I found this to be one of the easiest Saturday puzzles in recent memory. I finished it 44.2% faster than my Saturday average. My biggest difficulty was figuring out where to put the H in WELL LA DI DAH. And having gotten that, wondering, like Caitlin did, if it was wrong because Io and luna could have been moons, not MOTHs. (Of course, Luna would have needed a capital L, so that's why I gave it more thought.) One little nit, though, for GENEVE: I'm sure that to signal French, they should have said "de La Suisse." Or just "suisse." (Adjective.) I see the "Cat People" (43A) are back today, too. 3D reminds me of that old riddle: What's the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts? Beer nuts are $4.99; deer nuts are under a buck. I'll see myself out.
@Steve L Also found the Geneve one odd, because it’s not Lake Geneve in French, it’s Lac Léman. Very easy as you say though, 53% faster than my average - 6:37. Would have been sub 6 if I hadn’t had to unpick putting in “en banc” on 7A - apparently on crosswordese autopilot.
@Steve L I can't wait until my husband wakes up so I can tell him your joke. Thanks for the material!
I found it a very decent Saturday. Thanks to the providers. Thanks @Barry Ancona for stomping on any δέρμα discussion early. For those who claim it was easy … the puzzle contained a US dog society acronym, the name of a ‘sandwich’ that doesn’t exist outside the US, the crossing said sandwich with two proper names, a Greek medical term, the name of a video game !!, a clue for ORCA that required knowledge of recent events in the straits of Gibraltar, knowledge of tennis history, baseball trivia, …. And a misdirection on solar system objects. And that’s not even talking about KREWES It wasn’t easy. Some people are just knowledgeable about all kinds of things 😀
@Ιασων You and me both!
@Ιασων It was basically impossible to solve for me 🤷🏽
@Ιασων et. al. It's an American newspaper published in America for a largely American readership. Censorship these days is generally understood as coming from a government. The NYT has no obligation to publish any individual's views nor to give any individual a platform on which to expess those views.
@Ιασων I have nothing but respect for non-Americans who try to solve the Times puzzle. I've tried to solve British cryptics, and they drive me up the wall! (And puzzles in German (my best foreign language)??? Fuhgedaboutit! Unmöglich!) That being said, I would never write to those puzzle makers and complain about how hard those puzzles were for non-natives. I will leave the conclusion to this enthymeme unspoken.
@Ιασων Hey, I resent that! It’s a sandwich that doesn’t exist outside the US *and Canada*!
2-DOWN: There is not actually a lake in 'Suisse' called 'Genève'. What we call Lake Geneva is called Lac Léman in French.
@joel88s Good to know. Love nits that teach you stuff . And I was in Switzerland for my honeymoon and didn’t know that.
@joel88s. Thought of that as well but when ROMA was correct I leaned into the "local" spelling of the places. But we would have needed a third themed clue, right? After having my hat handed to me by late week puzzles lately, I loved this one. A breezy challenge-yes too easy perhaps for a Saturday, or right in my wheelhouse
@Martina O'Boyle I, too, tried ROMA first because I am familiar with the spelling KEENAN, but actually it was ROME and KEENEN that finally completed the grid for my last unknown letter.
@joel88s But there’s one elsewhere. “…located in Waterford Township, Michigan. It lies west of Highland Rd. and north of Elizabeth Lake Rd.”
This was not the Saturday storm some of us were seeking after the very calm Friday. I'm sorry, but this one is barely a Friday challenge from even just two or three years ago. To me, it's a pleasant themeless Wednesday. This is supposed to be The New York Times Crossword; we might as well be IN ROME.
@Barry Ancona Alas, I agree. Zero lookups. Lots of patience. Try us, Will!
