I've never gotten ONE on Wordle, but it's ironic that you get labeled with "Genius" if you get the Wordle answer right with your first guess. In the balance between luck and skill in solving Wordle, getting it right on the first guess is 100% luck and 0% being a genius.
@Bill pretty much everyone I know who does Wordle has a starting word they use. There is a set of good starting words that's fairly well known. So, an Ace would only happen if the puzzle makers chose one of those words. OTOH, back when NYT first purchased Wordle, one of my friends had a 5 day streak of Aces. Knowing that he is a brilliant programmer, we all knew he had hacked the game. Sure enough, he posted hat he had figured out he to get the days answer from the puzzle page. He also wrote a solution to the problem and sent it to te NYT.
@Phishfinder The word list was contained in the code. It was fairly easy to find just using a browser if you knew how.
@Bill I finally did! My opening word is always WEIRD, and on Halloween that was the target word! Funny because my boss always calls that day "holloweird".
@Bill I use different words each time, my only criteria are two vowels and at least one or two common letters. But agree it’s all luck
@Mergatroyd my Wordle opening fave is WEIRD too, and the last time I used it, that was the puzzle! As for Todays Crossword, the only answer I still don't get is ADDS for "does a summer job". I tried lifeguards LFGS until I gave in (as I have done only twice in my life) and let the square be revealed.
@Bill I used the starting word until I hit Genius! I agree that it was 100% luck but the rush was real. The problem after that was choosing and getting used to a new starting word.
@Bill My opening word is TWERP, and I'm pretty sure I'll never get Genius. And I'm ok with that.
@Bill Agreed, of course. I didn't kid myself when I was crowned Genius, because I hadn't tried to solve the game, just wrote in a random word, as I always do. I don't have a favorite starting word, just anything that pops into my head when I start the puzzle, and there are days when the WordlBot out-wordles me, and days when I out-wordle the WordleBot. But before the strike I had failed to figure it out only twice in a very long stretch of solving. Having a favorite starting word may be overrated.
I’ve never once heard anyone in my life use the terms ushes or cooksets, and that’s just two of the questionable terms used.
@N. Hornblower "cook sets" aka mess kits are very common, but then I do a lot of camping. I started with the wrong one. Ushes? Nope. Don't know it. Neither does my spellchecker.
@N. Hornblower My family says USHES all the time. “You’ve been asked to be a groomsman? You’ll have to ush.” We thought it was just us, so I hesitated to enter our silly word.
@N. Hornblower agree on both, I have heard "ushered" and "messkits"
N. Hornblower, Congratulations! You've learned two new terms from the puzzle.
@N. Hornblower Some form of USH was in a recent puzzle and elicited a similar discussion. While I've never heard or used it, it clearly is out there and in dictionaries. Check it out, and then head over to REI to see their COOKSETS. The Pinnacle Base Camper Non-Stick Cookset seems pretty popular.
Well, at least one gimme for me today. Enjoyable puzzle.
Oof, to say that I was not on the same wavelength as Mr Gordon would be a vast understatement. But at least I learned quite a few things today.
I was working at the potato farm, but I got the sack. (It was going to happen sooner or tater.)
No way I was the only one who heard Mr. Gordon’s evil snicker as answers *finally* revealed themselves. No. Way. Woodstock artist. Name on ID tags. Present time. So. Many. Misdirects. Double-misdirects, actually! Fan. Flippin.’ Fabulous. My brain hurts. This is what I pay for. Ahh…
My brilliant mother completed the crossword every morning before she left the house, for decades. She would only permit herself to check a reference book if she really needed to leave. (And we had some beautiful reference books… Larousse encyclopedias, out of date encyclopedias that fascinated her, atlases…) I am wondering if a puzzle like this would have been possible to complete before Google, even with an extensive library. Wish she were here to ask.
@Elizabeth L Well, sure it would have been solvable....we did it, and I'll bet she'd have done so, as well!
