Like so much else in today's NYT, I just wanted this puzzle to be over.
Difficult puzzles don’t bother me. A challenge is always good. And when it gets the best of me… maybe it’s just not on my wavelength, and that’s fair. But when there’s clue after clue that makes no sense, even when I reveal the answer… I don’t know what to do with that. Is it me? Is it the puzzle? Should it bother me this much? Should it bother me at all? I guess there’s always Sunday.
@Heidi Yeah, same. This was hard, but in no way elegant or artful.
@Heidi “But when there’s clue after clue that makes no sense, even when I reveal the answer…” I remember feeling *exactly* this way a few years back…but fwiw, I didn’t feel a shred of that for even a single entry in today’s puzzle (and for that matter, I don’t get that feeling anymore for even the most brutal stumpers in the archives). In other words: it gets better, I promise :)
@Heidi I agree. Ideally the clues are head scratchers but once you find the answer there's that "oh I get it now" feeling. Many clues in this one remained enigmatic even after solving.
@Heidi Every single clue here made sense to me. I guess that makes me a rare bird. To me, making sense of each clue is part of the *fun* of solving the puzzle.
@Heidi like everything in life, you win some, you lose some
@Heidi Which clue/answer pair made no sense? They all made sense to me.
@Heidi My thoughts exactly. Even after skimming the replies here, I'm still in the dark on some of these clues/answers. Always appreciate a challenge, but I've gotta agree with others who find this one just "off".
@Anonymous IN no way is STERN a taxing test.
@Katie STERN. And ONTEMPO is not a thing.
My favorite Saturday puzzle in ages, made so by great clues and clever wordplay. I love the way NIGHTMARE and ELM ST are clued. Other favorites … [One who makes a living from fish] CARD SHARKS [Takes off-road?} RECALLS [What travellers typically have in America?] ONE L {Establishments where smoking is allowed] RIB JOINTS Well done, Fritz.
@Anita well, I for one HATED this puzzle! Fritz needs to learn how to crossword.
@Anita I liked most of those too! But did feel "Takes off-road" should have been listed without the dash. With the dash, off-road implies an off-road vehicle rather than the act of removing a car from being roadworthy. It tripped me up for a fair bit as the meaning (I felt) was fuzzy.
@Anita, I too appreciated the ELMST and NIGHTMARE cluing. It broke open the left hand side for me. I liked in his notes how he spoke of connectivity in grids and answers sprouting other answers. This cluing was like a portal from one side to the other.
I had a pun about ribs, but I'll spare you. (Sorry for being short.)
@Mike We're all queued up to contribute further commenary...maybe after I floss.
@Mike You're always ribbing us about something, and I don't have a bone to pick with you about that, but I would not say that this was your crowning achievement. Still, I would never pan it, nor roast you about it, and I'm sure you will serve up more of your juicier ones in no time.
@Mike this one caused my intercostal muscles to go into spasm. Just stop! :)
Very difficult. Not enjoyed.
Interesting grid and interesting clues made for an interesting Saturday solve. A few feints and dekes, but a fair fight. Thanks, Fritz.
I wanted WAdi before WASH, ODDone before ODDITY, and CARDSHARp before CARDSHARK. Cross words to the rescue.
@Barry Ancona @Kate Tani My mind kept coming back to WADI, but I wasn't sure it was even a word. Comforting to now read that others were slowed by that one.
Like others said, something about this puzzle just seemed off. Not that it was extremely hard, which it was, but that's fine for Saturday. It was something else, like the answers to the clues were too vague or could've been a dozen other answers. And often the crosses were the same, or somewhere unknowable, so they were no help. I couldn't even finish this one without Check Puzzle a few times, something I almost never have to do. Lost my gold star streak on this one.
@Dave K. Couldn’t agree more. Here’s the ones that stood out to me as odd. 31A - Closing This one in particular seemed off. 64A - Totality of everything in sci-fi speak There’s several possibilities here 10A - Taxing as a test Never heard this term for a test before 15A - Screen grab? “STARPOWER” just seems off. 46A - ENHALO? I guess? 53A - DOTTED? Really? They’re not dots.
