Tried to convince myself that a MATERHORSE was a thing for 30 minutes.
@Smart Top I stared at materhorse for some time. The mother of all horses? That seemed reasonable for mythology, as reasonable as a water horse. Then the W dawned on me, and I thought, well I'll come back to that if there's no happy music. Which I promptly forgot until there was no music. I'm glad I don't solve with a view of the column, because Caitlin's headline photo would have ruined 15A and my last square to fall. I plan to send an email about that. I don't understand why she does it, especially for Saturday. I haven't entered into that fray because it's not an issue with the iPad app, but I do believe it's a problem for some view of the puzzle.
@Smart Top this is, in my opinion, the equivalent of a one-square natick. Not cool. Also, ANNÉE is a foreign language word with an accent on it. Sloppy. SONES is also very esoteric ... meh. Whitewashing with "well, it IS Saturday" doesn't make up for a feeble puzzle structure.
"Les petites mortes?" Tess vamped coyly, giving him a tiger eye, but never meaning to drive him right over the edge into an attack mode of the nth power! "Oh snap!" she cried, "All along I thought you were a 'friend of Dorothy!'" Wait a minute, am I in the right puzzle? (Good one, Kameron. Consider this a fan letter.)
It’s funny - when I saw the proof for this puzzle a month ago, I told the NYT team that I was worried we’d made it a smidge too easy. So it’s been incredibly funny to read your comments today. A friend just texted me that she finished the puzzle in half her usual Saturday time. I simply cannot let that happen again, or people will think I’ve gone soft! Thanks for solving everyone.
@Kameron -- I loved it. It was clever and funny and punny--but yeah, I blasted through it in no time at all. I agree--don't let that last part happen again!
@Kameron FRIENDOFDOROTHY was fab, and I loved seeing ORGASMS-- It's also described that way in the first season of Emily in Paris
@Kameron It was a fun puzzle! I finished a bit quicker than usual, but not that much of an outlier.
@Kameron I consider myself warned. But no matter what, welcome back from your break.
@Kameron I just commented that I solved this about 8% faster than my previous KAC NYT crossword (8/18/23, a Friday). So yes, it was on the easy side — but a lot of fun to solve! (I’ll even forgive RIDE ORDIE, which is not part of my world (even though my husband is mine). That answer seriously annoyed me the first time I saw it.) I’ve been enjoying your occasional New Yorker puzzles, too. But I’m glad to see that you have more puzzles in the pipeline here! Welcome back!
@Kameron Still very fun, and most of us understand that beyond the grid, the difficulty of the clues is in the hands of the editors, Thanks for sharing this with all of us!
@Kameron Great puzzle, but please, hurt us next time. Your reputation is at stake! :)
@Kameron, formerly The Destroyer of Streaks 16:49. I will take heart when I see your next puzzle. 🤞
I loved the puzzle. FRIEND OF DOROTHY gave me a dose of nostalgia, but then, upon closer reflection on the days when closets and code-speak were necessary to stay employed and out of jail, I tapped my ruby slippers to come back to the present. Egad, the present is no Emerald City either, at the moment. There's lots of yellow brick road ahead of us.
@Jim And watch out for the flying monkeys.
@Jim & @aa The Great and Powerful Oz is bad enough, but I'm worried about the man behind the curtain.
@Jim This puzzle was definitely Dorothy friendly from "Oh snap" to "you look fab." I enjoyed it.
"It says here the patient knows that 0's is 0, 30's is 1/2, 45's is sqrt(2)/2, 60's is sqrt(3)/2, and 90's is 1." "Okay, vital sines look good." ("We'll check him later for any acute symptoms.")
@Mike Be sure to check his wife too, I hear she has acute angina.
@Mike i think the nurse should be reaching for the vessel on the top shelf because I’d like to see the high pot in use
@Mike If the person who cosines his bill is turned upside down, he can still secant he?
@Mike I'd think more men would get frightened when the nurse comes in, announcing, "I'm here for your VITALS." But Nooooo, you just make puns about the whole business.
Whatever that nurse gave him, it seemed to do the trig.
The MELLON/ROHE crossing looked like it was the last thing for me -- at least I knew it was a vowel, so it wasn't so much running the alphabet as just aeiouy -- except that I'd had DArNDEST for 32D, making 38A rELL_N. Oh, and dING for TING, making 11D RAdION. Oops. At least those were easily findable. I'd actually realized DA_NDEST could go either way, so that was my first change after none of the vowels gave happy music. Side note, DA?NDEST with either letter looks weird to me. I'd spell them damnedest. Note: I'm not saying that the puzzle is wrong, just not my default. Also, writing KOLN (instead of Köln) bugs me almost as much as putting n for ñ (especially for años), but such is crossword life.
