. Gooooood puzzle. Good puzzle.
Thursday was a breeze, but these last two days have been brutal. Could we take a break from regional brand names please.
@N.E. Body I dunno, I kinda like brutal.
I love a good REACTION GIF, and the trivia in today's puzzle made me do a "Polish Jerry". It always personally feels unfair when a Saturday puzzle is full of trivia, and especially of the kind impossible to know for me, like no less than three American brands, including a... Regional coffee roaster (that gets a "Side Eyeing Chloe" from me). The clues on Saturdays are tricky, and I enjoy them, but the level of difficulty means I need some crosses to get going. When answers to tricky clues cross with American trivia, I do a "Hide the pain Harold" every time (not quite a gif but the meme has two panels so it is sort of animated). Some clues I don't understand, like the one for TOT. "Sticky fingered sort?": why? I'm not particularly familiar with small kids. Are their fingers the epitome of stickiness? Or maybe not since there is a question mark there, implying above-average trickery. I'll try to remember a PAT of butter - I did not know the word and had to look up what it meant once I got it from the crosses. I had pancakes many times in the US but the name for that bit of butter must have never registered. I wish we could insert GIFs into comments. My word count would go down 80%.
@Andrzej I always enjoy your comments and think it's nice to see another non-American solver's take on the puzzles. I very much agree about the level of Americana today (mainly because I had to give up in the area around the two crossing brands in the SW). I suppose I shouldn't complain, since today's puzzle did have a gimme for me at 56D! For TOT I believe (but maybe an American will correct me) that the misdirection is that "sticky fingers" means a propensity for stealing, so if read directly the clue would refer to a thief or some other sort of criminal. Instead, it's actually not the euphemism but a literal reading, i.e. a small child having sticky fingers (many small children are messy eaters).
@Andrzej I too enjoy your posts, and when I saw BACNE I wondered how you would fare with that one. Also, am very curious: do Polish children have clean fingers??? My ancestry is partly Polish and I definitely had sticky fingers (still do sometimes). But I'm third generation so my grandparents might have been better behaved.
@Andrzej Why do people keep referring to Peets as regional? I am baffled.
I like a puzzle this this because it makes me think very hard and at 75, I need that to keep my brain working. Thanks for the workout.
@Laura Stratton I'm 72, and my brain really broke out in a sweat. That's right, I had sweaty brain. Smelled like bacon.
I set a new record today: the most lookups ever in my life. Why could I not get on this lady's brainwave? I do not know, but few of these clues sang to me. Hard work for her, I guess, too.
A lot of fun! A lot of answers I didn’t have at hand, but somehow got them built from scraps in the back of the old “brain shed” that I didn’t even remember I had. Thank you, Stan Thony!
LOL I finished the puzzle with the NE corner, and still stared at STANTHONY for 15 seconds before I could parse it.
@joel88s Right? It was a full minute for me. This is something I had to get used to when I started doing first UK and then US crosswords. In Polish the entries are only allowed to be single words, and every Polish teacher would get a heart attack if skipping punctuation marks were allowed in any context. It's actually good I started with British puzzles to familiarize myself with the concept - in the UK the number of words and letters in each word in indicated in the clue, so the one for St. Anthony would feature (2, 7). Come to think of it, do British puzzles allow abbreviations? I haven't done one in a few years now and can't remember. Would it have to be Saint Anthony?
Crossword addict from New Zealand here! After 15 years of fun with the NYT I'm on a record streak of 21. I would love to hear from other crazies who try solving unaided - no dictionary, no wiki ... no nothing. It just took me 1 hr 33 min to get Margaret Seikel's one today. Hair-raising but a real sense of achievement when that final clue fell!
@Alan I generally commit to not checking anything, and it has been a very long time since I've had to. One thing I finally recognized - you probably discovered this much faster than I did - is that if I'm stuck and I stop working on it for awhile, my brain keeps working in the background and usually at the very least I'll come back with a possible answer, or even part of one, that lets me scratch out enough of a new toehold to continue. It's really an enjoyable part of my day.
