This is my idea of a near-perfect Saturday solving experience. By that I mean a puzzle that when you first look at it, you say, "I don't know *any* of this. This is impossible!" And then you get one answer in, and then maybe another (that you're not all that confident in). But that gives you another.... "Oh, that can't be right....but maybe...." And all of a sudden, you've made more progress than you thought you could! But then there's that corner that will not yield. "Am I going to have to Google that country singer." "Don't give up (or give in) yet. You can do it, X!" Ah, WHALE SONG! Yes!!! And the puzzle is yours! That's what I call a fun way to start a Saturday! Thanks, Adrian Johnson! [First attempt eaten by emus. Sorry if this is a duplicate.]
@The X-Phile, exactly how I solved today’s puzzle!
And I didn't even mention the brilliant cluing! There's the nice misdirect on WHALE SONG. ("Musical production" indeed!) And the spectacular non-quotation "it" clue: [Take it back!] But my favorite was "Volume of tourists"! I didn't see that alternative meaning of "volume" until I had entered the solution and had to figure out how it was correct. (At first I thought it might be because the TRAVEL GUIDE has to speak in a loud voice!) And "Minor crashes?" What an excellent way to disguise common crossword fill! Nice stuff!
@The X-Phile Well said. I knew the (now deceased) drummer for Rush. And KEYNES. And what cytologists study. And I immediately entered ATOLL for "One of 32 in the country of Kiribati", though how I knew this I have no idea. After that ... my solving experience was just like what you described.
@The X-Phile Perfectly put!
I love puzzles like these. On my first run through, I know hardly any words and consider going to the dictionary. Then, I stick with it and get a few clues close to each other, and the game is on! Great puzzle, Adrian!
@Steve It's amusing that the first three "Reader Picks" Comments say basically the same thing,...although the amount of words it takes us to say it varies significantly.
This was a proper Saturday. It seemed opaque to me for quite some time, but after having the KNOWHOW to figure out the SW corner, it came together steadily and I finished a bit under my usual Saturday time. Getting RETINALSCAN and SPIDEYSENSE were key for me. SAINTED and TIMEMACHINE took me some time to catch up with. I was helped by the Philadelphia clue, USCOINS, especially because the mint here has been in the news recently because they minted the last penny there last week. While it makes economic sense to discontinue production of the penny, as a childhood coin collector and as someone who will still stoop to pick up a penny on the sidewalk, it feels like another piece of the America I grew up with vanishing.
@Marshall Walthew When I was a Colorado kid, looking for any validation whatsoever of my existence, I took great pride in the fact that some coins had a "D" on it. And that meant it was from the Denver mint. Now I didn't live in Denver, but I lived in a town 100 south of Denver, which was thought of as a "primitive/unexplored area" by anyone from Denver. Even so, I lived off the tiny reflection of glory from Denver.
@Marshall Walthew I also collected special pennies and would pick up a penny, we are losing part of our America.
@Marshall Walthew Did everyone read the NYT's brilliant obituary for the penny? I haven't checked if it's in the actual obits section but it was perfectly done.
First world retiree “problems.” I’m procrastinating getting out of bed for…one…more…minute. Because, when I get up I have to take my five pills and brush the sleep off of my teeth. Then, put on my pants and be reminded that, yes, I am old and I really do wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Then, greet the dogs greeting me and kiss my wife to thank her for getting up before me and taking care of them. But I wish she could have stayed in bed next to me, quietly reading, for one…or even two…more minutes. While I thought about the crossword I just finished. The snow, and Saturday, silenced the neighborhood so well. Especially those leaf blowers (who invented them?). The unanticipated benefit of a late fall snow.
@Warren I love reading this so much, I read it twice. ☺️
@Warren But do you dare to eat a peach? Or hear the mermaids singing each to each.
I'm sure this won't impress very many in the comment section, but after 20+ months of working the crossword every day I've gone Sunday through Saturday without ANY lookups. I've been under my average time every day as well.
@ThadCongratulations! Well-deserved. I usually have to look up stuff on Fridays and Saturdays on a routine basis
@Thad that’s awesome! Congrats.
@Thad The nice thing about what we got here is that the only one you need to impress is yourself. That being said, I'd say that's great development for 20 months. It's a long, cumulative process.
