Enjoyed the cascading "Q"s in the grid! I hope to never see the phrase "MEAT SWEATS" again in a puzzle, or anywhere else for that matter.
@DW made me even happier to be vegan.
@DW After a few crosses, I typed in MEAT SHIRTS, if that would be better for you. I have on occasion had some pulled pork on my clothing while dining at a good BBQ place. Of course, the rest of the crosses didn't work but for a minute I was feeling pretty VIBEY
I think the block saying HOLY SMOKES! UPSET ALERT: MEAT SWEATS makes a vivid image of a BBQ gone horribly wrong. Fill in your own particulars.
@Cat Lady Margaret Very good! I might venture that the top right trio sound like a party that got out of hand and ended with the judge’s gavel resounding in a hangover of remorse… SPICED ALES TECHNO BEAT PLEASE RISE
@Cat Lady Margaret And ACTIVE WEAR helps the WHITE RHINO go SUPER SONIC! But THATS A WRAP! I AM SO THERE, but RUMOR HAS IT these are all bad jokes.
@Cat Lady Margaret Don't you think one with BBQ beans, would be a real GAS?
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past eight years, it is my duty to inform you that this puzzle has an unusually low number of double letters, at four, where unusual is any number less than five. This is the fourth time this year that this has happened. I remain your humble servant, ever on the alert.
@Lewis Thank you for your service. I love stuff like this.
@Lewis Surely you meant alphadoppeltotalarianist..
Didn't St. Patrick banish snakes from New York and send them to Washington DC?
@Captain Kidnap Pretty sure there are plenty of snakes still on Wall Street.
@Francis Arrgh! To be sure!
@Captain Kidnap With a weekly weekend stopover in Florida.
40 years ago, I never would’ve guessed my Qbert addiction would pay off for me
@Wesley I never heard of QBERT but SKEEBALL didn't fit. Also I tried HOTTODDIES which fit, but SPICEDALES sounds more delicious.
"Okay, we've just finished filming our movie on giving gifts. That's a wrap!" (Now they'll take a bow.)
@Mike What presents of mind! I can almost see them swaggering off to some out of-the-box cinematic scenario.
@Mike you’re having a wrap party? I’m sari I can’t come, because I’m shawl only
@Mike Did you get it on tape? I'm a stickler for proper gift-wrapping, even though it meas I take a ribbon for my obsession.
Any puzzle that includes lots of Qs is automatically a winner in my eyes. I’ve mentioned my affinity for the letter before. I have 2 of them in my name. I have a file of puzzle ideas, and Ode to the letter Q was on it. I guess that’s out the window 🤣 I initially had Athleisure for ACTIVEWEAR and VIBEd before VIBEY, but otherwise this was a very smooth fill. I completed this puzzle while sitting on the plane that was taking me from LAX to PHX to see my son for his birthday. Well, I finished it well before the plane left due to the 3.5 hour delay. The incoming plane was 45 minutes late to LAX. Then there was a leak on one side of the plane that maintenance had to fix and test. Then our captain timed out for the day, so we had to wait for another pilot. Then someone vomited on the plane and maintenance had to return to replace seat cushions and seatbelts. About 15 people decided to cancel their flight at that point and got off. Then they had to confirm each person who was still on the plane. Twice. You can’t make this stuff up!!! I could have driven here faster than it took from the time I left my house for the airport to the time my plane finally departed and landed 😡🤬 At least I get to see him this weekend, just bummed that I missed his birthday dinner 😢
@Jacqui J What an awful travel experience!
@Jacqui J I will no longer complain about any delayed flight that doesn’t contain at least two of those elements. Sorry for your frustration. Glad you made it there, eventually.
@Jacqui J That’s so lousy for you. I’m sorry to hear it. I hope your return flight is a heck of a lot better.
@Jacqui J I had VIBEd, too, and I kept saying to myself, "How is a QUAd "a spot to dock"? After I got the "something's amiss" message, the Y was the last letter to fall.
@Jacqui J Omg. I can’t even. What a disaster. That would have broke me. I literally would have gone feral. Honestly even driving to LAX might have done it, for me.
@Jacqui J or, you could have booked a roomette on the Sunset Limited, left at 10 pm and woken up in Maricopa at 6:30 am ready to do the crossword!