Lovely puzzle, especially in my loved up state ❤️(nobody knows about it apart from you) French note: Les petits morts = dead children (no VITALSIGNS!) Les morts petits = small corpses (OH CRUD!) Les petites morts = small deaths aka ORGASMS (Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!) Kudos for YOYOSTRING and ANNEE! SONES were new to me.
KAC: It's good to have you back here! YOU LOOK FAB! This should be a fairly easy Saturday for veteran solvers. I hope newer folk will enjoy it too, and that FRIEND OF DOROTHY and ORGASMS won't put people in ATTACK MODE. P.S. 41D is for a special commenter!
@Barry Ancona Who doesn’t like les petites morts? Well the emus don’t like the English translation because they refused my version of this post using it.
@Barry Ancona I have no problem with the Big O or FoD, but DAMNeDEST should have a second E!
Fresh and fun. This was a tale of two puzzles for me, the top a little harder than average Saturday for me and the bottom a little easier. Happy to say, Andrzej, CZECH didn’t fool me at all, especially when I had to pick between PEP and ZIP and as soon as I saw the possibility of a Z I had no doubt. Arguably while Poland is next to Czechoslovakia, Poles are not necessarily next to Czechs, unless they are buddies (Andrzej do you have any CZECH mates?). Speaking of ZIP and pep, I can’t remember a puzzle with so many ambiguous options: DAMNDEST/darndest, DITS/dahs, ISTOO/am too, HOLE/sole, YWCA/YMCA, TING/ding/tink, COYLY/slyly/shyly…pretty remarkable really. Anyway, these were fun entries. Gimmes like YO-YO STRING, VITALSIGNS, TESS, RIDEORDIE (thanks again, “Survivor”) and BRISKET (thanks NANA!) were offset by harder or very clever clues on top like FRIENDSOFDOROTHY, WATERHORSE, Les petites mortes (I guessed SNEEZES first LOL), sporting blades (yay for a new OARS clue) and ANNEE. Last observation: not sure many young folks would think of Michelle YEOH as an action star (“Everything Everywhere…” notwithstanding)—but for oldies like me who still think of her as a Bond girl and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” beast, it put a smile on my face!
@SP Czechoslovakia has not been a thing for over three decades. It's Czechia (the Czechs' preferred term these days, rather than the Czech Republic) and Slovakia. No, I don't have any Czech mates. No wonder, really. Living standards in Czechia have always been higher than here so the Czechs don't really have any incentive to move to Poland. It shows on many levels: Prague is a much more impressive metropolis than Warsaw, and its monuments from the medieval German Imperial era put to shame anything constructed in Poland at the time. I went for my first holiday abroad with my parents in 1988 (not an easy feat - Poles were not freely issued passports then, for example, especially to cross over to the "West"). We rented a caravan, hooked it up to our East German Wartburg, and we drove to Yugoslavia via Czechoslovakia and Austria. Austria seemed like paradise - so prosperous, so modern, so clean! I still have 1988 fairytale images from Vienna before my eyes. Even the roadside toilets seemed otherworldly - I had only seen ones so clean at private homes before. But already the Czech part of Czechoslovakia made an impression on me. Everything was much more tidy than in Poland, and the shops were so much better stocked! At the time it was hard to buy anything in Poland.
@SP You might want to update your atlas. 😜🇨🇿
@SP @Andrzej I have an (English) friend who lives in Poland, a 5 minute drive from the Czech border (which you can cross freely of course). He is exasperated by how little the Poles and Czechs talk to each other (even during flooding emergencies, for example) and occasionally tries to organise cross-border events which locals grudgingly attend - I'm not sure if they appreciate the efforts of the loud Englishman.
Excellent triples, and FRIEND OF DOROTHY + YOU LOOK FAB + VAMPED gave this a ...spry EDGE. I remember the only cruise we ever went on, QE2 to Halifax and back, the daily list of activities included a Friends of Dorothy meeting and my kids wanted to go in case the Tin Man or the Lion showed up (not so much the Scarecrow). My wife wanted to know if there was a Friends of Toto group; she missed our pooch. I said I'd be on the upper deck in the bar, where I might [Go for another round].
