I don’t often see the constructor chime in on this board and perhaps that is for good cause (allowing an air of mystery, or remaining a safe distance from criticism, perhaps) but I thought I might check in this time and sincerely thank each of you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with this puzzle. Whether you loved or hated it, you solved it, and I take that as a blessing. It’s an honor to be able to contribute a crossword that gave many of you a bit of fun, and maybe a few fits. One clue idea of mine that didn’t make the editorial filter was “Cause for an investigational probe?” at 12D. Crass, maybe, but I thought amusing. Alas, Star Trek: First Contact, is one of my favorite films, so Will & team blessed this puzzle with that particular PG-rating fix. Don’t forget to call your mother (or tell a motherly figure in your life that you appreciate them) tomorrow (and every day)!
@Shaun Thanks for a great and challenging puzzle! I was able to solve this but it took me almost 50 minutes, so I definitely had to put my thinking cap on.
@Shaun I noticed the interesting grid immediately, and 7D was one of the first answers I got -- which put a big smile on my face. Many thanks got this puzzle!
Shaun, I'm glad you dared to post, and thanks for an enjoyable puzzle. I think you did a fine constructing job, and (re: 12D) I think the editors did a fine editing job!
@Shaun Thanks for checking in. A first class puzzle but have to say "ya got me" in the NW. Well done and thanks.
@Shaun Thank you! I loved that it was easy on fill and naticks/Americanisms/trivia/obscure proper nouns. Just beautiful words and riddles, and it flowed at a steady pace.
@Shaun I hated this puzzle until I solved it and then I loved this puzzle. Perfect Saturday. Thank you!
@Shaun Loved it! Finally a free flowing one after two tough ones! But just enough of a challenge. Thanks, Shaun.
@Shaun This was one of the best Saturday puzzles I have seen. So little reliance on recent pop culture! Thank you!
@Shaun Great puzzle. Got very stuck in the NW, couldn’t figure out what kind of board, encounter, and hard-to-define quality were clustered around PEEPER, which I didn’t try until every other possible alternative had been entered and erased. Whew. Great Saturday.
@Shaun -Thanks for posting! It's always a breath of fresh air to hear from the constructors themselves, especially after such a fun Saturday puzzle.
@Shaun Thank you for a great puzzle, and your refreshing outlook.
Said the horticulturalist to his plants, "I mist you." (From the play "Mulch a Dew About Nothing")
@Mike I swear every few days you change you picture to make it look like you're moving around. I won't use the word "creepy", but definitely unnerving. The fact that you're probably not doing anything at all with your picture makes it even more eerie.
@Mike Well, there's für Elise and fert Eliza, Play those tunes and there's not a dry eye in the hothouse.
@Mike Water you doing with your picture? It seems you really irrigated Francis. Maybe it has something to do with your crop?
@Mike Said the wall to the ivy, "You're growing on me."
My very first no-lookup Saturday EVER!!!! I want to thank this entire community for giving me the hope and endurance to keep at a puzzle even when it seems impossible and inscrutable.
@John Peil Congratulations! I don't think I'll ever manage that (looking at you baseball terminology and football teams) but well done to you.
@John Peil We are all very happy for you! Welcome to the club.
I do not time myself. My goal is to solve crosswords with no lookups. So for me, streaks are important. Right now my streak is at 44. Sometimes it takes me as much as two hours to solve a puzzle, but I don't care about how long it takes. I care about figuring it out with no lookups. That's the real brain exercise that I think is important.
@Laura Stratton Same. It tickles me that I can finish these without lookups. I used to think you had to know all the answers in order to do that. Nope. You just have to use crosses, logic, and knowledge of how words and names generally work. Also, confidence that the answers will come and patience to let your brain take as much time as it needs. Sometimes it's just a matter of putting it away at night and looking at it fresh in the morning.
@Laura Stratton exactly. I’m currently on my highest gold star streak, no lookups (57), but I’ve completed a lifetime 1355 puzzles. That’s almost 4 years of nearly ever day. And I still remember when I did my first Monday, I when I finally completed my first full week, and first full month, etc. I have no one to compete against except myself so it’s worth the time and challenge.