Loved this one today—and I found it at least average Saturday challenge at my current experience level. Even if you found it easy I hope you appreciated some of the fresh clues and entries. I adored STILLMOOING and even once I got the misdirect I had STILLMOVING forever and couldn’t figure out what SVLAR was (or maybe thought I had DINAR wrong). Also loved SADTROMBONE, ERRANDBOY, NERDFESTS, FEELTHEBURN… had to jump around a lot. Also liked ONTILT, learning about BEETS and MOTHs and finally a fresh clue for EVEL (I kept wondering is hog riding a sport I should know about?). A few other notes: Yeah we’ve hashed and rehashed DERMA just recently. I get it, it’s archaic and the editors should have known better this time around but can we just let it go this time? Poor Toronto, way to rub it in Poor Orcas, way to rub it in, never any love for creatures just trying to get a meal the way God made them. SKINCARE, speaking of way to rub it in…
@SP DINAR turned out to be the right dinero.
@SP I was unfamiliar with the lo moth and found it interesting to learn that the caterpillar is venomous. <a href="https://carnegiemnh.org/poisons-carnegie-io-moth" target="_blank">https://carnegiemnh.org/poisons-carnegie-io-moth</a>/
Some of our correspondents will feel like 50A is like pouring salt into a fresh wound. Even though this isn't the LA Times. It was, though, probably the best World Series of this century, so far.
@Steve L It was absolute torture in the best way!
@Steve L Well, yeah, if you're only thinking of drama and desperate situations and heroic efforts and tragic failures. But if you're talking about who I wanted to win, it was either the first or second worst, along with 1986.
@Steve L, Agree. An engrossing series with each game its own gripping narrative, involving many of the other players on both teams, and while Ohtani was excellent offensively he was not more impactful (besides Game 3 perhaps) than Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman, and so the series didn't revolve around him as many anticipated, and certainly not on the mound, where he was yanked early in his first outing and was mediocre in his second. Yamamoto was the one to watch and the one who got MVP. I loved watching him pitch. And felt bad for Toronto, which fielded a team with a lot of grit and personality, run by a brilliant manager.
@Steve L '01 gives it a run for its money...
@Steve L with all of the possibilities, it seemed like a very negative way to clue Toronto. I thought it was a poor choice. YMMV.
I appreciated FEELTHEBURN crossing SUNTAN. Cute detail, especially in a crossword featuring SKINCARE.
@Steph ...and FIRE, COALS, and BEETS (as in embarrassed). Rather well done, no?
Oh, a gorgeously filled 64-worder, a joy to uncover Look at those 11s: FEEL THE BURN, SAD TROMBONE, STILL MOOING, and WELL LA DI DAH. Each colorful, and each appearing in the Times puzzle for the first time. And hardly a whiff of junk anywhere. It takes talent and sweat to fiil a grid like this. Enough riddles and return-to areas to satisfy my brain’s work ethic, some “Whee!” splats, some deep burrows for words I know I’ve known but are hiding, and some feelgood pat-on-the-back moments where a clue that could’ve fooled me didn’t. And [Dogsbody]. Now there’s a word that can mean anything, simply anything, if you don't know it, and I didn't. That answer mightily fought me, and oh what a sweet feeling to finally win that battle. I loved the [Bills first introduced in 1861] misdirect, learned CHINSTRAP beard, and the Van Gogh clue prompted a momentary blissful mental revisit of his “The Starry Night”. Simply a rich and splendid outing, Robert. Thank you so much for making this!
@Lewis I didn't know Dogsbody either, but my brain wanted to change it to Dogberry, the guy from Much Ado About Nothing. Fortunately, the crosses were kind.
Lewis, It was a very nice puzzle. Now if we can just get the editors to follow my suggestion to make Wednesday theme-optional and run some of these very nice but not very challenging themeless puzzles on Wednesdays.
@Barry -- Or, on lovely grids like today's, up the cluing difficulty.
@Lewis Maybe I'm being denser than usual but where's the misdirect in 16D -- FIVES? That reads like the obvious answer to me.
I thought "Events at which to release one's inner geek" would be CROSSWORD PUZZLE TOURNAMENTS!
Splendid fun way to start a Saturday - thank you! But 50A?? Too soon, Mr Gard, too soon... (muffles sobs 🥲 ...)
@Sian I winced for all of Canada on that one. 🇨🇦 Please know that so many of us were still rooting for your beloved and amazing Bluejays!
@Sian If it makes you feel better, I just did one in the archive, with "1986 World Series losers" for RED SOX, and it still hurts. Gosh darned Bill Buckner!
