Hello! A brief update from Helene Central… I have greatly missed the commenting family here and being part of it. I tune in when I get enough bars on my cell to access the site (cell service is weak). When I finally get Wi-Fi back, I shall return! Life is very busy here. Let me just say it’s like camping, but certainly not glamping. There is much neighbor helping neighbor, and much humor in the midst of it all. We’re all finding hacks for everything. Anyway, I just wanted to check in, and for those who have asked or wondered, to let you know that I am fine, and my spirits are bright. I miss you all and wish you well!
@Lewis . . . as we miss you! Glad to hear you are safe, and well! (We would not miss having to make unnecessary comments about emus.)
@Lewis A joy to just see your name! Stay well and safe. So looking forward to your return. You are certainly missed. …
@Lewis Glad to hear you're doing well. Shanah Tovah!
@Lewis Thanks for letting us know how you’re faring. I hope things get back to normal sooner rather than later. Stay safe!
Lewis, It's good to have your first hand report! I hope yoga is keeping you calm, and that potable water will be flowing again soon.
@Lewis So glad to see your name and to know you’re safe and well!
@Lewis Very, very, very glad to have you back. Really missed your great contributions.
@Lewis I miss your always cheerful and positive posts, and the good energy they exude. I hope everything (especially your water) is up and running soon.
@Lewis What everyone else said. Take care!
@Lewis Good to hear from you and best wishes getting back to normal. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Lewis, a joy to see your name! The news videos can't really communicate all of what Helene survivors are dealing with, and to hear that you are finding ways to help one another cope with such chaos and ruin is inspiring. The loss must be hard enough to face, but the day-to-day ordeal of finding water, food, and shelter for everyone while starting to clean up the destruction sounds exhausting. Good for you that you have kept your love of life and are in the thick of reclaiming your beautiful town. We are holding your place at the table and looking forward to having your rich and insightful comments again. Be well, be safe, and thank you for finding the time to let us hear from you.
@Lewis Ah, great to finally hear from you, so relieved you are OK. I saw your post over on the other blog, noticed you got a bunch more replies over on this side! Hang in there! — — — — — — — —
@Lewis Good to hear you have kept your spirits bright during this very diffucult time. We are still rebuilding from Hurricane Irma (7 years ago) ...it does help that human nature gets stripped to its kindest elements during survival times. Blessings, and stay strong.
"Org. that discourages traveling" should have been TSA.
@Shrike when have you gone to the airport and TSA encouraged you to go home
@Shrike LOL I thought about that too. And the Department of State (DOS) that actually does issue travel advisories.
@Sophia I think you're missing Shrike's point/joke that the TSA makes traveling so unpleasant (at least that's how I read it)
@Shrike that was my first entry. Here's my TSA rant: There are 7 billion people on earth and one time, one person had a bomb in his shoe, so now the other 6,999,999,999 of us have to remove our shoes in the airport. And seriously, now that we know cell phones can be exploded remotely, is that next?
@Shrike great minds think alike!
@Shrike That was my initial thought, too. But then I decided TSA was too obvious for a Saturday. My husband was watching random TV stuff, including some basketball, so the answer came to me. I think it was the first answer I got in the puzzle today!
@Shrike I agree getting through TSA, even with Pre-Check, is a pain in the butt. That said, they do have a pretty hilarious Instagram account, and the stuff they do find, and prevent from getting on airplanes we all fly on, is crazy. It's not just one guy with a bomb in his shoe a long time ago. People are nuts. Also, their Instagram account is hilarious. It rivals Mike the Munster for puns.
"Last night, I imagined I was eating a palm fruit." "Sounds like a dream date." ("Actually, it was the pits.")
@Mike There's an old joke in there somewhere. Maybe it's just this song from Maria Muldaur: "Midnight at the oasis Send your camel to bed Shadows paintin' our faces, Traces of romance in our heads"
@Mike I'm so frond of your puns! 🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴 🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴 (Know the game, Emu? Oasis high ♥️)
@Mike While I always enjoy your cleverness, this one got a LOL from me. Thanks.