@Thad congratulations! Excellent job!!
I found this too hard to really enjoy. It was probably a worthy Saturday puzzle but simply above my pay grade. I still did better than on Adrian Johnson's Friday puzzle earlier this year, which was one of the hardest and least enjoyable grids I have ever attempted, and failed, to solve. So at least there's that. I ended up googling personally unknowable arcana of ICARLY and NEIL - as it turned out I was confused in that area mostly because I had stumbled by entering APOLOGYwoRD - it looked slightly awkward, but I was not familiar with the concept of an APOLOGY CARD. I also broke down and revealed the SA of SABERS. Thinking "Raiders of the Lost Ark" I had Head for "staff addition", and that H being correct prevented me from noticing my error and wreaked havoc around there, ultimately resulting in those reveals nearby. I desperately wanted John, Paul, and George to be popes. SAINTED was a good answer to the clue but I only saw it after revealing that S. I had no idea FADERS were devices - I just know "fader" as a setting in old mp3 software, I think. Also, I was very slow to understand how the clue for FAIR GAME worked. I see it now but it was not intuitive for me (which, of course, is fine on Saturday). Lucek the puppy is 6,5 months old now and getting really big 😃 <a href="https://imgur.com/a/z8KFof0" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/z8KFof0</a>
@Andrzej EEM: I guess the emus didn't like what I had to say about iCarly, so I'll just summarize. I lucked out on iCarly. And I don't think the emus objected to this, but maybe, if they're sufficient vain and catty: You pup is looking great! Maybe this'll get through the battle lines.
@Andrzej at what age/size do dogs stop being puppies?
@Andrzej "Check out my awesome bone! You want it, don't you? Try and get it. Just try. I dare ya."
@Andrzej Former DJ here. FADERS is a bit of a reach. A DJ mixer has a single "crossfader", usually a horizontal slider, used to blend two inputs while mixing from one to the other. The vertical sliders used to adjust the levels of individual inputs aren't called "faders", at least not by DJs.
@Andrzej Lucek was waggy his tail! It's a blur in the photo, which is perfect.
Are you kidding me? WHALESONG as an answer with “thwop” in its clue? I was hopelessly won over that very instant, hearing the haunting gorgeous music of whales, while jaw-dropping over the onomatopoetic perfection of “thwop”. A Crosslandia moment to savor. All this in the midst of quality – an uber-low 66-worder so cleanly filled, so wittily clued, with many answers I couldn’t thwop down immediately, but came a bit later after crosses or a riddle crack. That space between can’t-put-it-down and slapdown – The Gap – is delicious, and that slapdown almost always comes with an inner fist pump. Lovely, interesting answers. Look at that top stack, with TRAVEL GUIDE, RETINAL SCAN, APOLOGY CARD – answers from a trio of far-apart worlds. And by the way, they are all NYT debut answers. Wordplay, TILs, memory prodders, brain grinders, occasional splats – all in this entertaining true-Saturday-level box radiating virtuosity. Bravo and thank you, Adrian. You’ve got the knack. This was a beaut!
@Lewis I think I'm still tired... Even after entering WHALE SONG, I kept thinking, "I've never heard of that song." I was still stuck on "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." It's a new Low for the MOL.
@Lewis I think I'm being educated. My initial response to the puzzle was tepid. But a lot of smart people are pointing out a lot of smart things.
@Lewis a personal highlight of mine, which begs the question: why hasn't THWOP become a regular answer in its own right? You are so genuine and kind and your comments educe pride and big smiles from me and countless others during our puzzle days. Thank you :)
Nice puzzle for a long weekend. Thanks, Adrian. See everyone in the morning.
Must say, this was a really feisty puzzle that gave nothing away and had some very good natured misdirects. Newts, huh? Sounded like an Aztec god, that word, and my uvula and tonsils did a small minuet as I said it out loud a number of times, till my wife told me to be quiet. It didn't help that my pitchers pour ale, not ade (which meant ill omens...for a good solve time). Take it back! --> Time Machine seems a little iffy, but all in good fun. Love there's a whale song and an on-fire trumpeter whose song wails. Existentialist's query was a good one. At first, I thought it was going to be WHY ASK? (Sounds like something a borscht belt existentialist might say). Then WHY AM I (really what an existentialist is more likely to ask) before giving in to reason. You know how the phrase "existential threat" is bandied about, rather overmuch, these days? The other day I was in a Trader Joe's talking to one of the stockers about the new Giant Eagle grocery that had just opened up across the street; she called it "an existential threat" to Trader Joe's. Cmon! You know what an existentialist threat is? "Give me your reason for being or you must forfeit the right to exist!" Leftovers! Time for a little pumpkin pie, even though I had quite a bit already. Who am I?