Re. the answer to 50 Across - did you really have to remind me?
@Janet I winced for all of Canada when I saw that one.🇨🇦 Please know that so many of us Americans were rooting for your beloved and amazing Jays!
TIL a dogsbody is a gofer. Yesterday I learned a diktat is a fiat. This is a good run!
Can't believe I finished a Saturday, wow! I'm sure this was considered easy but it was just wonderfully challenging and satisfying to finish without hints. Love when confusing l and I make a clue look like gibberish for a moment. Love a rare pun. Love the fact that I went to a karaoke party at a bar during the last game of the world series so I just happened to know that sports answer. Love that I only know who hosted a rival late night show against Conan, briefly, because they made light of their similar names on a random weeknight that I happened to be awake at 11:45pm to see when I was 12, and for no good reason, stayed in my memory for 27 years. Why do I still think about that... So SAYYST I.
@Erik P I think you've found your soul puzzle!
This was not an easy puzzle for me, as if I had to get into a suit and enter a stage of virtual reality. The tone was unfamiliar, and the when I finally started to feel more comfortable in how the constructor was skewing his clues and the answers started to emerge, I was surprised at how it all started to fall into place. Weirdly, the code started to crack with SAYST. Sayst? Well that's what the clue sayst, and it was a stepping stone into the puzzle. I had a look-up. There. I've said it. KREWES was a word I had seen before, but not one I remembered. Mr. Gard, this was a truly, if unusual, pleasure to work. Bring more puzzles, please. I would like to work them.
@dutchiris I initially misread your comment on KREWES as this: "KREWES was a word I hadn't seen before, but one I remembered." I thought to myself: Yeah, been there, done that.
@dutchiris I knew it was "crews" from watching the TV coverage of the parade, but didn't know the variant spelling. Probably something not often seen in print, outside of NOLA.
Anyone else do "In Roma" and "Keenan" ?
@jf Absolutely. That was the one square I needed to fix.
@jf I did stare at it for a while, but there was no signal that the well-worn saying would be using the (accurate) Italian ROME. It did make me wish I had looked at the names more carefully while kinda swooning over the incredibly handsome and talented Wayans brothers....
@jf Yep. But I was cheered up by 50A. :)
@jf Yup! - had to fix that in the flyspecking phase.
Challenging, despite the fact that it wasn’t one of those mind breaking 45-minute jobs.
Well done. Fairly challenging, but there was a path to victory. Zero obscure cop outs. That's how they should all be done. Thank you for your integrity.
Easy for some , harder for me . I had ComicCon instead of Nerd fest for too long , and Moon instead of Moth . I eventually got there . It felt more like a trivia fest for me - scratching my old head to think of Fortnite -LOL .
ON TILT has also become a chess term. One of my sons is a chess player. It's kind of his default activity. In circumstances where a lot of people would be on social media, he will have his phone out to play chess with someone somewhere in the world. He's decent at it; he's ranked somewhat to the right of the middle of the bell curve. Weirdly, he has never played a single game of chess using a physical board, and doesn't particularly want to He described to me a game where he was playing someone who was ranked considerably higher than him. My son made a move that blew a hole in his opponent's strategy, causing him to make a series of angry, ill-considered moves. My son won, but he then had to look at the guy text enraged accusations that he'd cheated, because nobody with my son's ranking could possibly have beaten him fairly. That guy was ON TILT.
@Bruce In the states, <a href="https://www.uschess.org" target="_blank">https://www.uschess.org</a> sanctions many over-the-board tournaments. They become social events. In all probability, the sore loser would not make such accusations to their opponent’s face. The organizers and directors of tournaments do their best to ensure fair play.
@Bruce Women are quite familiar with that kind of reaction to their success, if we happen to best a male who believes he's an expert in some arena...
@Bruce The scoundrel's last recourse, whether it's chess or an election: If I didn't win I got cheated.