Grid looked so scary! But this one was was like standing atop a *huge* hill, fresh with white snow, starting slowly and then, wheeeeeeeee! careening down that puppy with exhilaration. Loved it. Thank you Shaun! And this weekend, to all the mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers, those who hope to have a child, those who are celebrating the moms in their lives, Happy Mother’s Day. But also- to those who are missing their mother, didn’t get to keep them for as long as they’d wished, or didn’t get the mom they deserved - I do hope someone stepped in and made you feel safe and loved. Happy Saturday all!
Eddie, You need to help your neighbor Eva do them.
@Eddie Happy to see you back here! You were missed. Your posts are like a seal of approval on the puzzles!
I tried to solve unaided, but it turned out to be impossible. I was able to complete the strip running from NE to SW almost on my own, with just two lookups for DODGERS and HAINES, but the NW and SE corners defeated me. To deal with those I looked up the ending of the song title - I was missing A KITE. I saw Mary Poppins, once, probably 35 years ago, and I remember nothing about it. It's just not really part of Polish culture. I've never heard of FREESTONE - I suspected what it might be once I got FREES___, but I looked up the ending to make sure. MAIN ST stumped me. The "on signs" part of the clue misled me - in Europe it is common for a symbol of concentric circles to represent town center on roadsigns, and I fixated on iconography rather than words. Btw, our streets generally have fancy names, not practical ones like in the US. Thus few settlements have a Main St, at all - it will often be Warszawska (Warsaw St) outside Warsaw. I also looked up PAC and CRISPED. As for bacon, strips of it were unknown over here before 1989. We have always consumed pork belly, of course, but usually smoked, then diced and fried, as an element of sauces or with scrambled eggs. Rashers came with democracy and market economy, but they are still used only occasionally, like in burgers or to wrap dates or tiny sausages for party snacks. I liked the puzzle and its clueing. It was simply too hard in places for me as a Polish non-native speaker of English - not a complaint at all, just fact.
@Andrzej It is interesting how different countries have different ways of marking their downtowns. I was totally clueless in Rome until someone pointed out the street names on the sides of buildings. Not sure if all of Rome was like that, or if it's like that now. The most lost I've ever been was in Venice. I was young then, and adept at maps, having more less rolled through Rome, Florence, and (later) London. But Venice was my Waterloo. I swear at one point I finally had to conclude I was diametrically opposite of where I thought I was. Not too long after that I got lost in Mexico City. I mostly stay at home now.
Oh, and the reason I struggled in the NW was because I confidently entered landOWNER there. In Poland, ownership of homes follows ownership of land. There is no separate title for any building on the land. Since the 1990s it is only possible to separate apartments from their buildings as objects of property rights. So in Poland one has either a title to land or to an apartment. I suppose in the wider sense ones does have a title to any home they own, but my intelligence curbed by familiary with Polish law refused to see it.
@Francis I on the other hand find the American system strangely souless and impersonal. It's obviously very practical and literally makes sense, unlike what I am used to, but I like how our street names celebrate people, history, culture, nature, geography. For example, I lived the first 15 years of my life on ulica Zamiany - Swap Street. Swap Street? Whaaat? Well, that part of town was built in the 1970s to replace fields and villages that had been there for centuries. Once, two noblemen exchanged villages in the area, and one of the settlements was renamed Zamiana (Swap) to commemorate the event. Centuries later, the village disappeared forever, but its name had been preserved in the street name. Many street names in the Ursynów district have similar etymologies.
@Steve L Linguistically you're right, of course. To me as a lawyer though titles are about what they relate to under the law, and in Poland it's plots of land and apartments, not buildings. It is legally impossible to have a title to a *home* as such - the "title" to it follows from the title to the land. I'm not saying the clue was bad, at all. I just explained in my post above why I made the mistake, and why it made sense in my mind. It took me forever to change land to HOME because I'm a lawyer.
@Andrzej I enjoyed your response to MAINST. To give you a little chuckle, I know you know that one of our Northeastern States is Maine. The college town of Brunswick, Maine has a center-of-town street named “Maine Street”. Cute….
