Got so stuck on BEAUT - was really committed to having BEAST 🙈
@Anna Same here. I'm still not sure what SOURSON has to do with "stops digging", and obviously SOSRSON isn't anything. I had to give up because of that one spot, killed my 21-day gold star streak.
@Anna I was also stuck on BEAST. @Dave K : Stops digging meant stops liking, I enjoyed the puzzle though.
@Anna SAME! It was the only place I got stuck!
@Anna Same here! Trying to figure out SOURS ON was almost impossible until I fixed [Doozy].
@Dave K. Exactly the same point I was at. When I saw your SOSRSON I immediately recognized it because I'd been staring at it for so long.
@Anna I was SO relieved when I realized BEAUT and BEAsT where only one letter different. I was pretty well stuck, and that opened up so much.
@Anna I'm yet another solver with the exact same experience. Grid was full and I was staring at SOsRSON; knew it was wrong, but could not for the life of me figure out which answer was the problem. Erased the O of HMO and the S of BEAsT, and immediately got my AHA moment.
2712 total puzzles solved, been doing crosswords consistently for the better part of five years, and I finally feel confident that I can take on Fridays and Saturdays without lookups (most of the time). These past two puzzles have been such fun. For anyone just getting started: keep with it and don’t feel bad if you have to look things up. I don’t think “cheat” is the right word.
@Evan You are an inspiration!
@Evan Very cool! Today's was 3487 for me, but lest it sound like a gloat, as you know it's just a number that translates to "a day at a time." In contrast, I was not a fan of yesterday's, but found today's an absolute delight, with a ton of mini-AHA moments and gentle misdirects. Great advice, Evan!
@Evan 2802 for me…and I am still delighted on Saturdays when I can push through with no lookups, as I did today so, even though I finished a couple minutes over my average time, I’m satisfied.
@Evan 29465 for me, extending over two past lives.
@Evan 2098 for me, but I solved with AcrossLite until the bitter end!
1170 here, over 2 years. Skipping many Mondays, Tuesdays and almost all Sundays, I'm in January 2022 in the archive at the moment.
@Evan Hope this wasn’t seen as bragging! It’s more an admission of obsession than anything else. It was meant to demonstrate to new and new-ish solvers that when it comes to puzzles (like most things in life but especially crosswords) competence comes with practice. Also, I never would have gotten to this point had I been puritanical about “cheating,” so “cheat” away if that’s what’s most fun for you. Cheers.
"You like library books?" "I have a renewed interest in them." (We don't need any more puns, Dewey?)
@Mike Please don't be shellfish. You may have volumes, but authors want more.
@Mike That's a fine pun, Mike. You're such a card!
@Mike Better shelve that idea. The odds are stacked against you. In the Theology blog they were arguing about how many e-books could dance on the head of a PIN.
@Mike Looks like we're booking along, with all of us on the same page. You have my word on it. Period.
@Mike Enough already -- time to check out.
@Mike The "Dewey" remark was dismal. I'll add it to the catalog, you card.
Top notch Saturday. Thank you!
Sacra bleu! Great minimalist grid design, very elegiac word fill, just as Slonecker says in the constructor notes. The olds, aging, RIPE old age, Part D (covers reduced premiums on prescription drugs), a real retrospective on a life heading into the possibility of becoming senile, when the ducts don't quite work right, and the wood rot has set in. But let's not play armageddon chess just yet. Let's not ask why all those people are gathered together in the graveyard after listening to a mass. We have a little time. Tritons and tri tip steaks, Moet to start the set menu at Faralá in Granada, where traditional Spanish cuisine blends with the neo molecular foam of Ferran Adrià's progeny. And their stews! To die for. Yep, I'd be delighted to see Magnus Carlsen in a fair isle sweater playing armageddon chess!
Eight spanners and not a stinker in the batch--what kind of brilliance does it take to do that? Yes, a little faster than yesterday, but no less enjoyable. Bravo!
This one was good! Loved the long entries. Thanks!