Overheard at recess: “It’s Mauna Loa!” “It’s Kea Loa!” “Is not!” “Is too!” “You’re not even aware of how crossworders use those terms!” “I am so!” “So am I! But Kea and Loa aren’t the two parts that go together for the real place!” “Are so!” “You don’t know anything!” “Do too!” “Do not!”
“Do you think I missed any?” “Not me! But you are sloppy sometimes.” “Am not!” “Am too!” “That’s ungrammatical! You can’t do anything right.” “Can so! ” “You didn’t get all the Kea Loas!” “Did so! I always get them all!” “As do I!” “No one says that at recess any more!” “Yeah, well you’re just stealing this idea from other posters through the years!” “Not me!”
What a talent!. KAC's puzzles seem to roll off his tongue. Oh, I’m sure there’s some struggle involved in crafting his gems, but it never feels like it. And they are SO GOOD. Unexpected answers, clues lavished with wit, and … Any junk? Hello? Anywhere? Lovely vague clues, like [Really involved] for ORNATE, and misdirects such as [Big banks] for LEVEES. A box awash in beauty – YOU LOOK FAB, TING, SIDLE, ORNATE, TIGER EYE. Eight NYT answer debuts, seven of them longs, including FRIEND OF DOROTHY, ORGASMS (I went, “Really?” … then, with a smile, “Really!”), and the charmingly random YOYO STRING. One of the few constructors, who, if their name is not atop the grid, you still know who made it. And KOLN. If you've never heard “The Koln Concert”, by Keith Jarrett – solo piano, live, totally improvised – that puts you in a mood you will never forget, stop your life and give it a listen. What a gift! Speaking of gifts, welcome back, KAC. What a joy to see you here and course through one of your creations again. Thank you for a splendid outing!
ERRATA -- "Koln" should be "Köln". Your alphadoppeldotteltotter was unforgivably inattentive.
@Lewis I too was surprised to see ORGASMS, but I’ve heard “Les petites morts” in that context before.
@Lewis Keith Jarrett is a treasure, not only for his jazz, but also for his crossover work in classical--especially contemporary--music. His recordings of Pärt and Shostokovich are particularly awesome. I know of the Köln concert, and am sure I've heard tracks from it, but now I know what I'm going to listen to this morning! Interesting--Jarrett's official website has a .de domain.
@Lewis I did just that, put down the phone and put on Keith Jarrett. Thanks! So far it’s lovely.
More, more, more! This puzzle was innovative and fresh. NOSEHAIRS was delightfully disgusting! Made ORGASMS nearly ordinary. Clues were sparkly and, for the most part the answers just flowed. Unusual for a Saturday puzzle. So very enjoyable!
Like many, I blanched when I saw the KAC byline; like many, I found it a relatively smooth solve. Of course, it helps that I am a Friend of Dorothy living in a neighborhood--a whole neighborhood, mind you!--designed by Mies van der Rohe. (Although my address was not designed by MvdR himself, but another architect, albeit using Miesian aesthetics. And I was so stok'd by so my solve, that I barely mark'd the (presum'd) apostophe in 32D, and lack thereof in 14D. Fun word of the day: Tiger('s) eye, and similar gemstones, exhibit the property known as "chatoyance"--from the French for "Cat's eye." Has CHATOYANT ever appear'd as an entry? Twice in one week I get to trot out one of my favorite pieces by George Gershwin (complete with a two-bar VAMP at the beginning--sorry, Caitlin:-( ): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjJm-bSd6RU&list=RDTjJm-bSd6RU&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjJm-bSd6RU&list=RDTjJm-bSd6RU&start_radio=1</a> Samuel Taylor Coleridge, complete with umlaut: "In Köln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang'd with murderous stones And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?"
@Bill OT Yesterday I checked the comments kinda late and had to tell you that the video you linked to gave me seisms of laughter.
@Bill Thanks to your post I fell down a couple of rabbit holes. The first was Detroit architectural history and then a refresher course on Mies.
Easy one, as Saturday puzzles go.
@Steve L My solve went quite quickly but it didn't *feel* easy, at all. Maybe that's a sign of truly good construction?
@Steve L My solve went slowly and didn't feel easy! Surprised to find that most folks had a different experience.
@Steve L ...and I thought it was "just right" for a Saturday.
That waterhorse was a nightmare.