@Andrzej It's worth mentioning that many of your difficulties were shared by us American solvers (of at least by this one). I didn't know HAINES at all and, like you, guessed on FREESTONE after having the first few letters. And I was trying to find an abbreviation for "Downtown" or "Midtown" to put in for the "Center of town" signs. Of course, you wouldn't find an "Old City" sign in this country! I will, however, confess to being a big Sandy Koufax fan, so DODGERS was a gimme for me.
@Bruce Sure, I'm not disputing any of that. However, nowhere in Europe have I seen numbered and lettered streets and avenues like in some American cities. I'm not denying American diversity, but some solutions are common enough in the US and virtually known elsewhere for the former to be identified as American, specifically.
@Andrzej Some USA street names are good. I was always a bit sad during the 9 years that I lived in Chicago because Goethe Street was not in a convenient neighborhood. I would have had to learn to pronounce it as GO EETH EE of course. And look up a map of Washington, DC. The East-West streets are in alphabetical order but ALSO: 1. Letters only (no J) 2. one syllable 3. two syllable 4. three syllable 5. four syllable Upper northwest switched to floral-related
@Bruce I was told that some of the Atlanta spaghetti, or maybe it was Marietta spaghetti, was due to roads being built to swing by rich folks' houses. Not Spaghetti junction, of course. Sometime when the comments section is slow, I can share a story about watching that junction being built.
@Andrzej CRISPED required a lookup for me, I tend to CRISP my Canadian Bacon as well as my American Bacon. I was thinking Slabbed but the crosses did not work. Dragonflies as DARNERS also got me.
@Jane Wheelaghan What about Petula Clark?! Was "downtown" not really a thing?
I'm amused that I put married for SAIDIDO. Right idea, wrong word... I like that I didn't need to look anything up; any fill I didn't know (like HAINES and SUNROSE) was solvable by the crosses, and it all fell neatly into place in well under average time for Saturday. My only complaint is that now I want bacon...
@Isabeau I always do after I finish a rough puzzle. When I think too hard it causes the smell of bacon.
@Isabeau I had mArrIed for the longest time too, but when nothing else was filling in that section, I had to admit it was time to start over.
@Isabeau Bacon! But crisped, yes? Not that flabby Canadian stuff.
@Isabeau I think I've seen SAIDIDO multiple times in the last few years and I plopped it right in as one of the few guesses I had on the first pass. Lots of good crossword vowels.
Lots of swings and misses for me in the NW corner, but I finally cracked it. Great Saturday puzzle - crunchy and clever but not impossible.
My mother, since passed, sang the song "Let's go fly a kite" when I was small child. I had completely forgotten that song until this puzzle. Then, upon realizing the answer, I could hear her voice singing the tune to me. Thank you for that memory trigger.
This was great fun, with lots of "Oh right!"s while I solved, and plenty of tips 'o the hat to the constructor. Everything worked so well, and even though I was stymied sometimes, I was never tempted to ask Prof. Google for any help at all. Thank you, Shaun Philips, for a beautifully crafted puzzle. More please.
@dutchiris I enthusiastically concur. I love when there's nothing but unfilled spaces. Finally one answer comes, and then another...now I'm stuck again...oh wait, could that be...if so then that works...and gradually each huge blank space fills up with letters, maybe right, maybe not. But at least filled in.
A real, honest workout. The NW was roughest for me. Good stuff!
@kkseattle Agreed on the tough NW. I had to resort to today’s column for PEEPER and that did the rest for me.
Diabolical that the other famous musical Impressionist also fit at 17A: WEIRD AL.
@ad absurdum I'll bet this is the first time that one has been confused for the other!
A quick Saturday for me done in 16 mins. But GLOP? I just don’t hear that used at all although Google suggests it is. I had SLOP for a long time which stymied me in the northeast corner.
@Robin Same! I've never seen GLOP, before, I think.
Robin, If your Oxford is in the U.K., I think you get a pass on GLOP. It's a relatively new word, and I think it is of U.S. origin. (Our OED crew could confirm.) <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glop" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glop</a>
I had to smile when I solved GLOP--my mom was not a great cook, and often when I asked what was for dinner, she said GLOP. That could mean any type of meat and veg casserole, or bean dish, or spaghetti. Miss you, mom, this Mother's Day weekend! And the Mary Poppins lyric--that was one of the first movies my mom took us to. Feeling happy on a Saturday morning!