I waited 2 years for my knowledge of the Neo-Assyrian empire to help me solve a NYT puzzle. Today was the day! Maybe soon enough knowing the likes of king Ashurnasirpal will come in handy, too 🤣 I was unable to finish the puzzle without lookups, in the end, but I enjoyed it, unlike yesterday's unpleasantness. In the beginning I only managed to solve 10 clues or so, but I persisted, and within 25 minutes the grid was some 75% full. That was when my being unfamiliar with some words and abbreviations stopped me in my tracks. I knew the answer to the fused bones clue - but in Polish only 😆. The Latin names of bones are alien to me, because over here we use Polish terminology, and only doctors and physios know the Latin one. The cross of "NL East rival of NYM" is the sort of clue that I just shrug at (neither NL nor NYM means anything to me). So I looked it up. I had to Google the clues for HMO and RTE, too. I have no idea what HMO is, and I can't say I understand its clue, either. RTE is route? Apparently Pike is a road... Well, ok. Captain Pike, pike the fish - those I know. Those are the sort of clues and answers I will never be able to deal with on my own. With crosses I got some things that were new to me, like ARMAGEDDON CHESS, FAIRISLESSWEATER and K STREET (I wanted "the hill" there first but that was incompatiblen with all crosses). Overall I liked the puzzle and its clueing. Since I almost completed it without outside help, others probably thought it a Monday 🤣
@Andrzej Well, I can assure you I didn't think it was a Monday. It was a little easier than yesterday for me, but that didn't mean I didn't get the "try again". I think I found the error on the next keystroke, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, it was no gimme. For some reason I just can't seem to get into any history before Greece. Your Neo-Assyrian empire kings are as unfamiliar to me as a {insert really clever thing here}. How do you really remember those multi-syllable names? Names are hard enough for me, but "Ashurnasirpal" is well outside my abilities at this point in my life, and probably at all other times as well.
@Francis That's a good question - and I have no answer. Maybe it's about Polish having many long, multisyllabic words? I love learning about history, of any age, and prehistory, too. Social and economic history is most interesting to me (Travel in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson was so cool for me I literally felt giddy while reading 🤣), but I pick up some of the political stuff, as well, like names of rulers.
@Andrzej Be glad you’re not familiar with an HMO. All you need to know is, it’s a part of the terrible overpriced US medical insurance system that limits care by limiting options and forcing people to select service providers from the insurance company’s carefully curated list, or “network”. And no, I’m not bitter at all.
@Heidi Thank you! In Poland that used to be a thing with car insurance - insurers could force you to repair your car only at selected shops. The practice was deemed anticompetitive and overly restrictive, so it was outlawed some two decades ago. Cars in Poland are treated better than patients in the US...
@Andrzej "Pike" in this case is short for "Turnpike", which is a type of motorway with toll stops common in the North East of the US.
@Andrzej NEO. Better clued to the Assyrians than that SAD KEANU character…
@Steve L SAD KEANU was my only gimme in that atrocious puzzle yesterday...
@RozzieGrandma The last edition came out in 1994. I managed to find a never used copy online several years ago. It was in absolute pristine condition. I have no idea how that was even possible. The Ancient Mariners by the same Lionel Casson is also an incredible book, and it's available on Kindle.
@Andrzej Re HMOs and healthcare in the US, I worked for 2 years in a health insurance company, the best thing about it was that I met my husband there. The decisions I had to communicate to our patients was heartbreaking. Then I worked for 20 years as a patient financial advocate of sorts for cancer patients who had difficulty affording their care and might not have been able to access treatment without outside help. And now as we've aged, my husband and I have had more encounters with our own care and that of our parents. All this to say that many patients in the United States are treated very well. I count myself and my husband among them. A big part of the issue though is that typically your insurance is tied to your employment. Your employer might have really great insurance, as mine have, or it might have really terrible insurance and severely limit your options. And because it isn't fair for all, I still would call our system broken. I've been extremely lucky in having really excellent doctors and excellent coverage, and in the cases where the doctors weren't excellent in my opinion, I could easily switch, but I'm very well aware that there are a lot of people in a very different situation. It's the worst thing to have to worry about money when you're facing a difficult health situation. And now, with our current administration, things are bound to get way worse for those who, for various reasons, qualify for government insurance.
