What a superbly unenjoyable puzzle 😐 The natick of RENAT_/_R_JEL/E_ZYE was just ab5urd. A rapper's name can be anything, as well as an American brand. RENATa (a quite popular Polish name) seems just as viable as RENATO (actually, even more so to me). I also don't speak Spanish. I know some of it from hearing, mostly. I happily entered OTRA VEs. That final "s" crossed with the name of some guy which I ended up googling. ZINN... OTRA VE*Z*... Crossing a non-English entry with a name you can't possibly infer if you don't simply know it. How is this good construction? MARL_/D_ERR... How the fiddly fiddle was I supposed to deal with that without Google? Wouldn't you expect an actress to rather be called MARLa than MARLO? DaERR looks no worse than DOERR to me. To add insuIt to injury, there was a mathematical clue 🤬 The puzzle was generally saturated with crossing trivia, which I just can't personally abide. I want witty clues and misdirection, not a flippin' pub trivia quiz.
@Andrzej You've gotta remember that Spanish is barely a foreign language in the US, particularly in New York. Even gringos know OTRA VEZ because their Spanish teachers likely barked it at them so they would repeat the new vocabulary words every day. I didn't know MARLO or DOERR, either, but I chose O over A because I knew DOERR to be a surname. How? Because there was an old-time baseball player named Bobby DOERR. He played for the Boston Red Sox, primarily in the 40s, but was a coach afterwards. He lived a good, long life, and died at 99 in 2017. Go back to sleep. You don't get bonus points for getting up early on Saturday.
@Andrzej The mere fact that there were a lot of proper nouns didn't bother me because they've always been a feature of crossword puzzles and hey, I like pub trivia. But what was inexcusable was having five names -- Ripa, Renato, Eazye, Redd and Marlo -- being entertainment trivia and on top of that was the Star Wars force choke, which was alien to me. It's a Saturday, it should be a challenge, but don't have so much trivia from one category. On the bright side, no Oreos were detected.
@Andrzej there was a math clue which is wrong! Even more irritating
@Andrzej What you said. I have been in New York my entire life and never heard "otra vez". A complete mystery for me. I've managed to avoid most Spanish except Dora. This puzzle was poor because it existed only for the author to complete a totally meaningless bet with him or her self. My issues were largely limited to the upper left but little of this was fun. And I pity the bar patrons who'd need to pull out these odd and boring names on trivia night...
@Andrzej I am with you 100%. MARLO? ORAJEL? I was itching to write a similar comment but it took me so long to complete the puzzle (with some mild cheating by looking up DOERR and OLIVEGROVE in the notes) that my spleen has already been vented by you and others by the time I finished. Arrrgh!!!
The natick of RENAT_/_R_JEL/E_ZYE was just ab5urd. In defense of ORAJEL, at least when you get the answer you can recognize it as a portmanteau which might make sense. And EAZY E sounds like it could be someone's name. Better than any other letter for E_ZYE. Many other crossings gave no "Ah okay!" feeling when filled in.
@Andrzej Agreed - way too many proper nouns and brand names
@Andrzej OTRA VEZ was fine for me but. ZINN ELIA DOERR MARLO was too far … I agree. Not a puzzle, a QUIZ.
@Andrzej EAZY-E is not an obscure figure. He basically invented a genre of music. There have been books written and movies made about him. Just because you and others don't know who he is doesn't make that entry unfair, it just means you have a pop culture blind spot, of which we all have plenty.
Proper nounanza.
@Sam Lyons Hello fellow insomniac 🙋 Isn't it nice to not be able to sleep and be punished for it by the likes of this grid?
@Sam Lyons I especially struggled with the interlocking trio of RENATO / EAZY-E / ORAJEL. Wait, it was a quartet, DOLAN was in there too. Just tough.
Today’s puzzle was brought to you by: ABC, Amtrak, Ajax, Kleenex, Netflix, Orajel, Paper Mate, Pepsi, Ruthless Records and SNL, with additional funding provided by Anthony Doerr, Charles Dolan, Elia, Howard Zinn, Laurence Olivier, the city of New York, and the Los Angeles Lakers.
@Bill in Yokohama Oops, I commented much later on the product placements and now see just how many I lost count of.
These are what I'd call improper names. Not good on any day to stuff a puzzle with showtime folks and a only a few clues worthy of the name(s). I want a challenging Saturday, with engaging clues that make me think, not just google. Sorry, Blake, but I found this one tiresome.
@dutchiris For something nicer than this grid, please take a peek at these pics of Lucek fitting under our bed 😃 <a href="https://imgur.com/a/rzVvO6E" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/rzVvO6E</a> <a href="https://imgur.com/a/owzlJSZ" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/owzlJSZ</a> He probably won't be able to do that anymore in a month or two.