@john ezra I love that your posts have nuggets of gold in them, like your penultimate paragraph
@john ezra I have trouble remembering the difference between an axolotl and an atlatl. Good thing that I've never been an Aztec warrior throwing newts at the enemy.
First I startled the cat snorting at John’s “borscht belt existentialist,” then I fully belly-laughed him off his rare perch in my lap when I read Al’s post. Thanks, guys… [harrumphs] (I think I’m old enough to harrumph. Is there a minimum age for harrumphing? Am I ok just being over 40?)
@john ezra My first thought was that that answer should be “why,” not “who,” am I? Or, I then said to myself, “self,” I said, “the clue should reference essence, not existentialism.” Then I woke up and said, yep, this is why you don’t solve for time.
@john ezra. You are what you eat, so pumpkin pie! It could be worse…
Well, when I am in existentialist mode, stuck between a RETINAL SCAN and a TIME MACHINE, the question I ask is: WHY AM I?
@Cat Lady Margaret The RETINAL SCAN clue was a real eye-opener for me (sorry maybe should have left that softball for Mike)
@Cat Lady Margaret I started off with HOW, then WHY, and finally WHO. I still like HOW best.
I was turned into a NEWT once, but don't worry, I got better.
@HeathieJ Hell, nothin' wrong with being a newt, 'xceptin' people mistaking you all the time for an axolotl :-(
Was it the turkey? Was it the stuffing? What *was* it that made my outlook so sinister, writing in "name names" for [Start talking.] What a relief it was to have the crosses give me the kind and gentle I'M ALL EARS! I confess to having been spooked by the first scenario that came into my mind. I should probably stop reading the news and go instead for walks in the beautiful holiday lights of downtown... Thank you, Adrian, for a really great puzzle!
@sotto voce That was my first thought as well. Too many streaming mystery/crime drama-dies. I liked the puzzle as well. For me, it solved smoothly, with plenty of in-the-nick-of-time crosses, starting in the NW and swirling counter-clockwise, like a low pressure system in the northern hemisphere. And, yep, I look out the window and there’s two inches of snow on the ground. First of the season here.
Oh, MYSTARS!! On the first pass, I had IDES, and no IDEA as to how I was going to get through this crossword. I was gratified to *double* my solving rate on the second pass, confidently putting in 25A, PUNNY, and 47A, BAE: the only fly in the ointment was that they were both *wrong*. On pass number three, for variety's sake I put in an answer that I was certain was wrong, 12A, IBM, aaaaaand it turned out to be correct. I'll spare you an enumeration of passes 4 through, probably, 85, but I loved every one of them. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for an abfab, epic, (almost) impossible Saturday battle.
@MP RogersI also initially thought PUNNY, but had to change the first three letters.
@MP Rogers I was pretty surprised by IBM, too. First pass I thought, well surely not IBM, what new player in the chip field is 3 letters...
I have my occasional nit now and then as well but the capacity for some people to complain is gobsmacking to me. Yes, I know you don’t physically cut the grape leaves with a microtome to stuff inside each individual leaf, and we know they come from the vine of the grape plant. But go to a Greek restaurant and order stuffed grape leaves and they will give you dolmas; order a “grapevine leaf wrap” and they will look at you askance. Shouldn’t that be obvious to anyone who is otherwise literate enough to solve a NYT crossword?
@SP here here. I’ve been doing this puzzle for what, 30 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever actually found an error in it? It’s always my inability to find the wavelength of the constructor, which is not their fault, it is mine.
@SP Oh c'mon. Nitpicking is one of the most fun aspects of this board 😃
SP, In a Greek restaurant, dolmades. (As I noted earlier, in English, the "vine" is silent.)
