I haven't read any comments yet, but I will say right now that I want my obituary to mention my having solved this puzzle.
@Francis this comment made me chuckle. I managed with only two lookups (Zapata and Howard, both before my time and sadly not part of my education). But it was doozy. Proper Saturday it was!
@Francis, Most popular comment of the day, by far. 😂😂😂
This puzzle had more white squares than a Hall and Oates reunion concert.
@Asher B. I am already waiting for a conversation where I can use that one -- thank you!
Really not a fan of that NW corner. I think that is the most challenging, not in a good way, corner, I have seen in the last 5 years. The layout (no way in) didn't help. MUNSHI is just bad fill. ELSTON - know it or unguessable. HAREMS was brutally clued. And for goodness sake, if you're going to use SCHMEARS, at least throw us a bone and imply the Yiddish origin in the hint. I know I know, nobody likes a whiner. But there's gotta be some room here for criticism when it's called for. That was awful.
@Richard When a puzzle is as pathetic as this one, go right ahead and whine.
@Richard It was absolutely difficult. The *only* reason I got it was because Elston Howard was on my radar way, way back, when I rooted shamelessly for the Yankees because they won all the time. (As a Coloradan, I had no natural regional team.) So ELSTON was my absolute anchor, and there was nothing else that I trusted at all, and I could eliminate anything that conflicted with it. Which was just barely enough.
@Richard agree… the schmears was downright annoying… My final word… ‘sch’ I thought I was looking at a brand name. MUNSHI is new to me but HAREMS i was familiar with.
@Richard I'm now seeing how my screed several Saturdays ago about Back to the Future II and UCLA (the clue was so insanely inside-baseball for me I can't even recall all its silly details) was ultimately wrong. Because you're probably as offended by MUNSHI as I was by UCLA. And I knew MUNSHI right off cause I'm a British history nut and knew about Victoria's relationship/obsession with her MUNSHI. Ditto with ELSTON Howard since I'm a baseball snob and Yankees fan. So the NW wasn't as murderous for me as several Saturdays ago. One person's obscurity is another's gimme, as folks were trying to learn me and I was being recalcitrant...
@Richard Never heard of ELSTON, but I guessed it from the crosses, so definitely not “absolutely unguessable.” Names tend to follow certain patterns, so if you get some crosses, you can pencil in some likely letters. Like, if we have E_ST__, we can probably guess it’s not EwSTgh, and that gives us more information for the missing crosses. It’s a puzzle, not a trivia quiz. For people who struggled, it might help to consider your strategy and try thinking a little more laterally.
@Richard It was my last corner, but I disagree— I thought it was in keeping with a Saturday NYT puzzle. I guessed churros—I’m from Tucson, Arizona and I’ve had my share. I picked away at boxes based on tense/agreement, and I looked up Howard. Then it dropped. I knew the breakfast spread was going to be a play on “spread,” but I didn’t know whether food or blanket. No bones needed ;)
@Richard I disagree. I thought MUNSHI was an interesting answer, given the Wordplay story about Queen Victoria. I saw a film once about her relationship with her tutor that lasted for decades. Fascinating. When I saw 1A [Spreads out in the morning?], I thought of some kind of jam or jelly. I was on the right track. I needed some help in the NW. (The other three corners went without lookups except for the license plate!) I didn't know the baseball player. SNEES is an archaic word, I think; I thought of SMEE, Captain Hook's right-hand man in Peter Pan. HAREMS is a good word to remember; I think I may have known it once for seals. UHAULVAN and CHURRO were my first two "gimmes."
@Richard As I filled in letters, I kept thinking MUNSHI would end up being some word I'd recognize, but no, it wasn't at all!
@Richard I thought anyone on the West coast would be familiar with the elephant seals. My sister-in-law used to volunteer at one of the elephant seal colonies in California.
