On behalf of those of us who don’t have 1969 and 1979 trivia at the tip of our tongue to anchor the middle of this puzzle, but who regularly solve Saturday puzzles, please don’t start any nonsense about how that one was too easy. That was hard.
@Mark P I’m with you. 31 Across stumped me for a quite a while.
@Mark P Hang on, are you saying some poor souls come here without 1969 and 1979 trivia? Thoughts and prayers.
@Mark P Also from the 60s and 70s: <a href="https://youtu.be/MG2ZICMn7lU" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/MG2ZICMn7lU</a> Depends on your perspective.
@Mark P Compared to an average Saturday from 10+ years ago? Very easy. But regardless, this puzzle wasn’t insultingly easy, and I doubt you’ll hear much complaining about it. Truth be told, the people who tend to complain about how the puzzles have gotten too damn easy (myself included) would much rather *not* be having that conversation, and from my perspective, the volume of such complaints has only risen above a murmur in some pretty egregious cases (e.g. the infamous Valentine’s Day cakewalk of 2026). Btw, I certainly needed help from multiple crosses to get MOONRAKER and PAULSIMON (and SESAMESTREET, actually). But there was enough connectivity throughout the entire grid to prevent any one answer from becoming a bottleneck (or being a stranded peninsula), and to enable incrementally building up the longer answers.
@Mark P Would love to see what xwstats says about today. I don't have an account. I found this just as easy as most Saturdays are now.
@Mark P, those two were gimmes for me, and in fact PAULSIMON was one of my first entries as I scanned the otherwise mostly empty grid. Before my time, but my mother was a huge Simon & Garfunkel fan, and my father was a James Bond fanatic. I grew up listening to and watching both.
My FURSONA is a POLLIWOG who hangs out in the HOTELPOOL.
@Dave K. Aw, that's so sweet for you and your FURSONA! I have a quick question about it though. Which HOTELPOOL are you at? I want to make sure it's not on our list of vacation plunges... Har!! 😏
@Dave K. That is a quality dating app bio right there.
@Dave K. But an amphibian has no fur. Is that allowed?
For those who didn’t know LETT I owe that one to Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter in one of my favorite lyrics: And that's why birds do it, bees do it Even educated fleas do it Let's do it, let's fall in love In Spain the best upper sets do it Lithuanians and Letts do it Let's do it, let's fall in love The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it Not to mention the Finns Folks in Siam do it-- Think of Siamese twins Some Argentines, without means, do it People say in Boston even beans do it Let's do it, let's fall in love
@SP I never noticed the line "Lithuanians and Letts do it". Cute. I have a soft spot for lyricists from that era.
@SP I learned LETT from the crossword decades ago. Haven't seen it in a long, long time. I don't think I ever listened to all the lyrics of "Let's Fall in Love."
@SP That's where I learned the word "Letts". Here's my favorite version of the song, Louis Armstrong singing, Oscar Peterson on piano: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ7X4gyNSEQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ7X4gyNSEQ</a> Ella is great, too: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXYKGL6MgKM" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXYKGL6MgKM</a>
@SP I got lucky in knowing the German name for Latvia is "Lettland"!
@SP I wish I could flood this comment with recommendations. I grew up to Elvis and the Beatles but it was when I hit the Great American Songbook and Ella and her cohort that I realized,"Oh, that's why great songs survive for decades!" My own favourite? "Where or When" by Rodgers and Hart.
This is a shimmering box in the Crosslandia aisle. Filled with personality and you-don’t-know-what-you’re-going-to-turn-up-next. ACOLYTE! POLLIWOGS! WHATABOUTISM! FURSONA! GOD FEARING! BLOTTY! The center vibrates with freshness. That five-answer stagger stack? – one once-before-in-the-Times answer, three twice-befores, and once thrice before. Furthermore, it is crossed by a debut and three once-befores. Are you kidding me? The cluing variety you want on Saturday. Is [Promenade] a noun or verb? Misdirects – [Tanning target], [Sporting blades], [Top option]. Humor -- [They croak as soon as they grow up]. Hidden beneath the flash is stellar construction, the KAC hallmark that rarely gets mentioned in the comments. We take it for granted. But his puzzles are *always* squeaky clean. Cameron, I knew I was in for a treat when “mottled” and “flutters” appeared in NW clues, and once again, the rest of the box delivered. Thank you, and more please!