Finally reached a 1000 day streak, felt like I was in the 900s for ages! This was the perfect 1000th puzzle, lots of fun 'aha!' moments - thanks Natan :)
@Olivia Wow! Is that impressive? Yes, that is impressive.
@Olivia Congrats!!! Amazing. Is it just me or do "milestone" streak numbers always seem to land on Fridays or Saturdays? I start counting ahead and it's like c'mon, could it just be a Monday for once?
@Olivia Well done! I’m in the high 700’s, aiming for your goal. There have been some puzzles recently that have felt impossible. I’m always amazed to get the gold star.
Today brings my streak to 1000. Upon hearing that, my wife asked, “so that means you did the crossword the day our son was born?” She was not impressed.
@Thomas 😂 Oops. Some people just don't have their priorities straight.
@Thomas congrats on 1000 and your son! I (the mom) was very proud of myself for keeping my streak going through my daughter’s birth earlier this year.
Well, that took a bit of thinking. Thanks for the workout, Natan! SUBWAY ADS indeed
I had to cheat a lot to finish this one. It contained some arcane trivia. Nonetheless it was an interesting puzzle with fun clues for the most part.
@Asher you didn't, " cheat", you just sought extra-neural data sources.
A full third of this puzzle are proper nouns, some extremely obscure. I have taken to just looking up all of these on Saturdays; otherwise it's just tiresome. A difficult Saturday is in creative clueing, not how much arcana the constructor can google just to make their puzzle work.
@LJADZ So agree! I had to look up two names in frustration, Rustin and Sosa. Maybe should have clued Sammy Sosa, instead of some Argentine singer. That was just mean.
I found this easier than Friday’s, possibly because this time, DREAM DATE was 100% correct instead of a bit better than half right. Things that I didn’t know, like the “Narnia” title and MARSEILLE, were easy to get with a few crosses. It’s interesting to see that the debut entries include such familiar phrases as GOOD KARMA and TOUCH-TONE. Those, plus clever clues like the one for SUBWAY ADS, show that puzzles don’t have to be the SAME OLD STORY. Thanks, Mr. Last!
@Eric Hougland SAME OLD STORY, reminds me of, " As time goes by", lyrics. " It's still the same old story, the fight for love and glory"
Lots of very clever clues throughout, made up for the fiendish SW corner, where I found the crossing of a pre-Jennings Jeopardy host, and a Pinocchio character, with a national motto (of any country), to be rather Naticky
@Bill in Yokohama That's how I felt about the NW!
@Bill in Yokohama I felt no qualms whatsoever about looking up two out of three of those.
@Bill in Yokohama Of those three, BIALIK was the only one that I had seen before. But I was able to figure it all out bit by bit, which is fine with me.
"rather Naticky" Bill, Interesting. I filled all three rather quickly without knowing any of them straight off from the clues. Different strokes, as we see here so often.
@Bill in Yokohama Mayim BIALIK was not a pre-Jennings host. The two of them shared hosting duties for at least a year before they settled on Ken full time. (Much as I liked Amy Farrah Fowler, it was the right decision.)
An excellent Saturday offering, what a great mix of the doable and the crunchy. Started well with a gimme 1A, 5D and 32A. Why I know that about the city I can’t say, but I do. ASAHI from my son’s time in Japan, it’s also a popular beer here now. It all fell apart once I reached the halfway point. I had to work for each letter, Argentinian performers not being in my wheelhouse, nor accounts lingo. Took me an embarrassingly long time to understand DANE or to remember Edward Said’s speciality; I’m a Shakespeare scholar with Honours in world religions. I studied Mr Said’s essays in depth for goodness sakes! I’m getting old. Talking of; my then 14 year old son had to call on a family friend who lived opposite his school one day when the school bus broke down, to call me for a lift. She pointed to the static phone and left him to get on with it. Some minutes later he had to ask her, rather red faced, how to use it. It was a retro rotary; he and his mate had spent the time tapping the numbers and wondering why nothing happened. He’s never been allowed to live it down. Off to feed the calves now. The sweetest Herefords I’ve ever seen.