A double pangram is a fine accomplishment, and I commend Blake for the effort. Personally, I like a bit more wordplay in a Saturday, and while I'm all for knowing things, the PPP level today was a bit high even for me. I would have preferred a single pangram and a bit more puzzling. But WHATEVS. YMMV.
@Barry Ancona Thank you for acknowledging the proper name content of this grid was too high, and the wit of the clues lacking. We rarely agree on such details. It's nice to vibe with you for once 😃
@Barry Ancona Except for the MARLO/DOERR crossing, I didn’t have any real trouble with the proper nouns. I agree that the clueing could have had more wordplay, and some of what there was in that regard could have been scrapped. (JUMP FOR JOY in particular.)
@Barry Ancona Yes, I agree. While it is inevitable that I will find unknowns in a US crossword, I solved almost all through crossers (I hadn't heard of RIPA, ELIA, REDD, MARLO, DOLAN, RENATO, EAZYE) but ZINN and VEZ needed help. Not that I mind at all solving through crossers, the clues weren't very interesting.
Four obscure (to me, admittedly) proper names in the northeast corner alone? C'mon!
@Jon Onstot ELIA (Charles Lamb) was a nineteenth-century essayist who appears in the crossword a lot. You should remember his name, as he will appear many more times!
@Jon Onstot - Charles Lamb (ELIA) and his sister wrote "Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare" which gives a synopsis of most of the plays. I have my greatgrandmother's 19th century copy around here somewhere. Very helpful book.
Maybe someday we can have a puzzle which is just entirely proper names. Most times people comment on this, I hadn't really noticed. This one was just a slap in the face. I honestly don't think anyone producing this puzzle has the slightest idea of what a set is, or what an upper bound is. Just one of many jarringly bad clue/answer pairs, beyond the clutter of proper names. QUIDPROQUO from [Foreign exchange?] We've literally absorbed the term into English directly from Latin. Latin isn't so much foreign as it is fundamental. It Latin really a foreign language if it's not spoken any longer? 16A. Google seems to imply it was written by Charles Lamb. Who is Elia? ICEHOLE for "Opening on a frozen lake" Well, yeah, but a frozen lake is made of ice, so obviously a hole in it is going to be an hole in the ice. But that only makes it an "icehole" in a really trivial sense. That's like saying "I'm going to use this shovel to dig a dirthole." OTRA VEZ. I guess even though I grew up in an Hispanic area, I must have missed it over and over. ORAJEL...I don't have the will to go on with this. Every time I go back to the puzzle I find another frustratingly meaningless answer.
@Francis it was a tedious solve. Most tough puzzles dazzle. This one doesn't. And the trivia...ugh
@Francis you saved ten minutes of my day by writing *exactly* what I had in mind.
@Francis I googled Elia - CL's pen name
@Francis I used to drink in a pub in London called "The Charles Lamb", which was on "Elia Street" (Charles Lamb wrote the Essays of Elia). Not that I've read any of them. And not that that helped me with any of the other names I had to look up!
@Francis I thought perhaps “foreignness” might be referring specifically to the “quid” part of the answer, intended as a double meaning for the colloquial term for British pounds. I suppose a tourist to the UK exchanging whatever currency they brought for a few quid, or a Brit traveling to another country and exchanging 100 quid for ₩190,000 or whatever, would count as a rather benign QUID PRO QUO. Still not the most awe-inspiring clue ever, even if that’s what was intended.
@Francis You've finally written a comment that @Andrzej will love!
@Francis Elia was the pen name of Charles Lamb. It's very old crosswordese. I think it was used even before _______Kazan.
@Francis Totally agree with your comment, and find "upper bound" particularly objectionable. Thing is, sometimes there might be an answer which in some branch of science might have a very specific definition (watts for lightbulb brightness, for an example I recall...which is more correctly lumens), but has a broader meaning in common usage. This is absolutely not the case for "upper bound." That is a term used exclusively in set theory and nowhere else, and would not be used to describe an element within a set in any other context. I think (maybe wrongly, maybe not) this is where we start wondering if it's all AI.
@Francis Did you ever see the movie "Johnny Dangerously"?? ICE HOLE plays a part... Our family adopted a number of the um....terms.
@Francis I generally agree with you, and obviously many people agree that there was too much trivia/proper nouns and not enough wordplay. But I think some of your criticisms are off base. -I thought QUID PRO QUO was pretty good wordplay -Lamb used ELIA as a pen name -ICE HOLEs are integral to winter lake fishing, and polar bears will hover over an ice hole waiting for a seal to come up for air. OTRA VEZ was a gimme for me, one of my first toeholds. But with foreign languages if you don't know it they can be impossible to get without crosses, and those crosses were not kind. Now go have a cookie and head over to the archives for a tonic.