@Jacqui J, OMG. Sounds like a horror movie. I’m glad that you got there to celebrate your son’s birthday with him, I’m sure he appreciates it, too. Do let the airline know your experience. I got some credit back from Southwest a few years back when a cross-country flight wound up taking almost 24 hours instead of six.
@Jacqui J. Same here for athleisure which I was really proud of having come up with (and it fit initially of course).
@Jacqui J Credit where credit is due, please what airline visited this waking nightmare upon you.
The fact that some of the streets in the oldest part of Chicago are named for US presidents is a reminder of how young a city Chicago is. The USA was on its 7th president by the time Chicago was founded.
@Michael Weiland Plus, if I'm not mistaken, it didn't really achieve megalopolis status until after the Civil War.
I was moderately wowed until I saw those four Qs pop up! Magic moment. An excellent puzzle for that alone.
im new here. and perhaps its already been done. but id like to lift my glass and propose a toast to sam ezersky and his mini co-elves. who are frequently responsible for the often delightful petits fours they provide in the minis while im still digesting the maxis. i suspect that he and the other mini constructors do not get enough credit for their efforts. just today, for example, mr ezersky crammed "elision" into the tiny morsel. no small feat on such a small beat. bravo.
@Matt Well, I don't do the mini because it's either super easy or super hard, and I like neither of those options 🤣 Still, you do have a point so I'll join your toast 🥂
@Matt I agree, the mini can be super fun. Or dull, but I do it every day. Yesterday I actually learned something from the mini! That's unusual. So the MILE being the answer for unit equivalent to 1000 paces got me thinking. How can that be? A pace is a bit less than 3 feet. Was a mile ever less than 3000 feet?? Or... was a pace ever two steps?? Gasp! It's true, the Romans considered a pace to be when, say, the right foot hits the ground, so two steps.
@Matt Apologies for being "that person" for a minute. In case you're unaware, Joel Fagliano is the person in charge of editing the minis, though you're certainly free to shout out Sam for his creations in particular. Just curious. You say you're new here. How long have you been solving the NYT puzzles?
@Matt Here's the link to Sam's xwordinfo.com page. He's constructed quite a few crosswords. Quite a few are Saturdays. I freely admit to usually finding his Saturday puzzle very difficult and need help solving them. We are generally not on the same wavelength. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Author/Sam_Ezersky" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Author/Sam_Ezersky</a>
This one was out of my age grade. I finished it, but was at sea a lot of the time. The Q's helped me hobble through much of it, but I had to consult Dr. G for Charli XCX and a couple of others. Let us bury MEATSWEATS forever, please. I grew up eating BBQ, and never, in all my 91 years, did I ever, ever hear of that, far less ever have one. Maybe the most vulgar, disgusting term I've ever seen in a crossword. Ugh. Apart from those few quibbles, you gave us a good quizzing, Marshal, and thank you. Come back again soon (but leave the you-know-what back wherever you found it).
@dutchiris the MEAT SWEATS are definitely a thing. People that go on the Keto diet are prone to them.
I was TSO confused. I really thought the clue must be wrong but I knew it wouldn’t be and couldn’t be so… something else is obviously going on here. My train of thought: “Zuo” means many things in Chinese - most basically some easy words like “do” and “sit” (Nǐ zuò shénme?: what are you doing?; Qǐng zuò: please sit down). But hang on: Surely the NYT does not expect us to speak rudimentary Chinese as well as a smattering of French, Spanish, Latin, German and, er… British English? (And perhaps a little Russian - although there have been mixed signals on that front in recent days, with SOVIET a correct translation of “council” but the letters on Drago’s outfit are surely SSSR and not CCCP, unless we are writing in Cyrillic?) New York is a melting pot but not all its denizens are superpolyglots! Then I wondered if I had misunderstood “transliterates”. My insomniac brain ached. So I did what any solver does and I left it to stew. And in the end I was saved by the down clues. Aha!! Now I get it! Very good crossword!