@Liz H I also thought GLOP was a family made up word.
Liz H, My mother was a very good cook, but also her own worst critic (or at least worrier-in-residence). Often while in the midst of preparation (usually baking) and then as she presented the results for consumption she would dramatically warn us that it was “a flop”. But it was always delicious. We still joke about how we wish she had written down a recipe for her Flop.
[First contact]=ALIEN ENCOUNTER is an iffy clue. After all, it only counts as a "first" contact, when it's the, well, first. I remember my first abduction by Little Grays, when I was eleven, back in June of 1974: I was in a vacant lot at the end of Main St., peacefully flying a kite, when suddenly, I was struck by a powerful energy beam, and sucked up into an alien saucer. I was chilled to the bones! Little did I know then that it was the first of a series of experiments, conducted on regular ten-year intervals: in June of 1984, then an undergraduate at college, I felt the same beam of energy, the same pull. "Again? For real!?!" I cried! By the third, in 1994, the journey to Zeta Reticula was no more intimidating than an RV trip. By the fourth, in 2004, I was saying "I missed you!" when they beamed me up, and "So long" when they dropped me back.
@Bill By the fifth, in 2014, I was downright comfortable there, checking out the local art scene, running up a tab drinking that cheap glop that passes for Asti on ZR (a tab that I leave for the Reticulan elders to pay;-). Last year, when I there, I found the real estate market on ZR was particularly favorable, I admit, I even considered settling down permanently on the planet and becoming a Reticulan home owner--a modest ranch of chipboard and freestone, the grounds ringed by concentric decorative moats. Reticulan women possess a strong sexual charisma, and peering deeply into the Baby black peepers of two particularly winsome Reticulan lasses (Reticulan marriages, by tradition, polygamous), named Ann and Ester, I admit I almost said "I do." But the NYT doesn't deliver to Reticula, not even digitally, and I was worried about breaking my streak, and in the end asked for a ride home. I can't wait for 2034! No lie.
I’m mostly here to say that Canadian chip board is crispy and delicious, and a great source of your daily fibre. I didn’t see the kites until reading the column. A good puzzle. No cheap glop.
@JohnWM Times must be tough up in NB if chip board is a food staple 😉. Plywood didn't fit, but YOULOSE did, IMISSED that, too
That NW corner would not let me in, repeatedly slapping me and laughing, and I had to go to the column for PEEPER. Kudos Shaun.
So much fun with this one — lovely grid, sparkling fill. Thanks Shaun.
Just a really good puzzle. Challenging for me, but got it no lookups.
Perfect Sat challenge. NW section really tripped me up.
My childhood was far from perfect, but nobody ever suggested that a dragonfly might sew up my mouth. For that I am eternally grateful! I did not find this easy as so very many of you seem to have. Perhaps it's because I never knew the fear of dragonflies... or because I never liked Mary Poppins and the only thing I could think of was a spoonful of sugar. GLOP didn't help either! 😆 But for me, it was not quite as hard as yesterday or Thursday's puzzles were, though it was equally enjoyable, and I'm proud that I accomplished all three of them without any assistance, when for me they were all hard. Huzzah! The grid design somehow intimidated me at first and it took a while to get anything really going, but I'm very glad to have kept at it! And to somehow have retained the memory of MLB teams. I was super into the Milwaukee Brewers when I was a kid, but sort of fell out of it as I got older. Lastly, I sincerely hope that I will forget the image of dragonflies sewing up mouths.... I mean, let me forget that thought instead of why I walked into a certain room, for Pete's SAKE! But no, that's not how my brain works and now I already know the theme of tonight's nightmares. Thanks a lot, Shaun!! 😂 (But for real, thanks! Very enjoyable puzzle and lovely comments!!)
@HeathieJ I think dragonflies are beautiful. And nevermore than when they chasing down and eating mosquitoes. Try picturing that instead. And then Google for pictures of Tiffany dragonfly lamps, also quite lovely.
@Vaer I keep forgetting to reply to the original post, instead of the person I actually want to reply to. Ugh! ---- Good call!! I agree with you about the loveliness of dragonflies and the lamps! I'll try to focus on those over the alternative. ☺️
Today's ear worm, obviously, is LETSGOFLYAKITE. If you don't know it, don't look it up. It really is an ear worm; I'm sure to still be singing it at bedtime. But I enjoyed this Saturday puzzle that took me a while to get through, but with no look ups! Go, me!