@Francis QUID... Yes, Latin is still a foreign language even if it's spoken only in Vatican City. I liked this clue. ELIA was a nom de plume for Charles Lamb. As a Canadian of a certain age, my first school encounter with the Bard was via a tiny book written by the Lambs and designed for early readers. This was a gimme for me. ICEHOLE is not a 'green paint' clue. It is part of the sport of ice-fishing...yes, this is a real thing! Learn more here: <a href="https://bushlife.ca/ice-fishing-101" target="_blank">https://bushlife.ca/ice-fishing-101</a>/ On the other hand, you're right. There is no excuse for ORAJEL. Ready for another round of Crossword Crud: Yes or No?
Gotta echo Barry and Andrzej today. Kudos on the double pangram, but way too many hoops to set there. Started out pretty easy. Then I got very bogged down in all the proper names. Now I know how y’all feel. RIPA, KOBE and LENIN I knew. ZINN, ELIA, EAZYE, REDD, MARLO, DOERR, RENATO, and DOLAN I had to get on crosses, and on the last four guess the crossing letter. Guessed right, but guessed wrong on JFK and JCCAR which I couldn’t remember but thought was right. So I had to flyspeck and Google to see if I was right on all my guesses (I’m not too proud to do that) until I finally got there. Wasn’t too thrilled with some of the clues either—hoppi-ness? Disappearing ink vessel? Is a driver a SELLER? Is QUIDPROQUO “foreign” or just Latin? Again a stretchy clue or two is OK with me especially if it’s otherwise amusing but these didn’t thrill me. I didn’t mind “Boos” so much and a couple of bonus points for Star Wars and Plato. But overall a bridge too far for me.
@SP I'm solving and commenting late in the day, so you might never see this, but the pair of clues was actually RFK and RCCAR (radio-controlled car, which some people call remote-controlled car).
difficult trivia. obscure proper names. The worst clue was sprinkles with oil. I thought dress as a salad. I never heard of anything being blessed by sprinkling oil. Must be a rite I am unfamiliar with. You anoint with oil but sprinkle? no.
Creators are getting way too lazy by using arcane trivia to make puzzles hard. It's OK when you can infer by other answers, but that wasn't the case today. All in all, a bit of a disappointment. Feel like I wasted my time today, with very little satisfaction when done.
@Hitch “Creators are getting way too lazy by using arcane trivia to make puzzles hard.” Totally fair opinion, but the implication that this is some kind of a new trend is flat-out wrong, IMO. If you go back to the “good old days” in the archives (say, 15+ years ago), the tougher Friday and Saturday puzzles would often contain some positively brutal trivia. That part ain’t new.
Double pangram made this too cute by half. Naticks abound. Wine seller ... English words, sure. Is it really a thing? Plus isn't "Cab" an abbreviation? Pretty sure "loll" isn't an abbreviation but "veg" is. Clueing conventions out the window. Did I already mention multiple obscure names that defy linguistic norms? No. It's like they were the product of a google search that then became the clue. What can I use to get some Q's and K's? How about some Greenlandic proper nouns. Really not a fan. This almost felt mean-spirited.
@Kevin I don't think it was mean spirited but rather an effort to meet a construction challenge (the pointless pangrams thing) at all costs. The costs included tons of obscure references and sacrificing an enjoyable puzzle. People here often get chastised for calling a construction self-indulgent, but this one sure seems to qualify....?
@Kevin Yeah, I'm with you. Every time I look at the puzzle I find a new befuddling term. ERASER MATE, from what I can tell, is a pen whose ink is erasable. But it's not "disappearing" ink, which is in fact a thing, as we know from the Hardy Boy and junior science kits. It's ink that can be removed from a writing surface. I rarely agree with a claim of "mean-spiritedness". But I think a really good case could be made for this one. It really has the hallmarks of a puzzle tortured for the purpose of an obscure thing called a double pangram. But, moreover, it seems that this could have been saved, somehow, if the clues had any relationship to the answers. If I didn't know better I'd think this was a trick puzzle, where we're supposed to ignore letters or use rebuses in order to make the answers fit in any way with the clue.
@Kevin yes, a WINE SELLER is a thing. It just occurred to me it’s a pun on WINE cELLaR too. I had WINE deaLER first. Either way as a Cab drinker my mind went there fairly quickly. That said, count me among the NE corner haters.
@Kevin Neither Cab nor VEG are abbreviations. The acid test? Do you have to put a period to indicate that they are shortened forms? If not, they are not abbrev. Note: this is a NoAm rule. Other places may write Dr or Mrs with no period. And don't we lose some subsidiary indicators for slang, two words, or abbreviarions on Saturday?
