I would like to complain because I am not solving every Saturday, along with every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday within half a second of every other Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. This was either slightly too easy, or slightly too hard, or both, and took me either 15 seconds more or 15 seconds less than the precise number of seconds I had allocated to solving it. Yeesh.
“Another damn puzzle that didn’t waste the exact amount of time I had allotted!”
@spurious Keep at it, it'll come. Yeesh
@spurious Absolute perfect comment. Please re-post this every day.
I would like to encourage folks who feel discouraged by the difficulty of late week puzzles (and by the posted solve times of advanced puzzlers). This took me slightly less than one hour to solve without lookups. I have been solving crosswords intermittently for a couple of years. I do not think I will ever get to a sub 10 minute Friday like some were claiming yesterday (that one took me slightly OVER an hour without lookups) but I do feel that I can chip away at puzzles that would have made my blood run cold six months ago. Keep it up everyone and if you have the time and inclination you should try to push through without lookups and test your limits. It's a great feeling to stand triumphant over the smoking corpse of a Saturday.
@Scott I totally agree! When I first started many years ago, I couldn't solve a Friday, let alone a Saturday. Today's took me roughly 22 minutes (about 12 minutes faster than my Saturday average), a feat I never would have imagined before.
@Scott I do wish that people would stop being irritated at longterm NYT subscribers who are used to challenging Thursday, Friday, and Saturday puzzles. While I was working, I didn’t have the time to attempt the late-week puzzles. After retirement, it was a pleasure to wrestle with them for an hour or more. I’m not one who wants these record fast times now: I want more than a literally 15 ½ minute puzzle. Today’s was entertaining, but not NYT-Saturday-classic-worthy. (Also, no, I’m not “sneering at” newer solvers who found this a difficult puzzle; please don’t take offense at a commenter who’s experienced as an old person.)
Will I be alone, or even in a small minority, finding this one of the fastest Saturdays I've even done?
@Barry Ancona Given that fast solvers will be the first to see your comment, I'd consider it selection bias. Took me 22 minutes. I consider 20 minutes to be by current average
even done? ever done! Where are the copy editors?
@Barry Ancona two minutes off my best time and a final time of close to a third of my Saturday average. I really look forward to sitting down on a Saturday afternoon (AEST) and working through the crossword, but this was over before I got to really enjoy it.
@Barry Ancona It was far from my fastest Saturday, but 20% of the time I spent was looking for a typo.
@Barry Ancona 27.8% faster than average here.
@Barry Ancona A little above half my average time, so I'm with you.
@Barry Ancona I don't do stars, but this was definitely a fast Saturday for me. Would have been faster if I had better recall.
@Barry Ancona By now it looks like you’re not alone. My tea was still hot when it was over. I’m trying to see this as strategy that is bringing in more solvers, thereby maintaining the puzzle. I’ll take a quick Saturday over no Saturday at all. But I’m still hoping for a tougher clue option, one day. A gal can dream…
@Barry Ancona Not for me, it was faster than usual but nowhere close to my fastest.
@Barry Ancona I finished it in less than a third of my average, working on two hours' sleep. This is seriously ridiculous. God I wish I could sleep.
@Barry Ancona I enjoyed it but IMO it would have been more suitable for a Friday. I completed it 30% faster than my average Saturday time and that is not accounting for the fact that Ryan McCarty puzzles usually skew the other way! I do think I am getting better … but not _that_ much better.
@Barry Ancona I didn't even look at my time today until I read your comment. Weirdly, I tied my best Saturday time down to the second! Thanks for making me notice that.
@Barry Ancona 1 minute off my Saturday PB, but tellingly only 20% of my Saturday average. Not 20% faster. I am not a fast Saturday solver but this was easy.
I have a feeling I'm not the only person who wrote in STENOPAD too quickly.
twoberry, You won't have to scroll far to find company.
@twoberry I kept wanting Rolodex to fit, but it didn’t, and then I couldn’t get that out of my head 🤦♀️
Irene Curie and her husband Frederic Joliot did a crucial experiment that James Chadwick reinterpreted and Chadwick discovered the neutron, which led Fermi to do Nobel prize winning work, Szilard to imagine nuclear amplification, and Hahn and Meitner to discover nuclear fission, leading to… Los Alamos, Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Irene and Frederic reported the first artificial radioactivity made in their lab, related to the missed neutron discovery, and got a Nobel for that work. They also had evidence for positrons in their data but misinterpreted those data.
@sonnel So it sounds like they induced radioactivity in non-radiative elements, ultimately because of free neutrons, but they didn't quite understand that there was a thing called a neutron and it was responsible for the phenomenon?