@Dave K. I disagree, I think that’s what makes things challenging. Ambiguity. The sense that a lot of things could fit. The sense that you are just on the edge of something but not quite there. At first I felt that way about the STARPOWER clue. It seemed off at first but think about it—if there is a a lot of STAR POWER in a movie or show, it grabs people to watch the screen. It makes absolute perfect sense. But you are probably not ever going to come up with it unless you have some crosses. I thought this was a brilliant puzzle.
@Dave K. "the answers to the clues were too vague or could've been a dozen other answers." This is what Saturday puzzles are supposed to be like. This is what they WERE like, before the editors nerfed them to appease people who are terrified of a challenge.
@Dave K. I'm currently making my way through the archive prior to when I started solving about 25 years ago, so I can tell you that this is an old school Saturday. This used to be the norm.
@Al in Pittsburgh It'sa difficult test. No one ever says a stern test.
I got stuck in the center because I was sure the 28 down was WADI. Legit, right?
@Alan Young Me too! WAdi didn’t WASH. 😉
@Alan Young Totes legit. I lost a lot of time to the same mistake.
@Alan Young et al Anyone who's hiked in the American Southwest knows all about WASHes and the dangers therein.
@Alan Young, Completely legit.
@Alan Young Yes, WADI fillers of the World Unite!
Another endorphin-releasing, moderately disorienting instance of seemingly randomly filling two or three small gimmes on the first pass, embracing the enervating fact that this one will be the one to break my streak, pickaxing my way anyway through a corner off one of the initial little fills, painstakingly following a vein or two as bigger flakes fall with a couple of well placed taps which reveals a spot or two to place an explosive charge and after 45 minutes the entire lode is glitteringly revealed. All of which makes me a bit richer and a little dizzy.
@Matt My experience exactly but you expressed it so much more eloquently
@Matt Another day, another insult. Nil, zip, ___, Matt, naught MINUS ZERO
@Matt - This is why we do crossword puzzles!
@Matt, exactly how I like my *Saturday* puzzles! Well said.
Bars at Knox, Olympic achievement, Rapper's grille, Matt and Becky's banter. GOLD
@Matt Sunday solves release dopamine.
I hope those who think that the Saturday puzzle has been much too easy of late are happy with this one. Granted, I’m a bit tired from skiing all day, but this took me as long as some of the really tricky puzzles from 20 years ago. Part of my trouble was being overly-Saturdayish early on, when I had WAdi instead of WASH. (I blame Frank Herbert for introducing me to wadi decades before I ever hiked in a wash.) Once I got rid of WAdi, I had much less trouble finding the answers. And a big thanks to ANYA Taylor-Joy, TONI Braxton and ex-PFC Wintergreen for their help. Without them, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with this one. Thanks for the challenge, Mr. Juhnke!
@Eric Hougland Those are the exact same three answers I got on my first pass. I thought the solve was going to be out of reach for me, but I got there eventually. Only took me…ahem…forty minutes longer than my average.
@Eric Hougland I got those three as well, but that was about it.
@Eric Hougland, same first gimmes for me, along with 21A (EMOJI) and 63A (LIANE). Much of the rest was a wide-open expanse of white (grey actually, as I use dark mode) on the first few passes, slowly filled in piece by piece. Perfect!
Oblique simply for the sake of being oblique.
@Justin In other words, a Saturday?
@Justin This is what a Saturday is supposed to be like. It is supposed to be difficult, the clues are supposed to be vague. In short, you have to actually THINK about it. Heaven forbid.
@Justin - I thought OBLIQUE at first too but it didn't fit and I eventually got DOTTED
I don’t mind a tough solve with obscure hints to common words and phrases, but when the answers themselves barely qualify as words or phrases, I’m out.
@David L. Do you have some examples of non-words and phrases? They all look familiar to me, but then I'm in the US and can see where the rest of the world might have some trouble.
@David L. Do you have examples of answers that "barely qualify as words or phrases"? They all made sense to me.
A good puzzle but I won't call it a stern test. But then, I wouldn't call anything a stern test.
@R.J. Smith "stern test" is a rather common expression. Put it in quotes and google it.