@Alan Congratulations! If you spend any time hanging around here you'll see that there are all kinds of solvers, from those who are happy to learn the new answers they find from looking them up, to those who would feel bad to look up a single answer, and would rather lose a streak than do a look-up. (I just broke a streak of 300-plus last week, and I'm approaching 2000 total solves with not a single look-up.) There are solvers around here with streaks up into the thousands, while I've never quite made it to 500 (yet!). The more puzzles you do, the better you'll get, and reading the column every day also helps. And yes, you're far from the only one here who lives for those notes of the San Jose Strut. <a href="https://youtu.be/zwFqAoj_FdM?si=4MvSAGNXiZXJL6ty" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/zwFqAoj_FdM?si=4MvSAGNXiZXJL6ty</a>
@Alan I really don’t remember the last time I used an outside source to help me solve a NYT puzzle (which isn’t to say that I haven’t been tempted). But I do a lot of puzzles from other publications and indie puzzle sites. They can be much harder for me than any contemporary NYT puzzle, and I sometimes allow myself to look up an answer if I am hopelessly stuck (especially if the “put it aside for a while” technique hasn’t helped).
@Alan Congratulations on your streak. May it last many, many ninths.
@Alan congrats on the streak! I’m currently at 43! I personally don’t look anything up, to keep the streak pure. Today was almost my downfall as I got stuck in the NE corner. I ended up putting it down and coming back the next morning. I always find that taking a break and coming back later allows your mind to “reset”, and gives a fresh perspective on the clues.
With only .1111 seconds to spare as I got ready to put down the puzzle and come and comment about it, I belatedly thought to change ATRA, a shaving brand I've used often, to AFTA, a shaving brand I don't know at all. Thus saving myself the embarrassment of asking all of you "What are TUN RUNS?" and "Who was Recumseh?" Whew! Saved by those last .1111 seconds! Despite having the gimmes of AGATHA, my favorite author of all time, and SMITH, my alma mater, I found this puzzle exceedingly hard and had to simply "keep the faith" that I would actually finish the thing if I tried hard enough. I did, but boy am I not on this constructor's wavelength either in clues of answers. "Pick up"= ANSWER did not make me smile. If you twist yourself into a pretzel, I suppose you can explain/justify it, but I really don't like it. Same with "Directive to get down" for LET'S DANCE. Also, the less said about EXACTO as a new way of saying "exactly", the better. Is it my generation, where I live, or my diet preferences that make HORCHATA so unknown to me? I wanted HOTsomething-or-other. But one answer here will live in my mind and my heart forever. Indeed, it was well worth the staggering cost of a year's-worth of home delivered New York Timeses. STANTHONY is the patron saint of the "frequently forgetful"!!!! How absolutely wonderful! Who knew? I shall leave y'all now and go off to pray to him immediately!
@Nancy lol! I'm glad you avoided tUNRUNS, although those also sound entertaining. Re: pick up/ANSWER, though... pick up the phone/ANSWER the phone strikes you pretzel-y? Seemed more like a typical "single specific definition" clue to me, although not at the forefront of my mind without some crosses. In any case - happy Saturday!
Nancy, "Pick up" the phone. Re: get down I understand. It's not your genre. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7RRLC5slLo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7RRLC5slLo</a> I'll leave the others to others.
@Nancy I immediately thought of you when I read the ST ANTHONY clue. The AFTA/AtrA trap was real. ATRA has been in the puzzle about four times as often as Afta. I’m glad you figured it out. If you see HORCHATA on a menu, try it! It’s delicious.
@Nancy Horchata is probably regional...very common in the Southwest as a delicious accompaniment to Mexican food. A perfect solution if the salsa is too spicy!
@Nancy HORCHATA was the 2nd gimme in this puzzle, after AGATHA. Besides being a big fan of old British murder mysteries, I love Mexican food. Had a big glass of HORCHATA for dinner out just a few days ago. But even after I finished I had no idea what a STANTHONY was! Had to read the column to learn about St. Anthony as saint of lost things. Wish I'd known that earlier in the day when hunting all over the house and car for my knitting. [A helpful grandchild put it into her 'stuff' cupboard....] I also had a record number of look-ups for this puzzle. Lots of trivia, but expected on a Saturday, I guess.
MOE, RHO, TECUSMEH, TRINI, HORCHATA, BACNE, PEETS, ALCOA, SMITH, WESSON, PAT, RIBBONS are all Americana and largely uninteresting. Tecusmeh and ΣΓΡ being the exceptions. Got there in the end but it wasn’t particularly entertaining for me. No sense of accomplishment at the end. Glad others enjoyed it. Never mind. Some puzzles just turn out that way.
@Ιασων You just think that because you've never had horchata, which is delicious (and also African, brought to the New World by way of Spain, so 100% not Americana). :-) As for the others, to be fair, it *is* an American newspaper... and y'all Europeans have your highland cow there prominently in the center!
