I expect and want to be put through paces on Saturday and I certainly was today. I expect and want, on Saturday, to have those ringing-with-joy moments when an elusive answer finally hits me after dodging me many times, and they were there in force today. But what makes a Saturday special, is when, on top of these fine qualities, the puzzle is rich with rewards – beauty, wit, and the stamp of quality. And, for me, today’s was special: • Lovely, lovely answers – I CAN TAKE IT, NOSEBLEEDS (as clued), I DO WHAT I CAN, ADULTING, SWELTER, ALOO GOBI, EMINENCE. These add sheen, make the tour through the box anything but pedestrian. • Fun answers I’ve never heard of (THREENAGER, STRUGGLEBUS) that are clever and smile-producing. • Clever clues that amaze and happify, such as [Purchase on an island?] for GAS, [Very short story?] for CRAWL SPACE, [Get hot and bothered] for SWELTER, and … • A world-class clue/answer that is so good, so elating, that you instantly love this puzzle forever, and if there were any nits, they have disappeared forever: [Producer of black-and-white footage?] for PANDACAM. Game over. Day made. Yes, this was one of the special ones. Chandi and Hoang-Kim, after this, your first collaboration, how about some more – please? I loved this., Thank you so much!
Side note: Icing for nerdy me were a couple of serendipities – Row seven (TOO TALL and ECCE) with its three double letters and palindrome, and the answer GNATS, because that word backward, cutely tells what those gnats did.
@Lewis Strange. I thought pandacam was just about the worst of the lot. The clue was obvious enough but is a pandacam much of a thing? I get it, there are webcams trained at all sorts of stuff (famously a coke machine). But it seemed unfair, along with several others shoved-in formations. Happy that it made you happy though. I enjoy your positivity. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Lewis I got the wordplay for [short story], but got stuck because I kept wanting it to be some kind of attic. The worst part is that whenever I sit at my desk, my feet are on the trap-door to the CRAWLSPACE under my house!
I thought the SW was just a mess. DOTOAT, RENTROLL, come on man.
Wingnut, You find a mess, I DOOK. (And I had been looking at the RENTROLL earlier in the day, so that went in with no crosses.)
I really, really struggled with the SW quadrant. I’ve never heard of ALOO GOBI, PANDA CAM, or RENT ROLL, which were back-to-back-to-back.
@Bill I figured out ALOO GOBI (recalling the menus of the many great Indian restaurants in my part of Warsaw helped), but I was still hopelessly lost in the SW and used several reveals in the end. It was one of the most difficult grid sections I have had to deal with in my 18 months of doing these puzzles.
@Bill ALOO GOBI is the only way to eat cauliflower, in my opinion. It's a very sad vegetable. And PANDA CAMs are definitely a thing. There are plenty of live feeds of animals doing animal things out there. Here in Minnesota, we have an eagle cam to spy on our bald eagles.
A beast of a puzzle to tackle. No kickstarts, a few nosebleeds, but I can take it. I do what I can. As for the nonreal mutants in the family, the emu and I are currently not on speaking terms. It has retreated to the crawlspace, where I intend to let it swelter until it apologizes for behaving like a threenager. Honestly, am I the only one adulting around here? I may need to install an emucam.
I really wanted producer of black & white footage to be a panda paw rather than cam. That put me on the struggle bus for a bit, but otherwise this went by quickly and enjoyably. A fresh and charming puzzle.
@JBW I had panda paw as well but it doesn’t really “produce it” but I like the footage idea. Pandacam is better
I started trying to think of a company associated with manufacturing saddle shoes, the two-tone (black and white, etc.) Oxfords.