Enjoyed this one, especially all the Js, Qs, Xs, etc. Also the constructor's notes--I'm always curious about how a puzzle came to be. I've been out of the country a lot this fall and not keeping up with things--but it's good to get caught up (sort of) and back to puzzling.
Liz B, Nice to see you drop in!
@Liz B Welcome back! I hope your travels were enjoyable!
I feel that i'm about to kick a hornet's nest, and at least three inner voices are crying, Why, Kelp, why? But i've been wondering for a while, so ask i must. Why is it that some international solvers complain that the NYT puzzle contains so/too many US cultural references? It is a puzzle published in a US paper. As a northwesterner living two hours from the Pacific Ocean, i am often baffled by New York and East Coast references from 3,000 miles away that i can't possibly know, but i accept that the puzzle is published in New York. And i learn the words over time. TIL there is an RFK bridge. Some years ago i really tried to conquer the British type of crossword we in the US call an acrostic. I played the ones in British papers. There were a LOT of British cultural references on top of a wide array of wordplay patterns that i apparently could not crack. I'd fill in at most six or ten words and then admit defeat. But it didn't occur to me to complain that the puzzles were too British?
@Kelp Why do you call it complaining? We all have our personal experience with every puzzle. I do these crosswords for the wit and wordplay. Trivia of all kinds annoys me. Unknowable American trivia is especially painful to me. Thus, when I can't finish a puzzle without lookups not because I don't speak English or because I'm dim, I'm displeased. I make it know here because this literally is a *comment* board. Should I just keep quit? Or should I lie and tell you I oh so loved the delightful, trivia-filled grid? Not every negative comment on something is a complaint. Also, you will notice I accept this stuff just as you do - I'm still here and generally enjoying the experience, even though some grids are unsolvable without Google for me.
@Andrzej I'll gladly amend complain to observe, and in no way did i mean to offend or silence anyone. Far from it. I was seeking only to understand the point of observing, in particular, that a US-based puzzle is replete with US-based references. It would seem to be the nature of the beast.
@Kelp I might contend that the New York Times is an international rag in the same way that, say, Pravda isn’t. It’s also often less about the Americanisms themselves than that they are sometimes the ‘easy’ clues to give you a foothold in an otherwise difficult puzzle. Today’s wasn’t especially US-centric. Maybe ORAJEL? That could be deduced, though I had the wrong spelling of EAZY-E. Spanish is my bete noire—or I suppose bestia negra. I enjoyed it apart from the stuff I had to look up because it crossed other stuff I had to look up. A mid-strength Saturday otherwise, verging on mild.
@Kelp The NYT publishes an international edition. It deliberately markets to an international audience. That's why we complain.
@Kelp Why do you choose to define the NYT as a “US paper” rather than a “New York newspaper” or an “English language paper that is read and enjoyed globally”? It seems to me you have drawn a convenient boundary that includes you but excludes the likes of me and Andrzej. I am a long time subscriber to this paper. I love it. I believe I have a perfect right to complain about crossword clues that are obscure or unreasonably difficult for me. (I am a native English speaker, and can only marvel at Andrzej, who puts me in minds of Joseph Conrad.) Do I like complaining about this? Well, honestly, yes I do. Do I want to hurt anyone’s feelings with my complaints? No, not at all. I have never seen many of today’s words ever before, and they were not guessable. I think it’s reasonable for me to vent my spleen. And I think the comments section is a safe space in which to do so. Sorry if it disturbs your peace.
@Kelp Some international solvers are American expats. I'm American but would much prefer to solve a puzzle filled with creative and challenging word play over one filled with American brand names and trivia.
@Kelp I'm originally from New York, so I had no idea it was renamed the RFK bridge. It will always be the Triborough Bridge to me, just as the Gulf of Mexico will keep that name, too.
@Kelp I’ve been following Andrzej (and several of our British solvers as well) for some time. Most of the time they are more than capable of separating their experience of encountering Americanisms vs. their evaluation of the puzzle. I’ve frequently heard Andrzej say “I had to look up this, or this, but it was still a good puzzle”. Sometimes I agree with his assessment, sometimes not, but no more than anyone else (and less than many American reviewers). I appreciate learning about the challenges that non-Americans face and I discover l a lot of interesting facts about my own language and others by hearing from them. Andrzej is literate, thoughtful and insightful and I appreciate his voice. Don’t mistake his tirade today (which was shared by many, including myself) to be a reflection of his foreignness, nor his general curmudgeoniness.
@Kelp I do the puzzle because the wordplay is often clever. The USAisms are part and parcel of the experience. I don’t mind the spelling and the sporting expressions but ORAJEL is not culture it’s branding… for that I am not thankful. It’s ok if the crosses allow you to fight through to get it. But as a natnick I’d say it’s fair to whine about. Fair?
