Now *that*'s a Saturday crossword!
Pooh's honeypots are his bear essentials. (He puts them in his Winnie fridge.)
@Mike As he doesn't wear pants his bear essentials are obvious...
@Mike Guess that's Eeyore story, and your sticky with it.
@Mike I Roo the day when Pooh showed off his honeypots.
@Mike You're Robin me of my patience, but Owl allow it.
@Mike Your posts are not the ordinary run of the Milne.
A challenge to get a toehold on this one, but a satisfying solve. Loved that one of my favorite authors, Octavia Butler, got a mention. Her 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, takes place in an America ravaged by climate change, economic collapse and social unrest under a radical authoritarian president. Ha! What are the chances of that happening? Happy Friday everyone!
I'm absolutely begging you to get rid of that Times Family banner at the top. It's not just an annoyance, it actually makes it far more difficult to solve the puzzle on the website.
@Mike In Chrome: Right click on the blank part of the banner on the right side. Select "Inspect" from the menu. This will open up a bunch of code in the HTML editor, with one section highlighted and three dots shown on the side. Click on the three dots and select "Delete element" from the menu. No more banner! Close the HTML editor by clicking the little X at the top right of it.
@Mike It enrages me. I've been a paying subscriber for nearly 20 years and I have to see that stupid banner that affects my game play.
I play Spelling Bee on my iPad. Since the banner was added, there is a annoying screen blip every time I enter a word. Way to go , NYT.
@Mike For now, you could try to press F11 to fullscreen. That should give you a bit more space on the screen.
@Mike Ad-block Plus got rid of it for me. Use the "block element" feature.
OK, I want to see a show of hands. How many of you, when you saw the clue "rhyming name game", were thinking about a rhyme that involved names? Like "Eeny, meeny..." or more likely: Shirley, Shirley Bo-ber-ley Bo-na-na fanna Fo-fer-ley Fee-fi-mo-mer-ley Shirley! If there's someone here that doesn't have their hand up, I'll be surprised. For any of you who I've confused: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7izuF4oN4c" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7izuF4oN4c</a>
The X-Phile, Many hands were up earlier.
@The X-Phile I did assume it was a playground game with names, but never heard that one.
Johah Hill tells an amusing story about meeting Morgan Freeman and the Name Game: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qWmHWSOY4Uk" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qWmHWSOY4Uk</a>
I put Kinte in. Took it out. Put it back in. Took it back out. I should have left it in the first time to maybe get a little leverage on the top of the puzzle. This was a tough one, no doubt about it, and I was amazed when I got my star—there were fills that are still a mystery to me and only landed because of crosses. I was fully prepared to come back and do another Kinte on them when I got the so close memo, but they were right. I had a few inspirations that kept me from packing it in—Noel Coward and his disdain for OPERA, for one—but knowing DARWIN and PRY turned the Real Housewives (a DRAMA I've never watched) into DRug addicts. Fortunately, the NBA to the rescue. I have no idea what a chakla is, and challah seemed pretty smart, but I've had a CHAPATI many times and didn't think of it until the crosses nudged it out. So many clues were a such delight when the fills emerged they made all the struggle worth it. That was a heck of a puzzle, Kunal. You are, indeed, a CLASS ACT. So do you have another one ready?
@dutchiris Kinte was a gimme. I never considered anything else. Not sure I even remember any other names from Roots. I put CHAllAh before CHAPATI but realized I was wrong when OCTAVIA E BUTLER (didn't know her middle initial) started peeking through the mists.
@dutchiris I put the Kinte in, I took the Kinte out, I put the opah in and I shook it all about. I tried to do this puzzle and it turned my head around That’s what it’s all about.
@dutchiris Kinte was my first fill, but I kept getting hung up on that K. Mr. Nabar was playing pretty fast and loose with those K's—five that I counted, which adds up to ten altogether.
@dutchiris I can't believe no one mentioned Haley, the other correct surname that fit the spaces. I immediately left open the possibility for either...
