Early birds as usual going on about how easy the Friday puzzle was and how they whizzed right through it. Well, give a thought for us mere mortals who found it both fun and challenging!
@DQI solved in well better than average time. At the same time found it an enjoyable test and a good puzzle. as you did. No complaints from me.
These days it’s a big ask to REMAIN CALM if you FACE REALITY.
@Mike R that’s a good point TOUCH ON since we’re going to have an opportunity to ELECT new representatives soon.
No - MEWS does not usually refer to row houses! A mews consists of small city houses in an alley behind large mansions, which were used in the 18th and 19th centuries for horse stables with servants living above. Mews are sometimes accessed through a high archway, originally tall enough for a coach and horses. Often with a cobbled road - picturesque - and although small, with no garden (or yard) usually very, very expensive because of their location. A row house is usually called a terraced house, or may be on a crescent, it the street is that shape.
@Jane Wheelaghan I thought the same thing! Was hoping our Londoner would check in about this. I hesitated to put in that answer because my visits to London have made me pretty sure I knew what a mews was.
@Jane Wheelaghan Spot on. Message from us Brits: we are not a-mews-ed
@Jane Wheelaghan The word has the same meaning in American English, Washington Mews in the Greenwich Village section of New York being a charming example.
@Jane Wheelaghan I only knew MEWS because it was used as part of the name of an ordinary-looking apartment complex in Atlanta. It irritated me enough to make me look it up once I arrived home. Absolutely nothing mews-like about the place, by the way.
@Jane Wheelaghan Thank you. I knew terrace and entering MEWS raised the eyebrow.
But many if not all MEWS -- British as per the clue or in New York's Greenwich Village -- are now rowhouses.
@Jane Wheelaghan Thanks for that, I'll add it to my newfound understanding of a "close." (I recently watched a docco about Edinburgh.)
@Jane Wheelaghan It is my understanding that MEWS is singular, akin to “pants” so maybe an improvement on the clue would be a block of rowhouses.
I found this to be a bit tougher than some Robyn Weintraub Fridays, but as I was doing the puzzle, I was impressed by how her cluing lets you zero in on the right answer extremely quickly, even for longer and unhackneyed entries like GHOST STORIES and ALL STAR CAST for me. Getting to those answers in less adept hands might have been a struggle, but not with Robyn as the constructor. What others call "too easy," I would describe as a tribute to Robyn's skill.
@Derek it’s all fun and games until you zero in on the wrong right answer lol!!! That is the beauty of a Robyn puzzle!
GOES BONKERS? GOES BANANAS? GOES BELLY UP? GOES BERSERK! There are so many ways to go.
@Cat Lady Margaret That's for sure. Bizarrely I started out with " goes kerpluy"
Oh yes, there are the big things in a RW puzzle, those fabulous long answers and the playground-in-a-box wordplay that excite the heart before filling in the first square. But they can mask the little fabulous things, like: • Beautiful short answers, such as PLEBE, TOUCH ON, ADEPT, SHEEN. • Highly scrubbed grid. Look at this completed grid! As I gaze over the answers, I get zen and calm. • Zing. Answers we’ve never seen before in a Times puzzle, such as ALL STAR CAST, REMAIN CALM, SOUTH BEACH, GOES BERZERK. • The bar Robyn sets for herself. Almost not submitting this puzzle because BALLASTS seemed weak to her! • Amazing grid design talent. Robyn did 35 NYT Fridays before this – so many designs to choose from – and yet debuted a new Times grid design for this puzzle. What a pro you are, Robyn, not only an artist, not only a one-of-a-kind, not only down-to-earth relatable, but a stellar technician underneath it all. Thank you for all this, and for another splendid outing!
@Lewis The ALL-zTAR CAST wants to have a word with you about your spelling. (BERSERK is tricky, even for an old beserker like me.)