Elizabeth, I'm not sure how your mother would have fared with this puzzle, but I think my grandmother would have enjoyed it immensely. And I know I'm not the only person who solved it with consulting any online or offline references.
@Elizabeth L I assume you mean "would have been possible for my mom to complete before Google", since many of us completed this, albeit very painfully, without help. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
One of those, "Uh, oh, well okay" puzzles that are hopelessly tough unless you can be flexible about the fills. Some tenuous connections and some sneaky, clever answers that resulted in a grudging smile. Well, it was a Saturday puzzle, and they're supposed to be difficult, but FAMOUSPOTATOES? Yes, because ID is . . . Idaho. Peter Gordon, no matter how much we complain, it's a fun construction even if it made our brains hurt. Thank you, and next time I'll be sure to wear my SAFARIHAT.
Great puzzle, I'm proud to be among those who got TAOISEACH right on the first try, and JOANOFARC finally came to me after trying SACAJAWEA. On a personal basis, on November 16, 2016 I decided to distract myself from the bleak news of that day by solving the NYT crossword. It worked, and I kept it up through dark news days and better news days until now, 8 years later, my solving streak has reached 2,922. As luck would have it, November 16, 2024 is another bleak news day, so I'll keep on solving with the goal of eventually reaching "happy days" again.
You would think that after 35 years of making Times puzzles (130), not to mention many others elsewhere, that Peter’s spark might start to dim. But no, that brain is agile, quick, funny, witty, and crammed with minutiae as ever. Amazing! Today's puzzle is a beauty, a cleanly filled super-low-word-count grid (66), a design never seen before in the Times puzzle. One that includes a super-high 18 longs (answers of eight letters or more), which can bring color and interest to the puzzle, i.e., NEAR EARTH, ROPES INTO, KALAMAZOO, and SLACKERS. Those first two, by the way, are NYT answer debuts, bringing pop to the grid. There were a pair of shorts (a pair of shorts – hah!) I liked as well. ROISTER, for one. I just love how that word looks and sounds, and all the images it brings with it. SCROD, for another, which is just fun to say, IMO. I especially loved [Phrase on ID tags] for FAMOUS POTATOES (another debut), and [Woodstock artist] for SHULZ. Put all this together, and there’s that Peter Gordon spark. I so greatly appreciate your mastery, Peter, and love uncovering your puzzles. Thank you for a splendid outing today!
Memories of jokes past: A man is visiting Boston and asks his driver, "Do you know where I can get scrod?" The driver pauses and says, "I do, but I've never heard it asked in the future pluperfect subjunctive before."
@The X-Phile That explains a mystifying one-line post from hours ago!
This was one where if you have good crossword intuition, you'll get through it. I guessed a lot, and they wound up mostly correct. One thing opened up the next, and so on until it was all filled in. My entree was BANS crossing NOEL. AMISH confirmed it, and BAH was logical from that. I did know Maria TALLCHIEF, and 14A had to be something-SAMOA, and then I realized that the capital was APIA. Rather than going through my experience word by word, I'll just say that the entire puzzle worked out that way. PETE'S Dragon was a fer-sher-gimme, but I never saw BLAKE until afterward (and would never have gotten it on its own). I got 38A off the E (the only choices besides ONE would've been TWO or SIX), but I guarantee you I didn't know this fact because of personal experience. Final thought: COTENANT looks like a trig function and not a roommate.
@Steve L I’m proudest of getting the Woodstock clue on first pass, just guessing it was a misdirection and the answer fit.
Me: "Rather than upping the level of difficulty through clever and imaginative clueing of common words and phrases, can we just make puzzles that are full of totally obscure proper nouns that pretty much nobody knows and that the constructor has to google?" NYTimes: "Hold my beer."
Good puzzle overall. But I was led astray by ORALS which are NOT a “hurdle for aspiring MD’s”—that would be MCATS! My MCAT scores were part of the requirements for getting into medical school, and thus my MD degree. My oral boards were only many years later after graduation, as part of my board certification process.