@Lewis Psst. Don't you think he deserves his K?
"Why'd you give me this six-sided cube?" "Just roll with it!" (But then the game ended. It was dice while it lasted.)
@Mike As Nancy Reagan probably didn’t say to her husband who was keenly following the electoral prospects of Argentinian presidential hopeful Héctor José Cámpora, “Hec’s ahead, Ron”
@Mike "It seems loaded to me." "It's a crapshoot."
Mike, “Just roll with it. Just roll with it. Just roll with it.” I keep saying to myself in iffy situations. Life is sometimes a game of chants.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Nothing too flashy but some fun entries like WHATABOUTISM and FURSONA and BOOKTOK and BLOTTY. For me this was about average Saturday difficulty and that’s fine. SESAMESTREET was great trivia and I needed a few crosses for it. I should have known PAULSIMON but was thinking it was a movie—good ambiguous clueing. Maybe MOONRAKER should have been a gimme since I’ve seen every Bond movie two or three times but somehow it wasn’t. And I had BELTLOOPS before BELTLINES and DOGHAIR before CATHAIR. Someone please tell me they at least tried BRA for “bosom buddy”. And speaking of bosom buddies I’ve been a pediatrician for 35 years and never ever heard anyone call a baby bottle nipple a TEAT. Apparently a thing—maybe it’s regional? Anyone else?
@SP Yep, I had BRA in there for a while, feeling oh so clever! Then when I wasn't getting anywhere in that section, I ripped it out!
@SP @HeathieJ Between SP's "bosom buddy" and Heathie's "...ripped it out", you guys are making me blush.
@SP I have indeed heard “teat” used many times, but only in Great Britain. I thought of it immediately, but it seemed too foreign, so I held off until I had a cross or two to confirm even though it really felt like a bottom row group of letters.
@SP Never. And 54A could have been clued to 44D, because EWES have plenty of TEATs.
@SP Pediatrician for 40 yrs ; mother of 4; grandmother of one ( my heart ) -never heard teat associated with anything but animals . My breastfeeding cohort would agree I'm sure - they already complain about people sometimes referring to them as cows ! Fun puzzle .
@SP Teat commonly used in this part of the world
@SP Kicked myself! Had __OTTY and put in SP then foolishly hit "reveal". Otherwise, pretty easy sailing for a mediocre solver.
KAC doesn't just tok the tok, he woks the wok!
I had bullfrOGS for POLLIWOGS, TacomA for TUNDRA, vat for WOK, pal for BFF. I didn’t have anything for FURSONA, BOOKTOK, or BLOTTY because I’m not sure these are words that existed before tonight. If anyone starts complaining about “too easy”, I may have to throw things. (Either way, I enjoyed the challenge.)
@Heidi You’d be surprised, actually! The furry community is massive and just keeps getting bigger. Fursonas are basically characters you use to represent yourself in the community. Mine’s a panda.
@Heidi Same! And I was shocked that Goodreads didn't work!
@Heidi I didn't find this particularly difficult for a KAC puzzle, but I never heard of FURSONA, BOOKTOK or BLOTTY (which I thought was a horrible answer). I got them from the crosses, and still don't like them.
@Heidi For a while I had VAT for WOK as well. I associate woks with healthy steamed vegetables and the like, but not deep frying -- that's for vats.
John, I read [deep-frying] as wordplay: a WOK for stir-frying is indeed deeper than a "western" frying pan.
@Heidi Nobody else thought that Toyota made TUaregs? Oh, well.
I don’t normally comment, but after having done these puzzles every day for years, it is impossible not he become annoyed that difficulty has turned from challenging vocabulary and wordplay to, “do you consume the same pop culture and hobbies as the constructor.” It is lazy, and uninteresting and a cop out. It’s not a bad puzzle, but this trend has really sapped the fun and challenge from these puzzles.
@JD Gold absolutely spot on. The best puzzles are word play and clever themes.
@JD Gold Me too. I'm happy to learn POLLIWOG and BREAST PIN (I think) not cars from 1999. I haven't seen WHIG since I was in history class aged 13. That's along time ago.