If the clue had been "Io or Luna" as the puzzle was titled, it would have been even more difficult, but it was actually "Io or luna." ...no capitalization of the final word, so not a reference to our moon. At one point thought that both words might start with a lower-case "L." I was only dimly aware of the existence of the game FORTNITE, and I've never heard of an "Io" moth, so it took a lot to get my mind to relinquish its death grip on MOon. What an amazing and clever misdirect.
Pleasant puzzle with a quartet of fun expressions. STILLMOOING was new to me, and SADTROMBONE, always gives me a smile. I would have liked a little more resistance.
In the discussion of whether an end of week puzzle is too easy or not, I just want to point something out. Newer solvers are not supposed to be able to solve them. They are goal to work towards. To remain fun for experienced solvers, they have to be impossible for inexperienced ones. When experienced solvers say a puzzle it too easy, it is in that context. It's not an attempt to throw shade or brag.
@Nancy J. Then run two tiers of puzzles--one for the elite, like you, and an easy track for the hoi polloi like me, who lack the time to learn. Too much trivia today!
@Nancy J. "Newer solvers are not supposed to be able to solve them." Right? It's supposed to be hard, not "accessible" to everybody. When I tell people I do the NYT puzzle, I expect them to be impressed. But usually they just shake their heads and walk away.
@Nancy J. Sometimes, just sometimes, it's not that interesting when there are lots of posts about the level of difficulty of the crossword compared re the day of the week.
For once a bit surprised that most everyone else found this unusually easy. Not that easy for me. More than a couple of complete unknowns (STILLMOOING, SADTROMBONE, KREWES, e.g.), and others that weren't going to dawn on me just from the clues. No big deal. Long workout but overall an enjoyable solve. A couple of puzzle finds today. Here's one - a Wednesday from October 18, 2017 by John Lithgow and Brendan Emmett Quigley. This one was all in the clues. Some examples: "Decision to go with drapes instead of blinds?" CURTAINCALL "Accountant's shares in a company?" SUMMERSTOCK "Fly fisherman?" CASTPARTY "Why one missed the coach?" STAGELEFT Clever that all of those answers were related. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/18/2017&g=10&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/18/2017&g=10&d=D</a> I'll put the other puzzle in a reply. ....
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: a Thursday from July 11, 2019 by Alex Eaton-Salners. Don't recall another like this. For all of the theme answers, both the clue and the answer were backwards. One example: "RED ROOT" DEZIMOTSUC So the reverse of those is: TO ORDER and CUSTOMIZED Some other examples: "SLIP UP" STNEDUTS "DIAPER" DEGNEVA "WENT ON" GNITSIXE "NAME TAG" RETEPTNIAS Pretty amazing. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/11/2019&g=28&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/11/2019&g=28&d=D</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta Yes, that John Lithgow.
SAD TROMBONE for all the Blue Jays fans out there. Enjoyable puzzle, but at 20 minutes, over far too quickly. Interesting clue for EVEL Knievel, who rode Harley Davidson motorcycles exclusively. Their ticker symbol on the NYSE is HOG, by the way.
I sure bundled this up - so certain HAITI supplied the sugar.
@Michael Same. What can I say? We got beet! Funny thing at an old office potluck. Took Beet soup. A very red concoction. Nobody touched it. I asked. Apparently my writing was to blame. My post it seemed to read “Beef soup”, which along with the color apparently made the dish quite suspect.
I seem to be odd man out once again among the early solvers. I didn't think it was all that easy. I knew of was being baited with ][Io or luna], but I still had to rip out mOon. Nothing was working for me in the NE, and a lot of it hinged on having no gaming knowledge at all, so FORTNITE only came to me as something I'd vaguely heard. I'm still perplexed by POLED for [Punted]. Maybe I'll look it up, and maybe I won't. I'm feeling whimsical tonight. And a bit THICK. But you know who I don't think is a bit THICK? Andrzej. Right now he is realizing that punishing us for the emus' behavior is like blaming another victim for the crime. Juuuuuust sayin'.
@Francis A punt is a flat-bottomed boat that you drive through the water with a pole pushed along the riverbed. Punting is popular in Oxford and Cambridge in England. Knowing which end to stand on in which city is vitally important!
@Francis Punts are flat-bottomed boats propelled by poles. Punting is using such boats, so .... My dunderheadedness was not getting STILL MOOING until Caitlin explained it.