@Andrzej By the way, I belatedly saw your is cereal soup reply on my post the other day and got a kick out of it! 😆 🥣
@HeathieJ I can't remember the reply you mentioned. My memory is so bad 🫤
Hope it's not a SPOILER but that was a BEAUT. Sorry... I HAD TO.
This puzzle should’ve been published in March. It came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, even if that lamb gave a couple of sharp kicks on its way. I’ve come to think of it as a good quality when a puzzle seems as if it will be the one to defeat me, and then everything falls into place. For me at least, a great puzzle has clueing that demands a balance of logic and knowledge. It forces you to rely on the crosses, which is what makes it a crossword and not a trivia test. Yes, it was easier than Fridays (I finished in less than half my Saturday average), but I’m not complaining. Great puzzle!
Fairly breezy except for 38D SOURS ON. I couldn’t read “digging” in any sense other than “makes a hole” and I convinced myself that the Spanish verb (57A) was SOy. But I knew everything else crossing 38D was correct, and eventually decided that my limited Spanish had let me down. Thanks to the challenge, Mr. Slonecker! And now to find when ESPN broadcasts ARMAGEDDON CHESS BOXING.
@Eric Hougland Reading Anna's comment reminded me that not all of my crosses of 38D were correct: BEAsT for BEAUT cost me a few minutes.
@Eric Hougland Soy is first person, I am. But I'm guessing you already figured that out. I had the same trouble in that one spot but it was because I had BEAsT instead of BEAUT.
@Eric Hougland T Joe's has a good soy chorizo that is actually vegan. I cannot claim credit for that dad joke.
@Eric Hougland When I finally got ARMAGEDDONCHESS I too wondered if ARMAGEDDONCHESSBOXING was soon to be a thing.
Sometimes being an avid fiber enthusiast pays off. I was getting little traction with this puzzle until I reached the clue for 52 across which is a gimme for knitters, particularly those who regularly knit fair isle. Everything fell neatly into place after that. And how wonderful that the constructor is a knitter too. A very satisfying Saturday puzzle.
How one little typo can hold you up in an otherwise humming-along solve. Looking at you, FAIR ISLE SWEArER.
@Sam Lyons Angry Scottish sheep herder?
@Sam Lyons I occasionally walk into a door with the really long ones. And it's really painful because they are usually the ones I can double check without going to the clue. I simply, as I'm reading it, miss the typo. 🤬
@Sam Lyons clue for that could be "angry northern Scottish sheep herder?"
@Sam Lyons I had a very witty reply, but it was EMUed twice. I’ll try again, but it’s getting less funny with repetition. Possible clue: grumpy northern Scottish sheep herder?
Wow, I am impressed with this puzzle! All kinds of symmetry elements. There's a four-fold rotational symmetry around the center square. And of course with the four-fold symmetries come four two-fold symmetries. There are four mirror planes, one cutting through the top and bottom half, one cutting through the left and right half, and two along the diagonals. And there is inversion symmetry through the center square. A gorgeous playground, with really witty, tough clues (tough for me). 38D [Stops digging] is fabulous. So was 43D [Change seats?] and 25D ["Bare" bottom]. Much of the time I thought I was really stretching on guesses, and they (mostly) turned out right. I feel satisfied. Mr. Slonecker, you satisfied me. I don't want to look up LVMH, because the term "luxury conglomerates" makes me sick to my stomach. And I'm not sure why TOWN and gown are connected, unless it's a fashion style. I know not fashion.
@Francis I don't know how TOWN and gown are connected either. Hoping someone will explain it. Also don't understand RTE and Pike.
@Francis In a college town, there's sometimes an implied conflict between those who live in TOWN and those who will eventually wear a graduation GOWN.
@Puzzled @DYT Thanks, I would have never guessed that. But, sure, there's often a lot of tension in a smallish college town between the college and the non-college.