Wowie Zowie (as the NYT puzzle once declared)--that NW corner was UTTER cruelty (or so Shaun Phillips hoped!) I cannot explain how I got it. For some reason I had OWED at 26A (in tiny letters in case I needed to erase it.) I entered ESTER at 3D early on, and took it out, only to reverse course down the road. PLYWOOD comes in sheets, but the fit was wrong. Some kind of BOARD....BEADBOARD? Abandon that one and move on. LANDOWNER? Take out LAND. Put in ALIEN; take out ALIEN. CHIP! CHIPBOARD. We don't call it that, but I can't think of the term.... nonetheless, that entry broke the rest of the logjam!! Elsewhere, I wanted ANEMONE for the brightly-colored flowers. SUN ROSE???? ASTI is a wine *region* but "a wine"?? Oh, who cares? I cracked this sucker like an egg. One with a hard shell.
@Mean Old Lady ASTI is found in the word tASTIng.
@Mean Old Lady I had landOWNER as well, and it held me back for quite a while. I finally figured out HOLISTIC, and after that it fell into place. My vet is all about HOLISTIC care, and has recently started offering acupuncture. I said no to that one.
@Mean Old Lady My context for the ASTI clue was 'Asti Spumante.' I also had to play with the NW corner for a while with some of the same variations as you, plus wanting 'pastel' for "baby blue" where the the switch to singular was, as you say, just cruel.
@Mean Old Lady Off topic but you reminded me of a favorite old joke - appropriate for wordplay: With fronds like these, who needs anemones? ....
MOL, ASTI is indeed a wine. You may know it by the longer name. Asti (also known as Asti spumante) is a sparkling white Italian wine that is produced throughout southeastern Piedmont, but is particularly focused around the towns of Asti and Alba. Since 1993 the wine has been classified as a denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (DOCG) and as of 2004 was Italy's largest producing appellation. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asti_wine" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asti_wine</a>
@Mean Old Lady for the brightly colored flowers, you had the right word, wrong NYT game. 😉
What an intimidating start to this puzzle! So much empty space, but then at least a reference to the International Swimming Hall of Fame to get us started (/s). Really wanted SLOP instead of GLOP, but was saved by 13A being straightforward and making a strong argument against the S. This was a really well put together puzzle, it came together with little bits here and there adding up to steady progress.
@Anthony I really don’t like GLOP as the answer here. Sounds like the constructer made up a word to fit the puzzle.
The constructor did not make up the word. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glop" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glop</a> Other commenters have heard it and used it
A beautiful-looking grid. Engaging clues and fill. Funny and lovely constructor notes. All around delightful. Thank you, Mr. Phillips!
Jeeper, creeper Got blinded by one PEEPER! Fun solve, missed by a letter. Wonderful sentiment from Shaun Phillips in his constructor notes. We're all lucky to be here. Happy for the chance to fight another grid, thanks to Will and the NYT team.
"Mary Poppins" was the first movie I ever saw! (Or, perhaps I should say "the first movie I can remember seeing.) It's still one of my favorites, so 7-Down was a gimme for me...although I was amazed that such a long title would fit in the grid! Five words and 15 letters. "With your feet on the ground You're a bird in a flight With your fist holding tight To the string of your kite."
When I started the puzzle, my first thought was, "What a beautiful grid. I'm going to love this puzzle." I'm a bit ashamed to say that it wasn't until I read Caitlin's column that I saw the KITES! Beautifully crafted. Thanks, Shaun Phillips!
@The X-Phile 7D was a total gimme for me, too. We had the soundtrack on cassette, and my sister played it constantly.
@SP My second movie. We saw "Those Daring Young Men in Their Flying Machines" first. No doubt my dad's choice.
@The X-Phile I arrived a little late to see its original release, but it was in heavy rotation among the films we'd borrow from the library. My mom was gobsmacked when she learned my (now) husband had never seen it so she gave him the VHS for his college graduation present. I'm still not sure he's ever watched it. His loss!