@Richard sorry, this is the New York Times crossword puzzle, and the vast majority of New Yorkers would know SCHMEAR. If you don’t like New York terms, Jewish/Yiddish or otherwise, find another puzzle without that heritage.
@Richard >> I think that is the most challenging, not in a good way, corner, I have seen in the last 5 years. Amen to that. NYT has published some innovative creations that take forever but really satisfy a solver. I have a history of praising some very difficult puzzles, even reaching out to constructors to encourage them to challenge us. However, that corner transcends difficult. Personal opinion, I consider the HAREMS clue to be fair. [Ditto for ELSTON, given his historic achievements.] And MUNSHI, terrible as it is, did show up in an online sesrch. But in context, in that corner, all of those words together?? A very rare "unfair" rating from me. Hi Martin.
@Richard I think calling it very difficult and saying you didn't enjoy it are totally legit. But I don't give you a pass on the entire comment. The layout was a monumental achievement, and probably the only day it could have run was a Saturday. Indeed it didn't help, it made the solve more difficult. I didn't know MUNSHI and relied entirely on crosses. But Victoria & Abdul was a much-seen film, and it was a gimme for those who saw it, as well as many others. i didn't know ELSTON, and for a while tried to make ELliOt work until the crosses said otherwise. HAREMS I actually remembered once I had a few crosses. I found it appropriate clueing for a Saturday. 1A eluded me for a while, as "spread" has many varied meanings. Was it a buffet? a gambling reference? Once I had the SCH the correct answer was a gimme and elicited a smile. I appreciated the struggle. There does have to be room for criticism. I just don't think that "difficult" and "awful" are synonyms. I think many agree that it was quite difficult, and I know it's no fun being defeated by a puzzle. By now the Sunday has dropped, and I hope it's more to your liking.
@Richard I loved this puzzle except for the NW corner. I solved everything else in 20 minutes then spent the next 40 fruitlessly trying to gain a foothold there.
I really, really loved the clue for 31 down (ESCARGOT). Best clue ever!
Doable yet awkward and uninspired. Snees? Looked it up after solving - both British and obsolete! Not an appropriate crossword answer for the NY Times. (The author admits to rolling through automated means to construct this, for some reason. Constructor brownie points or something. Unique entries; no one cares.) So very much unimpressed. Maybe this is one of those constructors whose work is always this tortured? I don't keep track. Cavort as frisk? Dearie me? Come on. The Times can do better than this. It certainly has in the past. At least it was a bit more challenging that the new norm, I guess. Sigh.
@B I love a good, critical post! Thanks 🥰 Now I sort of regret not ripping into the puzzle myself 🤣
@B I guess that's why people sometimes comment "YMMV" (your mileage may vary). You found the constructor's work "tortured," but I found it refreshing. "No one cares" about unique entries? I care! And I approve. I'd rather give my wits a workout with SNEES and FRISK and DEARIE ME, rather than yawn over another OREO or KEALOA. Again, YMMV.
@B 398. 37. The first number is how many times SNEE has appeared in a NYT crossword. The second, SNEES. It’s been a couple of years, though, but every good sollver should put that one in their back pocket. On Saturday, anything is fair game. The crosses were fair, even easy.
@B Snick or snee, snick a snee, or snickersnee ---- obsolete in conversational use, but kept alive by Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. And in crossword puzzles.
So, I looked it up, and the only reference I found is in Collins Dictionary where it is listed as an obsolete British verb for cutting or thrusting with a knife. Couldn’t find it as a noun. I understand this has appeared before in crosswords, but has it been clued as a noun? Seems fishy.
@B I'm surprised by all the objections to 8D, snees. It was a gimme for me.
In his autobiography (Les confessions, 1766), Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes that some time in 1741, he recalled having heard an anecdote about an unnamed princess who was so haughty and out of touch that when she was informed that the starving peasants were clamoring for bread, she replied, "Well, let them eat cake." Marie Antoinette was born in 1755, fourteen years after Rousseau remebered having heard the anecdote — some time before 1741. It was an 18th-century urban legend that was utilized to defame the queen because after falsely accusing her of being a spy, having an affair with a prelate of the church, of incest, and of fraud, her detractors had run out of material. There is also no record of her having uttered the words "Let them eat cake" orally or in writing.