@Ιασων Until now, I never noticed that SMITH and WESSON were in the same puzzle. I wonder if that’ll qualify as a Lewis Puzz Pair. !!! !!!
@Ιασων A German did something despite finding no joy in it? Stop the presses
@Ιασων Totally agree, hard to like the clues when the answers are dull.
I needed help with this one, but as so often happens, the tricky ones in the column were the ones I already had. I managed to let go of angora COWS (please don't laugh) to get the upcountry ones, and changed Saint Jude to STANTHONY, (what do I know about saints??), got back on track by ACTingNORMAL but the SW corner stopped me cold. This was an old style Saturday puzzle, the kind that makes your brain hurt because you can't just give up. I loved it even at the same time it was making my teeth ache. Thank you, Margaret Seikel, you cooked up a honey of a puzzle.
That was so tough I’m afraid all the fun drained away. As always, not the puzzles fault but mine for not being on the constructor's wavelength. An awful lot of US based stuff (pls refer to my oft repeated caveat re US based NYT etc etc) which didn’t help me stuck in wet Somerset. Onwards to Sunday.
@Helen Wright References to not-exactly-global supermarket brands, characters in TV shows that haven't made the export grade, college fraternities and sports teams, don't exactly endear the puzzle to me but I'm resigned to allowing myself to look up. I'm generally mortified if I have to look up anything in the Guardian crosswords (a different beast I know) Since the Guardian went global there are complaints in the comments about UK-specific general knowledge from time to time but it does take the trouble most of the time to keep from being too insular. They even have what I assume to be an American compiler ("Yank") these days! I'm tempted to produce a Brit-themed NYT crossword to see how it goes down.
I'm quite baffled by NINTHS being clued as [.1111, .2222, .3333, etc.]. 1/9 is in fact 0.1111..., with ones repeating ad infinitum, similar for 2/9, 3/9 etc. Without the dots, and without the word "approximately" or something of that sort, this is just plain wrong.
@Turing Yeah, you're exactly right. The clue should have given some indication that the digits kept repeating indefinitely. For whatever reason, I just didn't notice that. I just saw a very close approximation to 1/9, followed by a very close approximation to 2/9, and so on. Crosswords, in fact all human communication, is based on fuzzy logic. We sometimes, in order just to be able to communicate, need to ignore certain deficiencies in the way we express ourselves to one another. In fact, when we try to overcome those deficiencies, things *really* get bad. For example, "legalese" is an attempt to render a set of words to be interpretable in only one way. It's almost impossibly dense. The other way to overcome those deficiencies is with math. Math can express itself (as far as I know) without any ambiguity. But it's not clear how to communicate everyday thoughts ("please open the window, as it's hot in here") in terms of unambiguous mathematical operators.
@Turing Yes, completely incorrect. Also an absolute gimme
@Turing These are actually known as the "Indiana ninths", just like 3 is the Indiana pi.
@Turing Clues are hints, not definitions. You don’t have to actually DO the math, you just have to know a little math.
@Hardroch I jumped out of bed to find my copy of A History of Pi by Petr Beckman to confirm. It's a surprisingly interesting read.
@Turing perfect handle for the comment 😃
Sooo...I had "tuneups" instead of FUNRUNS, "atra" instead of AFTA, flipped back and forth between "guise" and GUEST, and had "shet" instead of HIGHLANDCOW. I was lost, but I managed to ACTNORMAL and pray to STANTHONY. Anyway for some reason TECUMSEH popped into my head, and it all came around. Nice mental exercise after my 5 mile walk. Time to clean the house.
@Amy We must be on the same wavelength as I had all of those on my initial pass as well, which seemed to fit with my other fill at that moment. Sadly, it all fell apart when I finally got ANSWER and had to re-think the whole NW corner.
This puzzle generally made me feel old and out of touch, so it was a bit of a slog, but at least there was the “I Love Lucy” airer concession to those of us more up on days of yore.
@JM as a member of the contingent of crossword solvers under 60, I feel we were owed a gimme after whatever that was on Wednesday.
No idea how I solved this. Three years ago I reckon I would have been hopeless. I am so clueless that I had to hope ‘stanthony’ was a word. Now realizing it’s a person smh But it is solved. I win!
That was brutal. There were a number of words,names and expressions that I just didn't know. Some of them I was able to guess but in the end I just wasn't able to complete the puzzle without help. It's been a long time since I needed to do that.