I knew I was done for when I saw the several sports and musical clues 🤣. But even looking those up did not allow me to solve the puzzle: the SW corner left me a babbling wreck, and one who needed to reveal several squares to complete the puzzle. DOTOAT I just could not parse - now that I have seen the explanation in the column, I realize I have heard the expression before, but I could not recall it, especially with the words all bunched up without spaces. I am quite proud to have known ADULTING instantly. However, I am blissfully unaware of anything toddler-related, so THREENAGER was a complete mystery. PANDA CAM, RENT ROLL, ACTION ITEM and MIL threw me too. Now that I have seen it I understand the etymology of NOSEBLEEDS for a stadium section, but I did not know the term before. To me, ARCO is an Italian town, on of Europe's climbing meccas: I know much more about climbing than about musical terms. I was about to ask for the explanation how the clue for CRAWL SPACE works but it dawned on me as I was looking at it one last time. That's actually a very witty clue, respect. BTW, given Polish building techniques, our homes never have crawl spaces, so I know them only from American movies and series. Overall I simply lacked the general knowledge and English skills to finish today's puzzle unaided. I don't get how GAS is a purchase on an island. Could somebody please explain?
@Andrzej My best guess is that it’s meant to refer to using a gas stove or cooktop located in a kitchen island (maybe another American concept—I can’t recall ever seeing one here in Japan) and thereby contributing to one’s utility bill, but I’m not completely confident that that was the intention.
@Andrzej I don’t think Nick got it. GAS (petrol) stations are arranged with groups of two or four pumps together on one raised platform. Each one of these platforms is called an island.
@Andrzej My husband and I joke that we fell in love on an island . . . it was at the Mobil (gas) station in Great Barrington, MA. We'd known each other for a little while and gone out a few times but for some reason, that morning as we both happened to pull up at the same time to the same island, our eyes met . . . and reader, I married him.
@Andrzej, I couldn’t help thinking about your solving experience while I was going through this monster of a puzzle. ICHIRO? Great, great player, but it’s an if-you-know-you-know thing. Good luck with TOO TALL Jones, as well. ALOOGOBI was a complete guess for me. STRUGGLEBUS? Never heard of. Or THREENAGER. (What a great word) You had to be familiar with the work of Agnes Varda, which you probably are. I got the math terms, but they’re fairly esoteric. This was one of the hardest puzzles for me in recent memory. Did I like it? I’m still feeling too banged up from it to give an objective opinion. It was more “Whew!” for me than “AHA!”, but I was glad to get through it. Thanks for this experience, Chandi and Kim!
@Steve L I was thinking about kitchen islands, which are center positioned counters in large house kitchens which can include gas stoves.
@Andrzej No CRAWLSPACEs in Poland, but many, many in California. Foundations for buildings have to be dug down below the freeze depth. In Poland, and other places with cold winters, that is deep enough that you end up with a basement. In California, where I am, and other warm-weather locations, the foundation can be put right on the surface. Many houses in my neighborhood are built on a cement slab. Or many have a crawl space just big enough to hold the under-house plumbing and electrical fixtures. Hence the term crawl space. One has to crawl on stomach to do any repairs down there. The one at my house is a little over a meter high. That makes it easier to crawl on hands and knees. And our furnace is down there too.
We called our angry toddlers scREamagers, so *that* slowed me down. Luckily I (finally) made hubby look at the one-named baseball player and got it fixed for the gold star. But that SW made me sweat! Which, aptly, is what Indian food does to me, too. Nice, solid Saturday workout. Thank you Chandi and Hoang-Kim!
This one made me work! Especially the SW corner, since I couldn't recall the completion of ALOO___. The entry DOTOAT just looks so odd, but fits the clue perfectly. And, as a mathematician, I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to get NONREAL from "Like i, say". Not familiar with THREENAGER, STRUGGLEBUS or RENTROLL, but all seemed sensible enough from the clues. "Place for a mind or a ball" was a clever clue for GUTTER. (I wonder if "Where a mind or a ball shouldn't go" would have been a bit better.) "Ride arranged on one's own" for KITCAR was also very clever, as was "Producer of black-and-white footage?" for PANDACAM. Really enjoyed this one. Took more than 45 minutes, but solved it without help. Terrific Saturday puzzle.
@Xword Junkie I'm not a mathematician, but I remember the square root of negative one being represented as a cursive i. Am I wrong? I was afraid it was going to be a nonsense linguistics word, like "plosive."