THIC (Too Hard I Cheated) I did not like the northwest corner at all. Sorry. No no no. I was sure of CHURROS and HAREMS, while SUBPAR and AVAILED and ROSINED were difficult but fair enough. Not so RAGGED EDGE. This is about tenth down the list of metaphors for what people close to failure are on (starting with thin ice, last roll of the dice, last chance, razor’s edge, knife’s edge, slippery slope, etc.) UHAULVAN and ELSTON and BURN SAGE were ungettable for us foreigners. But SCHMEARS? MUNSHI? SNEES? I don’t mean to be rude but… Are these even words?
@Petrol For once you were more critical than I was! I was scratching Lucek the poodle behind the ear as I was posting - maybe that mellowed my mood? The puzzle truly was impossible for me though.
@Petrol They are words. Not exactly English words, but they are words. I actually was entirely off base for SNEES. I thought "blade" was a term for a sailor, and that a pirate in Peter Pan is SNEE. Turns out the character was SMEE, and "blade" apparently isn't a slang term for something. But, yeah, it was tough.
@Petrol I'm an American and I still had trouble with BURN SAGE. While that's technically what you do to purify something, I've never heard anyone actually say BURN SAGE. We say "smudge." I could not for the life of me figure that one out, despite the fact that I have actually done this thing. I did not care for that corner either.
@Petrol RAGGED EDGE certainly got me. I’ve never heard that phrase. I tried to fit ‘knives edge’ for quite a while before realizing it just didn’t work.
@Petrol RAGGED EDGE being tenth on the list is perfectly reasonable for a Saturday. If it were hundredth on the list you might have a point.
@Petrol WPTAIYGSTW (Why put the acronym if you're gonna spell the words)?
Oh, never shall I Forget the cry Or the shriek that shrieked he As I gnashed my teeth When from its sheath I drew my snickersnee! — W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado
Tough enjoyable puzzle - took me 01:12:48, but solved it with no lookups.
31D c'est tres tres bon! Bravo!
@David Johnson Yes, I actually said out loud “oh right, they are SLOW!”
Breathtaking grid, and the experience was unique, like doing 4 midis. I was puzzling over AMENDMENTI, thinking it was like “literati” 😁Thanks for the aha moment!
@Kate Tani 4 Midis?! Maybe on the planet of our warp-drive overlords. Or in the Kepler-16B Times. These are mos-def NON-terrestrial Midis. Way too hard for the human Midi
This felt hard at first but went fast, as it turned out. I wanted RAzor's EDGE before RAGGED.
@Dan I had knifesEDGE for a while
But I confess to be unclear why the puzzle would choose to misspell Kamala Harris's nickname at home: Momele.
@Dan I had "ontheEDGE." It didn't sit well with me, and I rooted it out ptetty quickly, but it was there for a short while.
Wow this is one for the ages. Haven’t seen this much white space since…uh, the movie Frozen? Was really looking forward to an incredibly difficult puzzle. Certainly got it with the NW and was expecting three more corners of the same. The last three went pretty smoothly though but no complaints, had enough brain cells burnt out already and got some delightful clues like AMENDMENTI and ESCARGOT, which lit up my brain cells again. Was thinking of the process of figuring out the NW which seemed insurmountable at first. Had UHAULVANS and CHURROS only to start. Was led astray with NOTCHED before ROSINED and thinking about some sort of shirt pockets for T slots. Here’s where letter patterns help. The D of DEEMS suggest the E and then the D of the bow clue, which then suggests ED at the end of AVAILED and RAGGED. (Educated guesses, but still). The seal clue probably ends in an S, so get rid of NOTCHED. OK, HAREMS was a wild flash in the pan guess, admittedly (just thinking about groups of females) but once you have that the RM suggests ARMHOLE and the CH suggests an S for SCHMEARS, then SU — SUBPAR and so on. Newer solvers take note, these tricks actually help. Everyone, understand the magnitude of this achievement. I know you have to deal with MUNSHI and BURNSAGE and SNEES in that corner. But by rights the whole grid should have had a lot of fill like this for this open a puzzle, and the fact that it didn’t and was so smooth is an immense achievement. Cherish the moment.