@Petrol Yeah, the clue doesn’t strictly make sense. You can’t transliterate something that’s already a transliteration into the same target writing system. I guess the thinking was that something like “Alternative transliteration of the Chinese surname ‘Zuo’” isn’t Saturday-level, maybe? Obviously, they couldn’t actually go with “Chinese surname transliterating 左,” which would actually make sense. (I know we’ve had clues where ‘H’ is supposed to be interpreted as a Greek eta, as well as the aforementioned Cyrillic-as-Latin thingy, but a clue requiring hanzi knowledge would be fair only to a small subset of NYT crossword solvers.) But then it’s still fairly obvious what the clue is meaning to ask, so it’s not clever misdirection; rather it just gives slight pause at the awkward wording. Presenting Pinyin in a clue to solve to the Wade-Giles representation that’s more familiar to the average American takeout-orderer is already reasonably difficult unless you happened to have studied Sinology at university, so I don’t think they needed to reword the clue in the way I think they might have, if that was the case. Oh, well, I guess I can console myself by actually having some 左宗棠雞. Uh… it looks like four out the nine total Panda Express locations in this country are within a train ride away for me, so yay!
@Petrol I’ve always thought that General Tso’s Chicken was a reference to General Cáo Cāo, as in Shuō Cáo Cāo, Cáo Cāo dào, like speak of the devil.
@Petrol My conclusion: The constructor/editor was looking for a clever way to "Saturday-ize" common crossword fill (as they did for ELO; and tried to do on ENS, DOE, STS, BCC), and failed. But they failed in a way that only slowed most solvers down for a few seconds, so "no big deal".
Is somebody VIBEY eelier or less eely than somebody non-VIBEY? Methinks crosswordese has struck again? Or is this something living people actually say? I had to look up the Nestle product but other than that I enjoyed the solve. Having NOTnow rather than NOT YET slowed me down but once I realized my mistake I finished quickly. This probably means @B will decry this as a Wednesday, at best 😃 Noticing the string of Q's actually helped me solve. A gimmick, but a welcome one, ultimately.
@Andrzej I’ve never heard any living person say VIBEY. (I can’t speak for the dead ones.) I have heard people say something “vibes”, so that’s what I had— at least, until I realized you can’t dock at a QUAs. Crosswordese for sure.
@Andrzej If you looked on grocery store shelves, I don’t think you’d find Quik anymore. We started buying it for when our nephews were in town, and I believe now it’s called Nesquik—unless someone corrects me. I just know that when a pantry-replenishing trip to Target was due, I’d grab the yellow tub off the shelf. It was my husband who said, “Oh look, it’s different now from when we were kids.”
@Andrzej in my experience, “vibey” is quite common among millennials here. A place can be vibey. A movie that’s primarily about atmosphere (as opposed to plot) might be vibey. It’s a neologism but it isn’t crosswordese.
@Andrzej My guess is that the Commentariat is too old to know whether VIBEY is a real thing. We need to get some young blood in here. You know the kind who actually listen to CHARLI XCX, rather than simply memorizing her name because it comes up in crosswords sometimes.
Thank you all 😃 @The X-Phile I'm 45 and I have Charli XCX's song on my personal Spotify playlist. She's 32 or 33 herself, so older than many of our fellow posters.
@Andrzej I’ve said it before. I was born in the 80s and live in New York City
@Andrzej You rang? I thought it was about a 7 or 8 out of 10 in difficulty. Someone posted above that XWStsts or XWInfo (I constantly confuse the two) had it listed as Very Easy, which seems way off to me. Vibey seems ridiculous to me too, and I know a fair number of younger people, but whatevs. You Can't Drink It Slow If It's Quik (TM) (Nescafe makes some sense but Quik is much better branding than Nesquik. But what do I know, I liked Carnation chocolate powder.)
The images that come to mind with MEAT SWEATS are far worse than the actual affliction, I’m sure. Make it stop. PLEASE RISE is not a court order, it’s a court request. “All rise” is a court order. I like Qs because Qs are twofers. Where there’s a Q, there’s a U! (Except when there’s a Q-BERT or a Q-TIP. D’oh!) QUIK brings back bad childhood memories of chalky, overly sweet strawberry milk. I never understood why I couldn’t have Hershey’s syrup like a normal kid. DOES cued as “it may go for a buck” was cute.
@Heidi To me, Nesquik is the chocolate variety; I had forgotten about the strawberry one. Perhaps worth a try, if only to disrupt the bad memory!