@R.J. Smith I've never heard it before either. Stern bush, sure. (a Psych reference)
Doable and hard, but I didn't much like it for some reason. A lot of it just felt forced to me somehow, and I didn't find anything very clever or fun. Finished up pretty quickly and was glad to be done. Looking back on the grid I like it less and less. But at least it was the proper level for a Saturday.
Ten minutes into the "solve", having entered almost nothing into the grid, I checked the puzzle and that's what I was left with: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/usepW5F" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/usepW5F</a> I'm pretty certain that's my worst start to a puzzle at the NYT, ever. I'm not sure I will even attempt to continue. I think that makes this a truly proper Saturday challenge 🤣
@Andrzej 😂😂😂 Priceless. That "O" sitting out there all by itself is particularly heart-breaking. ANYA Taylor-Jones, I suspect, takes up a fair portion of our computing power. You got VIM before me--I started with ZIP. Wouldn't it be crazy to have a video of someone's solve, so as to see their progress or regress from the mountain top?
I did it, sort of... <a href="https://imgur.com/a/tLSvq5m" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/tLSvq5m</a>
@Andrzej You got TONI Braxton, and you should be proud! Hopefully you can continue the solve, and unbreak your heart.
@Francis there are a couple folks in YouTube who do daily solves. You can find them by "NYTimes crossword" and filter by uploaded today or this week
'The first thing you do if you sit at a new table is look for the fish. If you don't see the fish, you're the fish.' I read this years ago in an interview with a legendary card shark. This was his answer to the question, 'What's one thing you've learned in your career?' I later heard it in the movie Rounders. Not sure if the movie or interview came 1st or if that's just a standard of gambling folk wisdom. Anyway, the clue 'one who makes a living off fish' ranks now as one of my all-time favorite clues. Even though I know that line, I still was barking up the wrong tree in the wrong forest, trying to make 'sushi chef' fit until I erased my whole top left corner and started again. Liked the Catch 22 cameo, liked most clues, liked the grid... Well done!
@CB I started with sushi chef as well 😆
@CB Fairly sure Rounders used “sucker”, not fish. It’s been a long while since I saw it though.
@CB, for a minute after getting …SHARK, I tried MAKOSHARK. But I knew that was unlikely because it wasn’t punny enough. I suppose they can make their living, literally, from fish, but it didn’t quite resonate.
@Jacqui J Yeah, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to force the rest of the grid to accept sushi chef 🤣
Count me as a big fan of this one, exactly the Saturday puzzle I want. I respect critics like B who disliked it for reasons other than difficulty, and I get it—this didn’t have all the flashy grid spanners and clever misdirects that you might enjoy—but to me that’s more of the Friday vibe, and for Saturdays I’m looking for more of a challenge and hopefully not just from arcane trivia or pedantic entries. Many of you just gave up saying it was too hard and that’s a shame. There was a ton I didn’t know here—fish as a slang for “mark”, ninnyhammer, WASH as clued (I had WADI forever), estoques, dancing on a WHIM…but somehow they all made sense at the end. For most of the rest it was challenging precisely because of the ambiguity and the rather sly somewhat sideways clueing. And look, folks, we can’t have it both ways. You don’t want gimmes and more difficult puzzles? This is it. I didn’t see a lot of unusual proper nouns, obscure trivia, or questionable pop culture references everyone complains about here. I love clever punny misdirects as much as the next guy (and this had some—RIBJOINTS? STARPOWER?) but sometimes even those are more guessable. This was challenging mostly because of sheer tough but fair clues that had me stumbling, stabbing and intuiting all the way, and I think that’s terrific. Last observation, REBUS didn’t sound Japanese but certainly looked like it might fit the bill, anyone else try that?
@SP I was sure it had to be kanji - emoji seemed too easy - and I held on to it for a while. Thanks for the shout-out.
@SP I started with EMOJI and took it out when I thought RIB JOINT was hookah bar. Then TONI made me erase hookah bar… My solve pretty much went like that the entire time. I loved it!!