@SP I read and like your posts, however you might have missed a few answers today!
@SP You make it sound so do-able. But not if you've never used the word SCHMEARS and religion has no connection to an AMMENDMENT. And so on. I only know of KNOLLS because of the grassy one, I've never seen it used otherwise. Not complaining, I got a few, it was just a bit more beyond my reach than usual today.
@Jane Wheelaghan The First Amendment to the Constitution is why we don't have a Church of America. We'd had quite enough of that C of E business.
@SP, I like reading your explanation here. I went through many of the same misdirections. Main difference that I left the NW until last. Had epEES before SNEES, and thought the “spreads” in 1A could be blankets or land or jams. Fortunately guessed correctly with CHURRO, since sopapilla wouldn’t fit. Chipping away with my ICESAW all over got me the happy music. I’m slowly learning from crosswords like this one and yesterday’s that even when things seem impossible, that doesn’t mean that they are. I’ve found myself doing things that I didn’t think I could do. It’s a good way for me to live life.
Well yes. This was a feat puzzle, with its seas of white, its remarkably low 60 words and 26 black squares, its 22 longs and a mere two 3s. With its elegant debut grid design. But, IMO, a feat puzzle doesn’t count for much if it provides a lousy solve. For me, it did not do that. It made me work hard in many places, and my brain takes pleasure in that – in figuring, configuring, throwing in stabs, throwing in bits of answers, working on riddles behind the scenes while working on other riddles in the moment. Then there was that instant that I actually smelled burning sage though none was here. And another where I similarly tasted a churro. There was the inner LOL at [Ce n’est pas du fast food]. There were exclamation-point yesses that accompanied filling in many squares, and the satisfaction that came from revisiting long-unthought-of friends such as ELSTON and OUTATIME. So yes, a feat, but a most worthy one. Thank you, Daniel, for this impressive and satisfying creation!
@Lewis I've never had a CHURRO (I prefer salty to sweet) and SCHMEARS are just not ....ever. I even dislike the word, as it sounds off-putting, but I was grateful to see it emerge, the very last word that completed the puzzle. What-a-puzzle!!!
Excellent puzzle untainted by Oreos or epees. Let's have more like this.
@Ed I had " epees" in the place of SNEES for a while. Then I took it out. Then I put it back. (Maybe a third cycle of that? I lost track...) I finally got SNEES in there, but had no idea if it was right until I heard the music.
I won’t complain about fill I didn’t know. That’s on me. I can’t object to the challenge. I took it on. I can and do wish for more… sparkle? Wordplay with a little more humor? This one felt like drudgery for drudgery’s sake. I finished it, but I did not enjoy it.
@Heidi You ABSOLUTELY can complain about certain fill. As was stated: MUNSHI is just bad fill. ELSTON - know it or unguessable. HAREMS was brutally clued. Just because it's IN the crossword doesn't mean it's good/unassailable.
"Happy Birthday U.S.A.! The American experiment has made it to a quarter millennium.' That is really debatable right now.
@Moira it seems the experiment at this point would indicate that an absolute monarch is the preference of the people who care to vote. At least George III was constrained by parliament unlike Donald I. I think the experiment didn’t pan out the way the founders thought it might.
Definitely one for the constructors rather than the solvers. NW was just impossible for me in the end - never heard of SCHMEARS, ELSTON, RAGGED EDGE, MUNSHI, BURN SAGE or SNEES. Got the rest with a lot of trial and error, but I personally found it just on the wrong side of the challenging/frustrating line. Thanks though Dan, certainly an impressive grid.