Perfect Saturday puzzle. Just the right mix of 'dang it now I'm stuck' and 'oh yeah that fits now I get it nice one'
I had mAKETEa instead of TAKETEN for much too long.
Well that was scary hard for a while! That makes both a Friday and a Saturday that gave me that old familiar terror of thinking I might never finish. So... good stuff! It didn't take all that long in the end but it was slow going for a while for me. Quite a few of the shorter fills were mysteries, and I forgot Ms. Butler for too long. One thing that helped open up the top was finally pulling Norm's wife out of the dark recesses. I never enjoyed that show but watched it a fair bit anyway. (Pre-streaming were dark days.) I knew challah wasn't quite right and finally remembered chapathi. To me a "retreat" is not a period but a place. Vacations and sabbaticals are periods. Resorts and retreats are places...
@B "Scary hard" I couldn't have said it better myself. We agree on this one! (Although you pulled back a bit when you said it "didn't take all that long".)
@B VERA popped into my head for the unseen wife, but I resisted putting it in because I wasn't sure if it was right. Now that I think about it, I can hear Norm talking about her. I have to disagree with you about RETREAT. Having been on many silent ones, it feels to me like it's more about one's experience during the period and not so much about where it takes place.
@B Now that I just finished chastising someone for using "real" as an adverb, I should reprimand myself for not saying "scarily". Only fair. :(
I managed to complete the puzzle, however only with 10 or more lookups of the proper names, abbreviations and trivia. The down pass of the top section required most of those - the accumulation of trivia there was a bit over the top for my tastes. In the Southern rows I was confused by "Reflective period" solving to SILENT RETREAT. I didn't know "retreat" could refer to a period rather than only a place or action. It's so interesting how after almost 40 years of learning I am still unfamiliar with some meanings of familiar words. Today is Lucyfer the poodle PUPPY's sixth day with us. It's amazing how he's growing into the family 😄.
@Andrzej I don’t think of RETREAT as meaning “period”, but I can think of SILENT RETREAT as a “period for self-reflection.”
@Andrzej I immediately thought of Lucyfer when I convinced myself that 29A was PUPPY. We'll get our two in ten or so days, so I'm in my last week or so of not having to be responsible for a dog. And even though I'm fond of said dog to my core, it's still a responsibility and I'm still an old man. But such are the wages for the sins of my youth.
I won't use the Internet to solve. 20 minutes into this puzzle and I had nothing. 30 minutes in I finally had a few toehold, but they were dispersed: 9D,17A, 34A, and 49D. I felt confident that my steak was about to come to an end.... And then 45D came to me, and all of a sudden TakingHeads popped into my head which allowed a good chunk of solving of the bottom half very quickly. Then 6D and 7D came to me... And then MovieTickets popped into my head. The next things I knew I had completed the puzzle, and I did so in only 45 minutes (a meter 15 minutes after getting my first toe holds), and 25% faster than my Saturday average. Galaxy Quest certainly has the right perspective on things: Never Give Up, Never Surrender. :)
@Daily-Solver I can't claim such a dramatic experience, but I do know what you mean by suddenly an idea arriving. I'm way out of my sphere of expertise, if I even have one, but the brain has two hemispheres connected by a structure known as the Corpus Callosam, through which information flows. I wonder if there are times when one hemisphere sends the other hemisphere a message and that seems like a message from beyond, and we get that sudden insight. These ideas are the work of Julian Jaynes. I read his signature book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which made a huge splash in the 70s. I thought that it would probably have been thoroughly debunked by now, but a quick google search seems to indicate his theories are still very much in the game.
@Daily-Solver My experience with this puzzle was uncannily close to yours. I'm so glad I resisted the temptation to cheat because it was such a satisfying solve.
This is one of those puzzles I thought I needed to cheat, but didn't. What a lovely 30 minutes of solving it was, and the crosses were masterfully done too. Of course I would have no idea which naturalist was buried in Westminster Abbey, but throw in an A, W and N, and I do know a last name associated with natural science. Most of the puzzle went by like this, and I got the gold star while learning many fun facts along the way. Thanks for this gem!