@Francis I had the good fortune to work in Oxford (England) for a while. The centre of the old city is owned exclusively by the collages (including gorgeous, large leafy areas), and the non academic city grew up around it. One does spot the occasional harried don racing through the colleges wearing their academic gowns, The collages control and run the heart of the city in a way that works for them, sometimes to the detriment of the larger population. Undoubtedly, the local non-academic population (the town) are very proud of the global reputation of the colleges (the gown), but there is a tension between the two populations. It seems this tension is replicated in many cities that grew around old medieval college towns.
@Francis I figured out Town and Gown because it’s the name of an event venue on the USC campus here in Los Angeles. TIL from the comments what it actually means.
@Francis I guessed "pike" from "turnpike", which I've heard of (I assume the former is a shortening of the latter?) As in Paul Simon's lyrics, "counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike..."
The whole concept is unknown over here. I haven't really heard about any tensions between students and the city folk, which may explain why we don't have a term for them. There are some 125 000 university students in Warsaw, a city of circa 2 000 000 people. The crossword entry confused me, but I forgot all about it. I'm glad this thread explained it to me. Thank you all.
@G You may be right. Poland has no major universities outside large cities - our best unis, attracting the most students, are all in Warsaw, and regional capitals like Kraków, Poznań, Wrocław, Łódź and Gdańsk - all cities of 500 000 - 1 000 000 people.
@Steve L I like the idea of colleges spread out over the whole region, and located in towns. It must be great for regional development. In Poland the divide between the rich, dynamic, modern cities and the rest of the country is a huge burden on society and politics. It's the village and town folk who vote for far right populists - possibly, among other reasons, out of spite and resentment for us well-off city liberals...
@Francis Town and gown really baffled me too! I had no idea but the comment section cleared it up, I guess. I had to get pike cleaned up from the comments too. Growing up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, it's not a term I've been familiar with, that I suppose I have encountered it and travels but never enough to internalize it. Love your detailed description of the grid. I paused to look at the grid when I first started and really appreciated it but I wouldn't have been able to write it out like you did!
Why a duct? That was for the olds. If I were any older, I wood rot. I loved loved loved all the spanners, esp. the southern pair! And now to bring it full circle, some spanners are viaducts.
Is that an ode to the olds, a.a.? Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh...
Eight spanners is truly an impressive feat of construction, especially because it wasn’t bogged down with a bunch of forced fill. Some fun misdirections in the clues too. Excellent work!
Got CHO to start 11D and it took me ages to steer my brain away from CHOking hazards. Can you tell I have little kids?
@Emily when my grandson was about three, he went trick or treating. We asked what he got and he said “snickers, tootsie rolls, and choking hazards.”
@Emily I remember those days. Now I'm going through it again with grandchildren. So important and so fragile.
A note to @Caitlin (if not the constructor): You’re in for a world of hurt if you attempt to knit a FAIRISLESWEATER flat. It’s possible, but most are knit in the round, because it’s devilishly finicky to catch floats — long strands of yarn, carried along the wrong side of the work between appearances of that color in the pattern — in front. In fact, even objects that would typically be knitted flat, like cardigans or blankets, would be done in the round and then cut using a technique called steeking when working with multiple strands. This puzzle was a bit like a complicated FAIRISLE project: Slow and sometimes frustrating during the setup, but smooth and pleasurable once the foundation was in place!
@Gab I used to to knite Icelandic sweaters, and Fair Isle. Round is the way to go, and sleeves on 4 needles. No pesky sewing/crocheting together!
@Gab visited Shetland a year ago on a fiddle pilgrimage. One of our stops was the Lerwick museum which had a wonderful knitting exhibit, with many examples of Fair Isle patterns. Apparently, in harder times, knitters would walk the pastures picking up the hentilagets (shed wool bits) to make into clothing. Now the pastures are littered with the stuff. Delighted to fill in 52 across!