Ooh, smooth like buttah! I saw Kameron Austin Collins in the byline spot and winced, but I shouldn't have worried. It must just be that I've gotten a lot better, as Caitlin said! Oh, commenters have already posted about how easy it was? Lalala I'm not listening to you... Ugh, so much great fill; where to start?? Well, I was super happy when FRIEND OF DOROTHY popped right in, with ACID-WASHED jeans and CRAIGSLIST hot on its heels. Got the Mars misdirect and pulled "les petits morts" out of the depths of my brain somewhere. Perhaps because RIDE OR DIE and Mies van der ROHE are gimmes, MELLON jumped out from the crosses with a nanosecond pause to consider what might be a commonsense fill. Loved [Big banks]. And NOSE HAIR. And and -- basically of it! Thank you so much for coming back to crosswords, KAC!! I am looking forward to the next one!
@G, I thought the same thing when I saw his name on the puzzle. A little shiver went down my spine, and not in a good way. To my surprise, I finished in well under my average time. I prefer to think that Caitlin is right about me getting better! 😀
I solved the puzzle without lookups and faster than my Friday average, in the end, but it still felt like a Saturday - I was almost completely lost at the beginning, but then slowly but surely I made progress, keeping an open mind to deal with misdirection, and to not get too annoyed by arcane trivia (treasury secretary from 100 years ago? I suppose I'm familiar with his Polish counterpart, so I guess the clue must have been fair-ish to at least some Americans). I must say the Mars clue was brilliant. I was so confused initially! It felt great when the answer dawned on me, in the end. Well played. The only thing I didn't like about the grid was the inclusion of those random slang phrases that can really be anything. One can never know if it's gonna be OH[something random] or AW[something else, even more random] or whatever. At least today they were gettable from crosses. I've never heard the term FRIEND OF DOROTHY. Of course it's not covered by the tricky clues... I could google it, but maybe some kind soul here would tell me the context and whether the term is fine to use, or is it dated and offensive? Eric Hougland to the rescue, maybe? @dutchiris I only just now saw your beautiful Friday reply post about your dog. Thank you. The photo was not visible though. You can only paste photos here as links to online resources. I use imgur to host the pics I show here, but there are other options, too.
@Andrzej FRIEND OF DOROTHY doesn’t offend me, but neither would I be likely to use it. I learned it decades ago from gay friends who were much more involved in the bar scene than I was. I expect it is a bit dated.
@Andrzej Adding to Eric's post @Andrzej Dorothy refers to Dorothy Gale the heroine of the Wizard of Oz who in the movie was played by a young Judy Garland. When Judy grew up, she became an entertainer who performed on stage and television. She had many gay male fans. (And an extremely screwed up personal life.) I have no idea if gay men find it offensive in this day and age.
@Andrzej FRIENDSOFDOROTHY is/was a code word for gay men (when that sort of thing was necessary). Who knows how it got started but Judy Garland is kind of a gay icon and maybe there’s a “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” connection. For a good example, see the “Over the Rainbow” movie with Renee Zellwwger as Judy Garland, there’s an example of some gay fans.
@Andrzej friend of Dorothy was a [cough] discreet way of saying or asking if a man was gay, back when in the US there was no gay marriage, no anti-discrimination laws, and plenty of reasons to be “in the closet” - another phrase that might be unfamiliar now. Dorothy Gale in Wizard of Oz —> Judy Garland —> beloved icon of gay men in the 1950s and 1960s. (Why, I don’t know - before my time).
Second try. Think i figured out what held ip my first post. @Andrzej Dorothy refers to Dorothy Gale the heroine of the Wizard of Oz movie who was played by a young Judy Garland. When Judy grew up, she became an entertainer who performed on stage and television. She had many gay male fans. (And an extremely messed up personal life.) I have no idea if gay men find it offensive in this day and age.
@Andrzej Not a dog, Andrzej. He was a rose point Siamese cat (so the vet said), on the street for some time before I finally convinced him that he might like to move in with us (offered him a bite of sausage). He was about a year old, immaculately house trained (good!) but a warrior (bad). Never clawed anyone, and only bit me once—nothing personal, early on—he just hated the first vet we took him to and was in the biting mode. Got me on the thumb, a minor injury, but otherwise I could do anything with him. Vast vocabulary and willing to do whatever he was asked to do (or not to do). He loved to play. A friend once said he was the most evolved cat she had ever met.