The clue for 62-Across should have ellipsis, like ".1111..., .2222..., .3333...." because a feature of the answer is that they repeat forever.
@Kevin Agreed. Though I'm so used to seeing it written like that that I saw the trailing dots even though they weren't there.
Not being a runner, I'd never heard of FUNRUNS. And it didn't help that I had ATRA before AFTA (never heard of AFTA), and couldn't pull out TECUMSEH from my long-ago elementary school days until I corrected my errors. Then, not being a Catholic, there was STAN Who? I stared and stared until the St. came into focus. Likewise, I knew Suriname was in the norther part of South America, but it took a while until CARIB dawned on me. Overall, a very enjoyable puzzle. Really had to work on some of it, but turned out to be very rewarding.
@Times Rita Stan Thony is a friend of Stelmo.
@Times Rita I was told that ST ANTHONY assisted believers with LOST items (not with forgetfulness)...fellow quilters (Catholics) at our (Methodist church) Holey Fingers meetings recited a prayerful little poem which called upon the SainT to help out. ..but I could not remember the rhyme. No help for me!
@Mean Old Lady St. Anthony St. Anthony please come down. Something is lost and can’t be found.
EXACTO? Seriously? I’ve always thought “Informally…” or “colloquially…” was NYT code for “totally made up word that no one ever says”.
@Richard Ciotti Exactamundo! [The Fonz] The only thing close, as others noted, are X-ACTO knives. I wonder if anyone anywhere has ever used "Exacto". ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Richard Ciotti You might come across this word in a Hispanic setting, since it is a word that can be used in the same sense as “exactly” in English (although technically, it means “exact”). Many Hispanics who are fully proficient in English may use this instead of the English word in an otherwise fully English conversation. I know people who do this. If an Anglo is frequently in that milieu, he or she may pick up that word as a slang way to show agreement, and the word moves a bit away from being code-switching. I’ve seen it happen. You’ll have to take my word for it. I might have been that Anglo.
@B 30 years as a graphic designer, and daily use of an Xacto. And I have several flat finger tips to prove it (IYKYK).
Not an easy Saturday for me. Solved it unaided, but took almost an hour. Based on the number of entries i didn't know (or barely knew), it seems the constructor and I must move in very different circles. LETSPARTY instead of LETSDANCE certainly cost me some time. As many others have pointed out, ".1111, .2222, .3333, etc." for NINTHS is a bit dodgy. But it's not truly incorrect as some have claimed. For example, .1111 is *exactly* .9999 ninths. No one said ninths can only be counted in whole numbers! Of course, with this interpretation, the clue could well have been ".3141, .5926, .5358, .9793, etc." Not sure why the clue wasn't just ".1111̅, .2222̅, .3333̅, etc.", unless placing the bars above the terminal digits is typographically challenging. (It challenged me typographically, since I couldn't quite get the bars directly atop the digits.) Anyway, I liked this one a lot. A real Saturday workout for me!
@Xword Junkie I suspect the normal notations for "repeats indefinitely" like the line over the last digit or trailing three dots "..." were probably going to be more confusing than helpful for most people. As Barry pointed out below, experts need to appreciate and accept that these games are made for lay people. Fuzzy logic, I tell you, is the key to crosswords.
I have never in my life (finishing my sixth decade) heard a human being say EXACTO except when referring to a knife. EXACTIMUNDO (sp?), that’s different.
As someone born in TECUMSEH, raised in Pittsburgh (32A) and a bigtime Chappell ROAN(S) fan, Margaret whatever message you're sending me I'm listening
@koty I too was raised in Pittsburgh, so ALCOA was a gimme.
A full third of this puzzle is comprised of obscure proper nouns, arcane terminology or foreign words.
@LJADZ Yes! Wasn't it fun??!! emus don't speak pig latin
@LJADZ Interesting. I knew the author, the drink, and the metal company, so they were fairly easy to get. The military leader I guessed correctly based on a vague memory. Like Francis points out, knowing just a few of the critical words can make a huge difference. I've certainly encountered a number of puzzles where luck was not on my side.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a better solver than I would be if I wasn't kind of lazy. I quite often fill in answer, never really checking the crosses. I was stumped by 47A. Then I had a landslide of other fills, and didn't even notice it came out to BACNE. Huh! Never heard of it until I got to the comments after having filled it in. And I didn't get distracted by the problem discussed below about 62A. I didn't even notice there was no indication that the digits repeated indefinitely. I just kind of automatically saw them there, because I've seen stuff like that in all kinds of situations in math. So I think I owe whatever ability I have to solve these puzzles to my inattention to detail.