@Helen Wright I'm old, too, and I have the opposite problem of your son's. I've literally lost count of the number of times I've had to ask what I had to do to use one of these new 21st-century phones. I understand his embarrassment.
@Helen Wright What a great story about the phone! A perfect retort when old guys like me get kidded for my lack of technical savvy. I was a Java software developer, and because I went into it as a second career, I was the oldest Java developer I ever knew. Even the guy who wrote the language was younger than me. One day, as a bunch of much younger guys were helping me do something, all gathered 'round, one of them said "It's like watching my grandpa use the computer". I would have been mad if he hadn't been right.
@Helen Wright Interesting story about the phone. I'm old enough to remember when phones didn't even have a dial. You just picked them up and waited for the operator to say: "Number please." Oh - and our number back then was - 830. Surprised I still remember that. ...
@Helen Wright - this video cracks up half of the populace and annoys the other half <a href="https://youtu.be/1OADXNGnJok?si=1YytpC1ZiWY4ouaP" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/1OADXNGnJok?si=1YytpC1ZiWY4ouaP</a>
I taught an intro programming course to middle schoolers around 1985. For fun, I brought in an old punch card. Before I could explain it, one kid exclaimed “wow! That’s so neat! That must be the new way of writing a program!”
@Helen Wright Fellow Brit here and I thought this Saturday was a nice break for us. Like many I grew up with rotary phones but I’m glad I got to experience the party line technology in my 20s when I was in rural Western Australia. Just a dial with a knob that one spun to get the operator in Kalgoorlie. In coming calls were coded long and short rings to alert us if it was our call. My hosts decried the lack of privacy they endured when courting.
@Helen To add icing on the cake your friend should have written him instructions on using the phone in cursive.
Fun puzzle. I really made a hash of the NW. I had Tyne before LYME and tvs before LGS and BAYARDRUSTIN and EDWINA were unknown to me. I sorted it out eventually. Speaking of hash, I must have had food on my mind while solving because I wanted to fill shells with ricotta, and was disappointed that CREWTEAM was the correct response. Happily the puzzle satisfied my pasta craving a little farther down with hearty helping of LASAGNA. I was happy to see Buddy Guy make his way into the clues. He’s one of my favorite blues guitarists whose solos always ring out. He’s a fine singer too. This was a nice, challenging puzzle, although I suspect it may have more general knowledge questions than some will find tolerable.
@Marshall Walthew Same for Tyne and tvs. Now I wonder if we both made it up?
@Marshall Walthew although one Newcastle is much bigger than the other (Newcastle upon Tyne is one of the biggest cities in the UK with a relatively well known Premiership team). There is an easy way to seperate the two, If this ever comes up again which is very unlikely; it's Newcastle UPON Tyne and Newcastle UNDER Lyme. This may help or not but wanted to put it out there all the same
@Chris Thanks for the geography lesson. TIL that there are two Newcastles in the UK. I assume it is the lager one to which one may carry coals.
@Marshall Walthew I immediately thought of CREW TEAM to fill the shells, because our daughter was on the CREW TEAM at San Diego State. But I thought that would be too obscure.... After a couple of crossings I realized it fit! Go SDSU Aztecs!
No no no. Dang was this ever out of my league. It’s so true that taking a break when it doesn’t click is the best “medicine”. Got it done over the course of the day. To all you Helene survivors, my wife and i wish you well and a speedy recovery/rebuild!
When I saw that the puzzle was by Natan Last, I knew that it would be engaging, elegant and satisfying. How right I was! Many thanks, Natan, for another beautiful puzzle.
So intricate and funny, fills that seemed to wobble all over the place before they solidly LIT in place. I confess to one look-up (my knowledge of W.H. Auden is limited, mostly to his poem on the death of W.B Yeats, which includes the beautiful line, "Earth, receive an honored guest . . . ") but everything else revealed itself with the crosses. I was tearing my hair out because I wanted STand-in and it didn't fit. I wanted something like SUBWoofer (I don't even know how that would have applied, but I liked it)—but, the crosses scotched that one, too. Needless to say, I had a very good time, and if it were up to me, there would be ice crEAMS al around. Thank you, Natan Last. for a first class crossword!