@Heidi Heh, my friends loved our house because my mother always bought Hershey’s. And I remember liking Quik better, which I thought all the normal families kept in the house. But nooo, something on those labels made my mom think that Hershey’s was “better for us.”
@Heidi I also remember Carnation instant breakfast, which was vaguely chocolate flavored. Yuck! Tang, Kool Aid, Fizzies, Quik, Ovaltine, what a bevy of bad beverages I imbibed as a child. It’s a miracle I survived.
@Heidi I couldn't have Hershey's syrup either. In my house it was strictly Fox's U-Bet, the New York equivalent that was the only brand that could be used to make a New York egg cream, a fountain drink with no egg and no cream, just chocolate syrup, a little milk, and seltzer flipping off the back of a tall spoon. Yum. U-Bet is still made, and I can even get it here in Vegas. But not the seltzer. That had to be delivered a case at a time in gorgeous glass bottles that were made in Czechoslovakia, the only way to get the proper carbonation when trying to make it at home. As for milk, my mother bought Carnation milk powder, too. But because we were all chubby kids, she bought the skim milk version. It was so disgusting that it actually looked blue in the bowl of cereal, having nothing to do with the color of the bowl. Fortunately, that didn't last too long until we rebelled enough and got real cows milk.
@Heidi I'd imagine that if they say PLEASE RISE, you still have to get up.
@Heidi I was today years old when I realized I was lucky to have both. Quik for a glass of chocolate milk & Hershey’s syrup for a bowl of vanilla ice cream
@Heidi Nah, it's still an order. The "please" is a... pleasantry. The clue was good. And Strawberry Quik was what your parents came back with if they weren't paying attention. So bad.
Much like yesterday, I started very slowly, having nothing until I got to 45A - I’m a Penn Law grad, so QUAKERS was a gimme. Fortunately the downs were much friendlier, and the puzzle opened up nicely. I did have that’s a trap before THATSAWRAP. I liked the diagonal string of 4 Qs in the SE. MEATSWEATS are something I’m trying to erase from my memory.
@Marshall Walthew Carnivore here, so I need to know: Can you get meat sweats from poultry or is it strictly a beef thing? (Visions of post-Thanksgiving turkey-filled USians dripping meat-sweat! Glark!)
I suppose I can see that somebody might find this puzzle easy, but it sure wasn't for me. In fact, there was no way I was going to get the WATERVOLE/VIBEY cross without some shenanigans. I was pretty sure it was WATERVOLE or WATERmOLE, so I put an "M" in and ran the alphabet on _IBEY. When that didn't work, I tried the same with VOLE, and voila! Still it feels like a cheap win. Trying to decide what the Whine List will be for today (wow, yesterday DERMA and GENESET really lite a fire under some MD booties). I'm afraid that somehow the all-knowing AMA has noted this, and the next time I see my doctor she's going to say "I see you failed to show proper deference to medical professionals, your superiors." CHARLIXCX killed me the last time, but not this time, but maybe it'll be a whine. Or maybe there'll be chapter and verse that the Polynesians haven't considered TARO sacred for decades. Or "how are you supposed to get HOLYSMOKES from ["That's crazy"] Or, I've eaten tons of BBQ, and never once got MEATSWEATS. I thought it was a good puzzle, with portions way out of my experience (I am not a gamer at all, so QBERT might as well be IXEXH. Liked the Q quartet. That was cute.
@Francis QBERT is from before the time of "gamers". We were just kids who hung out in the arcades.
This was awesome, the QBERT stair on the lower right is a pro touch. Also, I greatly appreciate 26D abbreviating “yrs.” as guide for OED, I feel like the abbreviation cue is not always so well remembered and smoothly inserted. This felt like someone really, really knew what they were doing.
[Short-lived derivatively-named musical trio consisting of actresses Dickey and Evans along with NASCAR driver Earnhardt] SPICE DALES
@ad absurdum The finale featuring the Budweiser ClydesDALE team is sure to be SPICE-y.
Found this to be difficult overall. The NW corner was brutal for me. Kept thinking of sherbets but no sorbets, for some odd reason. The pop culture references pretty much everywhere were things I didn’t know. But in the spirit of a good loser, I’ll say it was a well-constructed and appropriate Saturday.