@Andrzej To add to the above, the friends of Dorothy in Wizard of Oz are The Tin Man, The Lion and Scarecrow (didn’t look it up, may have names wrong). Dorothy’s friends each needed something to make them complete, a missing part without which they could never be their true selves: heart, brains and courage. Exactly what gay people would need in a world where they were (and are still) literally killed for being who they are. Being a millennial gay man myself, I believe the generations of our elders were brave, smart and loving in a way I sometimes miss these days. The term is not offensive, i don’t think
Thank you all! That explains much of what I was curious about. @dutchiris Ah, a cat! Being a dog person I naturally thought of a dog upon seeing your loving description on Friday's board 🙂 As a child I was terribly allergic to cats - I basically couldn't spend more than a few minutes in any household that had a cat as my skin would get all red and itchy. As a result, I actually feared cats for the longest time. As my allergies improved with age, I learned to appreciate cats though. My sister-in-law got a cat at about the same time Jorge came into our family. They developed a fascinating relationship. Jorge wanted to play with Greta, but she would have none of it. She never clawed at him though, and she tolerated his presence well enough. Often they would lie next to each other on my in-laws' carpet: the huge brown lab and the lithe, beige kitty. It was very cute.
@Andrzej MELLON is also the founder of what’s now Carnegie Mellon University. I found it an ok clue as there is more than one reason to know it. I agree on the AW and OHs. The RIDEORDIE term was more problematic for me. Took a while to decide that the boring answer to the BBQ order was right. I thought bibs would be more of a Saturday answer.
@Andrzej Go spend the rest of the week watching every episode of Arrested Development. You won’t regret it.
@Andrzej Back in the day, there were somewhat clandestine gatherings on cruise ships, too. In the daily agenda, there would be gatherings for Friends of Bill W, which were Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and for Friends of Dorothy, which were mixers for gay men. So I've been told. No idea if lesbians were also welcome, but let's face it, who goes on cruises? Gay men. Friends of Bill W meetings still exist. I imagine a cruise could be tough for an alcoholic. I took a Viking cruise on the Danube, and even on that small ship, they had FoBW meetings listed on the agenda.
@Andrzej I had a perfectly lovely reply that the emus ate. Gist of which was that I've been told that cruise ships would announce meetings for FoD, much like Friends of Bill W, which are slightly veiled meetings for members of Alcoholics Anonymous. On the two ships I've been on, FoBW meetings are still scheduled.
Thank you all for yet more comments of Friends of Dorothy 🙂
I think I deserve an award… I managed to complete that while on a 30 hour ferry ride between Borneo and Java with a lousy cover band tunelessly blasting out Indonesian songs beside me…
@Gareth Was there any VAMPing?
I had tink before ting. When I make a toast my glass is full and goes tink. When it’s empty and I want a refill it goes ting!
@Chris Depends on the glass. Crystal really does go ting, plain glass tink. No echo after contact.
It’s interesting to me that the early reviews are that this was an easy Saturday. It felt reasonably hard to me, although I ended up at my Saturday average time. In any case I enjoyed this slangy puzzle. I liked the misdirection of Mars comes third in it, and didn’t get the French connection, until late in my solve. Really involved for ORNATE took me awhile too. FRIENDOFDOROTHY was new to me, but I did know RIDEORDIE and YOULOOKFAB although I tried hot before fab.
OH SNAP and OH CRUD in the same puzzle? OH NO!
Delightful! 1A didn't fill itself in, so I started with the downs. Got to 5A and thought "oh my, really?? Nooo." But ORGASMS fit. Wow, that's a bold move. Way to go! Fast but quite challenging for me, I enjoyed the whole thing. FRIENDOFDOROTHY was charming. Quite a few sneaky ones, like UTAH and SONES. Fresh clue for ACAI, better than fruit in a smoothie bowl. (I don't get the smoothie bowl thing at all, what's up with that? Why a bowl?) I'm repeating myself, but if you don't know him, it is worth your time to look up Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Great architect, one of the pioneers of modern architecture. Beautiful and groundbreaking buildings. Featured in architectural tours of Chicago given by the fabulous <a href="https://www.architecture.org" target="_blank">https://www.architecture.org</a>/
@Nora your first two paragraphs were my sentiments exactly. If I'd read your comment before I added mine, I wouldn't have bothered! Bonne année mon ami!
@Nora Fortunately for me, I encountered Mies van der ROHE in an archive puzzle yesterday, so I spelled his name correctly today. I think his name has appeared fairly often over the years.