JD Gold, Are you quite sure "pop culture and hobbies" weren't there in the old days, or are you just not keeping up with things as much as you used to? <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/1996/03/16" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/1996/03/16</a>
@JD Gold I’m certainly not happy with the trajectory of the puzzles over the last few years…but I’ve gotta disagree that there has been a general increase in the balance of trivia at the expense of wordplay. This is a commonly heard complaint, so perhaps I’m missing something. But here’s what seems more likely to me: for many longtime solvers, the pop culture content/trivia in these puzzles has gone from being largely within their wheelhouses, as young to middle-aged adults, to being decidedly outside of them, with pop culture trends being produced disproportionately by members of the rising generation at any given time (e.g. Gen Z)…and commonly (though not universally!) ignored by members of older generations.
@JD Gold, I agree with you, for the most part. But I just did a couple Saturdays from 1995 in the last two nights, courtesy of a suggestion here, and I would say at least a third of those puzzles were then-contemporary trivia. One was Elizabeth Taylor, which was easily gettable (from the crosses, not the 1960s movie clue), but several others were about flash-in-the-pan 1970s TV shows and lesser politicians. Like you, I do very much prefer the general knowledge wordplay clues. But I don’t mind learning something new.
@JD Gold the idea that the constructors and editors of these puzzles are “lazy” is wild to me. The amount of thought and smarts they must put into these blows my mind! I can hand on heart say I’ve never heard of a fursona - but it slowly came into view as a possible answer from the crosses and my awareness of the words “fur” and “persona”. Similarly I know nothing of Toyota models or of a movie about someone called Hud (oh how confidently wrote in Hur 😅). But that’s part of the joy for me! Still, if it’s not for you it’s not for you. There’s probably some I’ve grinded teeth over that you’ve sailed through with glee.
@JD Gold This was an elaborate test of one's age and extent of keeping up with the times. If you easily got "Moonraker" but not "Fursona" then you're over thirty. If you managed it the other way around, you're under 30. Puzzle constructor: I thought it was hip. Ya feel?
Wow this was tough. The top left corner really got me bad. A great Saturday overall, tough with good wordplay and surprisingly very less lame crossword glue. The best part was when I cracked SESAME STREET and I went all "Oooooooohhhhhhh! Oscar!" 😂
@Apurv Oh my God! [Face Palm]. I totally missed that! That’s brilliant!!!!
@Apurv, haha, I didn’t catch that! What an awesome clue. I smiled when I realized the answer was SESAMESTREET, and I thought, wow, I didn’t know they won an Oscar. 🙈
I had assumed there was a Sesame Street movie, and that it won an Oscar. I looked it up just now -- There was a movie, two actually, but neither won an Oscar.
@Apurv Omg, you're a genius!! Thank you! I also assumed there had been a movie that had won an Oscar. 🤦🏻♀️
I guess BRA wasn’t the answer to “bosom buddy” after all…
@Warren -- LOL, so I wasn't the only one!
@Warren I wanted to put in Bra for "Top Choice."
@Warren And I thought I was being so clever 🤭
I found this one tough but satisfying. Age-wise, I’m too young for MOONRAKER, and too old (I guess) for FURSONA, but that’s what I love about crosswords: you always learn something new. As a history teacher, I always love the historical references, like WHIG. If they refer to something we are learning in the class I teach, I will even include a screenshot in my PowerPoint for that week, as an example of cultural literacy. (My most recent one was PLEBS while we studied Ancient Rome, and SPARTA during our study of Greece. The clue even mentioned the Peloponnesian War!) Speaking of cultural literacy, that’s one of the great things about crosswords: it increases it! I understand complaining when a piece of trivia seems too arcane or vapid, but the flip side is, you learned something about the society you live in! I will never be a furry, for example, but FURSONA is clever and gave me a chuckle this morning.
Thanks for a nice one, Kameron. It should make some people feel better.
P.S. Just as with the January Saturday, I would have liked some tougher clues as in older KAC puzzles. I think this is not on KAC.
Fun factoid related to 52A: When learning body plans in comparative anatomy or embryology, when students first encounter the complete gut (complete in this context means having two ends -- mouth and an anus), they are told that this means humans (because humans have complete guts) are a "tube within a tube." Some believe this applies only to worms with tube-like bodies, but it really applies to any organism with a complete gut, including humans, even though the "inner tube" (the gut) is highly convoluted in humans and the outer tube (epidermis) is not very tubelike. Topologically, humans are still a "tube within a tube." This is especially evident during early embryonic development, when gastrulation first forms the gut (by forming the anus, since humans are deuterostomes) and then the mouth forms. The "tube within a tube" structure is very obvious at the point when the mouth is formed. FYI, yes, we clams are also a tube within a tube (with some very interesting exceptions), but with an important difference: we are protostomes -- our blastopore forms our mouth, not our anus. That shows up later. I think the situation in humans (and other deuterostomes) is rather... unappetizing. This is your comparative anatomy and embryology lesson for the day.