Struggled and struggled and almost gave up until suddenly everything fell into place. Superb puzzle. Kudos !
This puzzle was delightfully clever and forced you to tap into your powers of intuition and lateral thinking to divine many of the answers. Which is another way of saying, Welcome to the Saturday solve.
This was definitely a FUNRUN, just on this side (I'm pointing to the left, for those of you not watching me write this, which I hope is everybody) of impossible. Last night, in fact, it was most assuredly on the *other* side. The northwest was empty except for AGATHA (although I've been listening to Stephen Fry's magnificent reading of A Study in Scarlet, so AGATHA had to battle ARTHUR for a bit). It was HUM that gave her the edge. What gave me the edge was a good night's sleep, after which the answer came to me ... literally: 6D went from A--WE- to ANSWER. Then --G-LA-DCOW morphed to HIGHLANDCOW and ----MSEH to TECUMSEH. After just one minor skirmish with 27 down, I was able to send one more small royalty payment to the musician who composed the happy music for the NYTimes crossword. P.S. Our daily podcast, Jean & Mike Do The New York Times Crossword is still going strong. It's short, fun, ad-free, and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at jamcr.buzzsprout.com.
Looks like I’m in the minority but I enjoyed this. Fast for a Saturday, despite not knowing Trini Lopez and staring at STANTHONY for the longest time…until my brain finally parsed it. The clue for NINTHS was a favorite.
Emilie, I don't think you're in the minority having enjoyed this puzzle! ####
So.. hard! Nearly a streak breaker for me, but persistence (knocking my head against the phone bezel repeatedly; also a great deal of staring) paid off and I got through the somewhat terrifying grid. I was pleasantly surprised to discover Tecumseh and horchata and Mr. Lopez could all be pulled from the deep recesses of my head; I didn't think I knew them. 17 down was an interesting development. I've never heard "exacto" but won't quibble. I was stuck longest in the upper right. Took me forever to realize the intercessor was both (a) two words and (b) using a religious abbreviation. Almost seemed unfair, that one. All in all I enjoyed it but for me this was one hard puzzle and definitely a Saturday! ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@B Should mention - "breakout portmanteau" was my favorite. It's poppin' ! ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
Quite pleased to see 24A... as someone who actually makes their living computing Euler characteristics.
This puzzle is not clever and full of random trivia that no one knows nor cares about. Naticky, unmotivating and unbalanced.
Michael, If you read the comments, you will find people having enjoyable discussions of the "random trivia that no one knows nor cares about." Sorry you're missing out.
@Michael For once I found a puzzle *not* full of boring trivia and definitely clever. It was somewhat easy--speaking only for myself here--but for a puzzle this intelligent I don't mind.
@Michael genuine question here: are the crosswords you do like full of... non-random trivia? Purposeful trivia? I'm at a loss. And I'm not intending in the least to be snarky. It just seems like an awful lot of people are upset with the "randomness" of the answers when they struggle with said answers, but when the puzzle is easily (enough) done, suddenly the complaints of randomness disappear.
@Michael Every time I read "no one knows about x" or "no one cares about x" I shake my head so hard it is liable to detach from my spinal column. Obviously untrue or the clues wouldn't have made it past the puzzle editors.
Several items in my personal wheelhouse: Charles Martin Hall, the founder of the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, was an alumnus of--and generous Angel to--my alma mater; and my Brother-in-Law lives about a mile-- a pleasant walk down the lakeside Ganatcho Trail--from the Windsor/Tecumseh, ON, border. I'm sure there's a historical plaque there. Who the H is Stanley Thony? Is he the subject of that Eminem song? Bacne is sure sign that one is using something stronger than bee-pollen, horchata, and veggie ribbons to build one's tris. Speaking of which, "ribbons" is such a boring word: "zoodles," "courgetti," or even "vegetti" is so much funner for the products of a "spiralizer" (One of the sous-chefs where I work makes a delicious vegan Mushroom Bolognese--one of our standard vegetarian banquet options.) BTW, Caitlin, I'd like to see you try to chiffonade a carrot. Finally, Grant, this one goes out to you: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXz9CpnWNS0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXz9CpnWNS0</a>
@Bill I feel the need for vegan Mushroom Bolognese. That sounds wonderful.