@SP This was the first time I’ve ever truly given up, it was after 15 minutes and I was really glad I did when I saw the answers. It would have been excruciating looking at this for 60-90 mins, which around what I usually give to a Fri/Sat/Sun. It was the first time I’ve ever Revealed puzzle and now I have an incredibly unrealistic best time for a Saturday.
@SP REBUS was my first thought but I checked a couple of crosses and no. Likewise ANIME. Took an embarrassingly long time to get the right answer.
@SP Finally, all those years in Latin class (mandatory at my high school) pay off! I knew that 'rebus' is the dative plural of the Latin 'res' meaning 'thing'. So 'rebus' classically means 'via things', as opposed to 'via words'. Hence, it's used to refer to puzzles in which clues are given via pictures of things. Never crossed my mind as a possibility for 21A. At least one blind alley I didn't explore.
Even when I got the clue I still have no clue.
I just gotta say, regarding 38A ["Does anyone else sense impending doom?"]... We are in no way in any position to make this to be comparable to AM I NUTS. AM I sane, maybe I'm really being a bit serious here. I haven't checked earlier comments but I can't be the first one to mention this.
@Francis I agree that it’s a poor clue. Especially since an impending sense of doom can be a sign of a heart attack, particularly in women.
@Francis Agreed. I’d suggest [“Is it just me?”]
This wasn’t enjoyable nor clever. When almost every answer leaves you saying “what?”, you’ve got to wonder if the whole purpose was for the creator to show how smart they are. To the people saying they solved this in 20 minutes, God bless you.
Yeah, this one was terrible. It's the kind of puzzle that makes me stop playing. It wasn't fun, too cryptic and esoteric.
@Andrew Just too hard for you. It’s a Saturday puzzle. No shame in struggling.
@Julie Thought this was a slight stretch as well, but if you think about the definition of STERN... Strict, severe, harsh, rigorous, uncompromising It's not relying perhaps on the most common usage of the word, but it fits fairly well based on some of those secondary definitions.
Booyah, this was one STERN but highly satisfying Saturday crossword! Many times I thought I could hear the Grim Reaper of 27A coming after my streak — it was a near thing. My bane, almost, was my addiction to the 1960s Batman TV series: did anyone else have HOLYMOLEY for 69A? I was willing to rationalize away TOROL and DEETY for a very long time before I finally recognized the error of my ways. My hat is off to Fritz for this splendid puzzle, and I am looking forward to his next Saturday Streak Smasher (can I trademark that??) sometime soon.
@MP Rogers Yeah! I was pretty confident about moley, too. That slowed things down. I was also suspicious that 53A was something much more complicated (and potentially unknown to me) than DOTTED. Cuz of course I had no clue what an estoque was. And current slang, don't get me started.
@MP Rogers After my first pass, I only had 3 confident entries. I said to myself "Holy moley!", then gasped, realization dawning on me, and confidently plopped that into the puzzle. It was wrong, of course, but close enough that it gave me a little foothold in the SE!
Ackkk! Yesterday I Googled "wood shaper" in response to an argument in the comments that they don't exist. Today my NYTimes games page is filled with ads for woodshapers. Photos of eight different models marching across my page.
@Lynn Welll that proves there is such a thing. I don't think you were the skeptic on that point, but some were. if you don't buy one, I think the ads will stop. We've had the same experience when my husband was looking into replacement castors for a roller suitcase. Who knew there could be that many models of either of those things?
That has to be the single hardest NYT puzzle I’ve ever done. WOW.
I found this one challenging, I worked it steadily but slowly, but really bogged down in the NW corner. POCOAPOCO was not a term I was familiar with, although thinking about Bolero (one long slowly built crescendo) led me to it. After that I had enough to fill in the rest. I thought the side by side by side downs at 31-33 made a nice troika: FACEPALMS, IMANIDIOT, NIGHTMARE. Sounds like the ingredients of most of the dreams I remember. Thanks Fritz.
@Marshall Walthew Small world! Reached POCOAPOCO lentissimo while humming Bolero, and trying to keep Dudley Moore out of my mind's eye. 😉
Hey at least we don't have anyone complaining today that it's too easy! Or 'felt like a Wednesday!'