Captain Quahog, Very interesting - some of that left me agape. But surprised there isn’t a link to some tube within YouTube. :)
@Captain Quahog Fun fact: "factoid" originally means something without evidence that is generally believed to be true only because of repetition, especially in the press. It is now commonly used to mean its near opposite—an interesting minor fact—only because of repetition, especially in the press. Use it as you prefer, but not in ignorance.
Really like the shout to Paul Simon and "The Boxer". What a great song, gorgeous lyrics: "Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job But I get no offers. Just a come-on from the whοres on Seventh Avenue. I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there." Powerful and succinct. Another amazing song, maybe less well known, that brings a tear to my eye every time, more and more as time goes on--American Tune. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3kKUEY5WU" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3kKUEY5WU</a>
@Francis: here is Cecile McLorin Salvant singing American Tune. I love her version. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@cecilemclorinsalvant/video/7486170011090898219" target="_blank">https://www.tiktok.com/@cecilemclorinsalvant/video/7486170011090898219</a>
@Francis Here's a joyful Paul Simon video - Late in the Evening <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y7cj3trw" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/y7cj3trw</a> There's another audio-only "Official Video" with his album cover photo from 1976. Can it be fifty years?
@Francis I saw Paul Simon in concert in 1991, and it was an amazing experience. The tour was for Rhythm of the Saints but it was soon after Graceland (one of my favorite albums of all time) and he played a lot of those songs. I can still hear the crowd singing “Call … me … Al” when Simon cued us. A magical night with a dear friend. (Years later I saw Art Garfunkel in concert. His voice was lovely and we especially enjoyed the many Paul Simon songs, but let’s just say I gained new insight about why Simon stopped working with him.)
@Francis I've saw Paul Simon in Hyde Park in London, 2017, and in wonderful voice. Fabulous concert. Three generations of families on the grass in the sun.
@Francis Thank you for the link to one of my favorite Paul Simon's songs. That sent me to Neil Sedaka's "The Immigrant." What a loss. "There was a time when strangers were welcome here...""It was a sweeter tune, and there was so much room." <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VGd7pDHtIA&list=RD3VGd7pDHtIA&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VGd7pDHtIA&list=RD3VGd7pDHtIA&start_radio=1</a>
@Francis I have a special bittersweet connection to The Boxer. In the wee hours of the morning my parents had bundled me into the car because we had to drive from NJ to Buffalo because they had gotten news that my grandmother had been hit by a car while waiting for a bus earlier that evening. While lying curled up in the back seat, groggy and half asleep, and fearful and sick at heart at what we were going to find when we got to the hospital, sure that my grandmother was going to die, I heard The Boxer, which had just been released for air play, for the first time.Not surprisingly the song was seared into my brain. The attitude of stoic defiance in the song proved prophetic. Despite breaking both hips, my grandmother fought through the pain and after many, many months of recuperation and physical therapy learned to walk again. I can’t hear the song without thinking of her fierce will to live and of the jumble of emotions I felt on that car ride.
@Francishttps://youtu.be/4NBjv54qvWA?si=ebhq8r1InxdcjnYL St Johns University 's own real life Rocky recites the The Boxer. Give it a listen. Go Red Storm.
Well that was interesting. I was convinced there was a rebus in there as 5A was clearly either the Younger or the Elder (father and son both held the PM role). In that mode I convinced myself that it also had to be Live and Let Die at 31A. I TWISTed myself in knots trying to make it fit. Silly me. Once I shook off the rebus obsession things fell much more smoothly. Laughed like a drain once I got the Oscar ref with SESAME STREET. It’s weird what you soak up by osmosis; that programme was never a feature in our household (don’t get me started on zee/zed when you’re teaching children to speak!) and yet I’m completely aware of Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster et al. TIL POLLIWOG. I admit to a frisson of disquiet when I filled the clue; it’s one letter away from a name now considered completely unacceptable here. I high tailed it to Google to find out what it meant. Phew. Overall a great Saturday grid. Thank you Mr Collins.