I found this one a little less easy than the rest of the early birds, perhaps because I was savoring the substantial number of delightful entries, particularly the long downs. CHECKPLEASE was particularly pleasing, as was TMINUSZERO. It took me longer than it should have to come up with FACEREALITY and REMAINCALM. A fun Friday, and like baby bear’s porridge, just right for me. Crossword constructor Paolo Pasco emerged with a hard fought win on Jeopardy tonight to secure a place in the Tournament of Champions final round. It was a tight two person contest heading into final Jeopardy with Pasco holding a slim lead. The final question was very tough and none of the three got it correctly, but Pasco prevailed by making the unconventional bet (for the person in the lead) of $0, relying on his competitor to get the final question wrong, and defying the more common strategy of betting enough to ensure that if you get it right, none of your opponents can get it right even if they bet everything. Perhaps in addition to being a crackerjack constructor, he’s also psychic.
@Marshall Walthew Betting zero when you think you won’t know the answer is also common, though not common enough. Jeopardy betting is remarkably poor, given how much the contestants train.
@Marshall Walthew -- Especially in the first half, Paolo was SO sharp. I also like how he doesn't take stabs, that is, if he doesn't know an answer, he stands pat, unlike many contestants. I also like how remarkably fast he is with the buzzer.
I always struggle with Robyn Weintraub puzzles. She has a knack for using words in their less common meanings, which must be why seasoned American solvers love her grids. However, for a non-native speaker the challenge is less enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, I like and appreciate misdirection, but the more levels it comes on, the harder it is for me to deal with it. Still, I almost managed to solve the puzzle unaided. It took longer than a full Saturday solve, but in 40 minutes I filled almost the whole grid. A single mistake in the still largely empty NE corner was my downfall. I had entered STOOD for "Stopped lying" (that was a nice clue btw!), and chaos ensued. The O of STOOD led to my (tentatively) entering OTIS for the transportation company - lifts are a form of transport in rhe wider sense, aren't they? It seemed a Weintraubian-enough answer to me. The T of STOOD in turn had me enter (TOP)STARCAST. There was just no way out of this mess I had created by erring. I knew I had made a mistake, but where? Of course I had no idea what the Annapolis clue was referencing, so I looked it up in desperation. PLEBE... That was enough for me to catch all my mistakes. A Robyn Weintraub Friday solved with one lookup? As a Polish guy I'll consider that a win. And here's Lucek the Poodle exploring a tangle of blackthorn bushes: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/zckYI8G" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/zckYI8G</a>
@Andrzej I think you just gave a great example of crossword quicksand! The entry of the very reasonable STOOD tilted the rest of your solving, but not enough to make it blindingly obvious that STOOD was wrong. I think that's the very essence of the concept of how a reasonable mistake can make a puzzle quickly difficult.
@Andrzej As you know if you've read my note above, PLEBE knocked my solve off its pins. You are not alone.
@Andrzej I love the alertness of dogs, especially puppies. It's like they've blocked out everything else other than their current focus of attention. By chance I've had a string of older dogs. My daughter and son-in-law have two genuine puppies, and the energy is just phenomenal when you've been away from it for a while.
@Andrzej A Weintraub Friday and a Lucek pic too - it doesn’t get better than that! I had fits with the NE too because I hung onto AROSE and GOESBANANAS for way too long.
@Andrzej I agree with your analysis. I was 5 minutes above my Friday average because of similar problems. Loved the picture. You have a great eye for capturing the Decisive Moment.
Immaculate. This is why she has the reputation she does. I found it pretty speedy and the early XWStats rating is Average, which seems about right. (As a Friday I'd probably vote Easy.) But there's no junk fill and some interesting clues throughout. Reading the column, I think the constructor achieved her aims here. A pleasure. Welcome back.
@B (Okay okay, ESL and Err and maybe Asti are frequent flyers, but what can one do...)