I really really disliked this puzzle. I found (find, as I haven't completed it and never will) that the clues are so obtuse and obfuscating that it's the author's attempt at self aggrandizing. Do a better job, Times
Mark, I'm sure it's a real ego boost for the constructors to know you gave up on trying to solve their puzzle. No doubt they were thinking of you when constructing it, and had that result in mind. And The Times condones it.
Quite hard, and not at all fun for me. Just glad to have successfully gotten through it. Far too many suspect neologisms for my taste, and not much humor. The whole thing seemed shaky with a lot of questionable fill choices. Hard and rewarding is good. Hard and merely tiring is not. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Feeling very proud to have gotten the gold star on this one. Patience paid off this morning. That and not having much else to do since I can't yet stomach reading the news. I've read some of Stephen King but I've never heard of Salem's Lot. He may be the writer to read right now.
@Esmerelda Salem's Lot is a classic King book about (spoiler alert) vampires. It's scary but good.
Had to go to the column to figure out what the answer to 47A was. DO TO AT? DOT OAT? DO TOAT? That would have kept me awake all night. 🙂
Although .oat would be a great domain name for AGRARIAN sites!
@Gig, I had DOTe AT for a long time. But I guess a CReAKY voice isn’t too [Deep and hoarse], is it?
What a delightful puzzle! So many clues and answers that made me smile. Took me almost an hour but, in my defense, I had to solve without the benefit of coffee because my 17 and a half year old puppy was asleep with her head on my leg and I couldn’t bear to disturb her.
@Cyndie Funny. I'm in a similar position but with a new kitten sleeping on my stomach leaving me unable to make tea. Luckily my tea loving son is willing to help out.
That was tough and fair, a delightful Saturday. Some of the entries made me feel old though . . . I guess I am fossiling.
I only watched (part of) the very first Survivor series years and years ago, so I wondered if by now a popular thing on those shows is for contestants to accumulate points so they can purchase a gag to shut up other “islanders.” Yeah, I was plagued by strugglebug, but thought better of it and got on the bus. Many fun clues - their humour made up for the moments of despair.
Very unbalanced and not fun. The SW area can't get any worse. A combination of Gen Z slang with foreign, musical, and elitist math terminology. That is not a good equation. 31D and 48A are overly vague and extra lame.
Michael, It is a Saturday puzzle. Not fun for you, but even your description suggests a balance of answer types. I didn't realize I was a math elitist, and where in the SW is the musical term or the Gen Z slang?
@Michael I don't mind the foreign, musical and math terminology. Happy to know/learn those. I do find the out of proportion use of cutesy Gen Z slang in puzzles like this grating. Maybe one clue, but four, five, six? And there's some really bland fill here: kneel at, age line, rent roll. Grrr and yawn.
@Michael I never realized that taking algebra in high school made me an "elite." I really should have taken to wearing a tweed suit to all my factory and warehouse jobs. I could have smoked a pipe during breaks, too.
@Michael Elitist math? Dude, it's high school geometry.
@Michael not sure how “i” qualifies as elitist math terminology.
@Michael This tends to happen with collaborative constructions; sometimes you get a bowl of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, but sometimes it's chocolate and strawberry.
For me, this was one eyeroll after another.
@Murhatroid I could not agree more, except to throw in a few (most unappreciative) groans...
Um… just putting this out there. (No spoilers before the View All Relies, please) Strands #251 “Generation jam” 💡🔵💡🔵 💡🔵💡🔵 🔵💡🟡🔵
@CCNY I threw in the towel after 15 minutes and not a single theme word (I refuse to do hints). DW did complete it (her pattern looks just like yours) and told me the theme. Had a joking comment but could be a spoiler so I'll wait for the fold.
CCNY, I managed to eventually power through this while smearing raspberries on my toast, but was stuck in a tight spot, going nowhere for a long time, even considered getting together with a few old friends to freestyle some theme ideas. A couple random word guesses got me going. Only knew of three in the end. Definitely not my jam.