@Francis. Punts (the flat bottomed square ended boats particularly found around Oxfords and Cambridge Universities) are propelled using long poles pushing on the river bed. Whence POLED
@Francis I *am* a gamer and FORTNITE still eluded me for way too long, even after I had NITE! [face palm]
@Francis I am enjoying the vacation. Sometimes when the comments becomes the Andrzej/Francis show it is a little too much.
@Francis I tried to reply but the post was quashed, of course. Φυcκ this.
All the complaints about “Wednesday level” are making me feel a bit THICK. The top half filled in quickly enough, but I had difficulty in the nether regions. (Dontcha hate it when that happens?) Some of it was wavelength, some of it was ignorance: I had no idea what that silly beard is called, for example. The punted/POLED thing baffled me (hi, Francis!), and I’ve never seen SAYST without an E between the Y and S before. (I reluctantly, and for the same reason, had SAYth there for far too long.) This wasn’t the most enjoyable experience for me, but chin(strap) up, there’s always tomorrow.
A baseball entry I can solve without asking my husband!!! Am I dreaming?!?! 🤣 🤣🤣
@Molly in Wake Forest I shouldn't have mentioned it. Next we'll get "Left-handed Home-run Derby relief pitcher." 😳
Unlike other experienced solvers, I didn't find this a particularly easy solve. Too many expressions that I didn't know, such as DOGSBODY, POLED, ON TILT, KREWES, CHINSTRAP, et al. But I absolutely loved STILL MOOING, beef limited as I am. REUBEN held me up for a little bit, since I came of age in Kosher deli era, where a slice of cheese could never touch the corned beef. Now they're my favorite things to eat, at pubs, not delis. So it took me a little longer, but at last got it finished after I realized that I had mistakenly entered CODEd instead of CODER. Finally it all came together without any lookups, and once again I had the satisfaction of completing a puzzle that I thought I would have to abandon.
Really a fun and well crafted puzzle, albeit super easy for a Saturday. Guess I'll hit the archives for my "fix". I've worked my way backwards to 2016, doing Saturday through Thursday in reverse. Those late-week puzzles 9 years ago are often but not universally more challenging IMHO...YMMV. Happy weekend everyone!
Christina often answers questions in the Easy Mode email. I thought people who don't get that would be interested in this week's Q & A. How constructors handle archaic and obscure entries By Christina Iverson “Often I find that the puzzle ends in an exceptionally challenging area with more than a few words that are either a real stretch, rarely used or archaic. I wonder if the puzzle maker struggled with that particular area when the puzzle was under construction, and that same area is where they ended. Do you think this is true?” — Anonymous From Christina: When constructors start making a puzzle, they generally start with a “grid skeleton,” which is just the black squares placed strategically around the theme entries. With a solid skeleton, there are nearly endless possibilities for what words you can use to fill the rest of the grid. The constructor will typically try to start filling the grid in the most constrained area — long entries that cross several theme entries, perhaps, or an unusual pattern like a five-letter entry that ends in V. For a themeless puzzle, the grid skeleton may or may not have certain entries locked in. Some constructors start with one or more “seed entries,” which are words or phrases that they’d like to build a puzzle around. Other themeless constructors start with a particular grid design that they find appealing, without any entries locked in place.
@Vaer Part 2 The more words a constructor locks into a puzzle, the fewer options there are moving forward. Each entry that gets placed limits the remaining entries and puts more constraints on the grid. By the time the constructor gets to the final corner, it’s often difficult to fill that section cleanly. The constructor may have to rip out sections that have already been filled several times before getting something without too many tough vocabulary words or proper nouns crossing. When I review puzzles with my fellow editors, and especially themeless puzzles, we often note when a particular section is not quite as nice as the rest of the grid. While it’s not always the case, you can often tell which corner was the last to be filled.
@Barry Not to my knowledge. I never sent in a question about it though. And I don't know if anyone who did ever heard back. Deb did add that note at the end of her column last week that it had happened, which is not the same thing, but perhaps kept a few people from thinking they were crazy.