A comment on T-MINUS ZERO; it really isn't used that much these days—the launch folks just count down to one and then say "ignition" and "lift-off", but it's still an accurate phrase. When the weather is clear, I can walk to the back of my apartment building and watch the flame from rockets launched at Cape Canaveral ascending over the Margaritaville Orlando Resort, which I did last night and which I could do again if I wanted to stay up another hour and go outside in our 44°F Florida weather. I'm a bit over 60 miles WSW from the launch site, but still get a fairly good view. For anyone that's interested, there are phone apps that alert you to launches, and many are shown on YouTube, so can be watched from anywhere there's reception. Learned from experience that there's about a 10-second delay with the video feed. More trivia: when they were assigning overlay area codes, they were thinking about assigning this one to Chicago, but people insisted that the 3-2-1 code be assigned to the Cape Canaveral area for obvious reasons, and it was.
@JayTee This is exactly why I like to read the comments column here. Very cool.
@JayTee, what’s amazing is I can see them here also (close to Miami)! Certainly not looming as large in the sky as from Kissimmee, but we can see them. It’s on my bucket list to see a launch in person one day. Have you?
@JayTee I agree with that first part but would rephrase as t-minus-zero exists but is not announced. At my location I can occasionally see SpaceX launches. If the lighting is right they are spectacular!
Yay! Robyn is back! Sparkling clues as usual -- and I had quite a bit of trouble in places. GOT UP before SAT UP for "stopped lying." PLUS before PERK for "Bonus". Have no idea what BABY GROOT is nor what/where the STAX is that Elvis was at. I'm ashamed of myself for my TEXT BOX DNF. First I wanted TEXT BAR, but ORTHO demanded an O. Then I wanted TEXT BOT, but TRAYS doesn't fit the clue "Looks below the surface." A big "Hmmm?" for the latter. How about GRAYS???!!!! The look below the surface of your dyed hair is GRAY, right? Of course that left me with TEXT BOG, which isn't a Thing. But it might have been -- you never know. Don't ask. But I'm very glad that Robyn has reappeared. Come back often, Robyn, please.
@Nancy enjoyed reading your journey with respect to 43A … though as I’m on my own journey to read through a multi-book (55!) backlog this year, I think that TEXTBOG might actually be a handy term for me!
@Nancy ah yes, the TEXT BOG… when I am bogged down by unread messages.
We haven’t seen Robyn Weintraub in the NYT for almost nine months, although she’s been in the New Yorker a few times. Although Robyn has “hit for the cycle,” by far her most common day of publication has been Friday. And this one was a very smooth Friday offering.
Fast but fun, all good. I especially liked the 'doesn't take the regular train home' clue
Aw, a Robyn Weintraub puzzle… Now that’s always a treat. Put a smile on my face. Not as fast as everyone else today. You know what else starts with a D, has 4 letters, and fits “Whoa ... that's too much for my brain to handle?” DErP. Filled that in without a second thought. And for FACE REALITY, I insisted on boom!REALITY for a touch too long. Sometimes the initial wrong guesses are as fun as the right ones. Back to the regular scheduled programming, which is to sleep, perchance to dream. (Hopefully not about BABY GROOTs. Good grief how I wish I hadn’t googled that in the middle of the night.) Happy Friday, y’all.
@Sam Lyons Oh I had DErP for a while too! Haha
Absence makes the heart grow fonder? But I already loved Robyn Weintraub Fridays
The following is a true story. Woke up at 3:55am. Hubby was getting up, per usual. I leave my phone in the kitchen every night- except *last* night. I happened to have left it on a chair near the bed. Drifting back to sleepland- thoughts flitting about... what day is it...Friday...pretty busy day...ooh a themeless... ...wonder who the constructor is...haven't had a Weintraubian Friday in ages...hmm...I could even check on my phone...nah...but...hmmm...what are the odds... I gotta do it... No. Way. C'MON.
Seems I always find room for a CHEESEBOARD when I should really be asking for the CHECKPLEASE!
Robyn, I'm not a speed solver. I do these things purely for pleasure, and this one hit the sweet spot. Thanks for a really good Friday outing.
Even had I not seen her name before starting, by the end of, say, ten or fifteen clues and fills I'd have known it was a Weintraub. She is my favorite drug dealer. Her clueing is never too stepped on or overwhelming, reliably gets me just where I need to go, has very few if any negative side effects and always leaves me a little slumped over, dopily smiling, drooling a bit, breathing shallowly and wondering when my next fix will come.