@Helen Wright I wonder what a laughing drain sounds like 🤔
A thought: It may be that we OGs are just getting better at combining memory, intuition and brilliance to solve faster than we did 5 or 10 years ago. Sometimes I can just hear the answer in my head and I don’t really know where they’re coming from. That didn’t used to happen as much.
@Jake G See my reply to Red Carpet, adjacent to your comment.
@Jake G seems logical until you work in the archives, at which point you realize the puzzles are simply easier now.
abelsey, The only thing wrong in Jake G's post is the word "just." Other than that, everything he wrote is fine -- and, as you correctly note, the puzzles are getting easier.
A good Saturday for me is one where I have like…one entry on my first pass, and then things fall into place from there. This was a good Saturday.
I wanted to say that woks are more for stir frying than deep frying in my neck of the woods, but I started asking myself since when do woods have necks and soon enough I was constructing a puzzle myself, entirely in my mind, a Sunday, 21x21, with a complete theme and many many clever moments and was about to mentally submit it, until I reached the very last square and couldn't make it wok.
@Asher B. - I scratched my non-existent head over this one when I saw it, so I hit up the googles and found that WOKs are, in fact used for deep frying -- and they are apparently very good at it! I love it when I learn stuff like that from a puzzle! I had only used a WOK for stir frying. I believe I have some culinary experimentation in my future!
@Asher B. Sorry you could not make it wok. I hope you are not a soy loser.
Captain Q, Even if you're not deep-frying, calling a WOK a [Deep-frying vessel] is fine Saturday wordplay.
@Barry Ancona You've got me thinking that the clue would have been better as "Deep frying vessel"!
The X-Phile, Too easy that way.
The word “persona” is so rich. Most of us first run across it in the phrase “Dramatis Personae”, the cast of characters listed at the beginning of a theatrical drama. But its origin in Latin means “masks” of the drama, and we need to remember that in Classical culture the actors wore masks that defined their “character” (and allowed a single actor to play multiple roles simply by switching masks). In psychology, the idea of these personas takes hold as the “masks” we show to different people, one for friends, one for work, one for the family. But where, then, is one’s “true” identity? That the Latin "persona"/mask lies at the root of the English word “person” makes the question even more salient. Is there a “true self”? Or are we just a collection of “masks”? Many an analyst has been able to make their boat payments by helping their patients work through such questions. All this is prelude to my morning meditation upon FURSONA, a FURry peRSONA??? I love a good portmanteau word, but really? At first this seemed to me almost pathological. But then I thought, “Why not?” As the poet says, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” Why shouldn’t some of my personas be furry?
@The X-Phile One of my favourite sayings is that the face grows to fit the mask. I find this true in life; you become what you pretend to be.
Anyone else notice that GoldenEye has the same number of letters as MOONRAKER? Anyone else never heard of a FURSONA before? (Wild stab fixed that one.) Anyone else misspell Eustac(h)ian and get saved—down by LEY? Listen, this was a terrific puzzle and I had a terrific time solving it. It was a beauty, Kameron, and if a seem a bit hysterical it's not because of the crossword—not a single cross word for you. It's that I filled in every single box, and n o t h i n g h a p p e n e d ! No congrats, no try-again-dear—nada. Combed it for blanks (none), tried again, took out words and put them back, and finally, finally reloaded the page and got the almost-there message. Found the error, calmed down, sort of (adrenaline still pretty high) and came here. It was a killer of a puzzle and I loved it. No padding, no garbage, just solid and fun the whole way through. Thank you!!
@dutchiris Just curious. ..wanna tell us what your error was?
You gotta love it when an entry that has appeared 188 times gets a fresh and clever clue. [Many an “SVU” extra] EMT Good one!
@Anita I was very annoyed with myself as I read that clue as SUV rather than SVU for the longest time!
@Anita Help me please - SVU? EMT?
@Ant-ny, I also read it as SVU initially, that’s why I thought it was clever. We’re probably not the only ones. @Jane, SVU refers to the TV show Special Victims Unit, part of the Law and Order franchise. EMT is Emergency Medical Technician.
@Anita I was trying to figure out how to put “Broadway star” in a 3 letter space….