@T Nearly verbatim my experience, although it took me 35.
I'm just here to say I think this is the first time I've ever finished a Saturday puzzle without any outside help, thanks to a few lucky guesses that led me down the right path.
Loved it! Great Saturday, and I even bested my average. But really fantastic clueing that had me thinking in unexpected ways. For the sci-fi writer, I had the O and went with ORSON SCOTT CARD. It fit, and I was sure I nailed it. When the crossings didn't match, I tried OCTAVIA BUTLER, the only other sci-fi writer I know whose name begins with an O, but alas, I was a letter short. So now I know she used the initial E. And I know that ORSON SCOTT CARD and OCTAVIA E. BUTLER have the same number of letters!
@Jim no idea about Octavia e butler. Once I looked her up I was able to get everything to work out. At the bottom silent over talking was interesting
An uber-sweet moment in my solve was totally unintended by Kunal. But first, a few observations. No-knows. I want them in my Saturday puzzle. Overcoming no-knows is a great source of satisfaction, and there were three for me today. Beauty. CLASS ACT, INERTIA, CHAPATI, SCEPTRE, BRINK. Spark. New answers, with their never-seen-before clues, bring verve, bring NOVEL stuff for the brain to work on, and keep same-old away. Of the six answers in those two big stacks, five are NYT debuts. Thus, ample loveliness in the box today! Okay, that uber-sweet moment. For [Unites after a break], I already had _NITS, and when UNITS hit me I OMGed ten times over, drop-jawed over the cleverness of that clue. Here, the letter E takes a break from “unites” to form “units”, making the clue – a perfect description of re-uniting, -- a stupendous misdirect. Well, I was wrong, of course. Hello KNITS. But that brush with supreme cleverness, even though never intended, brought a huge high. That was icing on top of so much goodness already in your jewel of a puzzle, Kunal. Thank you!
Also lovely was the serendipity of all those schwa-enders in and within answers: EDEMA, OPERA, OPAH, VERA, INERTIA, EMEKA, DRAMA, ELEA, MAMA, OCTAVIA. Schwa de vivre!
@Lewis Huh, I was relieved when it turned out to be knits, because I thought the units explanation (which I took had filled first) would have been a stretch. 🤷♂️
Six debut answers in this one, and six others that only ever appeared once or twice before. And beyond that, quite a few things that I just didn't know or would never have connected to the clues. And the long triple stacks at the top and bottom? Only one of those six answers had ever appeared in another puzzle, and even that was only once before. Actually surprised that so many found this one fairly easy. It was well above my pay grade. No big deal. That's just me. See you tomorrow. ...
@Rich in Atlanta Oh, and of course my puzzle find today. A Sunday from September 25, 1994 by the great Nancy Nicholson Joline with the title "Beastly puns." A couple of theme clue and answer examples: "Creature not yet found?" MISSINGLYNX "Meat, fruit, honey?" BEARESSENTIALS And some other theme answers: FOWLLANGUAGE EMBRACEABLEEWE BADGNUS CHOCOLATEMOOSE GORILLATACTICS And there were more. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/25/1994&g=34&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/25/1994&g=34&d=A</a> ....
Alai Alai bo Balai Bonana fanna fo Falai fee fy mo Malai--Alai! Emu emu bo Bemu Bonana fanna fo Femu fee fy mo Memu--Emu!
Less than an hour in, xwstats shows: Global Stats Difficulty Hard Median Solve Time 16:17 Median Solver 9% slower I'm guessing by morning the % slower will be higher. If it hits 17%, Difficulty should go up to Very Hard. This was a fine PUPPY for a Saturday. A CLASS ACT. CHAPATI? No thanks. I've EATEN. TAKETEN? No. A few minutes more. Thanks, Kunal.
@Barry Ancona Can you tell me what the categories for "Difficulty" are? Obvious Easy and Hard, but what else?