Best kind of Saturday solve for me. About a quarter hour in, I started feeling stuck, but each pass through the puzzle yielded at least one or two new letters, enough to keep hope alive. As I was approaching my normal time for Saturdays, I still had dismaying expanses of open ground in both the NW and SE and thought this was going to be a long one. But then in less than a half minute both quadrants fell and suddenly I was done. What did it for me was finally letting go of FOrced in the SE, and then, feeling newly confident, realizing that what I needed in the NW was not to imagine watching a cat, but imagine _being_ a cat. Now to see what the rest of you think. I'll admit, I've begun to find these comments more intimidating than the puzzles. Although there are always jewels that make the intimidation (mostly) worth it.
Nice, clean full but a tad too easy for a Saturday. On days like this I miss the pre-2020 Fridays and Saturdays that were/still are a solid workout and feel more satisfying.
@Rahul Note that we had a super difficult (for most) Thursday this week, and that spawned 900 comments, most of which cursed out the puzzle, the constructor, and the NYT puzzle in general. I found this puzzle a tad tougher than most recent Saturdays, but I still didn't have that much trouble with it.
@Rahul I was able to move through it steadily working from the center out. Still, a slow start finding a toehold and a few needed corrections resulted in a time 20% over my Saturday avg.
@Rahul Yes, one day chicken, the next day feathers. The dust settled from the grid that dared to bare all, and here we are with some solvers looking at their plates for more!
Nice clean puzzle, with just a dab of glop in the NEcorner.
@Mike R lol i had slop. that was the last thing i did to solve. replace s with g. bc sROUNDS didn’t make any sense
This puzzle was humbling for me -- arC, Over, yokoono, landOWNER, cLoseENCOUNTER, mArrIed, fee, and wAwaS (although that was more desperate than the others) were wrong guesses that kept things painful, while feldspar and headhunters were just guesses that didn't have enough letters. All in all, it took longer than Thursday and Friday combined and four times longer than my Saturday best. Phew. No complaints about the puzzle, though. Thanks for the workout, Shaun!
@Kimble I had Pta instead of PAC for far too long, probably because PTA shows up so often in these puzzles, and they give money, right? Also mArrIed before SAYIDO. It was a tossup between fee and TAB, but the crosses helped with that one. Rolled Over makes a lot of sense. I'm glad I didn't think of it!
@Kimble I do feel your pain. I did ok today, but I have been through a string of really, as you said, humbling puzzles. It's so easy to have a mistake or two that can really hogtie all the crosses. (The worst being when a couple of crosses actually work, leaving you with more wrong answers.) It can be really hard to recover from this. I think maybe the best solvers have a "confidence factor" on a most of their answers, and in a pinch throw out the answer of least confidence to see what possibilities that opens up.
@Francis That's exactly how I got through the NW! Filled in ESTER pretty quickly, but held off on anything else until I was totally stumped. Entered landOWNER and closeENCOUNTER, but got restumped(?) and erased the "tops" to get a fresh look. Then I erased ESTER and started over again. I think that corner took about 60% of my time. And I enjoyed every minute.
Anyone else first think of "tariff-free" for 1D?
Nice one! Really pleased that I stuck with it and had no lookups!!! Every word counted. Just kept at it and got everything! Puzzled by DARNERS until I was done & read Wordplay - Eek!
@CLN We were told that by teachers as a way to scare us into not talking so much. Strange times.. the *60's*
@CLN They're really called "DARNing Needles," though if you ask me they bear only a slight resemblance to the long needles one would use to mend a worn heel on a sock by weaving in new threads. Maybe the task will come back into style if the sock supply chain breaks down due to.... well, you know.
@CLN you exactly said my thoughts. to a tee. all i came up with to say is "nice puzzle." so thank you for being more articulate than i was this morning.
@CLN I knew DARNERS from the Legend of Zelda game Breath of the Wild. There's a side quest where you have to collect three different DARNERS to give to a little girl for her birthday.
@Mean Old Lady Luckily, "darning needles" are called "darners" in the vernacular. Everybody wins this argument.
I’ve been a professional geologist for over thirty years and never seen or heard the term freestone as defined here. I know it as a term to distinguish rocky rivers from limestone streams. Learning!