@dutchiris . . . ice crEAMS all around! (as you see, I'm al thumbs tonight). 🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦(one is for you, Emu!)
@dutchiris I, too, tried to get SUBWoofer in there, though I didn't really know how it would work either. I suspect we both grew up in a music technology in which "subwoofer" just sounded so damn cool.
Sadly this was a puzzle of the kind I personally like least - made difficult by saturating it with trivia. The uncommon words I did not know I have no complaints about - after all, Saturdays are supposed to test us solvers, our vocabularies, too. From time to time some of us, especially from abroad, will fail, and that's fine. But the trivia... When the puzzle is as hard as this, and there are a dozen or two of proper names, organization abbreviations etc. I just can't find any enjoyment in dealing with it. Sure, I really liked some of the clues, like the one for STUNTS, but overall this was not a nice experience for me. My physio is a professional rower but I had no idea her boat could be called a SHELL. Apparently this particular word does not even have a Polish counterpart - we just call it "łódz", boat. I think I once saw the word SKOSH in these puzzles but only remembered it with almost all of the crosses. I would appreciate it if the community explained some things to me. Why was NBA clued as an org. that discourages travelling? Apparently I don't understand what travelling means in this context. Gertrude, DANE? Google tells me it may be a pre-made, unplayable The Sims character, but that can't be it, surely? Concessions: SOPS? Cheek: TUDE? Is this short for attitude?
@Andrzej NBA National Basketball Association, “travelling” is illegal. Gertrude Hamlet’s mother, and so a Dane. SOPS is a word with the meaning [Concessions]
@Andrzej Traveling: when you take a step with a basketball without dribbling (National Basketball Association). Gertrude: Hamlet’s (Prince of Denmark) mom. Sop: I hadn’t heard this usage until now either. Tude: Yes, just short for “attitude.”
@Andrzej As a non-sports person answering, traveling the when the person controlling the ball takes too many steps without bouncing the ball on the court.
@Andrzej Traveling in basketball i.e. taking more than 1 (or is it 2?) steps without dribbling the ball. ‘Tude is short for attitude. Can’t speak to your other questions. I also found the puzzle tough but I enjoyed it!
@Andrzej Gertrude is Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother in the Shakespeare play. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.
@Andrzej I'm with you that the puzzle was a real challenge. I'm very much amazed I didn't struggle more. There were three or four times when, just staring at the partially filled squares, that the missing letters just appeared in my head. That's happened before, but never so many times. And still I had to resort to running the alphabet on a square. 'Twas a mercy that was the only error. So, it was a challenge, and I think I got a lot of gifts from the cosmos.
@Andrzej Agreed and unlike some, recognize the question as rhetorical.
Nominating ‘pitches low and inside’ for the clue of the year….
Moderately scary but ultimately doable. A nice little workout. A few things I didn't know. Favorite clue was probably "rotary successor" only because I spent so much time pondering it - rotary club? Wankel rotary engine? - before the "duh" moment as it got filled in. Somewhat similar experience for other clues too. Mountbattens crossed with Argentinian folk music seems kind of mean though... ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@B I really like the "rotary successor", too. I felt advantaged by being so old as to remember the rotary phones. Even so I had to get pretty close with crosses before it jumped.
@B Mercedes SOSA was a wonderful singer — and a gimme for me. This song (written by the Chilean songwriter Violeta Parra) has been a favorite of mine for 40 years: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPKm9ZukgR8" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPKm9ZukgR8</a> Milton Nascimento recorded a duet of this song with her. I’d have linked to that but I couldn’t find it without an irritating two-minute ad. But I had never heard of EDWINA Mountbatten and got that from the crosses. (I should probably look her up.)
"Mountbattens crossed with Argentinian folk music seems kind of mean though..." B, Really? What other letter did you consider for the cross?