@CCNY Was less opaque to me than many others. My first thought on the title: <a href="https://youtu.be/qjN5uHRIcjM?si=zA_yC9Hr9BOvc_Il" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/qjN5uHRIcjM?si=zA_yC9Hr9BOvc_Il</a> Strands #251 “Generation jam” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🔵🔵 FWIW, I was born in the very late 1950's
@CCNY 💡🔵🔵🌕 🔵🔵🔵🔵 Needed a hint to get going, but it fell pretty quickly after that. Not my favorite era of rock music, but I was in my mid to late twenties during this time and you couldn’t escape it. 🙂
@CCNY Wow, that looks like mine did.
@CCNY, Brother, you can say that again. Not my era. Even after the hint was given for SUBLIME, I still couldn’t get it until asking for a second hint, at which point the app emphasizes each circled letter in order. Strands #251 “Generation jam” 🔵🔵🔵💡 🔵💡💡🔵 🟡🔵
@CCNY Oh, my! How very niche! It reminds me of "How Poe-tic". I had a couple of misses before Sublime stuck, and after I started looking for band names they jumped out pretty quickly. Strands #251 “Generation jam” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🟡
STRUGGLEBUS? Seriously? So we just going to make up phrases now? I should know that when the NYT puzzle says something said colloquially or familiarly, it’s code for “no one ever said this”.
Richard, Seriously. You might want to read the Wordplay column and follow the link Caitlin provided. Or you could just look it up and find that people have been saying it for a while now.
@Richard Ciotti I’m in my mid-thirties and have heard people use the expression being on the struggle bus for probably over a decade. Usually a reference to being hungover.
@Richard Ciotti Some people prefer to complain rather than do their homework. I have never heard of the term strugglebus, but you could have looked it up before concluding that the constructor(s) made it up. I come across things in the crosswords all the time that I have never heard of. That is what makes them challenging.
@Richard Ciotti It’s quite a leap from “I have never heard this before” to “No one has ever said this before”, isn’t it?
I've been on the STRUGGLE BUS this morning -- and I ended up DNFing in the NW corner. I didn't know ICHARO and I didn't know KIT CAR (would I have known that if I drove?) and I couldn't figure out the portmanteau from the REENAGER that I had. CAREENAGER (as in running into everything?) SCREENAGER (as in overly dramatic?) I never know the latest portmanteaus, so I have to try to make them up myself. Sometimes I succeed, but today was not that day. Oh dear. Would the answer to "Producer of black-and-white footage" be GANGRENE? I fervently hoped that the grisly pun would not make its way into the grid, even though the A was in the right place. But then the lightbulb lit up as I suddenly realized that the "hole thing" was PAR. Whew! Not GANGRENE. PANDA!!! Panda what? PANDA PAW? No, pOOK is not a thing. PANDA CAM? Is that a thing? Is there a special CAM for PANDAs? I eventually finished everything but five letters in the NW -- and I had a very entertaining and absorbing time. Because this was a puzzle predicated on puzzling things out rather than coughing up a lot of extraneous trivia. An excellent and crunchy Saturday.
@Nancy I'm sure there are more probablyin China, but there are PANDA CAMs at the San Diego and Washington zoos. The recently arrived pandas in Washington are not yet ready for prime time, so their cam is not up and running. The San Diego zoo wants your email address to access the cam so I passed on that.
@Vaer I was just at the San Diego Zoo in May and they didn't have any (black and white) pandas so I guess you are not missing out. (They did have a little red panda.)
@Nancy, So glad that 1D wasn’t GANGRENE! 😂😂😂
This puzzle was insolvable without help. It was exhausting and exasperating. It was the last thing we Americans who will now be hiding in our homes for the next four years (likely much longer), needed.
@Elaine the NYT literally started publishing crosswords to serve as a pleasant distraction during the trying times of WWII. It’s there for your enjoyment, not stress. Look stuff up and get help if you need to. Hopefully the next four years won’t be much worse than WWII.