@Joe You were an MD, and were further "aspiring" to certification, so with a little tortured logic it still sorta works? ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Joe, The clue says doctors, not MDs. It's not about your trade school degree.
@Barry Ancona as a person who calls those folks "physicians" because "doctor" is a degree and the kind I've got comes from a MUCH longer academic lineage, your comment truly made me laugh out loud, and I appreciate you! Given the prestige associated with the medical folks' doctorates, I suspect most people would be very surprised by the actual history there. Thank you again for the laugh.
@Joe when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you have an MD, every "doctor" is assumed to mean "physician." Apparently 😒
@Regine Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor, Und bin so klug als wie zuvor! Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar, Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr' Herauf, herab und quer und krumm Meine Schüler an der Nase herum – Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können!
I was fortunate that Maria Tallchief and the spelling of the Irish title for prime minister came to mind readily. Otherwise those corners would have been a real slog for me. I got the fill for ID tag long before I understood what it meant. Excellent clue. 'Twas a perfect Saturday puzzle.
Any puzzle that fits in both KALAMAZOO and TAOISEACH is good in my book. Points for FAMOUS POTATOES as an excellent misleader and for remembering the great Maria TALLCHIEF (although I would clue her differently). One could take issue with USHES, but easy enough to figure out. I would call this one reasonably challenging for a Saturday morning and thus a good workout.
@Siddhartha Vicious As soon as I wrote in DATA, I thought of Maria TALLCHIEF, but thought it was too much to hope for because the clue was so misleading. "A Balanchine ballerina wife" might have been better, or . . . I went to the Wikipedia page for more ideas and got lost in her biography, much of which I had forgotten. i remember that when the host of a late night talk show (maybe Dick Cavett) asked her if she suffered much poverty and discrimination when she was a child, she burst out laughing and said, "No, of course not. Daddy was rich!" He had oil wells and owned half the town. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Tallchief" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Tallchief</a>
Really miss Will Shortz. The clues now are so incredibly obscure - Talofa Airways HQ? How many people know that random fact, and its city and country. That’s just not enjoyable.
@Jonathan I think the "cross" part in "crossword" is meant to imply that part of the fun is getting answers from... crosses. Otherwise the constructor could just write a list of trivia questions and spare themself the bother altogether.
@Jonathan I had never heard of that airline before, but just based on the name, it seemed possible that it was base don’t somewhere in the Pacific. It took a few crosses to seem APIA SAMOA. From previous crosswords, I remembered the city’s name. Seems to me like that is how crosswords are supposed to work. Now, if the clue had been [Airline based in Apia, Samoa], I’d agree that was too obscure.
Jonathan, "Incredibly obscure" clues like that appeared repeatedly in the Shortz era.
@Jonathan here are a few clues from some Shortz-era Saturdays I recently encountered in the archives: - Entertainer who was the first man to be married at Caesars Palace - Game with hazards, safeties and remedies - “Operation Bikini” co-star, 1963 - Capital on the island of Viti Levu - Smallest member of the Council of Europe - “Fur Traders Descending the Missouri” painter, 1845 That’s just from pulling up the last few archive puzzles I’ve happened to work on — I could go on like that for a *long* time.
@Eric Hougland For awhile, Ulan Bator fit, but the name didn’t sound very Mongolian (whereas it sounds very Samoan indeed).
@Jonathan If anything, puzzles have gotten easier under JF. I used to skip Saturday entirely a few years ago because of the difficulty. I can usually get them now with a few boosts.
Ugh. This was the least fun I've had doing a puzzle in a long, long time. The SE corner filled in quickly, but after that, the clues might as well have been in Sanskrit and the answers in Esperanto. Eventually I abandoned all hope and did whatever lookups I could just to get through the awful thing. I really look forward to Saturdays. What a disappointment this was. And could somebody please explain ADDS?
@Peter C. Oh, I get ADDS now. Never mind.
@Peter C. Same for me. It's been a long time since I found a puzzle hopeless, but this one was way beyond my normally-good abilities.