Hi Francis, As far as I can tell, xwstats "difficulty" categories are assigned based on how much slower if faster the "median solver" does (compared to puzzles on the same day of the week). And, as below, they seem to expect solvers to get better. Median to 20% faster = Average 21%+ faster = Easy 33%+ faster = Very Easy anything slower than median = Hard 17+ slower = Very Hard Today is still at 9%, but median solve time has risen, meaning more usually slower solvers are reporting. Global Stats Difficulty Hard Median Solve Time 19:23 Median Solver 9% slower
Faster for me than yesterday’s puzzle, but that may be because I will preach to all to go read OCTAVIAEBUTLER. Not only an incredibly talented storyteller, she was a prophet. We lost her too soon.
Beautiful Saturday puzzle. A real workout, but one that left you feel satisfied, rather than used and abused by the constructor. So many times when I thought "I have no idea" only to come back later and say "How did I not see that earlier?" That's the kind of puzzle I like! Personal favorites: "Special delivery at a conference" and "Ones with big blocks?" And a misdirect that wasn't: I initially put in EMUS for "Down Under colleges", before correcting it to the (relatively simple) UNIS. Thanks, Kunal Nabar! Job well done!
And how did I leave out "Swing states?"? So clever!
@The X-Phile Same here. OPEN MARRIAGES? I definitely did not see that coming, but once it did, it made perfect sense.
@The X-Phile Agreed! A very thoughtful puzzle that sent me to google a few times, but with such good clueing and satisfying answers it was really enjoyable. (My rule for myself about googling is that it is ok, as long as I learn something new. And wow, am I ever excited to learn more about Octavia E Spencer after today's puzzle).
Unquestionably the hardest for a very long time. Doable but it took for ever to get the top done. It never occurred to me that not being a US taxpayer would have drawbacks… IRS logo … 😀 OPEN MARRIAGES was cleverly clued. No idea what a GORP is. Probably doesn’t matter Thanks
@Ιασων If you've made it thus far in life without knowing of GORP you're likely just fine to continue as is. But just in case this becomes critical knowledge - GORP is a trail mix type of snack. Blends vary widely but it is generally some combination of nuts, raisins, other dried fruit, and chocolate and/or candy all mixed together and carried in a snack bag. Part of the fun is picking out pieces one by one, or combining different pieces for different flavour bites as you eat. There are commercial brands/versions available. Can be bought pre-made (lots of versions out there) or mixed at home with preferred ingredients. Its energy density makes it a favourite of campers and hikers, though that has never prevented me from eating it on a regular day at home. Some suggest GORP stands for "good old raisins and peanuts" (the most basic version of the snack), but others feel this is a backronym. I don't know what determines whether a snack mix qualifies as "GORP" versus "trail mix", but my gut tells me that there is some difference. Perhaps I will remember after I finish my coffee. Either way, it's delicious :)
@Ιασων Tell me you were never a Boy Scout without telling me you were never a Boy Scout? "What is a GORP?" No shade on Girl Scouts, by the way. I'm sure there is crossover.
Went pretty smooth through the eastern half and then came up from the southwest, but found myself fiddling/staring blankly at the northeast quad. Plane tickets? Something about carriages? Ironically it was INERTIA that got me moving again.
I was very much challenged by this guy, but in the end I repented of all the cursing I was doing. Good puzzle, Kunal. Loved OPEN MARRIAGES and AMNESIACS. I was really struggling to find enough things I was sure of to use for crosses. And the number of answers I've never heard of, to my knowledge: STEF Dawson, SETPIECE, UNIS in Austrailia, OCTAVIA E BUTLER, EMEKA Okafor, CHAPATI, ELEA, and KINTE. And I'd barely retrieved OPAH and GORP. I'm probably missed a few. And in the clues I'd never heard of the Rod of Equity and Mercy. And some of the clues! A checker is a really specific DISC, TAKE TEN was a bit of a twist, PUPPY is a very generic term for a little husky. And [Ones with big blocks?] being AMNESIACS. And it took me forever come come up with TGIF. TGFC ( Thank God for Crosses) In other words, this was very much a Saturday for me. Anxious not to hear that it was a "Tuesday, at best".