I took "Gertrude" to mean DAmE Gertrude More, rather than the Danish queen. I hope you're impressed. And..oh yeah .. I had to cheat shamelessly and repeatedly to complete this puzzle, so maybe you're not so impressed.
@Bruce My first thought for Gertrude was of some British peer whom I had never heard of. But that base was already covered by Lady Mountbatten (whose Wikipedia entry is short enough that I didn’t lose interest before finishing it).
@Bruce If it makes you feel better, I had her mixed up with GRETA Thunberg, so .... I had to unravel that letter by letter until I got Scandinavia sorted...
First of all -- this was a "keep the faith" puzzle where it took me forever to gain entry and even after I did, I thought I'd never finish it. Second -- I don't think I've ever seen a puzzle with so many interlocking traps for the solver to fall into. Could it be accidental -- or was it fiendishly plotted in advance by Nathan Last? HOWL instead of BAWL for "wail" led me to HOWARD instead of BAYARD someone-or-other (though I couldn't remember any HOWARDs from that 1963 March)... led me to ISLE instead of CORE for "key" ...led me to ICE CREAMS instead of CREW TEAMS for the "shell" clue. And I also had PHONE where the TONE of TOUCHTONE should have gone. Yipes. "Now what was the strange name of that godawful woman who replaced Trebek before Ken Jennings did?" I asked myself, thanking the powers that be at "Jeopardy" for their most welcome decision. The crosses got BIALIK for me, but BAYARD RUSTIN did ultimately come back to me. My generation, don't you know. Phenomenal cluing for SUBWAY ADS; STUNTS; LIP READER and DOTTED I. Natan is a real pro and this was a fabulous Saturday tussle.
Enjoyed this puzzle very much. 12D, could this be the answer? ...I'll see myself out.
Wow, this one was tricky! Thank you! I love a puzzle that isn't filled with gimmes and tired cluing. I've added lots of new factoids to my file!
All this time I've thought it was charming that the ship in Alien was named after the whale in Pinocchio, Nostromo. But that didn't fit. Wow, 45 years is a long time to be wrong about something.
@Grant If it makes you feel any better, I recently learned that I had been tying my shoelaces the wrong way my entire life: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA&t=135s" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA&t=135s</a>
@Seward Parker That was fascinating. Not sure if I will remember how to do it, but I guess I can save it on YouTube. I wear hiking boots to do at least a four mile walk every day, and I always double-knot my right boot, for some reason it tends to get loose—something about that foot is different I guess? Anyway, who knew there was another way. Thanks.
Slightly off-tooic, but as a pilot and weather geek, I need to point out that the clue for 12A in the Mini [Precipitates freezing rain] is incorrect for the answer SLEET. Freezing rain is supercooled (liquid state below 0°C) water that freezes instantly on contact with objects such as airplane wings, power lines, tree limbs, roads, and the ground. It’s what causes ice storms and their damage. Sleet is water drops that freeze high in the atmosphere forming small pellets. The distinction is important. Sleet is relatively harmless but freezing rain causes widespread damage and can be lethal to airplanes without sufficient ice protection. So-called “clear ice” can form extremely quickly and will cause the wing to lose significant lift, possibly resulting in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control. Pilots’ two biggest fears are thunderstorms and clear ice.
I love the NYT crosswords to the point of doing part of the archive twice. This one made me feel my age, not with it and tired, so I looked up midday assignation, one two others, decided I’ve aged out and stopped. Not for the great-grandma set, we who’ve survived to tell the tale. I’ll excise the grinch tomorrow. Perhaps a reaction to the Covid jab in one arm and the flu in the other, yesterday. Sigh. Night all.
@Kroobey What a poignant post! I, too, feel out of it most of the time these days. I keep recalling decades ago, when when the Simon and Garfunkel song, "Old Friends" came out. "Can you imagine us Years from today Sharing a park bench quietly. How terribly strange to be 70". Nowadays, I often think to myself. "Ah, to be 70 again." Very impressive you've been through the archives twice. I hope you find your interest renewed very soon.