Probably the hardest puzzle I've seen in a while, took two and a half hours and quite a few breaks to tackle it, but gave me a nice feeling of accomplishment. Biggest aha! moment, when LURES INTO turned into ROPES INTO, and ID turned into Idaho.
@Yiannis L. I considered "ROOKS INTO" or HOOKS... You must be a very persistant person; I would have given up rather than spend so much time.
I do this puzzle first thing in the morning, while drinking my coffee. I regularly forget common words, names, and facts as the caffeine slowly enters my system. And yet, I managed to spell TAOISEACH correctly on my first try. Literally how.
Now that we've all learned what the word "antepenultimate" means . . .
@Bill Oh, come now. I know for sure you can count backwards. ....but we don't see that word often, do we? Rather like tht mathy word yesterday....
@Bill ... we can now learn all about "preantepenultimate."
Way too difficult to be fun. I would LOVE to learn how many of you solved this with no lookups. I'll bet it's a small percentahge. A VERY small percentage.
@Laura Stratton Many of us did. Just for fun, recommend my post if you did too.
@Laura Stratton I did. Took me some time to navigate the misdirects, but that's part of the fun. I think it's mostly about practice, and maybe particularly about practicing specifically with the NYT puzzle, because different publishers have different styles and it does (in my experience) affect how you think about the clues.
@Laura Stratton I'm probably the last person to offer advice here but I have been solving for a long time and the best I can say is that one develops a "spidey sense" for the misdirects of which there are plenty of at the end of the week. I take my time and I usually scan the clues before I start committing words. I work in blocks and if I have an idea of what an answer might be I'll test it with crosses before committing. Of course I'll take the ducks as they are offered (AMISH, BTUS, etc). Sometimes you see them coming (JAZZORCHESTRA) and sometimes you don't (FAMOUS what??). Just comes down to same as the directions to Carnegie Hall. Good luck.
@Laura Stratton Patience. So much patience today. Taking so many clues, re-reading them, looking at them sideways or upside-down and backward. Guesses, plopped in and then kept if they fly, dumped if they don’t. I’m no genius, but I’m a very good solver. And that is *only* because I solve and construct every day. For decades. So, no secret sauce.
@Laura Stratton first, the more crosswords you do, the more fill you learn. Like doing a jigsaw puzzle, you learn how to rotate the fill words to make the unknowns appear. Also I use my experience solving cryptograms to fill in suspected letters based on common word patterns. I put down and picked up the puzzle several times, getting a few letters each time. I often switch between grid solving and looking at clues only (on my phone). It's like slowly untangling a knot and you get better with practice. However I will accept the moniker crossword master and genius because it's good for my EGO.
@Laura Stratton Tourist: "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" Guy with violin case: "Practice." Would I know that APIA is the capital of SAMOA without having seen it here as a clue/answer? Nope. Hardest one for me today was JOAN OF ARC, because I don't live in NYC, and can think of no logical reason why she would be so honored. That one and Ms TALLCHIEF had to be chipped away at with crosses, but I got them eventually.
@Nancy J. This was the 833rd in my no-lookup streak (which was broken a couple of years back when I had a houseful of guests for Thanksgiving and missed a puzzle, so took a break for awhile), and it was the closest I’ve come to surrendering. The trick is to make another cup of coffee, take the dog for a walk, rake some leaves, feed the hummingbirds, and come back to the puzzle. This took me four or five returns. It was a toughie (for me). But you can do it!
@Laura Stratton Many are very good at crossword puzzles - and quite willing and eager to tell you about it! :P
@Laura Stratton I also did it with no lookups. It wasn't easy by any means but just kept worrying at the clues I didn't know immediately and then it was solved.
@Laura Stratton no lookups here, either. 5 minutes over my average and it definitely felt trickier than usual! But like everyone says, you don’t need to the answers to every clue straightaway. Sometimes you make a reasonable guess for a clue (I thought ISLAM might be a word on the Saudi flag) and then you realize it’s holding you back in other ways. But the fun for me is is learning the things I don’t know, like TALLCHIEF!