@Francis Monday at best. 🤣🤣🤣 (JK) I'm actually surprised so many answers came to me so quickly. I was definitely on the same wavelength as the constructor, as far as getting a lot of the wordplay. I instantly put in PUPPY for a little husky, thinking I'd probably have to change it later. I think KINTE was the first gimme, as well as UNIS. I needed a few crosses for OCTAVIA E BUTLER, but that was only because I didn't know she'd won a MacArthur fellowship. I do know who she is. Anyway, none of this is to brag. I'm grateful this one came so easily to me because Thursday really threw me.
Names of obscure people made this impossible to solve without look ups. I just do not have room in my noggin to remember every third tier actress or basketball player. I had also never heard of gorp or elea, and I still don't get the link of NBA GAME and jazz. So one of the tougher Saturdays for me although with help from google I finished rather quickly.
@Asher the Utah Jazz are a basketball team. It was certainly a slower than average puzzle, but but you didn't need to know the super obscure ones to solve.
@Asher yeah and calling a game a fest is nonsensical
@Asher In the universe of places classical philosophers used to hang around (admittedly, a small sample set), ELEA is a pretty big name. It's home turf fof Zeno of Elea. Check out Zeno's Paradoxes, so well known they don't need any identification beyond the creator's name. <a href="https://philosophyterms.com/zenos-paradoxes" target="_blank">https://philosophyterms.com/zenos-paradoxes</a>/ (Please note I have no idea how accurate or reliable this website is or whether it's infested with AI slop.)
@Asher In the universe of places classical philosophers used to hang around (admittedly, a small sample set), ELEA is a pretty big name. It's home turf for Zeno of Elea. Check out Zeno's Paradoxes, so well known they don't need any identification beyond the creator's name. <a href="https://philosophyterms.com/zenos-paradoxes" target="_blank">https://philosophyterms.com/zenos-paradoxes</a>/ (Please note I have no idea how accurate or reliable this website is or whether it's infested with AI slop.)
Pleasantly tough puzzle. Lots of clever cluing. I’m surprised at the number of comments about never having heard of GORP (at least from the US crowd). Time to put down the puzzle and hit the trails y’all 😜
@Jeb Jones : good old raisins & peanuts
It's a good thing I didn't have to do this on paper. I would have worn through the entire puzzle erasing and erasing and erasing.
Perfect Saturday, with just the right number of misdirects. For 'Things you can't do without', had NECESSARY EVILS instead of BARE ESSENTIALS (3-4 of the crossings also seem to fit both options) and that took me ages to fix. I'm Indian and used to eating Chapatis but had never heard of a Chakla for some reason so that was a nice TIL moment.
25A I read as "half the rhyming name game". Had the first A and wrote in Anna, and kept it for way too long. Now I've got that awful song in my head. Except I don't know the words. Mostly just Bonana fanna.
@Chris I interpreted it the same way you did. I was lucky enough to have no ideas, so I was forced to leave it blank until it filled itself in via crosses. Head slap moment when I saw what it was.
@Chris I got the answer without looking it up, but I still have no idea what it is.
Love naan. Would probably love roti. Need to give chapati a try -- never heard of it before today. And then there's gorp. We solve to learn. We run the alphabet to finish. What Saturday should be. Got good laughs out of 13A and 27D.
Wow, in the year or two I've been doing the NYT crossword, I think this might've been the most difficult yet. I haven't had to look up anything in a while now. But today, I let go of a 50 or 60 day streak, I googled the NBA guy and the actress, and I came here to get answers to difficult clues. Usually one or two cheats helps me finish, but not this time. I'm not complaining, I'm just sayin'. It is good to be challenged once in a while. I also had a hard time with Strands today, and yesterday I gave up on Connections without getting a single category. Win some, lose some, right?