@Alex Origin of SCHMEAR is from New York delis. It's what you spread on your bagel --- butter or cream cheese or a cream cheese blend. You order a bagel and schmear or a bagel with lox and schmear. SNEE I've always heard as the old phrase snick or snee, but I knew it had to do with knife fights. Not that either schmears or snees came to me instantly, I started that corner with CHURRO and AVAILED, then pieced together the rest.
When I was 20, I went to Teaneck NJ with a college friend. She had to stop by her aunt's house, since her uncle had recently died. I still remember the wall of photos documenting an amazing baseball career, and hearing the stories of my friend's beloved uncle, Elston Howard. A die-hard Pirates fan, I had only vaguely heard of Mr. Howard, but I knew immediately I was in the home of one of the greats of baseball.
Not a fan. I am all for making the Saturday crossword puzzle more difficult as it has gotten easier in my opinion over the past few years. But the upper left corner of this puzzle was Natick central.
@Bumptious Q Bangwhistle I'm getting tired of explaining what a Natick is.
What evil mind could possibly create such a grid? What dungeon of despair birthed it? I’ve seen friendlier chain saw movies. What masochist could enjoy such a grid? I did. But only because I won.
@Agent86 As I moderate the anger of my puzzle failure with additional mimosas (let's be honest, champagne with an eye dropper of OJ), I keep coming back to your post and its brutal honesty. Well stated. [BURP]. Cheers!
@Agent86 I think the answer is that no un-augmented human mind, evil or otherwise, could create such a grid. This kind of thing is only possible with software and lots of it
Why on earth does the column not explain what a SNEE is? I found the NW corner to be unpleasantly difficult. It was crammed full of esoteric knowledge: groups of female elephant seals, a Hindu cleric, a baseball player from more than half a century ago, and whatever the heck a SNEE is. I had UHAUL VAN, CHURRO, and ARM HOLES filled in, and still had to look up multiple answers. The rest of the puzzle felt far too easy, with clues that are too direct for a Saturday: the former CBS procedural, aquarium device, the mattress clue. These are all disappointingly straightforward for a Saturday. The only interesting clue was the one for ESCARGOT.
@Katie This was exactly my experience. Got the first three corners relatively easily for a Saturday, banged my head against obscure trivia in the NW corner for far longer than I would have liked, gave up and revealed some squares.
@Katie My experience with this puzzle exactly. Might as well have been a Wednesday except with one corner in Aramaic.
@Katie Maybe because even though it's obscure, it's a definition-based clue, which means you can just Google it.
That NW corner was really tough: MUNSHI and ELSTON side by side, intersecting with SCHMEARS/ UHAULVAN/ BURNSAGE/ ROSINED, plus I had never heard of RAGGED EDGE or HAREMS being used that way. Plus having to pull SNEES out of the very back corners of my mind. I finally got through, but that was some workout!
Little by little, the NE, SE, SW filled in nicely, but the NW was jammed with stuff I didn't know. I was close to ditching ARMHOLES, which I liked, and SNEES, which seemed too far out, but luckily I didn't. I finally gave up and looked up the clerk and the ballplayer, to confirm what I had and they gave me the rest. I'd been wavering on two different bows, and had forgotten the third. Even after it was filled in, ROSINED drew a momentary blank. Three quarters of the puzzle were challenging, and the NW was would have been only that too, but I wonder how many other people had to get help. I'm glad you broke a record, Dan Bodily, but you may have crashed some others.
This took me about an hour. Forty-five minutes of that was in the Northwest. I lost track of how many times I put in and then took out UHAULVAN. Yikes, I’m glad to be done. It was a very satisfying effort.
I'm amazed at how many characterizations of "weak" or "poor" there are today for clues and answers that some solvers just couldn't get or understand. It's Saturday, folks. Things aren't supposed to be obvious.