This many random names in a crossword is criminal.
@Karin What is a “random name”?
My, the haters are out in force today! Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, especially the doubling of the Js, Xs, and Qs. I loved QUID PRO QUO and loved its clue ("Foreign exchange") even more. But I come to sing the praises of the double-V: OLIVE GROVE. As a long-time student of Plato, I've heard again and again the phrase "the GROVEs of Academe", but I had never bother to investigate it further, other than knowing that Plato created his school in the suburb of Athens known as Academe, hence the origin of our term "academy". In today's post-puzzle research, I learned that the phrase has its origin in an epistle of the Latin poet Horace: "Atque inter silvas Academi quaerere verum" ("...and to seek the truth in the groves of Academe..."). It was then popularized in the modern world in the novel "The Groves of Academe", a biting satire about the academic world by Mary McCarthy, in 1951. I had never thought about what kind of trees were growing in that grove, but Aristophanes confirms our constructor's assertion in "The Clouds", referring to the "Academy, under the sacred OLIVE-trees" as a place where well-born youth could exercise their bodies to become decent Athenian gentlemen. So, a fine puzzle, and a lovely opportunity to enhance my knowledge of the Classical world. Thanks, Blake Slonecker.
@The X-Phile As usual, we agree. A very fine puzzle indeed.
@The X-Phile. I liked this one too. In fact, over 50+ years solving NYT xwords, I've liked them all.
@The X-Phile Olive grove was indeed a fine answer but I think very few people complained about it. I also enjoyed that enhancement of my meagre knowledge of the classical world. What ruined this puzzle for me and probably many others was just the opposite -- the heaping burbling mass of frothy entertainment trivia that overpowered its many good aspects.
Unpopular opinion incoming: Let the haters hate, the gripers gripe and the kvetchers kvetch… but I for one thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle and tip my metaphorical hat to the constructor for this feat of cruciverbalism
@Mishlev You are 100% right. That is an unpopular opinion. I'm kidding. Your take is as valid as mine. Actually, as I expressed below, I think this is a fascinating example of a particularly polarizing puzzle. I'd love to have some insight as to why that is so.
@Mishlev I liked it too. I did not know all the trivia but was able to get them all with some lucky guessing and the crossings, which was satisfying. I enjoyed how it started out feeling impossible and gradually filled in with cool letters!
Hey, Blake. If you’re reading this, I really liked this puzzle. I was jumping around searching for footholds, figuring things out little by little, which I find stimulating and enjoyable. Although I did not notice the double pangram feature while solving, I most certainly noticed the double Q, X and J of QUID PRO QUO, KLEENEX BOX and JUMP FOR JOY. It's hard to miss those standouts. The [Foreign exchange?} clue is excellent. I chuckled at [Exhibit hoppi-ness?] and also liked [Cab driver?]. The proper names, if not outright known to me, were all easy in the crossings, Anthony DOERR was a gimme for me and, of course, I know the bridge. But i can certainly see how those would be tricky for others. I liked the New York vibe of CENTRAL PARK, TKTS and SHEA, even though it wasn’t clued to the Mets stadium. Thanks, Blake.
@Anita How is a cab driver a wine seller?
@Anita. I enjoyed this one greatly and I'm 76 years old. I found it to be a relatively easy, pleasant Saturday. But then I've been solving NYT xwords for over 50 years, and there haven't been any that I didn't like.
Proper nouns should be used sparingly. it's excessive in this puzzle, imo.
This one gave me a nice workout without frustrating me, although I must admit I cheated. When I saw the clue referring to Cloud Cuckoo Land, I instinctively looked up to the bookshelf that sits behind the chair where I sit to do the puzzle, to glean the name DOERR from the spine of All The Light We Cannot See without actually seeing if I could remember his name all on my own. Both books, by the way are wonderful, and quite different from each other. I suspect the crossings of ORAJEL, DIETPEPSI, and ERASERMATE will vex some. I got them all via crosses, so I’m not complaining, although that did seem a bit much for me. I loved the clue, cab driver, for WINESELLER and smiled to see it crossed by ZINN. I also smiled to see my old crossword friend ELIA who was a crossword staple of the puzzles of my younger days and who I can’t recall seeing in a while I make a mean lamb KORMA but I’ve never ventured to make ROTI.
@Marshall Walthew Zinn! I got the author right off, but as a wine pun it buzzed right by me. I too liked the "cab driver" clue.
@Marshall Walthew I loved All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land! I just finished a short DOERR binge by reading two earlier books, About Grâce and The Shell Collector, so his name was a gimme for me. Such a great contemporary author, full of lush prose and vivid descriptions.
What an absolute mess of obscure proper nouns and naticks. Terrible puzzle.