@JM same here. I was sailing through it and then got bogged down in the NW for quite a while.
@JM SORBETS was my only gimme up there in the NW. I did the /entire puzzle/ before being forced back to 1-4D. Last to fall, after 15-18 mins of toggling back and forth among all the variations, was...1A TIRE.
This took me back to the meatwave of ‘03! <a href="https://theonion.com/dozens-dead-in-chicago-area-meatwave-1819566849" target="_blank">https://theonion.com/dozens-dead-in-chicago-area-meatwave-1819566849</a>/
I’m too old, as are my kids, for Frozen. The SW stumped me for a long time… racked my brain trying to remember details from Darlene Love’s version of Winter Wonderland- was somehow it a Father Brun who asked something about building a snowman? NOPE of course… finally fell together, and then after finishing looked up the lyrics… very sweet, from the 1930s… “In the meadow we can build a snowman, Then pretend that he is Parson Brown He'll say: Are you married? We'll say: No man, But you can do the job When you're in town.” Happy holidays!
@sonnel I first thought Ella Fitzgerald might have had a winter song with those lyrics. Luckily, UPlET ALERT looked very wrong.
@sonnel I'm too old for Frozen, too. And I loved the Darlene Love version of Winter Wonderland (which is destined to be my ear worm when I finally get to sleep). But when I was a kid that Parson Brown was a mondegreen for me. I couldn't understand what it meant for someone to be "parse and brown." It took a few years, until I learned what a Parson was.
@sonnel Led me to an incredible puzzle find. A Wednesday from March 6, 2019 by Mary Lou Guizzo and Erik Agard. Three long across answers from top to bottom: MARCHOFPROGRESS WINTERWONDERLAND SPRINGHASSPRUNG And then four 4 letter answers, each across the very middle of the puzzle and spread equally above each other across the puzzle from top to bottom. LION LIMN LIMB LAMB Think about it. Thought that was enormously clever. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/6/2019&g=41&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/6/2019&g=41&d=A</a> ....
In his first two Times puzzles (today is his third) both Tuesdays, Marshal established himself as a masterful grid manipulator – stunt puzzles where the stunt made my jaw drop, made me want to do a standing-O rather than dismiss the puzzle as simply the constructor showing off. Many Saturday puzzlers skip Tuesday puzzles; if you are one of them, I strongly suggest you put these on your to-do list: 1/16/24 and 9/9/25. Some of that manipulation skill carried over into today’s Q-string, which was delivered so cleanly, even including the gorgeous word QUIVER, that I thought it boosted the puzzle’s quality, gave it a sparky ping. That's on top of those four terrific stacks. Marshal’s notes indicate that he kept filling, erasing, and redoing them until they passed his bar. This doesn’t surprise me; according to his notes, he tooled around on his last Times puzzle for more than a year before he was satisfied with it. The talent he’s shown in his trio of puzzles – what a start! – has me thirsting for more. Please, Marshal? And thank you for a terrific outing today!
Easiest Saturday ever, at least for me. Was my fastest solve of the week, yes faster than Monday.
@Scott Well certainly not THAT easy for me, personally—but I have to say, I’ve now worked my way through archived puzzles to 2016 and I have to agree they are getting directionally easier.
@SP They’re getting easier for me as well! But I’m not sure if it’s because they’re in some way objectively easier, or if it’s because the constructors are in my generation now so I immediately know more of the trivia. I love seeing puzzles that I’ve already completed show up in the “from the archives” highlight in the app
@Scott As BR states, xwstats.com rates this puzzle as Very Easy, but I didn't have that experience. I was 3.6% slower than my average Sat. time, and I had no extenuating circumstances--no interruptions, nothing in the background, like a ballgame--to slow me down. The other day, I had the opposite experience. That's what happens with a sample size of one.