I had "yokels" instead of "yahoos" for a long time. It was a tough puzzle and took me almost an hour, but faster the morning after when I was more alert. I found the puzzle very original, with things I have never seen in a puzzle like "fursona" and "godfearing." It's always nice not to have oreos and arias.
Toyota Tacoma … no…Tercel… no…Tundra!
@PEMdoc I got TUNDRA right away, but I thought it was NISSAN. Took a while to get TOYOTA.
And side note- when the latest update to the app was too fancy for my old rickety iPad, I wept as I busted out my laptop for my morning solve. Hubby surprised me yesterday with a shiny new iPad. Holy smokes. The solving experience is so different and better in every way. How some solve on their phones seems utterly impossible to me. This concludes today’s edition of “CC and her First World Problems.
@CCNY Occasionally, when traveling, I have solved on my phone. All you who do it regularly, subtract at least 5 minutes from your average solve time, and give yourselves a pat on the back!
@CCNY I hit the same problem a couple of months ago. I'm too cheap to buy a new iPad. Planned obsolescense makes me furious!! Why should Apple force me to spend hundreds of dollars for something I only need for 1 app??? But, there is a good work-around. Go to the NYT Apps and you can play in Games, at the bottom. Until the puzzle for the next day hits. For me that is 7pm and I usually do the puzzle after dinner... Or nytimes.com/crosswords gets you there, and if the new puzzle is out you can go to the Archives at the bottom and do the one for today. Get Wordplay by going to the Sections tab at the bottom of NYTimes App and search on WORDPLAY.. I have a much newer iPad at work. Maybe I'll start hauling it home every day?? But probably not.....
Like our constructor, Kameron Austin Collins, I remember learning the word POLLIWOG as a child, as an alternative to "tadpole", and loving it immediately. Such a fun word! It sounds like it was invented by a curious child! And, having looked up its etymology this morning, I love it even more, learning that the POLL comes from an Old English word for "head" (and is connected to our sense of POLL as in "poll tax" or "straw poll") and WOG comes from the same root as "wiggle". A wiggling head, which is just what a POLLIWOG looks like! Of course, I should also admit that I had first put buLLfrOGS in that space, and was very pleased with myself...for a while. But making mistakes and correcting them is a big part of the fun of a Saturday puzzle. Thanks for a true Saturday, Kameron Austin Collins!
@The X-Phile Ditto on the bullfrogs, which then, by the way, had me playing, " Green River", by CCR in my head. BTW, didn't that one have a famous MONDEGREEN, in it? Bad moon on the right? :)
@The X-Phile @Charles BuLLfrOGS has me thinking about Three Dog NIght's "Joy to the World". You know, "Jeremiah was a..." <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ZMRR_cREg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ZMRR_cREg</a> But it's also in CCR's "Green River": "I can hear the bullfrogs callin' me..." <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2oJIBQKlnw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2oJIBQKlnw</a> But the "mondegreen is in CCR's "Bad Moon Rising": "There's a bathroom on the right." <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkqfPuQhW9I" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkqfPuQhW9I</a> "Hope you are quite prepared to die!" That would send me to the bathroom!
@The X-Phile Related to this clue... I lived in Tokyo from 1987 to 1990. I absolutely adored the funny English used on many products. There was this popular frog character called Kerokerokeroppi (I have no idea if this character is still around today), and I found this tin pencil case with the following on it: "WHEN I'M FEELIN' DOWN I JUST SAY 'RIBBIT' AND THE WHOLE POND CROAKS ALONG WITH ME" I don't think that the author of that gem was aware of croak's slang meaning. Whatever the case, that pencil case still makes me laugh, and it is among my most treasured souvenirs from that era of my life. 🤣
Today I learned that SESAME STREET and SEx in the City have the same number of letters. (All those Emmys for Best Footwear!.)
@Bill hilarious, but it's Sex *and* the City :-)
I love the picture of the tree kangaroo at the top of the column. Woodland Park Zoo, here in Seattle, has long partnered with the people of Papua New Guinea to save the endangered Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo. On May 1st, a new building will be opening that will allow zoo guests to see them. Here’s some info: ITree Kangaroo Conservation Program: <a href="https://zoo.org/tkcp" target="_blank">https://zoo.org/tkcp</a>/ This 9 minute video about the program, including the coffee the people there grow to sell here: <a href="https://youtu.be/iFhYdYjmPWY" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/iFhYdYjmPWY</a> Want to see video shot by a tree kangaroo? There’s a bit in this 10 minute video: <a href="https://youtu.be/9cXdtS8qNnc" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/9cXdtS8qNnc</a>
@Cindy Very cool! I love to visit aquariums, and sometimes zoos, when I travel.