I adore Dolmas. Can eat them all day long. So that was a gimme. WHALESONG dropped in easily. I had VACANT before CORNERLOT. Wanted blades before Sabers. I did like that whalesong crossed seashore. Think I’m still recovering from Turkey day as I was slower than usual.
This was a really fun Saturday puzzle.
Oh, I know full well the answer to "Who am I?" The real existential queries are "Why am I?" and "What the hell is a 'Whalesyng'?" After (yet another) grueling workday, a lovely puzzle to come home to.
Welp, TIL SABERS and SwordS have the same number of letters... The clues for TIMEMACHINE and NAP were brilliant. My brain decided 15A was RETINAscans (instead of -al scan) which caused a bit of havoc. Also I had ADe before ADS because my brain focused on the wrong kind of pitcher...
@Isabeau I also spent a long time with scans before moving to RETINAeSCAN and finally to GLYCERIN 😀
Mirroring X-Phile and others, I found this a tough and ultimately enjoyable experience. A hard, well crafted puzzle. So many clues that seemed impossibly vague at first, and then again at second! For me most of the left side was the toughest, both top and bottom. My biggest obstacle was having so confidently entered "tongue" as the uvula neighbor! I also had "seaboard" first. Ugh. Once I fixed that the puzzle wrapped up quickly. Still have no idea who "Oslin" is/was (don't tell me; don't care). I thought "whale song" pretty early but that pesky tongue was in the way. Another puzzle where, when you look back at the "straightforward" finished grid, you can't detect just how painfully hard it was getting there. :)
@B Thanks for the "hat tip".
@B It's common for you and I to be on the opposite sides of the easy/difficult debate, but it's rare that I'm on record of using a word like "straightforward" and you're using words like "tough". Fascinating how subjective the whole business is.
@B I can never understand "don't tell me; don't care." You lose out on a lot of good stuff that way. And since she's been in the puzzle 16 times, she's likely to be back. But OK, I won't link. If you have any interest, I've done so in another thread.
Enjoyable, but it seemed more straightforward than a typical Saturday. And I'm guessing that because of this, it'll be deemed somewhat easy by those with greater skills than I. I thought 15A (RETINAL SCAN) and 51A (TIME MACHINE) were clever. SPY PLANES was a nice answer for "High level...". [Voguing sequence] for POSES was kind of an eye opener. Is it bad that I've never once opened a Vogue magazine? WAILS and WHALE SONG was a nice combination, whether they crossed or not. I sure did want 32D [It's up for grabs] to be tiedGAME, but FAIR GAME works nicely, too. I can deal with a little disappointment--just don't push me too far. I'm satisfied with tonight's offering, whether or not my SABER is fully protected by my scabbard. (I don't know what that means either. I was hoping one of you could tell me.)
@Francis See you were worried about losing your crossword touch and here you are acing two in a row. Funny I would have made a joke about “eye opener” and retinal scan but I just posted it elsewhere right before reading your post
@Francis A scabbard is that long thing that hangs from a swashbuckler's belt. Think of it as a holster for a sword. Picture Chi Chi Rodriguez sliding his putter back into its imaginary scabbard after making a difficult putt.
@Francis Straightforward? What the eff 😃 I needed 2 lookups and reveals to finish.
@Francis one need never have opened, as i too never have, an issue of vogue, but rather simply had cerumen-free earholes exposed to pop radio at some point since 1990 (Take it back!) in order to have absorbed, whether willingly and head-bobbingly or passively and hypnopaedicly, madonnas ubiquitous mega-ear worm "Vogue," thereby handily sussing this fill. you were proffing on campus, no? its in your cranial sponge, francis...its in there. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI</a>
@Francis Anyone else have JUMPBALL for 32D? Just me? Oh, all right then. (creeps off into quiet solitary corner)
The Time Machine clue is a work of art, should be framed and displayed in MOMA. 👏👏👏👏👏
Loved it! A perfect Saturday…. Difficult, challenging but made it in the end…. A tough and enjoyable 50 odd minutes.
@Gareth Thank you for sharing a longer time. Others' incredibly short times have been convincing me to throw in the towel earlier - perhaps more healthily so than in my newbie ignorance, when I had allowed harder puzzles to take many hours of brute force struggle - but perhaps by a little too much now.