@Matt Waiter! I'll have what he's having in the last paragraph. Make it a double.
@Matt lol this is the drug I needed yesterday when I was waiting in the ER with my appendix about to rupture! I was trying to REMAINCALM very unsuccessfully. Should've asked my son to pull up the crossword.
At the very end I was stuck with TEXTBOT / TRAYS, but the latter didn't make sense for [Looks below the surface?] (I originally had DRAGS for that one, but overrode it when I found ACHY). I thought TEXT BOT made sense, as in software used by scammers to send text messages asking people to "enter" their information. I just couldn't see the answer until I approached the end of the alphabet: TEXT BOA? Nope TEXT BOB? Nope TEXT BOD? Nope TEXT BOG? Nope TEXT BOO? Nope TEXT BOP? Nope TEXT BOW? Nope TEXT BOX? Facepalm
@Bob I was stuck on the other end of it with _EXTBOX. And started with nEXTBOX, which was something I learned to program on back in the day (I miss objective-c!). Although I knew that was probably way too obscure for even a Friday puzzle.
I shoulda known it was a Weintraub. It was "just the right challenge to usher in the weekend." Chewy and fresh fill. I went bananas and bonkers before GOing BERSERK. Could not figure out why LATEX would be an alternative to Mylar, thinking of Mylar in heat-reflective uses. Oh, balloons! FACE REALITY feels rather ominous these days. Nice that it's over REMAIN CALM. Clever photo choice, Sam.
Engaging puzzle. Didn't notice it was a Weintraub production until I came to the comments. Another day of *almost* having my heinie handed to me. I don't know how I came up with a T at the crossing of BABYGROOT/STAX, because I didn't recognize either answer, not even a little bit. But there is where I got the unexpected happy music. Never heard of MEWS, not sure why TATA is British, luv, never heard of PLEBE week, never thought of Eggshell as a SHEEN, I pay no attention to car logos, so ACURA was a surprise, TMINUSZERO doesn't sound very NASAy to me, and I've never had the bubbly chocolate concoction known as AERO. I don't know anything about Florida cities like SOUTH BEACH other than I never want to be in any of them (humidity hater, cold, crisp air lover). Never heard of SOUTH BEACH other than that's where LeBron took his talents to, at one point. It's been a long time since I've heard anybody RADIO ahead, but maybe that's because I stopped watching cop shows a long time ago. But, all on me. All on me. So, other than those 10 or 15 problems, I found it very straightforward and easy, just like everyone else here.
@Francis LOL. I knew a lot of those but had my own SNAFUS (and knowing them and getting them by quickly are two different things). I can thank Agatha Christie for Murder in the MEWS. If you haven’t watched Guardians of the Galaxies it’s worth it for GROOT. He and Baby Yoda should have a play date. Glad you got through it all in the end!
@Francis 👍Talk about being on the same wave length! (Too bad is wasn't the right one, but we did get it done.)
@Francis SHEEN came in on crosses for me and seemed so odd that I looked at the whole bloc again. But the hidden shape in ACURA's logo was a fabulous surprise. And I recommend AEROs a lot. They've had a bunch of varieties pop up and then vanish into the obscurity of Asian corner stores. (Japan seems to have particularly exuberant tastes in candy. They have literally dozens of Kit Kat flavours -- many that seem very odd. Just search 'Japan KitKat chocolate' -- and make sure your smut filter is on. Or maybe, off?) So, for the Aero amateur, milk chocolate is probably safest. But you can still easily find white and dark chocolates, orange, mint, and other varieties.
@Francis, you would love it here at this time of year. We are expecting close to 30° (F) tomorrow morning! Some were talking of potential snow flurries, the first time since 1977! Unfortunately, it will only last a few days. We don’t have much autumn or spring weather here in between unbearably hot and completely-unprepared-for cold, sadly. But I’ll take it. :-)
That was so enjoyable; crunchy enough to stir the grey matter, but nothing too esoteric. Howled when I got the BABY GROOT clue. A small branch indeed. TIL that you call MEWS row houses. TBH I haven’t come across many MEWS, mainly as chichi homes for posh people in tv/film. I should probably get out more. In flood news, the village is finally being cleared by the pumps today, leaving a nasty, sludgy mess behind on the roads. We’ve all been a bit stir crazy the last few days, not being able to get out, though most of us were able to stagger across the fields for the start of the skittles league last night. Our team won, despite being handicapped by me. I truly have no hand/eye coordination.