Early stats from xwstats.com has this puzzle as Very Hard: 🌎 Global Stats Difficulty Very Hard Median Solve Time 16:59 Median Solver 29% slower ⚡8% of users solved faster than their Saturday average. 8% solved much faster (>20%) than their Saturday average. 🐢92% of users solved slower than their Saturday average. 58% solved much slower (>20%) than their Saturday average. My personal experience corroborates this. I found it to be a worthy Saturday workout, although I will admit I solved it while watching the first US game of the World Baseball Classic, which divided my attention. Like Caitlin, I liked the crossing of MORON, IM AN IDIOT and AM I NUTS.
@Steve L these statistics really make me smile. There’s no way to track whether or not people are using forms of assistance that the app doesn’t pick up. I would love to know what the stats are for those that use no assistance whatsoever. I think I would be doing better than the numbers indicate.
@Steve L I agree that it was very difficult (though I snuck in a bit faster than my Saturday average), but early stats are surely misleading, because they include only the people who solved it quickly! (And they're also the enthusiasts who jump right in as soon as the puzzle is released.)
Jake, The stats are fine for measuring relative difficulty, because people are going to use whatever aids they use, if they use aids, all the time. The stats are, of course, useless for determining who solves unaided, or what aids are used.
@Steve L I'm honestly and naively a bit shocked that anyone using XWStats would use "aids" of any kind. What the devil is the point of comparing times to other people's if you're already ch__ting? Weird. At least I agree with the rating today.
@Steve L I wrote a reply in naive surprise that XWStats users would use "aids" of any kind, but it was swallowed by the emus...
@Steve L. “16:59”??? Part of me was morbidly curious to come to the comments to see whether people were flaunting “personal bests” so I could feel depressed. I haven’t seen any - yet - but I was a good 4x over the apparent median solver so I guess that qualifies.
Oh man sorry so many struggled and didn't enjoy but I loved this puzzle! It was sooo hard. Took me a long time but I love it when I have to struggle to figure out every letter. Luckily I forgot or didn't know WADI. My last error was KRONe and I couldn't figure out what LeND had to do with a plot. I think there's a tipping point between "this is impossible I hate it" and "this is impossible and I will solve it no matter what" and I stayed on the fun side of it.
Really disliked the clues on this one. Did not enjoy it at all. Annoying.
@Raj T I agree. I think it’s one of the worst that I’ve solved. It wasn’t just difficult. The answers made no sense.
I am thoroughly enjoying these difficult Saturday puzzles. I am disappointed, but not surprised, to see many here whining that it was too difficult. People, Saturdays are supposed to be difficult. This wasn't even the hardest Saturday I've done. If you don't want a challenge, why are you doing the NYT crossword puzzle in the first place? HOLY MOSES.
@Katie If you start watering down the Saturday puzzles, newbies will come to expect that level as the norm for Saturdays. And at the same time, veterans will complain. When you ramp the difficulty level back up, naturally, the veterans will be happy, and the newbies will complain. But the newbies shouldn't have been led to believe that the watered-down versions we've been getting were normal for Saturdays. So what you're seeing is the normal reaction to this phenomenon. Notice, though, there's practically no complaining that this one was too easy.
I understand many found this puzzle delightful, but the northwest corner across clues just left me angry. I wasted so much time on esoteric wordplay.
@pjc I felt the same. Too many "guess what I'm thinking." Clues. Sigh. A very slow solve for me today.
Shouldn’t it be, “What travellers typically HAS in America?” I got it because I’m a crossword veteran by now and recognize this kind of clue, but I think typically the editors still insist on puns working grammatically when read both ways, and this doesn’t. Probably should have been, “What a traveller typically has in America?” or just pick another British double L word.
@Mark S This one didn’t bother me too much because the single L applies to both the group of travelers and an individual traveler. So you can stay grammatically consistent in answering the clue by saying that travelers typically each have one L in America.
After a mighty struggle with this one, I was relieved to see that the comments aren’t filled with the currently popular chorus of “ridiculously easy”, “shoulda been a Tuesday”, “puzzles were harder in my youth”, etc. Excellent Saturday, Fritz! Suitably annoying and thoroughly satisfying. Love the idea of a Fritz & Katie puzzle. Would it be like mixing oil and water or more like slipping vermouth into a glass of gin?