@Steve L Agreed. As a newbie, this was a painful puzzle, so I would characterize the clues as difficult. I am sure there are 100s of xword elites who found this very enjoyable, as well they should. I may be there in 1000 years. Cheers!
@Steve L I just had a look at my history. I have 5 Saturday gold stars in 32 attempts. From my point of view it’s always hard on a Saturday. I’m not in here every week saying the crossword is bad because I couldn’t do it. Not being able to do it is normal. I think this one was bad because it had a block of 4 adjacent trivia clues sitting in an isolated cell where 9 of the 14 clues were trivia. And that’s not counting PRESTIGE. There are often commenters who land in to say a crossword was bad and it’s fairly obvious it’s just because they found it hard, but that doesn’t mean everyone who says it’s bad is doing that. I’d even say the top right was too easy, I had that filled in a couple of minutes despite not having heard of MOMALA, AERATOR, CORNCRIB or EMILIANO. The opposite also seems to happen, where there is a cohort who declare that “hard” equals good. I did better overall today than yesterday, but it was more enjoyable yesterday.
I didn’t know any of the trivia in the NW. I got it through sheer persistence. One box at a time. Studying vowel/consonant rhythms then guessing letters, then words, then phrases. Trial and errors. Lots of errors. And, as always, NO lookups.
@Agent86 Same method, although I did not finish my solve as cleanly as you. After doing as you describe in that corner for over an hour, I did finally verify the spelling of one word. Although I had it correct, I had begun trying to rebuild that corner using alternate spellings. So I can't say that I did a totally clean solve, but close.
Maybe this is a bad analogy, but here goes: I pay money to go see the Dali museum. Most I Iike, some I don’t. And some I think I understand, and many I could stare at for hours wondering what the meaning to all the parts are. But they are beautiful and exciting and even the ones I don’t understand mesmerize me, and I certainly don’t fault the museum or Dali for not explaining the whole piece or only displaying the ones I like. And I certainly would pay to keep coming back. (Unless they start displaying other artists who bore me). Welcome to my crossword experience. I get it, for some of you if you wanted to pay to see Dali you would and instead you are paying to solve a crossword and when you can’t (or to be fair, even if you can but it seems too obscure or obtuse) it irritates you. Fair enough, different strokes. Just wanted to share my perspective.
@SP That's a really poor analogy. I subscribe to a service that delivers a single meal to me daily. I have no influence over what it will be. On some days, the food is exactly what I like. On others, I get inedible slop. That one fits better.
I had to run the alphabet to figure out the crossing of 4D and 17A, though once I had it, 17A made sense. This started slow for me, but I seemed to solve it bottom-up. Tough but fair. A beautiful grid: just 4 answers shorter than 5 letters.
@Michael Weiland, That was my last square, as well. The blank puzzle looked more intimidating than it actually was. All those white squares! But once I started in, it flowed pretty well, with some speed bumps in each quadrant.
Rather an unpleasant slog. As others have said, the NW corner was a quagmire of obscurity. MUNSHI and SNEES in particular were very unfair
When I first opened this puzzle, I said aloud: "Oh no!" It definitely proved to be a workout, especially the NW corner. I held on to RAZORSEDGE for way too long, and once I finally admitted I was wrong, it clicked little by little. Really enjoyed this one. 38A was probably my favorite clue/answer. And now I'm thinking about rewatching Sofia Coppola's MARIE ANTOINETTE. Thanks for a great Saturday solve!