@Gab. Thank you for explaining the trouble you would cause yourself if you tried to knit a Fair Isle or any other type of two color variation flat on two needles. I just about spit out my coffee when reading that. Knit in the round on circular needles or if you are a fiend for authenticity on 4 long double points. If you don’t care for double points at all, you can knit the sleeves with two circular needles. I learned to knit socks on two circulars and now use the technique for sleeves and continuous necklines as well…much less stitch slippage from needles especially when folded into your knitting bag. The style has periodic returns to popularity and is a genuine pleasure to knit. Never boring, the variations in color and pattern are nearly endless.
I hope all solvers took a moment to admire this BEAUT of a grid. To me it was a joy to behold. I liked Caitlin's description of the eight spanners as ribbons. Then the black squares can be seen as a bow. Thanks for this wonderful present, Blake Slonecker!
I had been wanting more difficult puzzles, but today and yesterday arrived at just the wrong time for me. Shorthanded at work, cat has a UTI, and to top it off I am apocalyptically premenstrual. Still, I managed to enjoy myself today! Unlike yesterday, when I ended up cursing the constructor and everyone else on the planet. It's all about your frame of mind.
@Katie You could work some of those words into a doozy of a crossword puzzle.
Superb puzzle with some excellent misdirection. I had Nautili crossing Tsunami and that took me ages to fix. TIL about Tritons (and the use of Tstorms for thunderstorms)
I was rooting around online trying to find the poem about the Alhambra that made GRANADA such a gimme for me. It’s by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s an elegy for the fall of the Alhambra, surrendered by the Nasrid dynasty to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1492– the same year that Columbus that sail for America. Granada had been the last glorious Muslim city in Spain. Intones 15th c. Spanish poem “Romance de Abenámar:” Granada, Granada, so noble, so well-named, much treasured by the Moors, and by the Christians claimed. Its loss was a pivotal event in the Catholic Reconquista: It marked the end of Moorish Spain. Here’s Borges’s “Alhambra,” translated by David Bowles: Pleasant the voice of the water to those wearied by black sand, pleasant to the concave hand the curving marble of the column, pleasant the delicate labyrinths of water among the lemon trees, pleasant the music of zajal verse, pleasant the love and pleasant the pleas lifted to a God who stands alone, pleasant the jasmine. Vain the scimitar before the long lances of the many, vain to be the best. Pleasant to feel or foresee, grieving king, that your delights are goodbyes, that the key will be denied you, that the cross of the infidel will efface the moon, that this pleasant evening will be the last.
@Sam Lyons Beautiful. Thank you. I visited the Alhambra last year, in March, not too busy. I am fortunate to have a sister who lives in Seville.
@Sam Lyons I love Borges. I went to a lecture he gave in the mid-80s. He was quite blind by then, but he was able to recite several of his poems from memory. He even signed a book for me. Such an extraordinary mind! Such a wonderful writer!
@Sam Lyons Thank you. The evocative line “pleasant to the concave hand, the curving marble of the column,” sent me looking for the untranslated original (though I don’t really speak Spanish). While I prefer “grato” to “pleasant,” (throughout the poem), “curving” moves my American-English brain much more than does “circular.” Funny how often that happens (at least for me) with translations. Say the last five lines in each language. Very nice. Grata la voz del agua a quien abrumaron negras arenas, grato a la mano cóncava el mármol circular de la columna, gratos los finos laberintos del agua entre los limoneros, grata la música del zéjel, grato el amor y grata la plegaria dirigida a un Dios que está solo, grato el jazmín. Vano el alfanje ante las largas lanzas de los muchos, vano ser el mejor. Grato sentir o presentir, rey doliente, que tus dulzuras son adioses, que te será negada la llave, que la cruz del infiel borrará la luna, que la tarde que miras es la última.
Agree it was a fun puzzle but not all that easy for me. Most of it came together fairly smoothly, but.. FAIRISLESWEATER and ARMAGEDDONCHESS Were two complete unknowns and I just had to work the crosses for quite a while down there to finally get that worked out. Actually a bit surprised that everyone else knew those. No big deal. Just made for a nice workout. No puzzle finds today. Maybe later. ...
@Rich in Atlanta I didn't know either one, and like you, got them through the crosses.