@Helen Wright What’s a skittles league?
@Helen. Mews are exclusively British and while I think of something else when I picture a row house, Mews ARE built in a row I suppose. Typically on a short street behind the grand houses in London because they used to be stables with accommodations above.
Really, just a perfect Friday for me - enough resistance to make it interesting but enough give to beckon me onward. Thanks for the fun!
My first time commenting because I just had to share! This was my first time ever solving a Friday with zero look ups or help at all. And in only 42 minutes (way below my FRI average))!! Was SO glad I caught my tASTE/ BASTE error. Because I know nothing about ships and never would have gotten it with crossers. Great and super fun puzzle!!
@Annie First of many, I am very sure. But there's nothing like your first one!
Very sweet, very fast. Fine Robyn Weintraub Friday answers (as is her wont), but with Tuesday/Wednesday clues.
@Barry Ancona I, on the other hand, cycled through every wrong choice. At one time, had the west side virtually complete and less than 5 words on the east. Was 16A 'eagle', 'naval', 'angle'? No. Was 21A 'go ballistic'? (This was when I thought, having gotten BALLASTS, that maybe there was some kind of BALL theme.) No. Was 32A BABYrobin? Why not a comic for the earliest years of Batman's sidekick? No. Was 56A 'down'? 'mopY'? No. Etc. Ms Weintraub, did you put all those false trails in there on purpose, chuckling to yourself? Am I crazy? Or are you just very, very clever?
@Barry Ancona This was harder than a hard Saturday for me 🤷🏽♂️
@Barry Ancona Only just under my Friday average for me. If only there were some way for the people with all the completion data to share it with us…
There are some puzzles, this one most definitely, when I think the constructor constructs sets of several words of a given length: a set of three letter words, a set of letter words, etc. Then for each set this demonic constructor will construct two or three *that can be clued the same way*. I mean, how else can you explain 9A [Stopped lying]? After I saw SHUTUP wouldn't fit, (makes sense in my dark world), I thought aha, AROSE! No, STOOD...much later SATUP. Just a masterpiece of ambiguity. Lots of fun.
@Francis If Ms. Weintraub were a diplomat we'd either have world peace or WW III, so eely are her constructions.
For anyone wondering how BABY GROOT made it to the puzzle, here's a clip where the sassy little fella is dancing- <a href="https://youtu.be/DfNSBeFliIg?si=Jit2QM2qIcwmh-4r" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/DfNSBeFliIg?si=Jit2QM2qIcwmh-4r</a>
@CCNY If it weren't for sci-fi and sports clues, I'd be doomed.
I hope everyone took a minute to figure out the picture and caption that accompany today's Wordplay column. It shows the entry to a corn MAZE (with the faint word "ENTRANCE" above it. The caption reads, "It’s easy to get into today’s crossword. But can you get out?" As someone who has felt the urge to just bust through the "walls" of those confounding MAZEs, it gave me more than a shiver of anxiety! "Enter Here!" Indeed! Nice work, Sam Corbin! And nice puzzle, Robyn Weintraub!
@The X-Phile I always wanted to try a corn maze – we've got tons of them here in southern Wisconsin. This next fall maybe...