Nice to have you drop in for a Saturday, Peter Gordon. A fair workout. No SHORT ORDER.
A proper Saturday puzzle. I'm counting on @Factboy to clarify this, but I'd have thought Liberty was [New York City's first public statue of a woman], somewhat before 1915. But I may not be parsing the clue entirely correctly. New York City? I think Liberty Island qualifies. Seems public. Seems like a statue. Seems like a woman.
@Pezhead Liberty Island is owned by the Federal government. Lady Liberty is not a real woman. I'm probably saying this wrong, but the statue is a personification of the idea of liberty, not an actual human being.
"Ushes?" Not a fan of that one.
@JC from KC I’ve never heard anyone use this term in my life
Love the Joan of Arc clue. I live down the street from her.Her plinth was recently renovated and there was a lovely ceremony. I was in France for 2 weeks in September and I was taken with just how many monuments there are to her.
Just gave myself a primer on Maria TALLCHIEF. What a woman and what a story...thanks NYT and Mr. Gordon! Interestingly, a passable translation of TAOISEACH could be "high chief".
I live for delightfully evil Saturday crosswords. My time was waaaaaaay above average but I am not sad about it. Almost got it done without lookup but Apia Samoa/Opal Lee was a natick for me. Happy weekend everyone!
Not on the same plane as the author tonight and lack the self control to wait until morning. HEED my warning, wait until morning.
Found this very tough, I was not remotely on the same wavelength as the constructor. The top half was a sea of white after multiple lookups... Had to give up on the puzzle because it just wasn't an enjoyable solve for me. Hope others liked it more, onwards to Sunday!
I've been doing the NYT Crossword daily for over 20 years, but I've recently lost patience with it. Challenging puzzles used to involve misdirect clues and clever wordplay. Now they are too often trivia contests. I know many people love trivia, and some enjoy Googling for answers, so I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the NYT Crossword's new trend. It's just not fun for me. Can anyone recommend a crossword publisher that provides "old school" crosswords: answers that are widely known words, but with challenging cluing?
@Dan W Yes, the New Yorker crossword, which often has crosswords by Natan Last.
@Dan W Agree. Between the strained puns and the trivia, it's more of a punishment than a game to finish. The New Yorker and Atlantic still have fun/hard puzzles that make you laugh instead of cringe.
@Dan W The NYT has lost my news subscription due how its reporting has changed and is about to lose my puzzle sub too.
Dan, There is no new trend. There has been a ton of "trivia" in the Times Crossword continually since 1942 (No, I didn't solve back then, but I've solved those puzzles in the xwordinfo archive.). You may have been more engaged in "trivia" 20 years ago, so it may not have seemed trivial.
@Dan W I too prefer the older puzzles but mainly because they’re more challenging. So I’ve been working my way through Saturdays and Sundays from the archive and have knocked off 93, 94 and 95, halfway through 96. Maybe that wouldn’t work for you if you already did them when first published but I was mainly a Globe and Mail crossword solver back then.
@Aging Bull This isn't an airport - no need to announce your departure
@Dan W Actually old “old school” crossword style (60 years ago when i started solving @ all regularly ) was the obscure trivia style. Isn’t Wil Shortz often credited as prime mover of the wordplay style? Thanks again, Wil!
@Dan W Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check out the New Yorker and Atlantic. I won't be giving up my NYT sub though - the other puzzles are still fun.
Oddly enough I was on the same wavelength as this constructor and whizzed through most of it. If it wasn’t my fastest Saturday it was because of the SE corner, since I had no idea about the Irish prime minister or the basketball player and made me question my correct guess of HEED. Most of my other first guesses on everything else were right, except…if the Packers have cheeseheads, some team somewhere has SALAMIHATS—no? I adored the central clue for ID tags by the way.