Regarding FRIENDOFDOROTHY, I just want to thank the (now over 30 year old) classic movie Clueless for teaching me this phrase 😊. It was about the first thing I filled in, no crosses required. I couldn’t find a clip shorter than this ~2 minute one. Enjoy 😊 <a href="https://youtu.be/iuL2loyB1bk?si=Eav7VQcpuTrs_06I" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/iuL2loyB1bk?si=Eav7VQcpuTrs_06I</a>
@Jeb Jones Yes a great movie. I couldn't believe it was 30 years ago! I took my mother (like me, a HUUUUGE Jane Austen fan) to see it, unsure how she'd take it. It follows the plot of Austen's Emma. Mother loved it. A year or so later she said "I totally paused" at me when I didn't quite stop at a STOP sign.... She's been gone nearly 6 years now. Still miss her.
Just an observation as a friend of Dorothy... Before the film of The Wizard of Oz was ever made, there was Dorothy Parker's Round Table at the Algonquin. Some believe that group may be the origin of the phrase, several decades earlier.
@David Heaps That's fascinating--although it presumes a certain literary awareness by the regular M. on the street. Interesting: both dictionaries in which looked--GDos and OED (yes, we're everywhere, even in Oxford)--have a first citation from 1972--33 years after "The Wizard of Oz" was released! I can't believe the term wasn't in use before then, but that was a few years before my coming-out.
@David Heaps I've heard both cited. I wish I had a TARDIS so I could get a more definitive answer. When I started taking cruises in the 80s pretty much every ship had on their daily schedules a "Friends of Bill W." meeting, and a "Friends of Dorothy" meeting. Nowadays they just call it LGBTQ+; I sort of miss the coding as it relates to our history, but as Prior Walter says, The world only spins forward. @Bill Interestingly, it's possible that it originated with Dorothy Parker, but once coding gets out in the wild it assumes a life its own; perhaps *lack* of literary awareness led those using it to assume it referred to Dorothy Gale. oh dagnabbit I didn't hit submit and now I'm not sure anyone will see this. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.
Yay, KAC is back! He went a little easy on us today, but his signature style was all over this puzzle. EDGy, smart and current. Can't wait for more.
Although I knew what “les petites morts” should refer to, I hesitated at 5D. First, I’ve always thought of “phenomena” as rare or unusual events, which hopefully would not apply here. And second, would the NYT really allow such an entry? Turns out, phenomena are not necessarily rare (phew for humankind) and yes, yes they would! Nice to see the Gray Lady has relinquished her pearls. Loved all the callbacks and phrases from different eras. This was the most fun I’ve had with a Saturday puzzle in quite some time.
Welcome back, KAC! I was excited when I saw the byline. My last fix was YmCA to YWCA like many others. I figured out Andrew MELLON from going to the Ulster American Folk Park when we were in Ireland a few years ago. The entire park is based around the MELLON family emigrating from Ireland to the US. It’s very well done. My kids really enjoyed the live blacksmith. I highly recommend visiting it if you find yourself in Ireland. I knew FRIEND OF DOROTHY as well from my career in HR/DEI. We had employee network groups that I was in charge of and that was a common phrase used in our GLAFNET (gays, lesbians and friends network). I love Michelle YEOH from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Tomorrow Never Dies in addition to her latest hits like Wicked and Everything Everywhere All At Once. So much talent and beauty there! I went to the Duran Duran concert two nights ago and Simon mentioned that when they started out, they mostly had female fans. Then something shifted and most of their fans were friends of Dorothy! Pure kismet this week ☺️ In the same vibe of Michelle YEOH in her Bond movie, I will leave you with this Duran Duran Bond song <a href="https://youtu.be/zdRhrFhepmU?si=k-QVWS-zRoNsmtVU" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/zdRhrFhepmU?si=k-QVWS-zRoNsmtVU</a> Enjoy your weekend!
Thrilled to see Kameron Austin Collins is back! I suppose a hiatus is allowed, but it's hardly convenient for those of us looking for au courant language and inventive language in our themeless puzzles. Don't get me wrong--lots of great themeless constructions over the past couple years, but there's just nothing like a KAC themeless. It's a good day!
@Pezhead Measure twice, cut once...meant to says "au courant language and inventive cluing"
I found that the longs weren't too difficult, but the bits of slang - oh dear - both clue and solution - not easy. I didn't know of SNAP or CRUD in slang, or the names. The DITS reminded me of my Dad, a wireless operator with the RAF in WW2. He taught us a few dits and dahs, and when I was very young, could still understand Morse code if it came up on the radio.
Man, that was like a Saturday puzzle.