I hereby nominate Fritz Juhnke for Deluxe Sainthood. The kind where you are em-haloed. (But only if he can answer this question: How many angels can dance on the head of a whim?) Excellent puzzle, I thought.
A good, hard Saturday puzzle. I liked all the off-center clues. It took me almost 20% longer than my Saturday average. More of these, please!
[Cause of a cold sweat, perhaps] Seeeing my sparsely filled grid after the first pass. This felt like a good old fashioned Saturday. So much that I didn't know, forcing me to really work those crosses. WAdi is a word I most likely learned from a crossword puzzle eons ago. I happily plugged that in, and held onto it until I had no choice. Thank you, Fritz. I'd love to see you and Katie create a puzzle together. She's one of my favorite constructors, and it would nice to see what devious trouble the two of you could cause.
@Nancy J. I, too, went down that dry, unfulfilling path of “wadi” too. And held on too long.
@Nancy J. WAdi slowed me down a lot, too. But I learned it from one of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels. (Herbert throws in a *lot* of Arabic words; there are many references to the Butlerian Jihad, which essentially led to a prohibition on computers.) And like you, I had to “really work those crosses.” And the challenge was all in the clueing! Of the 72 words in the puzzle, only POCO A POCO is new to me (and I know “poco” as a modifier in musical directions).
@Nancy J. A real workout today, and of course I filled in WAdi, like any long-time solver would do, until I had to get "fill it in" with another answer.
@Nancy J. I’ve been reading the Tony Hillerman novels set in the four corners area, and the characters are always crossing washes so WASH was my first guess and I didn’t get tripped up thinking of wadi. Reading is a great thing.
Tough but fair. I got stuck in the NW. Probably spent almost as much time there as I did on the rest of the puzzle. I got ATONE AND AWOL right away but I had CNOTE instead of CSPOT. The only clue I’m skeptical of is 19A. I figured it out, but hesitated because, if we are discussing the word “travelers” (as opposed to actually travelers) then “have in America” should be “has in America.”
@Roberta A legitimate nit, can’t disagree.
@Roberta Right on. I'm usually all over a nit like a cheap suit, but I missed this one.
@Roberta I agree, but it presents a cluing dilemma, because then you'd really have to put the word in quotation marks, which would tend to give the game away. Here I would consider it crossword-constructing license.
@Roberta I see your nit, and I had the same thought at first. But saying has instead of have would have made the clue a lot easier and not Saturday level, imo. So I decided that I could accept that as written, just for the sake of a super challenging, enjoyable puzzle. For me, that corner filled in relatively easily, so ONE L was a welcomed toughie.
@Roberta Also agree. The question mark doesn’t make it witty or cute. “Travellers has” is just incorrect grammar.
@Roberta To @Teresa and others, no, it wasn't necessary to exercise license. As someone else in the comments pointed out, all the constructor had to do was write "what a traveller has in America". He failed to do so.
@Roberta, I agree. It didn’t bother me too much because it was such a clever clue. But perhaps it could have been been clued as “What a traveller lacks in America.” I had tentatively filled in AN ID until the crosses kiboshed that.
Boy, howdy, did that bucker almost slung me right off, to right under the bus. I was soooo lost on 43A [You might dance on one.] The only thing that seemed remotely possible was "prom", and the final "m" made that especially difficult to dismiss. When WHIM fell out of my synapses, I kvetched. I kvetch every chance I get and I don't care who knows it. And TWOS was also just nearly impossible for me. I only got it afterwards. At one point I had moOS, with a play on the word "low". I feel off that limb HARD. 13D I had gInJOINTS, which made the NE a challenge. I have no idea why I'm thinking about alcohol so much. Really nice challenge. I hope those who relish it found it here.
@Francis WHIM was my last word. Don't even ask how many different words I tried to stuff into those 4 squares. Were the crossers ones or twos, wadi or wash, in, at or al tempo, baby, babs, or babe? You see my dilemma--quadlemma?
This was the least fun Saturday I can remember. Seems to be designed for a very specific kind of solver.