Well crafted crossword, but not sufficiently difficult for a Saturday. This crossword is more like a Wednesday. Level of difficulty is important for a progressively more difficult weekly series. I'm surprised Will Shortz approved it for Saturday, but in all fairness, maybe he didn't have anything else to select.
@Laura Stratton What a long strange week it's been.
@Laura Stratton seemed a bit tough for a Wednesday. Maybe more Friday level?
@Laura Stratton It took me seven minutes more than my average Saturday, so my experience was different from yours.
@Laura Stratton No, not even close to a Wednesday. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
@Laura Stratton I loved the grid, enjoyed the clueing (except darner and glop) and like a good Saturday, the upper left corner looked impenetrable when I started. But at the end of the day I finished in one-third of my average Saturday time and (as you predicted) quicker than my average Wednesday.
Actually surprised that so many found this one unusually easy for a Saturday. Wasn't all that easy for me (hi suejean) and had to look some things up, but managed to get through it. There were a number of nice 'aha' moments when I had enough crosses for something to finally dawn on me. Puzzle find today is one that I still find quite puzzling. A Sunday from May 18, 2008 by Brendan Emmett Quigley with the title "Pinball Wizard." Some of what I assume were theme answers - all of which were straightforwardly clued: BONUSQUESTIONS ROLLOVERBEETHOVEN SPECIALRELATIVITY DRAINBOARDS JACKPOTJUSTICE FLIPPERANDERSON (okay that one I sort of get) Here's the Xword Info link. Somebody explain it if you can figure it out: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/18/2008&g=15&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/18/2008&g=15&d=D</a> I'm done. ...
@Rich in Atlanta The themers all have pinball terms, but most of them aren't that familiar as pinball terms to non-Pinheads. FLIPPER and TILT, sure, but maybe not SPECIAL and BONUS and the rest.
Started scary, but I finished strong. It was a fun puzzle that made me think!
"Let's go fly a kite" was my entrée into the puzzle. Helps that we did a dance to it in a ballet recital as a teen. Had kite props, of course.
Had some fun misdirects without being overly difficult! NW was the trickiest part for me.
Why all the animosity towards GLOP? My undergraduate college eschewed fraternities, but it had rooming and dining "co-ops," which filled the same sociological niche. Several of them were dogmatic about serving organic, vegetarian meals ("vegan" wasn't a thing, yet), and often the entree would be a casserole based on (brown) rice or (whole-grain) pasta, which was, let me say it, pure glop. To this day, "gloppy"--as in "gloppy rice"--is the highest term of praise I can give!
@Bill could have been SLOP but that didn’t work. Same idea tho
@Bill did we go to school together? Was there gado-gado and an Enchanted Broccoli Forest?
I was in my Saturday puzzle armor and ready to do battle. Turns out I didn’t need to get dressed at all. For a Saturday it was just a bit too pedestrian unless I am getting smarter which is debatable
@George Let's just all agree that we're all getting smarter at a remarkable pace. It kind of hurts when you've finished a puzzle and then wonder if it was "too easy". These days I need all the comfort I can find.
@George Go for the smarter any day!
If I was playing the scheduling game, I would have switched the Friday and Saturday puzzles this week. Whatever the day, this one was very much in my wheelhouse and it was a fun solve. Thanks Shaun.
Nice puzzle. Quite easy for a Saturday (for me) but the cluing was intelligent, without no junk and only a single abbreviation. Thank you! More like this, please.
NW corner was tough. Probably because I went from CARDBOARD to CLIPBOARD to CHIPBOARD. Also had LANDOWNER and CHANCE ENCOUNTER. Nice Saturday puzzle though!
@Alex M NW corner for me too, took some time to wrangle that one into submission. What was interesting is that I was missing the top parts off the downs --- something-BOARD, something-OWNER, something-ENCOUNTER, and those upper crosses were not falling!
@Alex M If you had CHANCEENCOUNTER you must have been doing this puzzle on Thursday. ;-)
Nuts! Would have had an excellent Saturday effort (for me) had I not overconfidently checked my 24D answer early on - "shoved down the throat of" . Had FO..... and finished it with FORCEDFED. A clever and deliberate feint by the constructor, I wonder? Otherwise, no look-ups and a smooth 30 minute ride to the finish. Excellent puzzle.
kim mills, I first wanted "force fed" at 24D, but it was one letter shy. I'm not familiar with "forced fed."