As an old math major, inexcusable not to be able to crush the DATA -- but goober just had to be hick, right?? (You know, like medical hurdles had to be MCATS.) With TILs of OPAL, APIASAMOA and TALLCHIEF in such close proximity, impatiently resorted to Wiki as midnight beckoned. Hated to do it, but again: We solve to learn. Great puzzle, but a bit like climbing El Capitan.
@LBG The clue said "would-be doctors". It never said anything about medical hurdles. It's Saturday...
@Steve L it is Saturday, but this clue got me too - there are no oral exams required to get an MD! I had MCATS for the longest time and finally reluctantly changed the clue to the (factually incorrect) answer. Oh well.
Maria TALLCHIEF made history--and not recently--but "The Nutcracker" has been performed and appreciated for A Very Long Time, for PETE'S sake. Lame claim... ASHES drop off cigarettes, but do people really say, "He ASHES his smokes so elegantly" or similarly ridiculous things? At this age, I can count in decades how many smokers (hordes) I've been around, and nobody used ASH, ( or ASHED ASHING ASHES) as a verb.... It's not verbacious (rhymes with 'herbacious.') Never saw (or heard of) SLACKERS. Mercifully....though I did recently read that college students--even at grad school level--"are unable to do required reading." The poor little dears. And 31D. Wow. Why does Peter Gorden hate us? Oh well. 35A was worth the price of admission.
@Mean Old Lady I heard "ash" as a verb quite a bit as a kid. Probably a regional thing, and probably less used now simply because every single cashier, barber, cop, doctor, driver, and random person on the street isn't walking around with a cigarette in one side of their mouth or between the fingers of one gesturing hand.
@Mean Old Lady George Balanchine created the version of The Nutcracker we all know and love today, for the New York City Ballet. It premiered in 1954 with his ex-wife, Maria TALLCHIEF, as the Sugar Plum Fairy. It has been performed by that company every year since. So I would venture TALLCHIEF is exactly the [Ballerina who popularized "The Nutcracker"]. No SLACKER, that woman! I'm no dancer, but have long found her story inspirational. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutcracker_" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutcracker_</a>%28Balanchine%29?wprov=sfla1
I didn’t love this puzzle, the constructor and I have wavelengths a million miles apart, but that’s okay. I just think it’s notable how many regulars who complain endlessly about 21st century trivia in puzzles seem just fine with this one. Is it “trivia” or is it just something outside your generational zeitgeist? This puzzle was mostly outside mine, but that isn’t a reflection on the puzzle or its maker, just on me.
Diana, I'm puzzled. I'm a regular, I liked this puzzle, but I don't complain about 21st century trivia. Which regulars who said they liked this puzzle complain endlessly about 21st century trivia?
As an academic, my first thought at getting SLACKERS was that at least twenty years ago those slackers weren’t using AI to write their essays. Thanks to technology, students’ writing skills achieve new lows every term...
[Phrase on an ID tag] should certainly make the short-list for "greatest misdirects of all time." Any other nominations for that list? A quick acknowledgment for the double-reverse misdirect of [Holy book, in one spelling], which makes you expect an alternate spelling of KORAN (quran?), only to find the most common spelling as the correct answer.
@The X-Phile Yeah that (koran) was a strange feint wasn't it. Held me up for a bit too. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
If you will indulge me in a little OP-ED: There's a lot of chatter today (like many Saturdays) about "How can they expect anyone to complete this puzzle without looking a lot of things up on Google (for instance)?" Well, as I commented yesterday, usually I've heard of about 40% of the celebrity names referenced, if that; yet somehow I haven't had to resort to Google for a long time, and today was no different. Although, having worked out the unlikely TALLCHIEF from the crosses, I couldn't wait for the Gold Star, to Google her (and so glad I did!) Of course, there's nothing wrong with Googling an unknown fact, IMO--just don't use it as a first recourse, and try to remember it for the next time. And of course, the really tricky clues are the "unGooglables": the word play and the misdirects. Ironically, however, I've come to expect it so much in late-week puzzles, that it will throw me off when it isn't there. Thus, [Present time] and [Woodstock artist] set me in the right direction pretty much right off the bat, whereas the relatively straightforward [Ne'er-do-well] held me up for quite some time. I wonder, do any other regular solvers experience the same?