That was FABulous dahling. Any FRIEND OF DOROTHY is a friend of mine. I visited KOLN on a school trip many eons ago, specifically for the cathedral. While there we witnessed a (hopefully) rare phenomena; a massive swarm of horse flies that literally blocked out the midday sun. We were in the cathedral square when people suddenly started running into the shops, which were slamming doors shut. We were bustled into the nearest one and watched in horror as this mass of flying insects slammed into the building. All over in a few moments, but the square was littered with dead flies, as was our coach, as the doors were left open. Quite the horror film scenario. Apparently it was something to do with the very hot, still air.
What a lovely grid. Long, interesting, colorful and elegant fill. The scrupulous fairness of the cluing made it whooshy for a Saturday -- although some of it, like ORNATE, was deceptive. My only write-over was YmCA to YWCA, when I decided that a WATER HORSE was more of a Thing than a MATER HORSE. (Is a MATER HORSE also known as a dam?) Oh, and also the barbecue, where I wanted bIBS before RIBS. Can you imagine? Remembering RHEE helped me with ACID-WASHED. Isn't this constructor usually very hard to solve? Didn't find him so today -- found him enjoyable instead.
Nancy, Others have noted it earlier. I too found this a rather easy one for a KAC construction.
I saw the KAC byline and almost had a ... well, you know, I was pretty excited, in any case. Good solid Saturday with some words I didn't know thrown in. Normally I wouldn't leave mATERHORSE in the grid for so long, but on KAC I would. Thanks Mr Collins!
Scrolling through the comments, I see a number of people found this to be an easier solve, but that was not my experience. Today's puzzle gave me a healthy, Saturday-level challenge, for which I'm grateful - well over an hour, two cups of coffee, lots of sighs. The NW corner was a foggy shoal until CRAIGS LIST finally emerged from the mist. (When you say "classifieds," I'm old enough to still think "newspaper.") Time well-spent today. Thanks for the fun!
When I saw that Kameron was the constructor, my first thought was OH CRUD, but this was a kinder, gentler KAC. FRIEND OF DOROTHY was a huge gimme. I briefly had my Kelkies mixed up with my Selkies, but the crosses set me right. SONES filled in by itself, but I was not familiar, so that was a TIL. Welcome back, Kameron.
@Vaer SONES crossing with the dreaded playground retort was a tough one. I was running the alphabet in my head when I realized that they were talking about sound volume (like decibels) and not 3D volume. Sneaky.
@Vaer Reading your comment I just realized that subliminally I was mixing up Kelkies with Selkies, too! WATER came in quickly (once I swapped out that M), but I was so resistant to what was clearly from the crossings a HORSE!
@Vaer I used to consider KAC’s Saturday NYT puzzles to be among the most difficult ones I solved. Either I’ve since tried to solve many more really hard crosswords or I have just gotten on Kameron’s wavelength, but today’s puzzle is my fifth fastest NYT Saturday ever. (It’s about the same as my Wednesday NYT average.)
@Eric Hougland Kameron just posted that he thought that some of the cluing was too easy, so beware next time.
@G Selkies remind me of two movies, The Secret of Roan Innish and Local Hero, which is truly one of my all-time favorite movies.
@G If you know those two, you probably know Into the West--Gabriel Byrne, two young boys, their beautiful, magical white stallion- a kelpie? Oh, not familiar with Ondine.
Today I learned that ACIDWASHED and DISTRESSED have the same number of letters.
I’ve always enjoyed Kameron Austin Collins’s puzzles, and this was no exception. It went faster than expected, possibly because FRIEND OF DOROTHY was a gimme. I’m glad to see you back, Mr. Collins. Thanks for the fun.
What took me the longest is that I was thinking of a machine that makes toasted bread going ding, so I had radion going down, which was a problem because that actually isn’t a word, lol! After I finished the whole thing and was told that it was incorrect, I looked through it all and didn’t see anything wrong going across, and then noticed that going down. When I thought about it again I finally thought of ration, and it worked and the puzzle was done. But I stared at the TING for a while, and finally it clicked — they meant someone who makes a toast at a wedding and first clinks their spoon against their wine glass going ting ting ting ting.
@Elena-Beth Kaye Same problem. Does it go Bing, Ding, sing, ping, ……
@Elena-Beth Kaye Even when I got to TING after flirting with DING, I thought maybe the toaster went TING. I never thought of a wedding toast. That is CLEVER. Thank you.