@Kroobey I’m with you. My brain is definitely slowing up. I know this because I hardly ever hit Genius on Spelling Bee anymore no matter how hard I try. When I reveal the answers the next day it’s always a head slap moment. How could I not know such simple words! I’m ’looking forward’ to my Covid/flu jabs next week. I always feel rough for 48 hours after and as I’m still battling a nasty head cold 7 days in I’m not expecting to be firing on all cylinders again for some time. Feel better soon. I still think the jabs are preferable to the viruses.
@Kroobey I hope you feel better soon. I got my COVID booster and flu shot a month ago — along with the RSV and pneumonia vaccines. I’ve never had vaccines hit me as hard as those four did.
@Francis That song is haunting (as is much of the Bookends album). I remember the first time I heard it in my teens and Old Friends and Overs in particular made me feel the icy hand of time tapping on my forehead. And the spectral bus trip in America made me shiver. But most affecting of all: Time it was, and what a time it was, it was. A time of innocence, a time of confidences. Long ago, it must be. I have a photograph. Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you. How could a duo so young have known so much?
Oh, I get it now. The reason my life has been a disaster is that all this time I've been dotting the "t"s and crossing the "i"s! DOH!
@Francis Thanks for providing a huge smile for me. A sense of humor is so vital in doing puzzles as well as appreciating life. Be well and keep up the grin work!
Each August and for a few months, I travel to Italy, and stay at a villa just east of Vatican City. I’m catholic (lowercase c), or I pray so. It’s the weather, the sojourn of leaves, the brisk, decaying wind among the decaying buildings. It’s quieter, even the Italian. And, yet, for years I’ve remarked I am the only person among itinerants but, especially, the natives, with, I daresay, a bounce in my step, a mirthful countenance, yes, a cheery disposition — a sort of joie de vivre — walking the cobblestones of lawless traffic along Vespa caravans. I’ve asked many a passerby in barely-passable Italian, “Why the melancholy? This is the birthplace of passion.” But all I get is that Euro-dismissal, bundling off. I don’t get it. So, friends, come, I say. Come and join me in the 11th hour of the year, with Western Indifference, and celebrate the Fall of Rome. (I’ll show myself out.)
@Steven I believe that Italians with the time and money head for the beaches in August. When the corporation I worked for wanted to close on the acquisition of an Italian company in August, there was much grumbling from the executives and lawyers who were called back from vacation. No surprise that those left behind resent having to stay in an abandoned city full of perplexed tourists. Nice finish, though.
Puzzles testing a solver's cultural IQ ought to be exacting in their clues. Edward Said, whom I saw lecture on Adorno and Lampedusa, was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, not Arab studies. In fact, he had to work on his Arabic language skills as an adult, and that weakness resulted in scholarly work that was often slipshod when it ventured into actual Arab studies. Several books have been written on Said's historical errors, such as Robert Irwin's For Lust of Knowing.
Roy, The first poster to object to the 6D answer ran afoul of the emus for a tangential reason and the thread was removed. I restated the objection, and responded to it, here: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/42ae1s?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/42ae1s?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
@Roy And from the usage department, and on behalf of rowers and former rowers, 'crew team' is redundant; it's a crew, which ought to make intuitive sense.
I found this one extra difficult. Partly because I had Newcastle-upon-TYNE for ages, making the northwest quadrant an impossible bear. Oi.
Hey Sam, I like that you "get a little thrill from seeing modern slang used in the Times Crossword," but the word LIT is only modern in the sense of "everything old is new again." I remember drunks being described as LIT as far back as the 1950s.
@Puzzled Color me naïve! I had no idea, but I’m not altogether surprised since, as you said, language does often trend in cycles 🙂
Seeing 1ac I thought, either this is going to be an easy ride or, Newcastle-under-Lyme being an infamous bottleneck on the A34 main route between Birmingham and Manchester before the motorway age, a bit of a struggle. As it's the by-passing M6 that's usually bumper-to-bumper these days, the A34 through N-u-L is a comparatively easy alternative these days. This Saturday puzzle did indeed give me an easy ride today. A lot less tough than a couple of the midweek ones this week. SKOSH isn't a word I'm familiar with, and I winced as I do whenever I see "crew" referring to the sport of rowing, but that was a pleasant breeze of an NYT Saturday. I've attended several meetings in the BAYARD RUSTIN room in Friends House, London, so that one made me smile.