For me, the SE corner was straight out of a Monday or Tuesday, and the NE one - a Wednesday. However, the NW corner wiped the floor with me, even thought UHAULVAN and CHURRO were gimmes. MUNSHI, ELSTON, SNEES, ROSINED were all stumpers, and I got BURN [SAGE] and SCHMEARS only once one or two letters were missing, after I had looked up, checked and revealed my total unknowns there. The SW was impossible for me, too. The gimmes of ATE CAKE and IM HOME were of little help. Quaint American oaths always stump me - there are just so many of them that they can be pretty much anything, effectively. I found the clue for ESCARGOT very vague - not fast food in French? Again, that can be anything. OUTATIME and LUISE were arcana, for me, and I was not familiar with PIGGED, either. As for KINDER, we have those egg things over here, too - but we simply call them "jajko z niespodzianką" (egg with a surprise), so the American, brand-based name was no instant gimme. This was probably a worthy Saturday puzzle, but it featured too many personal unknowns to be enjoyable for me.
@Andrzej Snails—not fast craatures. Pretty funny when you get it.
@Andrzej Kinder's an Italian brand made by Ferrerro that bogarted the German name for "kids."
@Andrzej So you may have gone over the ragged edge with this one, Andrzej, but all things considered, you've coped very well, Can't imagine I'd get very far with a Gazeta Wyborcza crossword!
@Andrzej Kinder Surprise eggs are banned in the US as a choking hazard. Instead, we get "Kinder Joy" eggs that come in a form that's legal here, but subjectively, not as much fun. A lot of American kids love getting smuggled-in Kinder Surprise eggs, but there have been horror stories about people getting caught bringing them in from Canada, including an apocryphal story of someone who was caught with a bunch of them and got fined $178 for each egg!
@Andrzej As always I'm amazed that you as a non-native speaker do as well as you do. NW was brutal. I love that UHAULVAN and CHURRO were gimmes for you--I'm sure they stumped many on this side of the pond. MUNSHI and ELSTON required all crosses for me, although SNEES came from a MIKADO lyric and ROSINED came once I thought of the correct type of bow. BURN SAGE and SCHMEARS came pretty easily with a few crosses. I fared much better in the SW. PIGGing out is very in the language, although it really only applies to bingeing on food, not TV series. LUISE was entirely from guesses. And I didn't even realize KINDER was a brand name until I read your post. I assumed it was an easter treat where KINDER was stolen from German as we did with KINDERgarten. sleep tight. or stay up and solve the Sunday. ;)
It was all going so well. I breezed through all but the NW corner, but then hit a roadblock. 7D was my downfall; I first tried AKNIFEEDGE, then RAZORSEDGE, then conceded defeat and peeked. p.s. I cast an emphatic NO vote for the new route to Wordplay and comments. Most annoying!
I audibly gasped when I opened up the puzzle. That is a lot of white space. Honestly thought I didn't have a chance but I got the three easier quadrants on my own before bringing my wife in for NW backup. That corner was above my pay grade but we are a pretty good team and managed a gold star in 45 minutes. I understand some of the negative comments re the weakness of the tiny center connecting the four almost entirely distinct quadrants, and the fact that a puzzle largely generated by a python script somewhat lacks a soul. But hey it was a fun challenge and certainly a better use of time than doom scrolling.
Wow! Xword STATS had this at Hard and yesterday’s as Very Hard but I thought today’s was harder than yesterday’s. Thank you, Daniel Bodily! Very sharp.
Churros are not Mexican, availed does not mean ‘proved useful’…I could go on…
@Tim “Avail” literally means “to be of use or advantage,” according to M-W. What do you think it means?
@Tim Many foods originate in one place, but become more strongly associated with another, such as tempura, which originated in Portugal but is now considered distinctly Japanese. While churros did originate in Spain, they are more commonly associated with Mexico
@Tim Here are some actual definitions: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/churro" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/churro</a> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avail" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avail</a> And I'd argue that Anglo-Indian curry shop curries are very much British (and probably different from actual Indian ones), Taco Bell tacos are very much American (and certainly different from Mexican ones*), and confident miscorrrections are international. *Taco Bell gained popularity based on their original hard-shell tacos; those are practically unknown in Mexico, and so foreign to Mexicans that Taco Bell could never gain footing in Mexico, and gave up trying.