@Bill Thanks for that, I had the same reaction to 31D. I swear, you're my brother from another mother. I saw Bowie live in Cleveland, in 1990; he changed the lyrics to "Panic in Detroit" to suit the venue.
@Bill I hope you noticed that your Alma mater, Charles Martin Hall, and his aluminum statue glued to a large piece of granite on the second floor of the science center was mentioned earlier in these comments. — — — — — — — —
Excellent mental workout. I had next to nothing on the first pass, but then all of a sudden the whole thing just flopped over. Wonderfully devilish cluing in many places.
Oh come on, that should be HIELAND COO! Never heard of 26a and I don't get the feeling I'd like it but I'll try anything once.
@Rosalind Mitchell That was the way I said it in my head, despite being a Yorkshire woman, not a Scot. We had some Heiland Coos on our local common for years. They were supposed to eat the gorse but preferred the silver birch. Meeting one on a narrow path while pushing a pram was always an experience; they’re extremely stubborn. And heavy.
@Rosalind Mitchell re 26a, I'll stick to my hot, black coffee.
@Rosalind Mitchell Do try HORCHATA if you get the chance! It’s tasty!
@Rosalind Mitchell I was hoping it was at least going to be "Highland Coo". Ah well. Horchata is delicious, definitely recommend!
@Rosalind Mitchell I flippin' love HEILAND COO! (and the column photo of said COO.) That takes me back to watching "All Creatures, Great and Small" as a kid. I haven't watched the reboot, any good?
Thank you, Margaret Seikel, and I hope we see more weekend puzzles from you. This was a perfect Saturday puzzle: a challenging struggle resolved to a satisfying triumph. The northeast corner was the last piece to fall into place. A Monday Moe would have been a stooge. A Thursday Moe might have been Spy/Catcher Berg. I knew the names of most of the Velvets like Lou Reed, John Cale, and Nico, but not their drummer, and took a chance that it might have been Mae. But then I just kept trying to make sense of what a "stanthany" could be, pronouncing it in my mind, thinking that it might be a name for a string one ties around one's finger in order not to forget something, but how was that possibly an intercessor? It's those fanciful ruminations and logical eddies that make Saturday puzzles such fun.
@LordBottletop I thought Stanthony was a term for a personal assistant who helped you remember things that I just hadn’t heard yet; possibly derived from a well known amazing assistant named Anthony. Then my brain re-parsed it and I cracked up.
moe? reaction gif? horchata? come on. obscurity prevailed.
Charles, Have you read the comments from people discussing their experiences with MOE Tucker, REACTION GIFs and HORCHATA? Where there any other answers *you* didn't know from the clues that you'd like to share with us? ####
@Charles Anderson Obscure?? I got MOE from the crosses, not being familiar with Velvet Underground's music. But they certainly were not an obscure group. Also, I first tasted HORCHATA in the 70's in Spain, but it's been fairly widely available in the U.S. for years.
Not two days have passed since for some unknown reason I though of Trini Lopez and wondered if he was still around. And here he is in the puzzle. This is not the first time this has happened. Is there a word to describe this phenomenon? I'm definitely not clairvoyant!
@Times Rita this is what Carl Jung called a synchronicity :)
Times Rita, Despite the cool feeling I, too, get every time that happens, the boring reality that I expose myself to thousands of words and ideas every day some of which will inevitably recur, leads me to call it “noticing”. (It was either post this, or some tortured statistical pun reply to Mike from Munster :-)
@Times Rita Some nights I dream about a word that will appear in the puzzle the next morning. Sadly I never dream of winning lotto numbers.
@Times Rita Bader-Meinhof syndrome!
@Times Rita Maybe you heard one of his songs Rita.
This week's Mini Crosswords by Christina Iverson have renewed my pleasure in solving minis. They weren't easypeasy I actually had to think. (Not digging on any constructor - it's the format) Usually it feels like you're going through the motions but this week's Minis have been more than challenging. This could be a reflection on my abilities or lack thereof.... I wanted to give a shout out to Christina as I'll never take solving minis for granted anymore.
@Judith Fairview Agreed! I used to be disappointed when I didn't solve it in under 30 seconds but I'm having much more fun with the trickier clues and references. Thursday's 5x5 was quick but I was impressed by the full grid!
Anyone else see PISSBOYS for 34D at first? I'll see myself out...