@Elaine I hid for 3 days, stopped looking at the front page of NYT and deleted all my podcasts. I am slowly emerging from this fugue now, joined a zoom meeting hosted by Gavin Newsom and there were 35,000 other Californians in attendance. Together, we will get through the coming madness and resist the worst of it. It can only make us stronger,
Maybe I was just on the constructors' wavelength today, but this was the most fun puzzle I've done in ages. Mind-bendy and creative but doable. Delightful cluing. I only wish it were Sunday-sized!
Like most, I struggle-bussed with the SW corner, and had to sleep on it. Last clue to fall after 1 hr 11m was the marvellous "DO TO A T". Wonderful to get the gold star today!
Well, that's 44 hours I'll never get back.
I was on the STRUGGLEBUS (new term for me) in the NE for awhile because I misspelled LUE as Liu (must have been thinking of Lucy) and had tumble for spill before coming up with TATTLE. I also had to reach deep into the recesses of my brain to come up with the two math answers. I loved PANDACAM and its clue. A nice puzzle with a little something to pique everybody’s interest or ire.
I meant to add that Chandi Deitmer's premier puzzle--"Satar Search," from Sunday, July 25, 2021--ranks as my favorite New York Times crossword thus far. Thank you, Chandi and Vu!
Evidently I've been "Adulting" for quite some time and hadn't ever referred to my child (ren) as behaving like a "Threeager". "Rentroll" sounds like something a Scooby-doo character might have mumbled? Might enjoy some Aloo Gobi for dinner tonight, though. Great idea!
@Nomad Something a Scooby-Doo character might have mumbled?? RENT ROLL is basic, standard language for rental properties. In fact, I was talking about mine just yesterday -- total gimme in an otherwise tough puzzle!
Puzzle of the year! Having done NYT puzzles for over 60 years (Margaret Farrar, anyone?), it was fun to go back in time and be stumped in a quadrant, only to come back later and have the answers fall out of the sky. Great job!
What? DOTOAT? GAS as island purchase? Messy and annoying all around.
@Frankie B Well, there are thousands of "Self-serve island" signs in gas stations across the country. As for the other one, TO-A-T has been standard, if unsatistifying, crosswordese for years, fair game on a Saturday I reckon.
@Frankie B Do to a T. And the pumps are located on an island at the gas station, far away from the shores of the mainland Food Mart.
I was a little confused by the past tense in the reference to the Oxford English Dictionary--do you mean the first edition, 1888-1928, or the second edition, 1989, which is the present one, as I believe the third is still under preparation. Is it still possible to purchase a print copy of the 2nd ed. one? (In my copy of the *Compact Edition*--a reprint of the 1st--the first volume ends with "OZYAT,"as best as I can make out. And I still have the magnifying glass!) I don't know what dragged *a Wrinkle in Time* back into my consciousness--was it a crossword reference a couple days ago?--but just yesterday, I dug my 48-year-old copy out of the basement storage locker, and have re-read about half of it so far; and last night my Partner and I watched about half of the 2018 Disney film version, until even our peals of laughter at Giant Oprah's bad costumes ("OMG, she looks like Divine!") gave out. I was struggling with 48D, so phoned-a-friend to my buddy Georg Fridrich, which didn't help, as he called them "lice," and got them all out of order, to boot: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdzBkRtjXXE" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdzBkRtjXXE</a> Musically, the counterpart to "arco" could be "with [hard or soft] mallets": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2OjutM0SBk" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2OjutM0SBk</a> (a bit of a stretch, but it's only 2'18" long and So very pretty!)
@Bill I absolutely adored the Wrinkle in Time trilogy when I was a kid. I think you've inspired me to dig out my little paperback box set from my storage locker -- I'm very overdue for a Madeline L'Engle re-read! As for film versions, I've always been wary and stayed away. Perhaps what I need right now is a little Divine laughter. (Not quite ready to cringe-laugh at Oprah though...) Thanks! 🦄
@Bill it wasn't the first edition of the OED just the first installment and didn't even cover all the A words
It’s been a while since I’ve seen The Bridge on the River Kwai, wouldn’t mind seeing it again. (Or any film either ALEC Guinness ) Oh, the puzzle, of course needed lots of help, but found it quite interesting with a lot of variety. I also enjoyed the constructor notes from both Kim and Chandi.