@Tim CHURROs are not Mexican? That's like saying pizza is not American. (My HS Spanish textbook was called, "Churros y Chocolate.")
@Tim In Southern California, churros are very Mexican. Very. It was only TIL that they originated in Iberia.
Feels like Bodily harm was done me this morning. But .., Congratulations! You solved a Saturday Crossword in 48:19. Didn't think I'd manage to solve this one, and the NW took a long time. But got it solved without assistance. Just slowly. "Ce n'est pas du fast food" for ESCARGOT was a real winner. Maybe more in a later post, once I recover. Brilliant construction!
@Xword Junkie Stop me if I've told this one before; A snail takes his car to the paint shop, and asks them to put a big red S on the hood. When asked why, the snail responds, "So when I drive down the street, people will say, 'Look at that S car go!'"
@Xword Junkie I, not willing to slog along, did this puzzle much faster. But of course, that meant I needed ten cheats to solve it that quickly. Escargot's clue was wonderfully witty!
Thankful for another nail biter! All 4 corners were tough to break into, but the SE had me second guessing everything. Having 'Religious Right?' start with AMEN had me confused until the last letter. Keep the hard ones coming!
@Pete I had AMEN corner for quite a while, although I wasn't sure why it had to be at the right. But once I saw that the TUNER had to be either AM or FM, and I needed STARLET and KING SIZE, "corner" had to go.
Shockingly, I wanted AMENcorner too...
What a wonderful puzzle! Maybe my favorite Saturday of 2026. Great challenge throughout but gettable without lookups.
Fantastic puzzle!! Appropriately daunting for a Saturday. Hats off to the constructor!
What a joy it was to open the app and see this empty grid! I love this kind of challenge. I was surprised, therefore, at how smoothly the solve went for me. The NW section was the only one to give me any real resistance. I started and ended there, and finished in half my average time. SNEE, unfamiliar to some, is a word I've known since childhood. My parents often played "The Mikado" as they prepared breakfast on Sunday mornings, so my siblings and I learned the songs and sang along even though we barely knew what they were about - including the Lord High Executioner's line "I drew my snickersnee." Thanks for the fun!
@Peter C. I knew SNEES for a very similar reason - except that in my case it was playing cello in the pit orchestra for our university's Gilbert & Sullivan group! (Which made ROSINED in the same quadrant quite appropriate, for me at least.)
I really hoped I wouldn't see many complaints about this puzzle. To me it is an elegant masterpiece. Obscure clues offered an abundance of crossers and opportunities for solving iteratively. It was very nearly like four ingenious little midi puzzles. I'm not a fast solver, but I loved this.
Nice achievement on this imposing looking grid, Daniel. Doing it with a junk free grid is very impressive. I just love clues like "Like bows, at times". I was thinking of bowing down or tying a bow, but, no, it was a third kind of bow. A real D'oh! moment when it emerged. My thanks to Magritte for helping me interpret the clue for 31 D. Very funny. Now, where do I go for freedom *from* religion?
@Nancy J. Just keep calm and carry on. And vote.
There’s some pretty rough fill in here, but also an absolute gem: ESCARGOT (btw I’m happy overall — the upper-left corner put up a fun fight!)
CORN CRIB — Back in the day I bought a DVD of “Old Yeller” and intended to watch it with the four littles at home with popcorn, a blanket, and a box of tissues to get them through it. Unbeknownst to me, they took it with them one weekend and as I was driving to the camp ground, I heard it come on the video player we had in the minivan. Needless to say, they were all sobbing and howling after the CORN CRIB scene, and we made a quick detour for an ice cream and hanky stop.
@kkseattle I read that aloud to my HS and Jr HS classes. It was one chapter a day, except at the end, when I continued to read after the boy had to shoot Old Yeller. It gave the tough guys in class time to recover from their tearing-up... The book is SO much better than the movie...
This is a divine puzzle in every aspect. What a pleasure. Thanks!