When I see Kameron Austin Collins on a Saturday, I roll up my sleeves for a challenge. But today’s puzzle, while a nice construction, was kind of a breeze.
POLLIWOGS!!!!!!!! Loved the clue, made me smile! Go Gunners!
OK, so I've been playing around in the archives, and I hadn't had coffee...so I totally discounted the possibility of BFF for 34A. LOL Took a while to get rid of "pal". Anyone else misconstrue 37A and start with "bullfrogs"? I already had the OG. Don't worry...I'm drinking my coffee now.
@Amy I had to stare at POLLfrOGS for a minute before the coffee kicked in.
@Amy Yep. Had bullfrOGS, then after getting PRONTO and BOOK(something), I thought POndfrOGS might be a thing.
Pretty amazing themeless puzzle, just packed with interesting entries. Got it solved without help, but took just over thirty minutes. Having TEN (as in 10 out of 10) rather than TEE for "Top option" was unfortunate, and keep me from seeing SESAMESTREET for much too long. TERCEL before TUNDRA and HOTSPRING before HOTELPOOL also made the SE corner slow going today. Didn't know BOOKTOK or FURSONA, but both were easily gotten with help from the clues and crosses. Seemed like an excellent Saturday puzzle to me---a Puzzle of the Year contender given the quality of the many long entries alone.
@Xword Junkie My initial errors were YOKEL and SLAV in the NW corner, which I didn't fix until I entered TUNDRA from the crossings. I resisted entering TWELVE instead of TOYOTA until I discovered my errors.
@Xword Junkie Anyone trying to take a dip in a HOT SPRING (in the Arkansas National Park) will seriously regret it. WAY too HOT. Thus the bath-houses....
@Xword Junkie I got TEE fairly early on, but still had trouble with SESAME STREET, which in hindsight should have been a gimme. I was too fixated on the Simpsons, for some reason. FURSONA was new to me, too, and also took me a while. I just wrote a long-ish "meditation" on this neologism in the Comments.
Today’s puzzle hit the Goldilocks spot - not too hot, not too cold, _just right_. Now let me get a move on before the bears return!
LOL, @Mishlev, that thought is too grizzly!
Generational pop culture frustration seems to be the Comments theme of the day but I've found that you can oftentimes in-fur the answer from a well-worded clue.
And when you still can't get the answer from the clue, use the crosses and learn a new word. The puzzle is a crossword.
Got it but fursona almost did me in. Good puzzle
Really wanted 34A to be Bra :D
@Alexis same. I had BRA for 24a and 34a. Bosom buddy and top option. But to be fair I type in BRA as a rebus into all squares on all puzzles as a starting place. I then begin reading the clues and adjust letters only if/when necessary.
I don't do passes. I solve by quadrant. I don't time myself. I turned off the timer. I don't need bells and whistles and a pat on then back from a computer program. The more daydreaming and fact chasing I can get out of a crossword puzzle is a win for me. I am not in a race to finish. -- The NYT does keep records of my solve times and I wonder if my deck sitting and bird watching has an effect on solve time averages for everyone. Anybody?
@Dale M What is it you wish from us? Have you not won life already? Do you need our approval, or community, to enjoy your perfect plan?
@Dale M Your average is your average, i.e. the sum of all *your* solve times divided by *your* number of completed puzzles.
@Dale M Thank you for this. I’m highly competitive, but it can get in the way…
@Dale M in the app on an iPhone, the timer will pause if you switch to a different app or if the lock screen comes on (which usually happens pretty quickly). On other platforms YMMV.
@Dale M It would only have an effect if you submitted your solve times to XWInfo, but that would defeat the relaxed atmosphere you have cultivated. Even more importantly, it would take time away from birdwatching. Your puzzle-solving experience sounds wonderful.
Just wanted to chime in that this was a really nice puzzle. Loved the construction, the cluing, the fresh multigenerational references (if you just learned FURSONA, congrats, a lot of people under 40 just learned HUD), the misdirection. A great way to start my Saturday.