OK, help me out. I don't understand the answer to 24D. Also, and apropos to today, nobody should be one.
@MikeW Yeah, I had a lot of other words for 24D. HAVE was nicer than all of them.
MikeW — I did not like that clue/answer one bit. A have is one with enough wherewithal to afford basic necessities and at least a little more. The meaning of the have/have not dichotomy has nothing to do with people who have unimaginable wealth like a multibillionaire.
What a masterful build of a grid! Look in the middle area – that’s five longs (answers of eight letters or more) crossing five longs, including answers CATCH IN A LIE, THE HEAT IS ON, NO LIMITS, and REGGIE JACKSON. My jaw drops. Try making one of these yourself, and yours will drop too. This was a variety solve for me, a blend of “Whee!” and “Whoa!”, with splat-fills countered by multi-return-to’s. Animal-lover me liked the faunal presence – CAIMAN, STAG, KITE, STEER, HORSE, EEYORE. Riddle-lover me liked the vague clues and even an actual riddle clue: [Some hits, in music and baseball] for SINGLES. In the grid’s south, there was even a Jeopardy-style before-and-after combo that might be clued “Output of the Godfather of Punk” – IGGY POP ART. All followed by that lovely coda, that moment of staring in awe at the exceptionally built grid. I had a grand time with this, Ryan. Thank you!
@Lewis I'd wager cash money that almost nobody constructs by hand anymore. You have a massive bank of words and phrases and a Python script that puts them together within desired parameters. Then it's a matter of playing around with concepts and combinations to suit the ideas and tastes of the constructor. At least this is my understanding of how it's done. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm labouring under a misapprehension.
What's a BAG CLIP, what does its clue mean ("It comes in handy when the chips are downed") and what's the connection between the two? I can't figure any of it out. What's a CREEL? I thought a "clutch hitter" would be a racing driver 🤣. @Steve L, any help? MA AND PA crossing SE× DREAMS was slightly disturbing, in a Freudian context 🤣
@Andrzej A BAG CLIP holds a bag of potato chips closed after you open it. It looks like the top of a clipboard. A clutch hitter is a batter who gets hits when they count the most. October is the baseball playoffs. REGGIE JACKSON was a star player who got many important hits in the World Series back in the day.
@Andrzej Yeah in the grand scheme of ”kitchen gadgets you can live without”, BAGCLIPS are up there.
@Andrzej I haven't seen anyone answer CREEL yet, so I will. When I was a kid, the last time I went fishing, a creel was a bag to hold your catch. I remember them being very porous and flexible. And they smelled AMAZING. They smelled like getting up early on a special and happy day. They smelled like driving through the mountains. They smelled like the babble of a brook. I can still smell them, 65 years later.
@Andrzej And a CREEL is a wicker fishing basket of the sort that draped Brad Pitt's demi-god frame as he emerged from the water and over the bank in the film A River Runs Through It, which Hollywooded fly fishing forever in the psyche of the American mainstream (pun intended).
@Andrzej a creel is a cord that you string through a fish's mouth and gill after you catch it, so you can leave it alive in the water while you continue to fish (and add the next fish to the creel).
@Andrzej it can also mean a basket but I learned the string thing from my dad :)
@Andrzej Yeah, in a true case of YMMV, I thought 16A, 37A, 3D, 13D, and 16D were among the easiest clues in the whole puzzle. On the other hand, I could have stared at 31D, 32D, 44A, and 52A for the rest of the day with no guesses coming to mind.
@Andrzej A BAGCLIP is an expensive clothespin. CREEL, a basket or bag usually worn over the shoulder by fishermen to hold their catch as they along the waterfront.
the maandpa answer made me a bit nuts for awhile. I'm better now.
So, it looks like I’m the only early solver who found this one to be especially difficult. Despite knowing REGGIE JACKSON (one of my few unassisted long entries), I really struggled with this. I got MWAHAHA, but entries like STAMP PAD and AC MILAN needed a lookup. And you can pull my beloved Panasonic PLASMA TV from my cold, dead hands. If that’s outmoded, then so am I. 🤷🏼♀️
@Heidi I found this mostly easy but I needed a couple of reveals and lookups for the arcana. Effectively then, the solve proved impossibly difficult for me, in a way.
@Heidi Not easy for me. 50% over the xwstats median time. Reggie was a gimme and I got everything east of him quickly, but the SW took longer and the NW longer still.
Plasma was great technology for its time, but the soon-to-be-announced vape-juice TVs will be awesome. Unfortunately, they’ll only be affordable for the amasses, not the amass-nots.
Fun, fresh and fast - I enjoyed it.