This took me well over 40 minutes, with two lookups and reveals of two squares.
@Matt I think newer solvers like the clock because it lets them know they are getting better. "Wow, it used to take me an hour to do a Wednesday! I just did that in 30 minutes!" It's exciting to have a way to measure the new pathways your brain is making. Then eventually you get into a groove and realize that you're getting diminishing marginal improvements and you decide to not care about the time. But it takes a bit of effort to stop caring about it and solve leisurely.
@Matt Yes, unfortunately I refer to experiences more like your Sunday workdays. I started out trying to get through all the daily NYT games before sleep, after midnight. The other NYT games do a good job of being bite-sized breezes, which makes it a struggle (for me) to just allow that one last thing to be left undone. But in adding the crossword to that habit, becoming stuck for multiple hours became an injury to well-being, with insult added if the struggle turned out to be one that could never resolve with only more time and puzzling effort. (We all suffer through enough of those in our everyday lives, yes?)
Like for real, when am I not voguing?!
a a, And you know you don't need to read "Vogue" to do so.
What a very fine puzzle this was!! I really enjoyed it! It was a little scary at first... I had so little that I was even reasonably certain of but inch by inch, though it was never a cinch, I got 'er done! Huzzah! I really liked the clue for TIMEMACHINES, but my favorite was the one for NAPS! I was so hoping beyond hope that it was correct because I didn't have any crosses for it but it just popped right into my mind and I liked it! Many, many other fine clues that made me smile to unfold. It was a lovely puzzle and I liked how it slowly revealed itself to me. It also made me realize how much better I am with all the Indian food clues that show up, I'm not as big on Greek and Turkish cuisine, so I was very proud that with only the D, I remembered DOLMA and that it was right. ☺️
The last paragraph says that 34D is SAINTS when in fact the answer is SAINTED!
Caitlin likes to be sure people read the column.
Wow that one was tough for me! On the first pass, I hardly filled in anything. At the end, I almost gave in and looked a couple up. Then SPIDEY SENSE dropped, and that broke open the SE. I loved the fresh clue for ESTEE. Made me laugh when the lightbulb went on.
Great puzzle! All the Subdivisions of squares , solved this near the Trees in my yard, I was Finding my Way until at last the professor’s name appeared. RIP Neil. Long Live Rush
@Getting Better can you shoehorn in a YYZ there somewhere? 😂
@Getting Better Rush will be touring next year, with Anika Nilles on drums.
I looked up pictures of a Goblin shark, and of the other unknown creature (which I could see immediately looked just like a NEWT), and felt good about persisting once I got toeholds, and built on them, and whoosh it was done. DOLMA was all I knew for the longest time. I felt my college degree come singing at KEYNES and WHOAMI. Flat out guessed BADOMENS from the A and M and a distant memory. As always, fun. Now I’ll read the column.
Between Friday and Saturday's puzzles, two of the best - I'll never get this, I got it, challenges in a while. Like walking through ankle deep mud but you finally get there. Thanks to all the great constructors.
Anyone else confidently slap in PUNNY for [Groan-worthy, say, as a joke]? Et Tu, emu.
@Lewis Yup! Made that section the last to drop.
@Lewis It came to me immediately, but since today is Saturday, I waited for crosses before "slapping" it in.
@Lewis Oh, yeah. Took some fearsome crosses to dislodge it, too.
DARN pot holes. My TRAVEL GUIDE didn't warn me.
This is my idea of a near-perfect Saturday solving experience. By that I mean a puzzle that when you first look at it, you say, "I don't know *any* of this. This is impossible!" And then you get one answer in, and then maybe another (that you're not all that confident in). But that gives you another.... "Oh, that can't be right....but maybe...." And all of a sudden, you've made more progress than you thought you could! But then there's that corner that will not yield. "DARN! Am I going to have to Google that country singer." "Don't give up (or give in) yet. You can do it, X!" Ah, WHALE SONG! Yes!!! And the puzzle is yours! That's what I call a fun way to start a Saturday! Thanks, Adrian Johnson!
@The X-Phile You can say that again. /emus are slow and arbitrary chewers
I intended to complain that the singular isn't DOLMA, it's DOLMAS (the plural being DOLMADES)...but it turns out that's true only for the Greek word for this dish. In Turkish, Armenian, and probably several other languages, the singular indeed is DOLMA. Live and learn.