@Bill - Excellent advice. Re: the Woodstock clue: As soon as I saw it, I thought "It's Saturday. I wonder if the answer will be SCHULZ?" I didn't enter it, thinking it might just as likely be a Woodstock musician, but after a few of the crosses were int here, it because obvious. Excellent puzzle!
@Bill You describe my experience well. I worked today right at my rolling average, which means it took longer than my recent usual, but not unduly long. I did not know most of the proper names and it took me an embarrassingly long time to shift away from Woodstock poster art. I did know of TALLCHIEF but had no idea she had popularized that role. No Googling, no fly specking, had to put in and take out a lot of alternatives, but when I did finish, I got the happy music first try. YMMV, but I love mental workouts that seem impossible at first and oh, so slowly break open.
Yikes, this one nearly killed me. Toughest puzzle in years. Made three cups of coffee just to get through it. Whew!
There were so many clever misdirections in this one. My favorite, and the one that stumped me the longest, was Woodstock artist. I spent quite awhile going over and over the roster of bands and musicians that played at Woodstock, to no avail. Then I racked my brain trying to come up with a painter that hailed from that neck of the woods, again to no avail. Finally, when the crosses gave everything but the U, the real answer dawned on me - Charles SCHULTZ, creator of Snoopy and his little Woodstock. I thought JAZZORCHESTRAS was a nice answer too, albeit a more straightforward one. Nice challenging Saturday.
A master class to be sure, as well as a brush up on the proper spelling of Snoopy's progenitor and the Irish PM. Many thanks.
Well. I was taken in by every misdirect here and enjoyed every one. I would never have unraveled the NE except that after awhile it became clear that the college basketball powerhouse was not going to be a school name, so as a UConn person I threw HUSKIES in there with my fingers (paws?) crossed, and it was a lucky break. FAMOUSPOTATOES absolutely took me out when I finally - finally! - got it, and eventually I realized that I needed to go back and think with my homonym brain. A delight. On another note: I don't blame anyone who had MCATS to start with - I did the same. I do, however, take issue with those coming here to insist that ORALS is incorrect... all you proud physicians are aware that the PhD has been a doctorate for *vastly* longer than the MD, yes? Academic history is really kind of interesting, and for those not familiar with it, I suspect the history of the medical doctorate is particularly so. Happy Saturday to all!
@Regine Many physicians (MD and DO) still take orals for part 2 of their medical specialty board certification exams.
@Hallie Robbins aha! So doubly incorrect to insist that ORALS was incorrect!
@kkseattle go Zags! (But not, please, to the detriment of my Huskies, my Bears, or - unlikely - my Gators.)
Tough one but managed a no look up completion. Had no idea how to spell the Irish PM title and spent a long time misled by the ID tag but when I saw it in the end, had to smile. ROISTER is a new one and along with USHES crossing ASHES I found it a bit awkward up there. Had MCATS before ORALS and HARPED ON AT before sussing FAMOUS. There were plenty of other stumbles and it took me a while. I wasn’t expecting the French girl to get the first statue in NYC so I was trying to think of an American icon. So much so that getting it on crosses I thought for a moment she was JOAN O’FARC or OFARC. Never heard of her!
@Roger Your no lookup completion establishes you as a crossword master and genius.
@Laura Stratton I had no lookups but only because it’s Saturday, I had time to make three cups of coffee, and the doggo got two long walks while I was taking breaks from sweating over this puzzle! It was getting so rough I was considering letting the teen sleep in and raking the leaves myself. (Fortunately, that didn’t happen.)