The cluing was top-notch today, making this a nice Saturday challenge. The top third was tough for me. ateup instead of EATEN and a misspelling for KINTE (KeNTE) made seeing the obvious-after-you-get-it triple stack hard to break into. Very rewarding when things finally fell into place. [Ones with big blocks?] for AMNESIACS was particularly brilliant.
The name of this band is TALKING HEADS. Let them Take you to the River,and drop you in the water that leads to the wine-dark SEA. How is it i remember that bit of Homer, but not what I did last week. Where did you go Sam Lyons? Would love to get your thoughts on Homer. <a href="https://youtu.be/z4Q_dyiySZw?si=AAxjD0Ed03Tf2EeR" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/z4Q_dyiySZw?si=AAxjD0Ed03Tf2EeR</a> Enjoyed solving this puzzle that was on my wavelength, unlike Friday's, which i struggled with.
@Vaer Missed opportunity imo. Once in a lifetime you have TALKING HEADS in the grid and you don't clue it to the band with something like [Their leader was involved in a big suit]? Did you ever notice that David Byrne and David Bowie have the same initials, the same number of letters in their last names, and, possibly, the same number in their first names as well. Did you know that Bowie had a secretary named Byrne and Byrne had a secretary named Bowie? When I have nothing to say, I stop making sense. (And when don't I ever not have nothing to say?)
@ad absurdum This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around.
So happy to see my favorite author make the crossword. OCTAVIAEBUTLER FTW! Also a fun and satisfying puzzle.
Oh man. That west section just destroyed me. Spent like 15-20 minutes just staring. Just kept going back and forth between riled.up and fired.up. I never could figure out the “half of a rhyming name game” clue, until I finally did. And my brain just couldn’t decipher _A__BIRD. until it could. I was flying though the puzzle. Getting to 3/4 done in very good time, for me. Then boom. Humbled. Good Saturday. Glad to see it was considered hard. Though probably no one struggled where I struggled. Thanks Kunal.
@Weak But isn’t ALAI four-sevenths of a rhyming game name?
"Roots" had an iconic scene where the infant Kunta Kinte was lifted by his father towards the heavens. Many here may not have seen it, but many here probably saw the homage to it in "The Lion King". I'll let Andrzej post a link to it since a few days ago he stated in a comment that was convincingly his that he loves "The Lion King".
@ad absurdum Here you go: <a href="https://tenor.com/bSJPN.gif" target="_blank">https://tenor.com/bSJPN.gif</a>
Such a great crossword! Other posters have expressed the sentiments that reflect my - very positive- feelings, and have answered my questions about quite a few unknowns eg names, GORP, EMEKA, EEO, ALAI, NBA I just need help with packs/MOBS. I'm glad I knew KINTE.
@Jane Wheelaghan A group of people might be a pack or a MOB.
The longer you solve, the more humble you get. I was quite enthused at getting the long, clever entries. But every natick is personal, and I ran into a particularly obtuse one involving the last square to enter. It's always good to learn, and a lucky guess provided gorp/chapati.
festy, I think the editors will be surprised to learn -- as some commenters have been surprised to learn -- that for quite a few solvers GORP was not a gimme.
@festy @Barry Ancona It's worth a good think to wonder what it is in us that wants us to believe that our experience is universal.
Well, the constructor and I were on pretty much the same wavelength the whole way. Loved this puzzle but don't have the energy to explain why because I've tried 3 times now and accidentally lost what I'd written all 3 times when the page refreshed unexpectedly. argh! (I need a SILENT RETREAT)
@Beth in Greenbelt I have had that happen to me twice recently. I just gave up. I think it must be possible to accidentally hit a key that does something like that, and a whole bunch of word salad (in my case) is gone. Incredibly annoying.
@Beth in Greenbelt One way that often happened to me was scrolling too far up on the screen, which triggered a browser refresh (and the NYT JavaScript is too primitive to preserve a working copy of anything; it's bad.). I believe I was able to toggle a setting in my mobile browser to curtail that action...