@Barry My first response was emued. The short answer is no.
@Vaer Thanks for sharing that. I know from experience w
@Vaer Thanks for sharing that. I know from experience what a pain it is to copy the email in bits and then wait until you can submit a bit more of it.
@Eric Hougland It was harder than solving the puzzle.:)
Enjoyed this one. Well below my Saturday average but not close to a PB. Wasted a few minutes at the end looking for my mistake: I had convinced myself that the Wayans brother was KEENAN and IN ROMA inexplicably seemed plausible.
@Kenny I was going to post what you said, word for word. I even thought, "How clever. When in Rome, you should spell it the way the Romans do...and there's no way the Wayans bother spells it with a third 'E'" -- until I was forced to try it anyway, and voila, puzzle done.
Fun puzzle, maybe a bit easy for a Saturday but a couple sticking points. GENEVE vs GENEVA. Then having STILL MOVING for a long time over STILL MOOING and having no idea what started with SV for "Higher power". I've been to New Orleans 20 times and still somehow needed KR_W__ to think of KREWES. Then thinking SAYIT instead of SAYST, I think even for old timey speak that's an awkward word. And of course I knew it was WELL LA DI DAH immediately but there's like five possible spellings of LA DI DAH. I only looked up like 2-3 answers, I generally only look up proper nouns in areas I have no knowledge in when I have most of the crossing clues already.
This left a bad taste. I started with Edberg as the big Sampras rival, had Haiti as the sugar producer, assumed Mardi Gras societies were Creole, (correctly) put Geneva as the lake, refused to believe we could be doing DERMA again, wrongly stoked fires instead of COALS, then went for antic instead of CAPER, hated ONTILT(?), never heard of KREWES or AKC, didn’t know about baseball, and balked at the clues for INROME and SADTROMBONE - mistaking “Womp womp” for “Whoop whoop”. Easy? Gimme a break.
@Petrol I found the puzzle absolutely impossible to solve without lookups, checks and reveals. All the time I had the impression I understood about half of the clues and answers. Many of the guesses I had made turned out to be wrong by the time I finished. It was one of the toughest NYT puzzles I have ever tried - and failed - to solve.
@Petrol It was just skewed towards American solvers. I doubt that was deliberate, but still. I am, and probably will always be, a mediocre solver; despite having done around 2600 puzzles so far, my fastest Monday was 7:47, I can count on one hand the number of times I've done a Sunday in less than an hour, and I struggle a lot with late-week puzzles. Nevertheless, I got this one with no lookups. KREWE, for example, was a gimme for me, but I live in the state of Georgia and am (relatively) close to New Orleans.
@Petrol I put ANTIC in the margin, entered only the S at 31A, altered the spelling of GENEVA due to 'Suisse' in the clue Said 'thank you' for DERMA (this happens often) Put Bath SALTS and WATER in the margin Wrote MOON in the margin at 8D until clarified CANE and BEET are the two sources of sugar in the US I print the puzzle so I get to see all of the grid at one glance, and I can easily look at various clues without having to mess with keys, etc. I think it helps my solve.
As long as we are making reference to Geneva using French nomenclature, "Genève" does NOT refer to the lake en Suisse. Les Suisses call it "Lac Léman".
STILLMOOING for the win! (Sorry, vegans...) This puzzle took a lot of head scratching -- really fun. Good job Robert.
@Ken Unfortunately, for me this clue filled itself on the crosses. Didn’t get the pleasure of entering it. Thankfully the comments section meant I didn’t miss it. Grade A on STILLMOOING.
Oh the joy I felt when I pulled AGASSI out of the bingo ball cage that is my brain! I know he's not exactly obscure, but it's been a long quite a while since I thought about him. I've had bouts of caring about tennis in my life and that was one of them. I'm not saying that I'm all hoity toity or anything, but it's just nice to know sometimes that I still got it! 🤣 Don't worry, I'm not getting a big head. I should have gotten BEETS faster because I recently did an impact report on our sugar beets research program for work. So something I knew about some 35 years ago or so popped out way faster than something I knew about this very year. But that's just how bingo ball cage brains work! 🤷♀️ What I haven't followed in a very, very, very long time, like since the 1980s Brewers, is baseball. I only knew the answer to 50A because of this crossword comment community. Immediately thought of of SBK and others out here with sadness for you. Seems like there could have been a kinder way to clue it to avoid being in the too soon category. 🩵
@HeathieJ Thanks for your thoughts. I'm definitely in the "better to have loved and lost" camp. I had a wonderful season with my Jays and the last inning of the last game doesn't erase all those wonderful games that got us (almost) there.