Whew. Tough one for me with more than a couple of completely unfamiliar answers - e.g. TECHNOBEAT, TILESAWS, MEATSWEATS, CHARLIXCX and some others that were never going to dawn on me just from the clues. No big deal - that's just me. Somewhat appropriate (for me) puzzle find: A Wednesday from January 25, 2017 by Tracy Gray. Five theme answers in that one and the clue for each of them starting with: "@#$!" from... and then- Deputy Dawg Colonel Sherman Potter Mork SpongeBob SquarePants Frank on "Everybody Loves Raymond." Those answers: DAGNABIT HORSEHOCKEY SHAZBOT OHBARNACLES JEEZALOO Can't imagine having much of a chance at that one either. Here's the link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/25/2017&g=29&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/25/2017&g=29&d=D</a> ...
@Rich in Atlanta And my other puzzle find. Thought this was quite clever. A Wednesday from March 6, 2019 by Mary Lou Guizzo and Erik Agard. Three long across answers from top to bottom: MARCHOFPROGRESS WINTERWONDERLAND SPRINGHASSPRUNG But then... four 4-letter answers, straightforwardly clued and equally spread out from top to bottom across the very middle of the puzzle. Those were: LION LIMN LIMB LAMB Think about it. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/6/2019&g=41&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/6/2019&g=41&d=A</a> ...
I just thought Ratty was a rat.
@R.J. Smith ASDIDI but I looked up voles and 1. they are rodents 2. there are water voles So I guess the clue is ok, but as a long time lover of "The Wind in the Willows" I didn't like it.
Wow! What a fun puzzle! I am fairly new to the NYT crossword, and the Friday puzzles often make me want to tear my hair out. This Saturday puzzle was good brain exercise, but still fun. I loved the Q section!
A real Q-T this one. Nicely done and thanks.
Lured into the "refectory" by the odor of spiced ales and General Abram's chicken, I realized that what I at first took to be tile saws, were, in fact meat cleavers--and that I was destined to become the prime ingredient in Mr. Herrmann's next pot of stew. My *statement* as the maws *closed* around me: THAT'S A TRAP!! (Adds a whole new meaning to "meat sweats.") *** A little kiss-n-tell: My Partner had a youth deprived of the Classics of children's literature. When I first was getting to know him, he invited me up to his place "Up North," on a small (90 acre) inland lake. It was a sunny, summer afternoon. First we went around the lake on the pontoon boat, then we paddled a bit in the tandem kayak, then we took out the paddle boat. "I just love being out on the water, messing about in boats," he said. "Oh my G.d, you *are* the Water Rat!" I said, "you even look like him!" (He has sandy brown hair.) "I'm no rat!" he exclaimed. "No, you don't understand, it's from *the Wind in the Willows*, and the Water Rat is a very good character--one of the heroes, in fact. Of course, that would make me the Mole, and I'm not sure I like that." Well, as a pet name, it never stuck, but I will have to inform him that, technically, he is the Water Vole!
@Bill I adore both halves of your comment! ☺️
After my first across pass, I settled in for a long Saturday slog, but a couple of long down clues really unlocked the majority of the puzzle for me, leading to a new Saturday personal best time! Great, fun puzzle, thanks, Marshal!
Feeling pretty good after navigating this one. On the first pass I wasn't at all certain I'd be able to solve it without some help from Google. Believe it or not, the diagonal of Qs in the SE were what gave me a foothold and got me started. Enjoyed it!
@Kenny The Qs were the gift that made this puzzle much easier for me.
The crucivibing was in full force for this gal today. Sometimes a puzzle just feels like a deja-vu with only a letter needed to crack open long entries and make it feel like a speed solve. Only downside was that it was over too quick. Woulda loved to sit with this one for a while. Oddly, when I solve my *own* puzzles (not uncommon to find a printed version in a stack of papers), I am always surprised by the solve being oddly similar to solving a new puzzle, created by… anyone but me! I do love misdirection. Apparently, I misdirect myself. Huh. Story of my life…
@CCNY How interesting that your own puzzles can seem new some years later. I never would have guessed that. It must be the case that you done dozens (hundreds?) of puzzles. I am in awe.