I have to join the haters on this one. The last straw for me was "Certain miniature vehicle, informally" leading us to RCCAR. I found no enjoyable puns, no clever wordplay, just a whack of obscure proper nouns, including RENATO, a character that even Wikipedia mentions only in passing. And this, after Connections sent me to the dictionary today for 4 of its 16 words. Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood, or maybe I'm just an ICEHOLE.
@Don H Huh? RENATO is one of the two main characters in "La Cage Aux Folles."
If I ever win a Pulitzer Prize, I hope I won't be labeled as "an obscure proper noun." Shout out to one of my favorite authors Anthony DOERR! Hopefully this will inspire some folks to get familiar.
Brian, Not worry. We already know you without the Pulitzer. We've all seen "Life of Brian."
Dare I say it? I had to look up a lot of the US-specific proper nouns to solve this one, which took the enjoyment out of it a bit. Respect the double pangram, but overall just a bit too trivia-based and not enough cleverness for my taste.
@Kate Not just U.S. specific, but niche-specific. All those marginal proper nouns that not many Americans know. No fun in this one.
Four product placements, if you include Acela, and maybe the most proper names of any puzzle in memory. made this one a total slog. I'd like to say I managed to do the entire puzzle without looking anything up, but the Natick of DOLAN and RENATO did me in, as well as having no clue about the bridge or the car -JFK? RFK? MLK?, and FORCECHOKE was way beyond my pay grade. The rest of the unknown proper names worked out from the crosses, but that didn't make it any more pleasant. Simply hated it.
So, I have worked out how to solve these types of obscure proper noun heavy puzzles. Just go ahead and look up a couple of them, when you are stuck. Makes it go a lot faster, with less frustration.
@KK Haven't looked up anything yet, snuck into Comments in hopes of some tiny hints… I believe "Obscure Proper Noun Heavy Puzzles" is a common enough, well, syndrome to assign it an acronym. I do believe that this one (albeit with, as Oracle said above, some amusing entries and clever clues) qualifies as an OPNHP. Which makes the last stretch quite the PITA. And, at some point after alphabet runs multiplied by vowel alphabet runs— plus the uncertainty in the West about the La Cage aux Folles protagonist (despite my having seen The Birdcage several times and La Cage aux Folles at least once) and a *probable* DOLAN but who knows?— at some point this becomes not a *good* 'PITA' aka tough Saturday challenge, but just a plain old PITA. Hard and dry. Not delicious. Unlike a fresh 57D.
Perfectly engineered to be literally impossible for me to do without lookups, or even with lookups. I finally went to Check Puzzle, a last resort. I did get UPPERBOUND, and I do know some math, but I certainly don't see it as "the end of a set". I'm prepared to be educated, but that just doesn't sound real to me. KORMA and ROTI in the same section of the puzzle made for a difficult area for those unfamiliar with Indian food. RCCAR vs jCCAR with the cross of RFK and jFK. Pretty tough, and I have never heard of an RCCAR. What is that? SWEETIEPIES for [Boos]? Unintelligible. If this weren't a non-theme puzzle, I'd swear there were some missing letters or extra letters or some Thursday kind of devilry. I imagine if I read Wordplay, I'll get some answers, but this was a virtually insolvable for me. I am really astonished, but not surprised that there are those who casually called this easy.
@Francis. RCCAR= RadioControlledCAR BOO appears, occasionally as a term of endearment, whence SWEETIPIES.
@Francis In sets, an upper bound is the value that is larger than the other values in the set. I cannot make that lead to “the end of a set.”
@Francis I did *not* find this easy, but was able to solve without lookups (maybe because hubby helped with a couple). I have a theory, though, that my OCD MO for solving makes it easier. (Which is way weird, because I began using it to challenge myself with easier puzzles.) But, by not allowing myself to leave a corner, I end up with toeholds for adjacent areas, so each is a mini, which busts open the next, which busts open the next… I *did* have to move my cursor many, many, many times, though. So tough, but maybe different solving patterns are a reason for the expanse of reactions..?
@Francis RCCAR (which I did not get, having entered RC CAB) Wouldn't that be a vehicle that's not as good as a COKE-COLA CAR?
I was surprised to read so many complaints this morning about this tough but doable Saturday puzzle. I ended up with a below average time (and I am not a speed solver). I think it helps to be a Gen X mom of three Gen Z young adults. Yes, there were some proper nouns I didn’t know but got them from the crosses. ORAJEL was a gimme from my time with teething babies. OTRA VEZ from junior high Spanish class, UPPER BOUND from at least one math class, BLESSing with oil from Sunday school. I remember seeing AJAX under the sink, and knew ERASERMATE from temp jobs and college papers in the 80s. Also in the 80s, Tarot card readings with my teenage friends, VEGging out and certainly knowing who EAZY-E was. I also enjoy Indian food! My boys introduced me to texting terms and we all keep up with the ever changing SNL casts. I’m not sure exactly when it was, but I definitely remember Ray Charles doing ads for DIET PEPSI. It was nice to think about hanging out in CENTRAL PARK or an OLIVE GROVE, on a clear day with an AZURE sky. THX for the memories, and nice job on the puzzle, Blake Slonecker!