Got to go against the grain here, this was a real challenge for me today! A good 5 minutes over my average
The "too easy" crowd is out in force today. But it's hard to complain, especially since I'm one of them. Yet the repetition of the complaints is becoming more than a little tiresome. It's nice to hope that the editors peruse these comments, and to hope that they will be interested in "satisfying their base". On the other hand, they know that we're addicts. Where are we gonna go? The LATimes? WaPo? That's my complaint about the complaints. Here's my complaint about the puzzle: I've heard thousands of TROMBONEs in my life, both SAD and otherwise, but I've never heard one that sounded anything like [womp, womp]! Oh, poor me! [Wah, wa-a-a-ah]
@The X-Phile I find the Saturday LATimes puzzle to be much more challenging
@The X-Phile I believe [womp, womp] and SAD TROMBONE are based on specific two- or three-note trombone musical cues, which I think might’ve originated in old Looney Tunes cartoons, that are played in some comedic works when something humorously disappointing happens to a character. The cues themselves aren’t really meant to evoke sadness in the viewer. They’re played using a plunger mute. As actual speech (or, rather, typing) both the clue and the answer are mainly used in online discussions to express Schadenfreude.
@The X-Phile <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sad-trombone-analisa-devoe/1143886693" target="_blank">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sad-trombone-analisa-devoe/1143886693</a>
Thank you, Robert, for a very fine, clever grid. I scored my best Saturday time, but really think it's because I was enjoying myself so much. I really loved STILL MOOING and, as a lover of rare beef on rare occasions, shall consider requesting it be prepared that way while dining out.🐮😉 Happy weekend, everyone!
@Kelly H Hi, I found this to be particularly difficult and it took me a very long time + reading the wordplay column. Any advice for a newer solver of Saturdays?
I rarely use the timer as a measure of how easy or hard a puzzle is. That said, this was definitely a cruise to the finish. Well, time to get choring. House doesn’t clean itself.
Okay, with apologies - one of the strangest puzzles I've ever encountered. A Sunday from December 28, 1975 by Frances Hansen with the title: "Aspirin time." Five 23 letter grid-spanning theme entries. Here they are: WEWENTTOAPARTYONNEWYEAR SEVEATQUARTERTOTWOYOUSU GGESTEDWELEAVEIREFUSEDI DETESTBEINGTOLDWHATTODO APOXONTHEPARTYAPOXONYOU Whew. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=12/28/1975&g=55&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=12/28/1975&g=55&d=A</a> ....
Come on, derma again? At least put (obsolete) or (var). Or clue it in a way that makes sense. What about “skin opening?”
@Wggwg What makes DERMA obsolete? Have you never heard of a dermatologist?
@Wggwg I wish I had kept all those menus that were at each place setting at all the weddings and Bar Mitzvahs I went to as a kid, where it was practically the law that stuffed DERMA had to be served alongside the prime rib. DERMA was the English term. It was otherwise known as Kishka. Yum!
@George i really wish the NYT would issue an average time for the puzzles at the end of the week so you guys could see how out of touch some of y’all are about difficulty. I can see if you were in the same wavelength as the maker and got some of the longer ones that this could be easier, but it’s def not a Wednesday puzzle. 💀
Please be patient with me for asking this question, which I know some people don’t want to hear, and let me make it abundantly clear that I’m not doing it to annoy anybody, but I do have to ask, lest I forget, in the humblest way I know how, is this the same Gary Larson as Far Side?
@Pudly this makes my day, Thanks!
@Pudly No, it’s the one who wrote Peanuts.
@Pudly what I want to know is why you didn’t ask on Wednesday?? I looked for you all day… 😉