So far, it looks like an unusually big divide between those who found this unusually hard and those who found it unusually easy. I was so on the constructor’s wavelength I felt like I had become psychic. Just over half my Saturday average, and less than half the time yesterday‘s puzzle took me. Nicely clued.
Tricky, of course. But the obscure was crossed with the guessable, so I managed it all without lookups. Fun puzzle!
I may pretend to be a CLASS ACT, but 55D will always make me giggle. Also, I watched that video of the guy and the rooster twice.
@Katie Although we sometimes claim to have matured, all of us have our inner 12-year-old who cackles like Beavis and Butthead. "Heh, heh; he said 'Uranus'. Heh."
Loved, loved, loved this one. Took me the amount of time I used to spend on weekend puzzles back in the day. Learned a new name, a new place, and a new sports team. The NW took everything I had. I took out answers I was sure of, put them in again, took them out again. Two of them turned out to be right, several others not. Ran the alphabet mentally in several places to try to trigger new ideas and that turned out to be very helpful, especially when trying to decide whether it was TAKEoff, TAKETEN, or TAKE something else--and consequently whether to leave in or take out the Roots surname. It didn't help that I had misspelled that name. I spent a shocking amount of time trying to figure where the word breaks were in OPEN____eAGES. Or maybe OPEN to all AGES? I've known enough people in the state that was described, and enough others who claimed to be but were not, that the answer should have popped right out at me. It did, eventually. I was so, so tempted to do a search on that NBA rookie. But all it finally required was just patience, putting in things, trying out their effect on the rest of the quadrant, then all that out and trying something else.
Tough one! Finished with TGIF. On a Saturday no less!
@Marty - That one held me up for a long time. I thought there should be some clue that the answer was an acronym, but I guess it's in common enough use that it wasn't warranted for a Saturday.
As usual of late, I haven't had a chance to really peruse the comments yet and I have some chili to get started on, but just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this puzzle!! It was tough but accessible. I was surprised to finish up about 25% faster than usual because there were several times I felt like I was never going to get there without help. The top was the hardest for me but I had ___ESSENTIALS so that helped a lot. Once I corrected my misspelling of KINTa, which was one of the few things I got on the first round, I was able to see more clearly and finished up to my Capt Holt dunces music! Huzzah!! GORP!! I had forgotten all about it! With the R and P in place, I was able to access it in the bingo ball spinner cage that sometimes I think of my brain as. There's a lot of stuff in there, but you just don't know what's going to come out when! Thankfully though, EMEKA, STEF, and SET PIECE came from the crosses because those were definitely not in the bingo cage. I don't know, I really liked this one! Felt very fresh and sparkly. Loved seeing OCTAVIAEBUTLER in it! Of course, not a fan of the fur trade, but I do enjoy seeing FUR cross PUPPY! And the cute clue for EEK made me chuckle out loud! 28 across had me chuckling too because it reminded the old SNL skit how if it isn't Scottish, it's crap! I'd have probably been in trouble if that was four letters for the answer. An all around CLASS ACT of a puzzle!! I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did!!
@HeathieJ - “bingo ball spinner cage” as a metaphor for the brain had me chuckling big time!
Not as hard as usual, very well made nonetheless! Enjoyed GALA and FETE each being clued with one word that could mesn many things. No gimmes there!
This puzzle was above my pay grade. I only got through it with an assist from Caitlin’s column and a review of the Comments. I loved the AMNESIACS clue “Ones with big blocks?” But “Swing states” for OPENMARRIAGES just doesn’t sit right with me.
@Elizabeth Connors Is your objection ethical or semantic?
The fill was far too obscure. Google enjoyed this puzzle much more than I did. And the puns weren't even enjoyable.
Well done, Kunal Nabar! Loved the open grid, the diverse references, and the sneaky misdirects. Just hard enough for a Saturday (IMHO). A real CLASS ACT.