Lots of comments already, so I’m guessing many folks found this one easy. Solved it unaided, but took more than thirty minutes. Thank goodness I remembered THISBE (from a recent puzzle?), or I would have been “naticked” in the NE. Entering SAMEOLDTHING instead of SAMEOLDSTORY and DEADTIRED instead of BONETIRED slowed me down a bit. Not a fan of this puzzle’s geometry, since it felt like the main puzzle ran from the NE to the SW, with two barely attached sub-puzzles in the NW and SE. Lots of interesting entries and clues, so, all in all, I enjoyed this Saturday challenge.
"Thank goodness I remembered THISBE (from a recent puzzle?)" Xword Junkie, Yes, from a recent puzzle. Tue Aug 27, 2024 49D Pyramus' beloved, in myth Julia Hoepner P.S. At least there were two ways to enter the "attached sub-puzzles."
@Xword Junkie I remembered it for the previous puzzle because of 'A Midsummer Nigjt's Dream' in which characters play the love story (hilariously!) We re-enacted it....9th grade....Oh, god 1962?
Terrific puzzle. Busy day, and didn't get to it until late. Few will see this comment. Lol Had to drive a friend to the airport, finish all my Saturday chores, and take my walk before I could get to it.
@Amy It was a fun puzzle, wasn't it? I don't know which airport you took your friend to, but they owe you one.
I believe 22-D is incorrect. Snowden was not employed by NSA. He was employed by Booz Allen and performed work for NSA. So NSA was not Snowden's former employer. BoozAllen was.
Rowers in a multi person shell are simply the crew. The whole gang is the rowing team. It’s one or the other but never both words together.
Pitches low and inside - diabolical! Very well played. You win.
@Wolf Big shout for LBW turned down by the umpire, on the grounds of wrong context. Otherwise it sounds like a classic GOOGLY¹, which was allowed somewhat to my surprise in SB the other day. Thinking about, as a clue it was a fine googly. ¹Note for baseball fans: in cricket, an off-break delivered with a leg-break action, which turns into the batter instead of away as expected
Feeling alone in my struggles in the SE corner when everyone seemed stumped on what to me were the obvious answers! I’m always amazed at how the same puzzle can feel so different for everyone. Maybe some of the complainers on here could benefit from remembering humble humility every once in a while. I enjoy when puzzles benefit different subsets of knowledge, even if it means hitting what for *me* might feel like an occasional natick on a Friday or Saturday—odds or those crosses are a blessing for someone else. And I hope BAYARD RUSTIN becomes a household name in time!
@BJ You're not alone. I still don't know what might constitute a TIDY narrative. I suppose if you've DOTTED all the Is...
36D is charming as a person, but she was quite out of her league as a trivia game host, which is no shame. Like being good at trivia puzzle solving shouldn’t be one’s pride, I think. There are more lofty goals out there.
@Remy Well said, especially the last sentence.
So late to the game. My streak is now 1500 (with a couple of asterisks where I searched my spellings or ran the alphabet). Today's felt slow but was actually a pretty smooth half hour solve, no look ups. Laughed out loud at 33 Down. (I could use a SOP. Or maybe a Hushpuppy.) Actually feel pretty 33A. It has been a very full week.
@Lynn Amazing! Congratulations!
@Lynn Actually I oversold myself. Those couple of asterisks were more than searching my spellings. I call them almost-lookups. But today I had none of those and got the happy music first try. That is, after staring at the SE quadrant for awhile and suddenly seeing that the doping investigation was not about any particular banned substance. Sheesh--mind is half asleep. With this confession done, so is my week.
@Lynn Congrats! My streaks always end at 6 at best because of Sunday’s large grids, but that’s OK (sigh).