Too many proper names. I had to Google to finish. Not a fan of this one.
To quote the late great Rodney Dangerfield - I feel like I just gave birth. To an accountant.
Some amusing entries and clever clues. Mostly just obscure trivia and nouns. Not a fun solve.
Most of this was pretty easy but the upper right was a terrible experience for me. Unknown after unknown crossing other unknowns. I finally yanked Zinn out of the neural recesses and managed to finish up without errors. None of it was particularly fun. There was really too much specialized knowledge in this one and the cluing seemed unremarkable. 🤷♂️
@B You didn’t like [Exhibit hoppi-ness]? Neither did I. But I did kinda like [Boos].
Not sure what I think of this one. If you’re a regular player you’ll find it easier due to ERR, TKO, which come up often enough. I liked LATTE. I also quite liked QUIDPROQUO despite the negative comments. I read BOOS as being as a plural for a term of endearment hence SWEETIEPIES so, though it frustrated me, I quite liked that too. Too many obscure peoples’ names though… that’s annoying.
I had a blast today! Challenging and fun. Why do we think we're supposed to get all the answers the moment we look at it? Saturday puzzle should make you sweat, proper nouns and all.
I appreciate the feat of construction, but if you're going to stuff the gaps with names and trivia clearly meant for a US audience, I'd rather just skip this whole slog and fill in the trivia using google. ERASERMATE KLEENEX REDD ACELA RIPA VEZ/ELIA/ZINN MARLO/DOERR CARA/OTRA RENATO/DOLAN TKTS??????? ???
@Ernest - TKTS is a company that sells same-day Broadway show tickets in NYC. They are selling last minute unsold tickets at a discount. The catch is that many shows are already sold out and not available. If you are flexible, it's a good deal. So yes, a specifically New York thing in the NYT, but well-known to the many NYC tourists (like me).
@Ernest, it's okay. The US audience doesn't know this stuff, either.
@Ernest I'm not making excuses for all the proper nouns, but put ACELA in your back pocket; it shows up often.
@Ernest Yes to many. But CARA, OTRA VEZ, and ELIA are not. The last is British, the other three are just usual foreign language bits -- common occurrences in Xlandia.
I did not finish this puzzle which is unusual for me but it became a game of trivial pursuit rather than a crossword puzzle. I don’t mind googling the occasional proper noun but the number of lookups I would have to do to solve this puzzle was ridiculous
I mean, doable with some guessing, but way too many proper names and no real clever clue. Felt like a Tuesday. Whatever.
This was, for me, a wall-to-wall puzzle. That is, I kept running into walls. Vague cluing and no-knows (11) would freeze me, and I’d go somewhere else and freeze and flee again. After ACRE / CENTRAL PARK right at the start, I thought I’d be gamboling through the box – hah! Much lateral thinking and making educated guesses – things my brain lives for – were called on. I just kept pinballing around, and answers would come, sometimes in dribs, other times followed by mini-splats, and always with gratitude. Hard work, but the kind I like. Lovely wordplay clues: [Foreign exchange] for QUID PRO QUO, [Boos] for SWEETIEPIES, and [Sprinkle with oil, say] for BLESS. I also liked ERR crossing ERR in the middle east, because that's what my solve felt like often. And, as with Thursday’s puzzle, I was strurck by the profusion of schwa-enders (8). I hope for a steep climb on Saturdays, and your obstacle course was just that, Blake. Thank you!
@Lewis I've probably asked you this before, but have you ever met a NYTXW that you didn't love?
@Lewis If I understand correctly, ACRE was a gimme for you. I’ve been to CENTRAL PARK a couple of times and have probably seen the 843 acres figure before. But I have a lousy head for remembering numbers like populations, GNPs, acreage. I needed to get CENTRAL PARK through crosses and pattern recognition to get to ACRE. I would have said that I don’t really have a concept of how big 843 acres is. But now I do! Ain’t learning great? Thanks, as always, for calling attention to some of the better clues.
@Times Rita -- There are plenty of crosswords I haven't loved, but very few of them are NYT puzzles, where I find excellence as a rule in the constructors and in the editing. And, if I'm not enamored with a puzzle, especially since I know what goes into making one, I do prefer to focus on the aspects I like.
@Times Rita I have learned so much from Lewis, but reading his posts also just makes me feel good. He chooses to spread positivity and focus on all the light we cannot see.