@John in Greek nouns are declined so even in Greek the singular can be DOLMA as in “θέλω έναν ντολμά παρακαλώ”
Really hard -- with a lot of tough cluing that baffled me for a long time. Not that the East Coast was easy either, but I had everything from IBM to SPIDEY SENSE (love that clue/answer!) on the right before I had anything on the left. Oh, sure, I had wanted TRACE immediately, but there was not one single answer with which I could confirm it, so I didn't write it in. Because the grid is so segmented, filling in one half of the puzzle didn't help me with the other. Isn't RETINAL SCAN a wonderful clue/answer? I had wanted some sort of LOGIN once I had the second N and, later, the L. One tiny lookup, which wasn't really a cheat. That awful-sounding musical production at 44A wasn't a WHINE SONG, was it? Sure sounded like one. But Google never heard of it. And then it came to me in a flash: WHALE SONG!! I immediately forgave the awful-sounding noises, happy to know they weren't being made by human musicians. Never heard of an APOLOGY CARD. Sounds cynical as hell to me. Something you "play", sort of like the trump ace in Bridge, rather than something that's honest and sincere. Anyone else want FAIR BALL for "It's up for grabs"? But I couldn't confirm it, so I only wrote in FAIR. Terrific, original clues and colorful fill. A "keep the faith" puzzle for me -- and my faith was ultimately rewarded. Great Saturday.
The most urgently needed NYT feature is a big banner and / or filter to ward off the dozens of gotcha folks identifying, reidentifying, and re-reidentifying purported (and always benign) flubs made in a Wordplay column. It's so tiring. Maybe read the thread, guys?? Maybe you're not the first? Yes, sainted. Yes a safety school is not traffic related. Etcetera. Enough already.
@B As soon as I saw that little mistake in the column, I wondered how many times it would show up in the comments today! Sometimes I make a drinking game out of it... Har!
@B When there are literally hundreds of posts, many of which are hidden behind a VIEW MORE REPLIES link, I try to be patient as I scoot through the fourteenth correction of the same non-issue. (Yes, RAM storage, I'm looking at you.) Because sometimes, despite my best efforts, I'm one of those 14.
A perfect Saturday puzzle, IMO. A few gimmes to crack it open, a few "same wavelength" lucky guesses, long stretches of "I have no clue" followed by glorious aha moments...I love Saturdays! So many good misdirects today. Sixthsenses before SPIDEYSENSE, TONgue before TONSIL, ADe before ADS, SwordS before SABERS. I absolutely loved WHALE SONG and its clue. More from Adrian, please!
@Ash I couldn’t agree more. Terrific summing up.
When the apology card fails, my routine is to use more make-up and play the existential card: “Who am I? Are you sure I’m the doofus you’re looking for?” Loved this puzzle. And I learned what “housing” means from the constructor’s notes. Off to give a morning bagel a good home.
Typical tough Saturday for me and had to look up a couple of things, but then it was just a lot of pondering and working the crosses. Enjoyable workout in the end. One side note regarding 12a. I wrote software for IBM mainframes for some decades and will just note that those of us who did that often referred to the company as... One BM. One puzzle find today - a Monday from April 22, 2019 by Bruce Haight. This was all in the clues and very much in the vicinity of dad jokes. Some examples: "Tennis with dad?" POPSINGLES "Dislike for tennis?" CONTEMPTOFCOURT "Wow, no wonder you're playing such great tennis!"? WHATARACKET "Lose every set of a tennis match 6-0?" FALLINLOVE Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/22/2019&g=29&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/22/2019&g=29&d=D</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta One BM? Sounds like something performed in a bathroom.
@Rich in Atlanta Your having written software is a facet of yours that I've picked up on. What language(s) did you write in? All the way back to Assembler? Cobal? Fortran?
When I complete a puzzle that leaves me with an afterglow, the constructor notes often add to it. Adrian Johnson did not disappoint. I started out thinking I was done for, struggled to get started, but in the end I found this to be a very fair, satisfying, fun solve. Adrian’s notes were icing on the cake.