I realized today that after 40 some years in Québec I've never eaten Canadian bacon, and I can't remember seeing it in the stores either. When people say bacon (same word in English or French) they mean bacon, like what you get in the US. If you want a really high-fat Canadian pork product, go to a Québec sugar shack in the spring and get "oreilles de Christ" or "oreilles de crisse" -- slices of salted pork lard, boiled and then fried to a golden brown. Cover with maple syrup to offset the saltiness.
@Esmerelda What we call Canadian bacon here is called back bacon in Canada. It’s the meat you find in an Egg McMuffin, or if you’re fancier, eggs Benedict, which the Egg McMuffin was meant to be more or less a handheld version of.
@Esmerelda Ohio sugar bush treats did not involve salt pork...to my eternal gratitude. My ENCOUNTER with English bacon at breakfast was ....horrifying to one who prefers CRISP strips.
@Esmerelda You nay know it as "back bacon" in reference to the part of the pig from which it is cut. American bacon is cut from the belly, which is why it's fattier.
@Esmerelda Growing up in North Jersey, we ate Taylor ham and eggs for our breakfasts. I don't recall when Canadian bacon came into the scene, but tasty, nonetheless.
@Esmerelda Bacon in Canada is not the same as the bacon in the US. When I visit Canada for the Stratford Festival, I ask the diner to make the bacon crispy. I'm not a fan of limp bacon or fries made soggy with gravy. "Crisp" is the word.
@Esmerelda Although I've eaten at a few diners in Montreal and Quebec, I can't remember what you call "Canadian bacon" in Quebecois French--but in anglophone Ontario, it is called "Peameal". (Although both cut from the same part of the porker, and both cured, I suppose one could argue that American "Canadian-style" bacon differs from peameal in that it's not (usually) coated in, well, meal [pea or corn]).
Enjoyed this a lot. All but the NW were easy but I might never have gotten that without the column's PEEPER. I resisted PAC for no good reason other than I guess donating invokes non-profits not politicians to me, though we do give to both. Can't Canadian bacon be crispy? What would really have worked there is MARBLED, though it's probably lucky that I couldn't recall that word at the time. And DARNERS is JUST NOT FAIR, especially given the cross AND the fact that a plainer clue was ready to hand. If, as the constructor suggests, Shortz came up with that, then POOHIE on him. I kept wanting DARTERS but no, SONTETS is not an alternative poetic form. And sure, if you have H_INES then A is the most likely. But still.
@RozzieGrandma Hi Rozzie! One thing I'm learning is, for end of week, Fri. and Sat., the clues can be so arcane or of such a narrow context, that it's better to try fitting different words in to the grid, rather than struggling to answer the riddle that any particularly difficult clue poses. Once the grid fits w legitimate English language words, I can have a backwards 'aha' moment, and enjoy how ridiculously narrow was that clue for the word that fitteded there. Happy Mother's Day! Ken Henschel in South Miami, FL USA
Only gripe is that sun roses are native to South Africa and not the Mediterranean. This threw me off as a botanist. Oh well!
@Sam My husband is a botanist and, though he sometimes provides breakthrough answers, he's generally useless on any of the plant clues. When I tell him the right answer he gets in a huff about how imprecise, or just plain wrong, the clue is. Of course this happens in all areas of knowledge feeding the puzzles. The specialist solvers are often the last to figure out the clues. But their comments correcting the misconceptions are always appreciated!
@Sam, in their defense, Wikipedia says “They are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, especially in the Mediterranean .”
KK, I didn't read Sam's "gripe" as calling the clue incorrect. I do understand why it threw him off. As Esmerelda notes (and I agree), specialists are often thrown off by clues in their areas of expertise.
@Sam The tag on mine (fresh from the nursery) says Mediterranean Native. 🤷♀️
After a brutal Thursday and a fair but tough Friday, nice to go easy on my eyesight and not have to stare at a phone screen for more than 20 minutes. Definitely on the constructor’s wavelength, frequency and amplitude.
@spurious I agree. Not a PB for me, but 15:21 and well under half my Saturday average tells me I must’ve been on the same wavelength too.