I appreciate the desire to let a past contributor submit again - but editing is about considering the end user, not the writer. Strange clues will not ush an answer from our minds, which may bring about a roister of idiosyncratic confusion. Famous Potatoes was neither timely, current, nor accessible. Tortured. Disappointing. Kudos to the writer for submitting a last gasp puzzle and the loving energy to allow it - but please, do your paid job and offer clues that align with the audiences sensibilities and time. Nair, Pete's Dragon, and Slackers are dusty references from a bygone era.
@Malcolm Seems a little fussy if you demand that crossword puzzles only include things that happened in your lifetime.
Malcolm, Thanks for sharing your opinion. Now I hope you will scroll down to meet some of the "end users" who were absolutely delighted by this puzzle.
@Malcolm You lost me at potatoes. It was the only bright spot in the puzzle. And frankly you've veered pretty close to ageism here. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Malcolm You might want to skip the Thursday through Sunday puzzles and just stick to the Monday through Wednesday ones. In their way, they can be just as satisfying and usually avoid trickier clues.
@Malcolm You srsly didn't get the FAMOUS POTATOES? I would have thought you'd have seen plenty of ID (license) tags in WA, or at least far more than I have. (None.)
@Malcolm though my weak point is sports trivia, I enjoy learning about recent events, video games, influencers, etc. I'm 72, but don't mind whippersnappers and their clues. so why not hair removers and old movies?
@Grant You’ll see a lot of them at Planned Parenthood and pot shops.
@Malcolm Last gasp? Uh, Mr. Gordon has had 130 puzzles in the NYT, and has been averaging 4-5 a year lately. Not to mention creating all the Fireball crosswords: <a href="https://www.fireballcrosswords.com" target="_blank">https://www.fireballcrosswords.com</a>/
@Malcolm - Weird. Once I was on to the misdirect, FAMOUS POTATOES was an absolute gimme. And it gave me a chuckle. It isn't "tortured" by any reasonable definition of the word -- far from it. Why isn't it timely? You know, the constructors are not required to keep Malcolm's own peculiar knowledge base in mind when they build a puzzle. Believe it or not, there are other people out there who have different experiences and knowledge bases than YOU have, who have every right to enjoy a puzzle, too.
@Malcolm NAIR is still a product on shelves PETES Dragon is so current that it got a live-action Disney remake in 2017 FAMOUS POTATOES is a phrase on millions of license plates You’ve got to think beyond yourself.
Wow Peter Gordon, that is a nice crunchy Saturday puzzle. Some very challenging clues and LOL cluing too. I think that's the first time I've seen that ballerina's name in a puzzle. My sister was a dancer and that person was one of her favorites. Thanks!
Petaltown, TALLCHIEF hasn't been an answer for a while: 5 results for TALLCHIEF from pre-Shortz puzzles: Sat Mar 13, 1976 30A Big name in ballet Louise Earnest Weng Sun Aug 24, 1969 7D Ballerina Maria Eva Pollack Taub Weng Thu Feb 21, 1957 8D American ballerina. Helen Smathers Farrar Sun Mar 15, 1953 1A American Indian star. Roberta H. Morse Farrar Tue Jan 2, 1951 21A Ballet star, part Osage Indian. Harold T. Bers Farrar
The advanced EMU filter is still chewing on my main post so let's try it again, with me censoring the J word. Sigh: _________ So very hard! The upper left killed me for the longest time. What a rough slog. I had j{censored}rk and java instead of dork and (duh!) data, and even after fixing it I was stuck forever. Apia, not Asia, really? I'm just so glad to be finished with this. At least Opal turned out to be a more typical name than the weird things I was first trying to jam in there. What a tough puzzle. Can't say I enjoyed it exactly. The potato clue was pretty clever. The rest was okay. Thought this was going to be my streak breaker for a while there. Not looking forward to more like this. :) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler) /the primitive EMU filter is such a j_ke
@B And the original finally appeared, just about 9 hours later, above. Further definitive proof of the existence of both a drastically subpar EMU filter and a failing in the manual moderation queuing procedures. And yet the NYT keeps telling us we're imagining it. And it's reduced me to starting multiple sentences with "And". ;) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)