Welp...pretty sure I am finishing with a wrong letter (two Unknowables crossing equal a Natick!) 49A (slang) and 45D (arcade game) are so far out of my wheelhouse that they derailed the train. Oh, well. I feel pretty good about getting almost all of this Very Challenging Puzzle! Sherman tank? DHubs suggested a Patton, which I sincerely doubted entirely. Had to wait until the SPICE DALES gave me a leg up. (Doh) LIEF or LEIF? Except for that last one at 45D, really enjoyed the Q-fest! Wanted MEAT COMA or some such; had never heard SWEATS! I mean, how can there be too much BBQ under any known circumstances? So much BBQ that you break out in a SWEAT? Wouldn't the sauce be to blame? I await the verdict of the Commentariat!
MOL, Dhubs was correct, but his offering didn't cross. Patton tanks were the post-WWII main battle tank for the U.S., and saw combat in Korea and Vietnam. The ABRAMS was introduced in 1980.
@Mean Old Lady Indeed, all American tanks are named after generals, going back to the Stuart and the (ahem) Grant. Creighton ABRAMS is probably not as well-known as Patton, unless you served in Vietnam. (H/T Barry.) Chaffee was too long for the squares.
On the easier side for a Saturday. Finished this one faster than my average for Tuesdays. The diagonal run of Q words in the SE corner was interesting. I was expecting it to become part of a larger theme though.
Loved the Q-uartet of Qs! Had IllbeTHERE before IMSOTHERE, but I was impressed with myself for getting 1D and 30D correct with only a few letters. 52A I really wanted to be HOLYguacamole, even though that's too long. I also had a brain glitch when I had HOLY_MO_ES and my brain couldn't get away from "holy Moses" even though that's too short. (I got it eventually though.) Nice smooth fill for me -- definitely my wavelength.
Quite a workout for me. Exactly what I hope for from a Saturday puzzle. The fairly recent appearance of CHARLIXCX certainly helped, or this one might have defeated me. No idea what MEATSWEATS might be. Perhaps some form of ACTIVEWEAR? WILDEBEEST before WHITERHINO didn't help. Nor did it make much sense, as I assume there are still plenty of the former in Africa. Also not familiar with a WATERVOLE, but the crosses helped there. The QQQQ run was cute, and the fill was very nice. Took me about 40 minutes, but solved this without assistance. Very nice Saturday puzzle!
@Xword Junkie There's a Thanksgiving episode of "Friends" where Joey eats so much turkey that he gets the MEAT SWEATS. He also wears Rachel's stretchy pregnancy pants for the occasion. Eatleisurewear?
I appreciate that the constructor studiously avoided the stale Chinese menu clue for General TSO. I will spare you all my usual rant about old and new Romanization systems colliding in the style guide. Instead, I will inform you that Zuo Zongtong was a real general of the Qing Dynasty, who was instrumental in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion. Later on, he was a highly successful administrator, introducing reforms in agriculture, the textile industry, and education. It is not known whether he was a chef. The delicious chicken dish was created in the '50s by a chef from Hunan named Peng Changkuei who fled to Taiwan with the Nationalists, and later immigrated to NYC, where he opened a restaurant. (Kissenger ate there frewuently.) Master Peng went back to his hometown in the '90s, and finally introduced General Tso's chicken to the Chinese people.
Very enjoyable Saturday, I did get a kick out of the Q corner, enough even to forgive VIBEY and WATERVOLE (OK nothing really wrong with those, just both made me say “what the heck”?—and VIBED and MOLE seemed equally likely.) Those corner stacks were all very smooth and interesting, even if I did have TECHNODRUM before BEAT and SUPERSOLID before SONIC (I have a fast friend, he and I are SUPERSOLID together!) OK, maybe not. I love MEATSWEATS and UPSETALERT although ironically if you have an ALERT is it really an upset? (Technically yes I suppose because a lower ranked team beating a higher ranked one is an UPSET even if you could predict it for some reason). Last thoughts—no I still didn’t remember all the letters in CHARLIXCX, maybe next time—and don’t forget poor Marshal submitted this way before the last CHARIXCX call out, so is just as annoyed that it just debuted recently as you may be of having to remember her again (if you are). Finally: nit ALERT—shouldn’t “sugar” be capitalized if it’s a PET NAME? I’m on the fence— discuss.
@SP -- Wondered the same thing about the lower-case "sugar", but then thought about "hon", which, since it isn't the person's actual name, could be confusing if it were capitalized. So put me in the leave "sugar" as "sugar" in this clue camp.