Regarding Sam Corbin’s help with 30 across in the October 5 puzzle, I note that she said one would need to be familiar with certain boating terms. The answer uses the term crew team, which, unfortunately, is a redundant and wrong term for the rowers in a shell. The rowers are simply the crew, just as all the people who operate a ship or boat are referred to as the crew. The sport is called “crew”, which confuses the situation and probably leads to people calling members participating a team (as it pretty much every other sport), but properly speaking the rowers are simply “the crew”
@Richard Hubbell Don't think so. If the sport is called "crew" as you assert, then the group doing it is a crew team. Nothing redundant about it. /Motley Emu /Shibboleths ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@B Just looked it up and it looks like Richard is technically right, although I have trouble wrapping my head around it. Seems to me that “crew” has two meanings, the sport and the people on the boat. So if you were obviously already talking about the sport it would be redundant to say crew team, you would say there are two crews participating or my crew is an exceptional one. But in a context where you were differentiating between different sports it might not be. If I said I was joining a crew in college you wouldn’t know if I meant a crew on a sailboat, or a stage crew for theater or whatever. So saying “crew team” indicates I’m joining a team in the sport of crew. Unless you want me to say I’m joining a crew crew!
@SP I’ve heard people say “she rowed crew in college” (or similar) as a way to describe participation in the sport.
@Richard Hubbell It has accrewed other meanings. Ecru, emu?
That was fun and, as a bonus, I set a personal record time for solving a Saturday! I didn’t have to look anything up but I sure did make some lucky guesses.
My fastest Saturday crossword with minimal look-ups. That was LIT!
Diabolically brilliant puzzle. I was pleased with myself when I filled the SW to NE diagonal but had to take a break before I saw my mistaken fills in the NW corner. This old lady was flummoxed by the SE and had to resort to Sam’s help to “cross the t’s” so to speak.
Fastest Saturday ever! Really on the same wavelength as this one. SOSA, RUSTIN, Said, even Narnia were all gimmies. Loved it!
@Bonnie Congratulations from somebody who experienced one of the biggest crossword failures of his life today. It's amazing to think you were able to do this. Respect 👍🏾
My upper-left corner just refused to settle itself for a long time this morning. The Countess and the not-Tyne and the Argentine non-car-non-slugger lacked confidence, and when all that together with not knowing “Bayard” had me ruminating about whether they beamed low-frequency war-time propaganda into enemy submarines then giving my head a shake… well, columnist Sam: “gasp”? It was my last one. I am dotted.
Hah! After Thursday and Friday, we have less to fear from Natan Last (erstwhile Wunderkind and all-around great CrossWorld Figure.) I knew 4D instantly, which you would have thought boded well for the NW corner, but in fact that corner was the last to fall thanks to tricky, tricky 1A. You would think, with DHubby sitting across from me, during this month which will end with Halloween, I would have thought of our award-winning costumes (Don the DON and his MOLL) but No. Oh, well. How many ways can we clue SOSA before we run out? Do you get DEAD TIRED or BONE TIRED? It's BONE *WEARY." I thiink there's a law--or at least an ordinance--against trying to rewrite customary and familiar phrases. Or there should be. And speaking of 'familiar,' it was interesting to know MUCH more about BAYARD RUSTIN, whose moral beacon should still be lighting the way for society.
@Mean Old Lady Yes it should. That beacon should still be visible, just barely, through the smoke.
Great puzzle! The SE corner took me longer than the rest combined, but managed to finish in under 30 with no look-ups. The clue for 41A was the only false note, as it gave us no indication we were looking for an informal or slang equivalent. TUDE is righteous slang, but standard English it ain't.
@Anna [Cheek] is a shortening of "cheekiness," like TUDE is a shortening of "attitude". Both are slangy terms. Hope this helps!
I’m so glad this comment space exists. If not for reading that so many other people had to do multiple lookups, I might feel like an idiot.
Brilliant! An almost perfect puzzle. With one exception (etsy) it was wholly original. Well done.
Howard, I enjoyed the puzzle too, but I'm not sure what you mean by "wholly original" except for ETSY. Eight of the answers are NYT XWP debuts, which is commendable but certainly not all minus one. Nor are all the clues "original."