Typical tough Saturday for me - a couple of complete unknowns (NOHTHEATER notably), but managed to work things out from the crosses. Just ended up being an enjoyable challenge. Answer history search today was inspired by CZECHS. Wondered if there might be some punny clues or answers based on the pronunciation. And... yep - quite a few. Some examples: CZECHBIMALE CZECHEREDFLAG CZECHPLEAS CZECHSFORERRORS CZECHKURDPATTERN CZECHLIST CZECHMATE I'm done. ....
I drive past the Kelpies quite often although, given they loom over the motorway, I’m surprised they don’t cause accidents!
@Jonathan Baldwin It's odd that the NYT couldn't find a more recent picture of the sculpture, as it was finished in 2014. TIL their names are Duke and Baron. Very cool, though.
mATERHORSES, dING, and DoTS.... Oh my! I tried my DArNDEST! I, for one, found this delightfully challenging. Loved seeing FRIEND OF DOROTHY.
@Ash I had all those as well! 😄
Anyone besides me remember Don Martin's cartoons in Mad Magazine? I can vividly picture one of a guy with a frizzy mustache: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/i9LKELA" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/i9LKELA</a> It was a lot funnier before NOSE HAIRS became an issue personally close to me. (Sorry if that's TMI.)
@Eric Hougland Thanks, Andrzej, for mentioning Imgur. It's nice to have a way to share photos here. Coming soon: 147 photos from my last ski trip!
@Eric Hougland Yes! Wow, I needed something like this today. A breath of some sort of different air (I hesitate to say fresh) from another time.
The ROHE/RELLON nattick felt off. I still have way too many consonants on my grid. This did not feel too easy for a Saturday for me. Felt more like a Saturday from a couple of years ago. If you knew the trivia - good for you. I did not and I’m guessing the average person does not know that either. Also, proper form is AW SNAP, not OH SNAP. You either say, aw snap or oh burn. Source: went to an inner city high school and have lived in the inner city as an adult.
@Red Carpet I've heard and seen "oh snap". It may be regional. (I tried googling both variations-- "aw" mostly had results talking about the Chrome error page.)
@Red Carpet It’s MELLON. As in Carnegie MELLON University.
@Red Carpet I don't think the "average person" solves Saturday NYT puzzles. For me the cross letter was a gimme, although the last two letters of ROHE weren't. I was pretty sure one was an H... Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was an important pioneer of modern architecture. He designed many groundbreaking skyscrapers, in Chicago, New York, and other cities. He designed the popular Barcelona chair. He coined the phrases "less is more" and "god is in the details." I'm not saying that to blow my own horn, but to encourage folks to look into his work. Yours was not the only "who is that?" comment. Mies van der Rohe's buildings are featured on Chicago architectural tours, which are so worth seeing. The architecture of Chicago is fascinating, and this group does a bang-up job: <a href="https://www.architecture.org" target="_blank">https://www.architecture.org</a>/ If you find yourself in Chicago, I recommend them highly.
@Red Carpet I agree that AW SNAP was the first to come to mind, but I don't feel OH SNAP is off, per se. I had a lot of the crosses by the time I got to that one. Someone else pointed out that two answers starting with OH (the other being 40A) had a whiff of clunkiness (my words, not theirs).
I expected torture when I saw the KAC byline. Instead, I was treated to a really interesting, fresh and lively puzzle. Whizzed through the bottom, and only got caught up for a little while in the NW. It took a while to get WATER HORSE, because I was confusing it with hippopotamus, which I knew meant "river horse." And then had trouble remembering that it was CRAIGS, after I got LIST. I had no clue it was still around despite having sold many things on that site. I got FRIENDS OF DOROTHY relatively quickly, even though I don't think I ever saw that term, but it may have been used on a bulletin board on a long cruise I was on that had a huge gay population that we got friendly with, even hosting an all-gay- plus-us party in our cabin. Kameron, hope to see you back very soon!
LOVED this puzzle, even though I lost my gold star to SONES. Thanks, Kameron, for a great start to the weekend!
A fun one today, I also found it to be more of an engaging level of trickiness than an outright hair-puller. My only trouble spot was the final blank winding up on the intersection of KOLN & ANNEE - I didn't know the German town, and couldn't make heads or tails of the "Mars" clue until I guessed right and read the crossword blog.
Never having heard RIDEORDIE, I thought it had to be LIVEORDIE. AVA sounded like a perfectly good first name for a poet. Trouble is, that gave LIBS as a barbecue order. I thought, "Well, maybe in some parts of the country?"
@Paul Perhaps you might provide some of us a 'Travel Safe' guidebook?