@Dave It's definitely not beginner friendly. I haven't read all the comments yet but I'll bet most of the regulars on this forum are happy with it. I sure am.
@Dave Saturdays are supposed to be challenging and make you think in different ways. That’s why I enjoy these tougher puzzles. I want my brain to be challenged instead of dropping in EEL or ROE for the one thousandth time without even thinking
@Dave serious, compassionate suggestion: don’t do Saturday puzzles. Maybe stay away from the Friday puzzles as well.
Nice one. Done and dusted. I'm just going to SPITITOUT: Curious to know if anyone else feels that "it's not what you know" that fills the grids of late, it's how you are gently, and often cleverly led to a solution? IMO, clues are made to enlighten, entertain, tease and torment. Sometimes chicken, sometimes feathers, but always an AHA! or a "Jeez, how'd they ever do that!?" and a few, "How in the @#!# did they get away with that?!" However, I've finished each grid, including MIDI and MINI with no drama or dispair. Aside from a bit of flyspecking, the gold stars cometh. Are they getting easier? Currently working through 1994-1995 NYT crossword archives. Maybe that has something to do with it. Either I'm finally getting the hang of it, or just dumb luck. Happy weekend solving, all.
@Whoa Nellie Agree with you. I think a lot of people give up too soon when they can’t get a solution or assume they don’t know something. There’s a lot I didn’t know in this puzzle. but if you are persistent, start thinking of common word or letter patterns, make some educated guesses, you can get there. That’s how I felt about this puzzle. You look at it when it’s finished and have no idea how you got there but somehow you did
@Whoa Nellie Yes! I like your kinda clues! Enigmas to crack!
This was definitely tough, but it's Saturday and it's supposed to be. Clues are going to be more vaguely worded and with misdirection, but once you see the answers they all make sense. After some of the recent gimme puzzles where peeps were blowing their personal bests away, it's nice to come back to a poser. This is the New York Times after all. It's supposed to be hard!
@Ant-ny Yes, this was challenging and a lot of fun. Cheers!
Now that was a worthy Saturday. A welcome throwback to when solving a Saturday felt like a legitimate accomplishment.
@Wesley... my sentiments EXACTLY. I'm nearly 10 years back in the archives and this felt like one of those puzzles (which are definitely harder than what usually passes for a Saturday these days).
@Wesley Agreed. An excellent puzzle.
@Wesley Yes, EXACTLY. Thought the same thing. Been so disappointed with present-day Saturday puzzles recently.
Now that was a Saturday! I was becoming disillusioned with my personal best streak because so many puzzles of late have been, shall we say, undemanding. But this puzzle demanded my full concentration and persistence. I enjoy the sense of accomplishment when completing such a puzzle.
I can't believe I could so strongly dislike a puzzle that brought up Pharaoh. What an absolute slog
These clues were in the "read the constructor's mind" category.
Plenty of mind readers enjoyed this puzzle.
@Derek Jones but truly isn’t that the key to a lot of crossword puzzle solving, to try and get on the constructors wavelength? It’s very much the case with cryptic crosswords and also with the more sophisticated difficult puzzles like this one, and is part of the enjoyment, trying to work out how they think!
Can't say I enjoyed this one. Definitely gave me a sense of impending doom, as I gesture with incredulity
The POCO A POCO crescendo of Bolero is the perfect musical image for this puzzle. The snare drum pattern starts you off with an AWOL and an EMOJI. Then the flute tune comes in to bring you ELBOW ROOM. And it just keeps building and building until it crashes out and HOLY MOSES you are done!
@Cat Lady Margaret Exactly! Once you LAND those final notes, you're ATONE with the OMNIVERSE!
Holy Moses that was tough. I loved it. I'm slowly accumulating a mental list of constructors whose puzzles guarantee potential streak-breaking difficulty. Tough but fair. The kind of puzzles where I know it's going to take me over an hour, but I'll power through, poco a poco, and enjoy every minute. Katie Hoody is on that list, and now I'm adding her husband. 😂 Fun fact: "menopause" and NIGHTMARE contain the same number of letters!
@Ash NIGHTMARE on menopause? Sounds about right 🤣🤣🤣