@M. Biggen true to form, i wrote this note two weeks ago but remembered in the nick of time to have a big bowl of sweetened cranberries to celebrate
Wow! What a great puzzle. Perfect Saturday challenge that made me feel chuffed when my guesses were correct, even when I was close but no cigar. I eventually got all the cigars and got only one or two helping hands from the column. Big thanks to the constructor and the whole team. With all the scary and sad and enraging news these days, crosswords like this one are such a comfort and a distraction.
Nice mix of some fun facts and clever clues and familiar phrases. I had USFLAGS before COINS which also seemed plausible and WHALESONG was also interesting trivia (who can forget “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”?) I did like the TIMEMACHINE clue, but Adrian, if you wrote it, I think your clue for NAPS was even better and my favorite of the grid (proud to say I guessed it with no crosses). I love triple stacks and these were great. For all the talk of how easy yesterday’s puzzle was I had a fast time on this one too, only a minute longer, but I don’t think either of them were particularly easy for their day of the week, I jumped around on both and just kept finding footholds and inroads. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
@SP favorite Trek movie of all time Voyage Home
@SP It seems that the very funny and very not naughty at all parts of The Voyage Home are not acceptable to the pearl clutching emus, but I tried to quote Spock trying to fit in by using profanity incorrectly... It always cracks me up!! I do like that one a lot! I'd say first contact is my favorite! My husband and I frequently yell humorously at each other that the line must be drawn here! This far, no further. Of course you don't know this but I am doing a very excellent impression of Picard's accent. It's about on!! 🤣 And if it's not, at least it's very enthusiastic!
I enjoyed this puzzle a lot, but I’d mainly like to follow up on all the “too easy for a Friday” comments from yesterday. Yesterday, my solve time came in well over my Friday average, and several minutes above the median solve time on xwstats. Today, I finished several minutes below both my own Saturday average and the (current) xwstats median. “Way too easy for a Saturday! Wednesday clueing!” Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bothered by yesterday’s “too easy” comments. I just think a lot of people seriously overestimate the usefulness of their personal solving experience as a yardstick for inferring some generalized, de-personalized notion of puzzle difficulty. Anyway, I had fun filling in today’s grid — taking another look, it’s kinda wild that I had such a smooth solve while knowing so little of the trivia (ICARLY, ELLA, TITANS, OSLIN, WES, CAKE, plus several more I was able to recognize only with help from crosses, e.g. IBM, ROCHE, ESTEE, ATOLL, BAD OMENS). IMO that’s one mark of a good puzzle: it’s full of trivia that you don’t need to know!
@Anonymous Agree more, I could not. Unless a puzzle is at and extreme on the easy/difficult scale, I not sure any one person can reliably estimate difficulty.
@Anonymous Yes, there's a reason why they use *statistics* to characterize how difficult a puzzle is, and not just what some random solver says.
Glad to see that we are back in the timeline where it’s SPIDEY SENSE, not SPIDER SENSE :) (cf 8/1/25)
Oh no, not again a Puzzle stuffed with arcana. I've never heard of a SFUF Kiribati's not ATOLL On my list for this fall No surprise that I made such a goof. My feelings weren't hurt That I'd not heard of NEIL Peart And that '88 guy didn't HOLD ME All the rest wasn't hard So no APOLOGY CARD But the look-ups? Don't you dare scold me.
After two passes I had a lot of open squares so I read Gameplay but had already figured out everything listed there. Then I came to the comments to tie up loose ends, but found nothing helpful and managed to decipher those on my own. Sort of like open-book exams in school: knowing the help is there relaxes the mind to finish the solve.
The column is wrong, it's SAINTED not SAINTS. "34D. I thought this clue — [Like John, Paul or George, but not Ringo] might be “knights” at first, but Ringo is one. The answer is SAINTS and, indeed, Ringo is not one (yet)."
@Moira See numerous other posts, passim.
I really enjoyed this one! Challenging enough, clever clues, nothing frustrating. SPY PLANES was my final answer, and a nice aha moment.
@Lisa O My last was a mistake. SPYPLANtS . I missed the part about "high level."
@Lisa O I couldn't complete this until I gave up on spy phones and finally switched to spy planes. I blame youthful memories of Maxwell Smart's shoe phone for steering me wrong.