I was working as a night computer operator at a large factory bakery at one point. I heard someone in the hallway whistling a fragment of the "Colonel Bogey March." Because it was in the middle of the night, you could get away with things that wouldn't be tolerated during the day... I picked up a phone, connected to the plant PA system, and whistled the rest of it. I could hear it echoing throughout the shut-down plant. When I clocked out to go home I had to pass through the production area. The entire sanitation crew, while cleaning floors and hosing down machinery, was whistling the "Colonel Bogey March" in unison.
Guess I should have been more clear when I said, "Give me your wurst!" ADULTING really is hard. Especially this past week. I have been on the STRUGGLE BUS more than ever. Eventually, I will be able to find a stop to get off at and start ADULTING more ABLY again, if not TO A T. I thought this was a good puzzle, but very tough for me... Especially the southwest. Still, I persisted and got 'er done. I'm grateful for the distraction! My favorite was PANDA CAM, even if I did toy with it being PANDA mom for a while. That section was tough but I knew ALOO GOBI straight away since it's one of my favorites, but when I had trouble with everything else I worried that it might be an alternate spelling. Speaking of ALOO GOBI, maybe I'll order some in tonight -- just for the HALIBUT.
I got stuck on 31 down. Thought it could be PANDAPAW, a clever use of “footage”.
@Medic105 Same here, then I thought Panda Leg, or mom, or something. The I got the C and figured it would be CUB. Pretty disappointed to see they didn't use the obvious pun.
PANDAleg, PANDApaw -- PANDACAM? Thank you Chandi and Kim for the workout
A clever one indeed, especially that SW corner. Nicely done and thanks.
LIsten, kids. I CAN TAKE IT! I've taken a ride or two on the STRUGGLE BUS even if I couldn't label it that way at the time. And when it comes to the Saturday puzzle, well, I DO WHAT I CAN. So there was plenty to love in this one. But man oh man, lots of name googling for me today, which always leaves me feeling that I had to cheat. Meh.
@NovelaMaven I did a lot of DuckDuckGo, myself, but I'm neither ashamed nor embarrassed about it. I figure it's a learning experience. 18A, for example: I knew the answer was in French, so perhaps I should have tried harder to suss out the answer, but a quick lookup that gave me "film director" solved it easily. (I am a bit upset with myself for not guessing 2D immediately, although I did get it with just 2 crosses.)
So many things I never heard of in this puzzle. Learned a lot. Was able to get everything on crosses without lookups, which was kind of surprising since I didn't know any of the sports names, and although pizzicato sounded familiar, I could not place it. (Didn't apply to the instrument I used to play.) In one place I just kept trying common word endings and worked backwards from each until something clicked. I thought the clue for 12D was inspired, and the one for 53A led down many false routes before I stumbled on the answer, which led to a redo of much of that quadrant. Time to mulch leaves! Sorry to miss reading everyone else's thoughts--maybe later today.
I loved this puzzle. Enjoyed the "floundering" clue crossing HALIBUT. THREENAGER is perfect, I wish I'd thought of it! Baseball, Stephen King, pandas. Who could ask for more?
Two mildly subtle math clues. Someone's background is showing.
@Lou Scheffer Except that complex (i.e. imaginary) numbers actually are all real numbers!
Another tough one for me, and had to cheat a bit to get through it. But there were some nice 'aha' moments when I finally had enough crosses for something to dawn on me. Just more than a couple of things that were quite unfamiliar or that I at least wasn't going to connect to the clue. Rather unusual puzzle find today. I'll put that in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: a Sunday puzzle from October 12, 1958 by Harold T. Bers with the title "Grand Slam." Can't say I really understand exactly what was going on with this one. Anyway... the string of letters BRIDGE appeared in 3 answers: CASTERBRIDGE BAINBRIDGE HARRYBRIDGES But... the string of letters 'bridge' was also in 14 different clues. Some examples: "Site of Michener bridge." - ANDAU "Bridge near Uffizi gallery." - PONTEVECCHIO "Bridge on the Rhine." - REMAGEN "Across the bridge from Windsor." - ETON "Bridge in 1927 novel." - SANLUISREY "Bridge of___." - SIGHS "What Boulle's bridge crossed." - THERIVERKWAI "Bridge begun in 1925." - CONTRACT "Bridge in Sherwood title." - WATERLOO And some others. Just don't recall seeing another one quite like that. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=10/12/1958&g=84&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=10/12/1958&g=84&d=D</a> I'll shut up now. ..