"Berserk" is such a lovely word! Originally a noun, it comes almost directly from Old Norse; it means someone who entered battle wearing a bear-skin shirt, or no shirt at all (bare-sark; "sark" being an archaic word for "shirt," but used by Robert Burns and William Morris, natch). In other words, a crazy man. I learned the original meaning of the word from Frans Bengtsson's Viking-age historical novel *The Long Ships*, which I read gleefully as a teenager, and recently re-read, with equal glee. This puzzle solved like the themeless, easy yet sparkling, Wednesday puzzles Robyn publishes regularly in the New Yorker (on-line, and no-fee, I think). I've been on a Debussy kick lately. Here's an interesting recording of "the Gal with the Ecru Do"*: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv8iHEM4g7Q&list=RDwv8iHEM4g7Q&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv8iHEM4g7Q&list=RDwv8iHEM4g7Q&start_radio=1</a> Quite recommend! *Puella linocapillata
@Bill Continuing the French theme, here's a short (1:08), but TILDE-rich piano piece by Erik Satie, dedicated to Debussy's daughter, Claude-Emma. It's from a suite collectively titled "Sketches and Exasperations of a Big, Wooden Dummy"; Satie was more sarcastic than I could ever hope to be.: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TUDUC_GoE&list=RDj9TUDUC_GoE&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TUDUC_GoE&list=RDj9TUDUC_GoE&start_radio=1</a>
@Bill I love the smell of etymology in the morning. It smells like intelligence.
A moment of appreciation for the rotational symmetry of "LAT" and "LON"
lovely solve Robyn my only wish is to Free the Dandelion if people only knew how vital it was to our ecosystems stop killing them!
@acjones I am with you 100%. The yards in Grand Marais are just strewn with those vivid yellow flowers, and it's glorious.
I'm laying down the red carpet and throwing an euro-disco dance party to welcome back Robyn Weintraub! <a href="https://youtu.be/wC_kCnm3GYQ?si=O72q5pbaf2dLhBtO" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/wC_kCnm3GYQ?si=O72q5pbaf2dLhBtO</a> It's been too long since we've been regaled with Robyn's artistry, craftsmanship and creativity – the elegant misdirects that trick just enough to challenge but without frustration; the resistance that's just the right dose without being impenetrable. Always a beautiful puzzle, always a delightful romp. Thank you so much, Robyn. You're a luminous crossword star!
@sotto voce Consider a subscription to The New Yorker. It's an outstanding magazine (print and online) and seems like there's a Robyn puzzle about once/month. (And an Eric Agard puzzle nearly every week.) Also, Monday is the hardest day and Wednesday is the easiest, so it complements the NYT nicely. (Unfortunately, only 3 puzzles/week.) The Shuffalo and Laugh Lines puzzles are also addicting.
Once again, Robyn Weintraub shows that there are more adjectives to describe a puzzle than “easy” and “hard”. For me, a very important measure is the number of smiles you experience in a solve. Such as figuring out an answer like BABYGROOT as opposed to torturing out a response to ”Pepin the Short’s ex-wife’s maiden name”. I managed to solve this in a respectable time, but loved every minute of it. Thanks again, Robyn. Hurry back.
Like everyone else I knew it had to be a rebus puzzle in order to make HOT PLEBE SUMMER fit.
Really enjoyed this puzzle. Didn't find it as easy as some because I got bogged down in the SW. Could only think of Quik for the chocolatey drink. After deleting that, I had a pretty empty corner. Aha! Had to pull myself away from thinking about Jalapeño as food. Then I could see it as TEXT with a TILDE, and the entire SW quadrant fell. Robyn, thank you for the brief respite. I needed that.
@Lynn Right? Jalapeño *is* the topper. Oh, I see, very clever clue.
@Lynn, I had NACHO there at first.
@Lynn Me too, Lynn with “Jalapeño topper” except thanks for getting it right! Also I had to think of an Olympic pool for LANE as “Pool assignment”! Very nice work.
Always to delightful to have a puzzle by the Queen of the Friday! So much sparkling fill, and such an elegant touch to have [FACEREALITY] and [REMAINCALM] stacked on top of each other!
I enjoyed this one very, very much!! It takes a lot these days for me to really get absorbed in anything other than FACingREALITY and trying so very hard to at least a little bit REMAINCALM before I GOESBERSERK, but this one did it! I could only wish it would have taken me longer so I could have been peacefully forgetful longer, but it genuinely engaged me and I am so very appreciative! Fun long answers, terrific clues, and so many this before thats, like "Stopped lying" at 9 across, great clue! And TEXTBOX and GOESBERSERK. I started with gotup, goesbananas, and doorway... What good fun!! ☺️
HeathieJ, Glad you could enjoy the puzzle. (Too bad [Stopped lying] is only a puzzle clue.)