@John no, but I did briefly have POOLBOYS. They don’t look like the king 😉. .:.:.:.:. .:.:.:. .:.:. .:. .
@John I 'll confess to briefly pondering PISSBEER, but then thought better of it.
A fun, breezy puzzle-solving experience that would have been under X minutes but for AtrA before AFTA, ON the set before ON SCREEN and rear before RUMP. I loved seeing HORCHATA (which I haven’t made in a while) and the great MOE Tucker. (But please, no more BACNE.) Thanks for the fun, Ms Seikel!
@Eric Hougland Your two favorite entries were some of the ones I was most clueless about today 🤣. How did you feel about EXACTO? I figured it out with a few crosses, but is this something people say? BACNE had me stumped. Before getting crosses I thought it would be something like "zitNE" or "acnit". I would like to know what BACNE is but I'm hesitant to Google it because I don't know what to expect of the image results at the top of the page...
@Andrzej I personally don't say "exacto" but rather the longer version of "exactomundo!" I echo other posters and add my own admiration to you and others doing the NYT crossword in a foreign language! Keep posting; your comments are interesting.
I entered the “I” in EL NINO and got my gold star with exactly 1:00:00 of solve time. I *really* love even numbers like that. I didn’t find this one very challenging but I was more focussed on the TV this eve, so, it took me a bit. Hecka fun puzzle! Have a great weekend, everyone. Thanks, Margaret Seikel.
@Striker Thanks for mentioning EL NIÑO. I got the SW corner by doing the Down answers and missed the clever [Current influencer] clue.
Very cool puzzle if only for mention of The Velvet Underground - what a weird headspace that band put you in! John Cale, Lou Reed, and of course Nico!
@John Dietsch DHubby claimed never to heard of Velvet Underground. No Help There... And I remain blissfully ignorant, as well. No Larry, No Curly?
I must have seen "The Dirty Dozen" at least a dozen times, but I couldn't remember TRINI Lopez having been in it. As it turns out, he either quit the movie because his part wasn't big enough, or the director fired him for being such a diva. In any case, they killed off his character by having him break his neck in a parachute jump. Anyway, it seemed like a most unlikely clue for the singer. St Michael is the patron saint of paratroopers.
Grant, "If that parachute don't open wide, I've got a Bible by my side." Hey, Bo Diddley
@Grant Trini Lopez dropped out of the film because of musical commitments. That's why he was the first of the 12 to die and took no part in the raid. Conversely, Jim Brown was summoned back to the US by his gridiron team (can't remember which) and basically told them to get themselves hence and shrive themselves.
This was a fun one. I enjoyed seeing TECUMSEH, although I had to stretch to remember how to spell the name. Knowing the T, though, helped me avoid the ATRA/AFTA trap. On a first pass, my reaction to 62A was, "Oh, a SERIES!" It wasn't until I saw WESSON oil that I realized belatedly that it was a series of NINTHS. When my children were young, we used to play math games, recognizing common patterns like that and less obvious ones like the sevenths. I gave myself a quiet dope slap when I finally saw this one here. I liked seeing the HIGHLAND COW in 17D, but my favorites were mostly in the SW corner. TIL about PEETS, which was new to me, and the clues for LETS DANCE and EL NINO made me smile. All in all, this was a great start for the day. Thanks to Margaret Seikel.
@StevenR PEETS! I’ve bought that brand before. Strange that it did not come up in any of my Google searches.
It was fun to discover that Crisco, Mazola, and WESSON I'll have the same number of letters! Maybe not as much fun as aggravating. Haha! Wesson is the one I'm the least familiar with and so after putting the others in and out, I had to just wait. Also, if I never hear the word BACNE again, it will be far too soon!! Still, good puzzle! I enjoyed working it out. My favorite was REACTION GIF! I haven't read any comments because I have to run but did anyone else try Poirot first at 1A? I wanted to try Trixie, who was my first favorite sleuth, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be that. Speaking of EBIKE in relation to DoorDash, or for me Uber Eats, yesterday's QDOBA was plopped in immediately on the first go-around. I was surprised that it was so unknown. Hope you are all having a great weekend!! Cheers!
@HeathieJ Although, the obvious response is that Poirot is not a first name.... But he's the second sleuth that always pops into my head so I just popped it in!
@HeathieJ You left out CANOLA (the improved name....originally called "rapeseed oil.")
@Mean Old Lady, but canola is not a brand name.