@Lewis Arggh. My comment posted one minute after yours.
@Lewis As usual, I agree with your comments. In 50+ years of solving NYT xwords, there were none that I have not enjoyed.
Note to self: if I ever get a puzzle published, DO NOT read the comments. As my mom likes to say, 8 billion people in the world and 8 billion opinions… My 1/8billionth contribution is that this was just the right mix of fun + friction, and so rewarding to earn my way to the solve with patience and flexible thinking. [sitting here in my pjs having accomplished nothing today so impressive as constructing a double pangram crossword puzzle]
@Suzie Lee Ha! I always think that too! And I also believe I wouldn't be able to resist reading the comments.... But I don't think I have a thick enough skin to handle it most days. That said, I haven't even read them yet today, but your comment gives me a good indication.
Haitians speak Krèyol or "Creole" as their native language, but in modern-day Haiti basically no one identifies as a Creole. It's similar to how Americans speak English but don't identify as Englishmen.
“End of a set, in mathematics” is not the upper bound. An upper bound is any value larger than any member of a set.
@Paul I hope you're right - it would be a sort of cosmic justice if it turned out the constructor/editors not only oversaturated the grid with trivia but also made an actual error, proving my low opinion of this monstrosity was even more justified than I initially thought.
@Paul: also, elements of a set are not necessarily numbers, and what does the clue writer think is meant by the “end” of a set? Andrzej, you deserve a better math clue!
@Paul It's been a while since I considered mathematical sets, but in software a set has no implies order. The sets {blue, green, red} is the same as the set {green, blue, red} From what I recall of mathematical sets, they similarly do not have an implied ordering. Also, sets can contain all kinds of fancy thing, like other sets. For example the set of all sets that don't include themselves as members, from the barber paradox. The idea of a set seems way more abstract than UPPER BOUND. I dunno. I hope someone can explain that, because it's a total mystery to me.
I was kind of hoping I'd wake this morning to find last night was all a bad dream. No such luck. This puzzle puts me in an awkward position--I usually defend puzzles like this. And before you say it, I've have defended puzzles that stumped me before. This one is hard to vouch for. There was something about this one that seems basically impossible *for me*. Nothing wrong with that, in reality. But it still stings. Yet maybe I went overboard in my criticism of it last night. I think I was two or three critical answers from ever getting enough of a seed to finish it off with any confidence. In the past, when there've been puzzles like this, I could look at the eventual answers that I did not get, and see some sort of trick or cleverness that made it all clear. In this one, though, I didn't find that. Actually, in the end, when I finally clicked "Reveal Puzzle", the only mistake was jFK for RFK. But it doesn't seem that I came anywhere that close because I had so many places that just didn't make sense. Frustrating, but not fatal. Apparently this is a seasoned constructor. I need to go back and see what I've thought of his other puzzles.
@Francis Don’t be ashamed. Haven’t seen a puzzle that turned me off as much as this one in a long time, and that I found so little to praise. And it’s not that I felt stumped either—I got thorough it with the same glitch at the end as you did, and wouldn’t mind that if I enjoyed it.
Feels a bit rough to lose my streak due to so many crossing proper nouns. Oh well I guess.
I wish I could banish actor names from puzzles forever
It turns out that today was my day. I finished the puzzle with no help from Google and then turned to the Word Play column expecting to see all the comments about how easy this puzzle was. That is usually the case when I finish Friday or Saturday with no lookups. I was in NYC last weekend with my sister and we drove by CENTRAL PARK and a sign for the RFK (formerly Triboro) Bridge. A couple of years ago I had gone to a lecture by DOERR (and pulled his name from somewhere). My daughter had lent me the book by ZINN (whose name was also buried in deep storage). I guessed NINE for Olivier because I thought that laxity had to end with NESS. Others I got from crosses that looked possible. The Northwest corner fell last. I have taken to heart Deb's advice to try the hard puzzles, and I have definitely improved.
I went with JFK instead of RFK and decided that maybe Jaycees (JCs) were the ones who drive those miniature cars in parades. Alas, it seems those are the Shriners.
I really hate to say anything because I know how hard it is to construct a puzzle that's hard and good, but also doable without resorting to reference works. But I think this one, with its crossings of VEZ/ELIA/ZINN and CARA/OTRA, is really pushing the limit (well, my limit anyway). The rest of the puzzle was hard in places but very good. Just my opinion – feel free to offer yours.
@Ken The thing is, the puzzle really wasn't very good even if you ignore the crossing trivia. Where was the wit? The misdirection? To me this was one of the biggest Saturday letdowns in my 30-ish months of doing these puzzles.
My time was half my average time for a Saturday, still thought the Naticks were out of control.