@Rich in Atlanta Crosses for me, too.
@Rich in Atlanta yeah, I hadn’t heard of either one but got SWEATER and CHESS with some help from the crosses and gradually worked the rest out
@Rich in Atlanta Same here, though I actually do know the sweater, and owned one back in the day, I didn't know it had a particular name. Also, I was held up by putting inA at 54D instead of AHA... That slowed me down there for a while on the two unknowns even further. But when I changed it to aha it started to make more sense and got them from the crosses. You are not alone!! ☺️
This puzzle was elegant in both the grid layout and the clueing. It was a BEAUT indeed. GRANADA and TRITIP were my first givens in the solve. My oldest son studied in Spain as a junior in high school. My husband and I went there at the end of his studies and travelled around the country with him for two weeks. The Alhambra was one of our must see stops. I think it’s referred to as the eighth wonder of the world. Just stunning. Santa Maria TRITIP is a staple in our household. Incredibly tender and flavorful. Another given was FAIR ISLE SWEATER. I’m one of those moms that makes her family wear coordinated clothing for family photos every year (much to their chagrin) and FI Sweaters have made the cut on more than one occasion 😆 I have a middle school picture in one, which is hysterical to me now because we took those photos at the end of summer and it was likely 100° F at the time. 🥵 Thank you for this stunning grid, Blake. I truly loved the solve and the memories it invoked.
Fun puzzle! My funny mistake was getting THC instead of TSP for “shortening for bakers.” Throwback from my old pothead days!
@Woody@ - That is hilarious. And once you get something in your head, it's hard to see anything else.
Yesterday - almost twice my Friday time, and I needed Check puzzle to finish, which I've only used once or twice this year. Today, half my Saturday time and no help needed at all. But did I like them both? Yep. One was just more on my wavelength than the other. And admittedly, I enjoy the spanners!
Well, the grid itself is geometrically lovely, being invariant under the full group of symmetries of the square. A bit easier for me than yesterday's puzzle. No errors or assistance, and just shy of 30 minutes of work. Hope we have more weekends that offer puzzles like yesterday's and today's. Ignorant of FAIRISLESWEATER. Quite familiar with chess variants, which likely helped save the southern portion of the grid. Knowing the entries having the unusual letter patterns also helped: KSTREET, TSTORMS, PARTD. "Bare" bottom? for MINIMUM was cute. Living where I do helped with "Pike, for instance: Abbr."---lots of routes still called pikes here. That said, LVMH immediately suggested LVHM (Lehigh Valley Hospital–Muhlenberg), which didn't help. Another fine puzzle that *didn't* feel like a "themeless Wednesday" to me. The level of challenge (and the full D4 symmetry) made this one a real BEAUT.
An elegant puzzle, but a breeze compared to yesterday's. If puzzles are supposed to increase in difficulty as the week progresses, they should have switched Friday and Saturday.
@Jim exact opposite experience for me. Today took twice as long. Those full length crossers were tough.
Eight grid spanners is an impressive construction, and to make it interesting and fun adds to the difficulty. There were a few clues that gave me a very hard time—no fiendish brain crushes like some in yesterday's fills, but challenging enough. Thank you, Blake. I like your style, Dude!
@dutchiris What I meant to say was: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W420gJ407Cc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W420gJ407Cc</a>
@dutchiris I love the Dude. I want to be the Dude.
THE OLDS made me think of today's Cul de Sac rerun: <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2025/06/07" target="_blank">https://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2025/06/07</a> Lovely puzzle with 8 terrific spanners and no junk to make it happen. [Stops digging] for SOURS ON should win a prize.