@SP Anyone else notice that CHARLIXCX starts with the same letter, and has the same number of letters, as CARPENTER?
I loved the Qs and got done in a reasonable time However, I got no happy music. Finally had to look it up and found that I had WATERMOLE instead of WATERVOLE. Which is why MIBEY seemed so odd.
Shoutout for the Xs and Qs! Great stack answers horizontally and vertically. I was able to navigate around my initial entries of CLICKTRACK at 16A and ATHLEISURE and WILDEBEEST at 29D and 30D (no idea if the wildebeest is endangered). Very enjoyable!
I did the puzzle this morning. And flew through it. Minus the NW. IllbeTHERE messed me up for a while. But still very quick for a Saturday. Was definitely expecting a lot of “nice Wednesday” comments. Pleased as punch to see no sentiment like that. At least in the top part of readers picks. Friday puzzle destroyed me. Again. It was the NW. finished in like 2x my average. I have really enjoyed the long entries these past two days.
I decided to take a gamble and put “athleisure” for 29D — it fit, but of course it wasn’t right. Ah well, sometimes the big guesses work. Loved the diagonal line of Qs — had to mentally dig for a few seconds for Q*bert and moved up the line from there. It was delightful. Got stuck in the NW, but after a clue from Wordplay, I was back on my way. An enjoyable Saturday solve - thank you!
I need to stop doing the puzzle before my morning coffee. I stared and stared at the finished grid and wondered how on earth I’d never tried SPICE DALES? Good grief. Also, quick, someone please tell me that MEAT SWEATS are just an odd item of ACTIVE WEAR—otherwise, ugh, too gross to contemplate. Maybe it’s the non-vegetarian VIBE, the early Saturday morning VIBE for me, or having to spell CHARLIXCX again (always too soon), but this wasn’t my grid. I liked yesterday’s fill; today’s—just somehow less so. Have a good weekend, everyone.
@Sam Lyons I think Lady Gaga has a pair of MEAT SWEATS that she wears when not wearing her meat dress.
@Sam Lyons Yes, spice dales are the river valleys where they farm nutmeg.
Started out like a house on fire in the SE, but then it was slow going for a while. I thought Booty would be SWAG. Thought of HOT TODDIES, but never heard of SPICED ALES. Also never heard of UPSET ALERT, WATER VOLE, MEAT SWEATS, Bandolier, which made AMMO BELT hard to get. So many more! But in the end everything worked out and I was able to complete the puzzle with no lookups. I did enjoy a lot of the longer entries. The puzzle definitely earned its stripes for a Saturday.
I’m not saying TILESAWS isn’t a sparkling bit of puzzle fill with a witty clue to match. All I want to know is, why green paint gets such a bad wrap? Enjoyed the puzzle, though it didn’t floor me.
@JohnWM Well, you don't have to grout about it! :)
@JohnWM My first attempt at painting my kitchen ended up looking like minty toothpaste. Second attempt (Nile Green) came out much better. Backstory: I was trying to match a landscape painting my grandfather did of the Maine woods. And I used my dad's TILESAW to install the floor. Perfectly clued, IMHO.
JohnWM, Were you going for something I missed with "bad wrap," or is your spell check not familiar with "bad rap" (a.k.a. "bum rap")? And while I didn't need one when I did my kitchen, I'm with Grant not being floored by TILESAWS.
I absolutely loved this puzzle, especially the diagonal stack of Qs. The NW corner was the last to fall for me. Props to my husband for coming up with WHALE, which finally broke things open. Bravo, and thanks for the fun solve!
No number of Wicked clues will ever make me want to watch that movie. But if I had seen it I'd probably have finished that NW corner much faster.
Unless I missed something, 38A is the only reference to "Wicked" in the NW, which I entered instantly without ever having seen the movie. I do read the paper and talk to younger people, which is how I know most newer popular culture "information."
Quite a quirky quality in one quadrant
My very first Saturday solve! Thanks for a great puzzle Marshal! (Also I think about your vowel puzzle at least once a week. Absolutely brilliant)
for me, more a leisurely postprandial than the usual adrenaline-fueled, fretful, pricked-up-eared, wary-of-lurking-predators saturday savanna graze. i think the quaintly corruscating column of qs helped.