Those of you who don't know Simon & Garfunkel's The Boxer don't realize what great poetry you're missing out on. A beautiful paean to the grit of America's working-class poor. Paul Simon is an amazing songwriter. <a href="https://youtu.be/l3LFML_pxlY?si=nApZp8VBy5jMOXTj" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/l3LFML_pxlY?si=nApZp8VBy5jMOXTj</a>
As a furry, finding FURSONA in the word list felt like seeing your teacher at a concert. It’s cool to see, though!
Kameron has already taken my scalp via a previous puzzle; he'll have to find a substitute. I am stumped at the criss-crossing of the POLLYWOG (POLLiWOG?) and the Shakespeare quote (SIN?) and the "SVU" extra (EXT would break all the rules.) My copybook is BLOTTY...if that's a word. Other than that, I enjoyed the challenge of this puzzle. CAT HAIR is part of our life; we just ROLL WITH IT (you know, those little sticky-pick-up tools.) Fave (all new!) entry: FURSONA. That, and the POLLYWOG....(I'm humming "The Golliwog's Cake-walk"....)
@Mean Old Lady Okay.... I did toy with POLLiWOG, but I couldn't make the leap to ISM in 5D. I would like to label this as "Slightly unfair," except that I really should have run the alphabet for 44A. My unwillingness to take any more time (like I'm doing right this minute) has cost me....well, absolutely nothing. Another little chip in my armor. Pfft. All y'all stay safe, dry, and warm.
@Mean Old Lady Expect some pushback on *olliwog's Cake Walk. It's widely regarded as racist; I know of no other name for this tune and hope it can survive this.
Today I learned that esophagus, fallopian, and INTESTINE all have the same number of letters!
@Dave Munger And "Eustacian" (the way I misspelled it) as well.
I'm pretty sure I've never seen the movie HUD -- starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, and Patricia Neal -- but I distinctly remember the parody of this movie in "Mad" magazine. A quick internet search tells me that the movie came out in May, 1963, and the parody ("Hood!") came out in December, '63. Wow! That's quite a while ago!
@The X-Phile “what we have here is failure to communicate”. Hard movie to watch and i’ll never look at another hard boiled egg the same way
@Scott G That's "Cool Hand Luke", a Paul Newman film I love and have seen more than once. A great movie about the nobility and the price of having a rebellious spirit. (And I believe it was also parodied by "Mad".)
I was a bit concerned when my first pass left the grid looking strikingly similar to when I started, but my blank stare soon faded. I'm new to NYT crosswords (not a total noob; ex WaPo subscriber), so I'm not sure if my time of 28:02 is respectable or not, although it seems pretty decent to me. One stumbling block was POLLIWOGS, for which I had GOLLIWOGS. Fans of CCR—I'm one—might recognize that word. It was the band's name before they became CCR, a useless piece of trivia that led me astray.
@Michael G Hi and welcome. Like every ex-print paper, NYT is going through paroxysms to balance the books and carry on. They've discovered that NYTXW-ists are addicted and are 'adjusting' the more challenging puzzles to avoid scaring away possible marks. So you may experience some turbulence. Still, it remains an excellent puzzle source and the Commentariat is remarkable. Feel free to speak up.
Inner tube was a good one. Learned a lot tonight. Thx
@Red Carpet It was a good clue. But since it’s a Saturday puzzle, my mind immediately started thinking, “Esophagus? No. Trachea? No. What about INTESTINE?”
Shout out to the sub-editor who wrote the caption for the picture of the (?) marsupial at the top of the Wordplay column. It’s so clever and witty.
Perfect kind of hard Saturday for me. Loved my DOH/aha moment when I finally saw Sesame Street! Especially liked intestine for "inner tube". Smiled when I changed 'Persona' to 'Fursona' with the entry of sour!😊
Something I learned just today is that anyone here from Wiltshire County, England should be either offended or proud as they reflect on seeing MOONRAKER in the puzzle. I found this puzzle a blast from start to finish - and I don’t think that’s only because too much acolyte has made me blotty.
I had a rather BLOTTY solve today. It started with APOSTLE in 3D, and took a long time to straighten out. BREAST PIN? At least I had MOONRAKER as a gimme in the center stack. BTW, "flutters" are BETS in the UK. In the end, a worthy Saturday challenge.