As a good solver but not a great one… I loved this puzzle. Dazzling construction, and just the right amount of stretch for me! Expert solvers … let us wannabes enjoy the moment! :)
My favorite area was the southern spanners, neither of which I’d ever heard of, yet through grit, lateral thinking, and making educated guesses – all things my brain lives for – it came together. Which brought sweet satisfaction. The quartet of spanning duos is remarkably fresh, giving bubble to the box. Four of those answers are NYT debuts, three are once-befores, and one is a twice-before. Speaking of bubble, FOAM and MOET. Blake likes to come up with striking grid designs. My favorite design of his (well worth a trip to the archives, IMO), is Friday, 3/24/23, one I would call dashing. I like the food-related and food-adjacent entries: TSP, TRITIP, SET MENU, STEWS, SEAR, and RIPE. I also like the PuzzPair© of WOOD ROT and SPOILER, not to mention the contradictory PuzzPair© of I KNEW IT ALL ALONG and SPOILER. It’s hard to believe this is OTT's first appearance of the year! Fun, satisfying, and full of goodies. Thank you for making this, Blake!
Crucivibed like crazy with this BEAUT. Except I had BEAsT for [Doozy] and I don’t speak Spanish and SOsRSO_ looks like gobbledygook so that took a few minutes to break apart, squinch my nose, and finally play the alphabet game with a couple squares. Fun one. Thank you Blake!
This one plays well with a few drinks in you in case anyone is interested
P.S. Regarding “THEOLDS” and is it modern slang that the (cool) kids would say: A number of years ago - and I’m not super-proud to admit this - I was quite heavily involved in an on-line word-related hobby called Googlewhacking. If you missed its existence, the central idea was to find a pair of words which when Googled together produced a single site/result. (For technical reasons, in today’s internet, just defining the rules, let alone completing this task, has become virtually impossible.) Anyway, in a sense, as soon as one posted a Googlewhack to the site, by that very act of naming it as a Googlewhack, it ceased being one. Much philosophical and practical discussion happened around that point. I think that in the same way, if *any* word or phrase appears in the NYT crossword identified as “modern slang” or some such moniker, no matter how current, edgy, or shockingly-uncouth it may have been up until then… *poof* - it ain’t no more. And because no one wants to know, my first was “parenchymatous cookies”.
@JohnWMSomething in the brain? Now I have to look THAT one up!
Congrats to graduate Miriam from another Miriam! I'm very amused that when I finished my first pass through across, I only had two or three definite fills ... of which FAIRISLESWEATER was one. Fun fact: one of the knitter-community specific wars (of the MAC-vs-PC types, something that will never stop existing) is whether the term Fair Isle applies to all stranded colorwork or just designs specifically from the FI region. (I fall in the latter camp.)
I appreciate the long spanning entries as much as anybody. But was the constructor purposely trying to exclude foreigners with KSTREET and PARTD?
Grumpy, I thought the crosses for those two domestic entries were as international as could be.
@Grumpy K Street is arguably a world-(in)famous street. I know of some notable streets in London and Paris and I'm not British or French.
Worked hard for the star this morning. Gonna need a nap now
@Brian Even with cheating, I worked hard. I had twenty nine cheats plus one typo I had to find. They don't create these puzzles for the likes of me! Tomorrow is another day....
Like many, couldn't get past BEAsT to see BEAUT and SOURS ON. But overall it was a lovely puzzle. I had a FAIR ISLE SWEATER once, when I was young and thought I could tough out wearing wool, which I am extremely allergic to. Responding to some of the comments about a couple of the entries, I don't think that TOWN and gown necessarily have an antagonistic relationship. And I'm not a parent, but I'd much rather be referred to as an OLD than as elderly.
@Vaer Your comment made me wonder how my late grandmother, who particularly despised the term "senior citizen", would have felt. Perhaps she'd have liked "the olds" too, as the least euphemistic.
@RozzieGrandma Interesting. I don't think I'd mind senior without the citizen. My parents had a large circle of friends they socialized with in their beach community for decades and when they all were in their late 60s and upwards, and I was in my 40s, I'd lovingly refer to them as the Old Goats. They were all very unique individuals. And now I'm in Old Goat territory.
@Vaer Senior (which in Polish sounds like the Spanish señor, only with the accent on the first syllable) is the polite Polish term for a senior citizen.
@Andrzej I liked the Polish word for the Olds, starzy, that you mentioned in another post.