Was really enjoying this puzzle until the SW corner, and had solved it to DO TO AT but couldn’t believe that was correct. A quick peek at the blog told me that was correct - if I had been more confident with ALOO GOBI it would have been briefer. I liked ADULTING, I CAN TAKE IT, I DO WHAT I CAN and CRAWL SPACE. Cheers
@Michael -- I CAN TAKE IT and I DO WHAT I CAN, by the way, are NYT puzzle answer debuts. Et tu, emu.
There is more than one kind of right brain/left brain duo. Here's the puzzle one: "Google it!!"/"No." "Try Wikipedia!"/"No." "Take a look at the Answer Key" /"No." "Get off the STRUGGLEBUS"/"No, (To para-phrase Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein) she wants to do it herself!" (And I almost did.) "Go to the column!"/"Okay." Caitlin showed me the light so I could change my THREE r AGER to THREENAGER, but I did like it with the R. I can almost see the tiny clenched fists and hear the screaming sobs of "No! No! No!" A terrific Saturday puzzle, a real hair tearing, teeth grinding, delicious, STRUGGLE. Beautifully done, Chandi Deitmer and Hoang-Kim Vu. So many baffling clues and amazing answers that made it absolutely solid. My "No." brain side says thank you!
Not very painful for me for a Saturday, though finishing did require sleeping on it. There were a lot of familiar names for that gave this fossil a KICKSTART. Ed TOO TALL Jones!, ALEC Guiness, ALIA Shawkat. And I was most happy to get CORA from the clue. One of my favorite movies is the Daniel Day Lewis/Madeline Stowe Last of the Mohicans, despite its deviations from the novel.
@Vaer If you've ever read Mark Twain's hilarious put-down of James Fennimore Cooper's novels, you'd say the more deviations the better.
A nit. I got "stadium section" instantly and filled in "nosebleed," which didn't fit. I knew 46D was possessive, so I added an "s" to "nosebleed." Shouldn't the clue for 61A have been "stadium sections" plural? I never heard one called a "nosebleeds" section, but maybe that's just me.
@drsophila "Yeah, I was at that concert! Couldn't see a thing. Was sitting up in the nosebleeds."
@drsophila I’ve mainly heard the expression “up in the nosebleeds”, so the plural form came to mind pretty quickly for me.
@drsophila - If time flies like an arrow, what does a fruit fly like?
I once spotted a red Ferrari Testarossa in a parking lot, but it was about 4/5 the original size. What the heck? Yes, it was a KIT CAR. I found out later that the platform chassis was a Pontiac Fiero. Anyone else remember those? Fun puzzle, quite tough with the slangy cluster others have referenced. On the other hand, the cluster of X-Men, James Fenimore Cooper, and Stephen King was perfect for me. Nice to see ATTIC getting a story break in favor of the CRAWL SPACE.
61A clue should've been plural. There's gotta be a few rules on the clues --- though you might not know it from this puzzle. However, my streak continues.
@R.J. Smith NOSEBLEEDS is a concatenation of "nosebleed seats" which is a section.
Quite the struggle! Last night while trying to fall asleep I pondered what "black and white footage" could be about and decided it could be something about PANDAs or zebras. Ta-da! Still needed to come back to the SW corner several times to suss it all out. If you haven't read The Professor and the Madman about the creation of the OED, it's quite a read. Makes you feel better about any project that takes longer than you thought it would!
@Lpr Yeah that’s a great book! I shared it with a cousin and I think he read it.