@HeathieJ Hang tough, HeathieJ! Things will get better. You have a good heart, so I'm sure current events are hard to watch, but the arc of history curves towards the good.
Hey New York: Thanks for lending us the Boss today in Minneapolis! Springsteen soothes the soul….
@Darren Springsteen is of aboriginal decent and hails from the Northern Territory in Australia. Not from New Jersey. Not even close, brah. His first album is titled “G’day Mates, It’s Dryer Than A Dead Dingo’s Donga Around Heah,” but to be fair, he didn’t really hit his stride until “Born To Run.”
@Darren. He is proudly from NEW JERSEY. You would not like us to confuse Minnesota for Wisconsin then shrug, would you?
@Darren Oh my gosh, not one of the prior comments could get beyond the geographical nit to appreciate the gist of your post! Springsteen raises spirits, that is for sure. I'm glad you feel he soothes the soul, too!
My first Friday with no help. Spare RIB, DESSERTMENU, and SCARYSTORIES almost sent me into cracking open some Asti Spumante at 7am but I figured it out. Very fun puzzle. Thank you, creator. Cheers.
Is there a way to search the archive by constructor? I've never seen anything less than wonderful from Robyn Weintraub, and this is no exception!
@RJ You can pull up lists by constructor at <a href="https://xwordinfo.com" target="_blank">https://xwordinfo.com</a>. Free for a few visits, and then they'll ask you to subscribe ($20/year for most of us).
@RJ Go to Xword Info. (<a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com</a>/). Click on the link to today's puzzle and then at the top click on: "Robyn Weintraub author page" Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Author/Robyn_Weintraub" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Author/Robyn_Weintraub</a> That will show a list of all her puzzles. And.. if you click on one of them it will show the solved puzzle, but you can avoid looking at that, and.. at the top of the page is a link that says "Solve and print." If you click on that - it will take you to the page to solve the puzzle. So you can solve every puzzle she's ever made. ...
Whizzing through this thoroughly delightful Robyn Weintraub Friday puzzle brought back impressionistic memories of Robyn Weintraub Fridays of Yore, bathing me in warm nostalgia. (Also hit my fastest Friday solve ever.)
Only Robyn Weintraub would fret over a “weak” entry like BALLASTS. We missed you! You had me at BABY GROOT and then you had me at CHECKPLEASE. I didn’t think was too easy, just about perfect (as always for Robyn). Actually a bit challenging for me with a lot of misdirects and wrong initial guesses. If I could spell BERSERK I would have had that first but since I can’t I had GOESBONKERS. Then there was SOUTHMIAMI before SOUTHBEACH and TAXFORM for “enter here” before TEXTBAR, NOTES before TONES, STOOD and GOTUP before SATUP, TAUS before RHOS, GRIN before BEAM, PLUS before PERK—so I was jumping all over the place. Just how I like it! In the end a slew of fun fresh entries and clues. And it all culminated in the perfect STAY CALM and FACE REALITY (which are not always compatible). Thanks for a great puzzle, Robyn.
@SP I had most of the same, but NOT TAUS instead of RHOS. Example of how learning the Greek alphabet, which several of us have recently advised everyone else to do, was a disadvantage!
@SP I caught a bunch of Marvel movies on streaming and was kinda meh about them. Then I saw the opening scene of Guardians 2, which CCNY linked to, and it made me appreciate most of those movies more. But the three Guardians are my favorites. They're also my 3 favorite Vin Diesel flicks.
Help! Why does “Eggshell” solve to “SHEEN”? I’m lost…
@Kaye King When you buy paint, you can choose the finish: another one is matte or satin.
@Kaye King I had SHADE there before correcting to SHEEN when crosses demanded it. .. I get you! I was quite confused, too.
I thought this was fair and fun-a perfect Friday crossword puzzle.