Impressive in many ways! Thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful puzzle. Today’s doozy was pure poetry. Yesterday’s doozy was pure prose. Both took a bit longer than usual for me.
Welp...I got the solve!...but I don't know how. I can't say "I KNEW IT ALL ALONG" to most of the entries. Is 43D supposed to refer to the likelihood that you could find loose coins under the cushions? That clue was barely FAIR. On a scale, GLEE is fn but transient; euphoria is more complex and significant....IMHO. I won't WIG out over it, but... AGING...SENILE...THE OLDS... Say, Blake: how old are YOU?
@Mean Old Lady Add knitting sweaters, HMO, Medicare PART B (and GAPS) and you'd think he was about to retire. I have no idea how GLEE came to me so easily, as I never watched that show.
How many drama queens does it take to change a lightbulb? None, that's TECH. For anyone who was wondering about 50D, an expression of disdain for anything that might get your hands dirty. Enjoyable and challenging puzzle today. I was surprised to learn that Kermit was not the first Muppet to crack the charts with, "It's not Easy Being Green." Nope, it was "Rubber Duckie," with the Sesame Street theme song on the B side.
Broke my months-long streak, sigh :/ But it was a fun one anyway, with an impressive amount of long fills. I just couldn't get past putting BEAST instead of BEAUT and SOY instead of SON, I knew they were the problems but I absolutely could not figure out anything else to go there.
@Dave - yeah, figuring out BEAUT (not BEAST) and SOURS ON was responsible for like a third of my overall time...
@Dave My problem area, too (as it was for loads of others in the earlier comments, so you're not alone!). I couldn't make any headway there until I ruthlessly ripped out almost every single cross. It was only then I could see BEAUT instead of beast... and the rest of my crosses went back in. (Usually I'm much more stubborn than that!) It still didn't click what kind of [digging] SOURS, but the penny dropped eventually!
I held off on filling out 17A, but really IKNEWITALLALONG
Stop trying to make 'the olds' happen. It is a term old people think is common amongst the youth. It is not! I cringe everytime a creator uses it. Also, while I'm moaning, creators need to pick their lane, and that lane is 'amok', not 'amuck'.
@Hitch I've heard "the olds" in the wild a couple of times. Last time was from a middle-aged gen X talking about her very old parents. Possibly the term isn't used among young people but instead by older generations.
@Hitch @Nora I'm not sure there is any link, but in Poland "starzy" (literally, the olds) was a common slang term for parents in the 1980s and 1990s, but no longer is, to my knowledge.
"Went for baroque" guessing the spanners which paid off handsomely. Nicely done and thanks. [Change seats?] for SOFAS the fav.
@John Carson Could you please explain that clue to me? I keep looking at it but I just don't get it. I know what a sofa is, obviously, but how do you get that from the clue?
@John Carson Ye gods. I would never have figured that out! Thanks! I wonder if it's a cultural thing, like wearing outside shoes at home. Over here people traditionally switch between outside/inside modes. When you enter your home, the first thing you do is take off your shoes, put on slippers and empty your pockets of keys, money, etc. I've never seen a coin in any of the sofas I sat on at home all my life. Peanuts and mummified berries are a whole different thing 🤣
@John Carson Too much coverage on late-night* of a certain supposed incident made me cringe a little at the thought of [digging] around in a SOFA for anything-! *Especially Stephen Colbert monologues last fall...
@Andrsej SOFAS have alternately been clued as "remote locations," in reference to the TV remote slipping between the cushions.
Would love to visit the Alhambra! Lovely allusion in the description. Fun crossword.
@M My wife and I visited it just after sunrise one February. The light was magical, and given the early hour there were yet no crowds. Amazing.
@M I visited with my wife and daughter. We were surprised by the need for reservations. The only spot left was for the nighttime tour, which turned out to be absolutely gorgeous! Highly recommend!
This really was a beautiful puzzle and a smooth solve for me, but I think you could have swapped yesterday's and today's puzzles, to be honest. I'm not complaining, however. It was a joy to complete with those fresh, accessible spanners. I just wish the joy had lasted a little longer. Thanks for the fun!