Someone commented yesterday that these puzzles became easier post-pandemic. I looked at some different puzzles and it was striking to see the difference in the comments section from the ones I saw in 2021 -- a nice, friendly vibe; minimal bragging and overexplaining; people seeming genuinely happy when they were able to beat their best solve time for that day. I'm sure you can figure out why this vibe has changed.
@Matt This post, like yesterday's from you, seems to me designed only to foment rancor and division. Might you be a vibe changer, too?
@Matt It's still a generally nice and friendly vibe here. Better than most other comment sections I've participated in. The comments I read on social media posts or various news posts make me seriously despair for humanity. As always, caught between my desire to be knowledgeable and informed and my desire to be sane and happy. There are some things out here that I roll my eyes at, sure, but by and large it's a respite.
@Matt Part of the issue is that when the puzzles initially became much easier, most longer term solvers thought it was temporary. A way to bring new solvers in at a time when the diversion was needed. My thought was that once people got hooked, they would strive to improve and the puzzles would gradually return to the previous level of challenge and everyone would be happy. Not only did this not happen, but the pace of easification picked up, and that naturally has disappointed experienced solvers, and I think has stifled the growth of newer ones. What you see as bragging is the exact opposite, at least for me, and I suspect for many others as well. I know I'm not *that* good at solving and should not be able to finish so quickly. If I can finish a Saturday puzzle in x minutes, there's something going on here. I'll bite. What do *you* think the reason for the change is?
@Matt, Once any newcomers entered this hobby, the old guard (and I mean OLD guard) made sure to let them know they weren’t wanted.
@Matt To answer your question straight out without sarcasm, I think it reflects a change in the puzzles not in the commentators. And I honestly think the vibe is still very positive and welcoming, mostly just matter-of-factly discussing what many of us see as a manifest new direction by the editorial staff.
@Matt I wasn't a regular player until after the pandemic began, so my baseline may already be tainted, but by my estimation the Great Easening began in earnest only after about 1/1/2026. It may have slumped in 2020 but it's nosedived lately. There are still the occasional bright sweaty spots.
I have a nit. A nit to pick. “The Heat is On” is in my head. And I can’t get it to unstick.
@CCNY Mine, too 😃 I love Beverly Hills Cop, and that opening sequence with this song is still one of my favorites ones ever 🤩
@CCNY This is one of my favorite earworm erasers: <a href="https://youtu.be/iQC2_NJj2iA?si=20-p-a7wNDVXKDlc" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/iQC2_NJj2iA?si=20-p-a7wNDVXKDlc</a> I used it this morning!
@CCNY Scroll down to my post for a link if you dare. But I agree, it's classic 80s rock cliches, hair and sax included.
@CCNY A lot of good tricks. I will show them to you. Your mother Will not mind at all if I do.
As a Brit who is all too aware of my forefathers’ arrogance, i am wary of the term “The British Isles”. I may be wrong but to me it means the archipelago that includes Britain and Ireland and all the other chunks of land floating in the sea nearby. It’s a broad sweep of geography. “ANGLO”, however, is obviously cognate with England, and thus i wonder if it should be seen as some kind of catch-all for culture originating anywhere in the British isles? I’m not intending to sow dissent, but i can imagine Welsh, Scottish and especially Irish readers taking umbrage. Apologies to them for us English bigfooting them…again!
@Petrol Was carefully sticking my head above the parapet to say the same thing! The Empire has left a nasty taste in the mouth of most modern day Brits. Sadly there is a (hopefully short lived) rise in certain personalities trying to fool people into wanting a return to a golden era that never existed.
@Petrol As an Irishman I had no issues with this clue and answer. For me the British Isles does not include the island of Ireland - just those islands in and around Great Britain (e.g. Orkney Islands, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man etc.). So it’s usually a thorny issue when people refer to both Ireland and Great Britain as the British Isles but that’s not the case here
That SW corner was brutal. NEWMEXICO did not do me any favors. Did anyone else notice the timer was moving a half-beat faster than a second? Or maybe I'm just moving slower. Cheers!
I honestly can't believe that this frazzled ole mind of mine remembered that REGGIEJACKSON was known as Mr October. There might be hope for me yet. Although I still don't remember why I walked into a room half the time. Also i fretted daily while we were in Honduras because when we left, I wasn't able to find my glasses anywhere. I only wear them when I am not wearing my contacts, which is rare, but I worry when I don't have backup. Lo and behold, we get back home and I discovered my glasses right in my backpack, which I used frequently there. 🤣 But hey, look at me! I remembered Mr October! Har! The HEAThaSBEENON for us over the last month. Literally because Honduras is hot! But also figuratively because of family stuff. To top it off, we returned to Minnesota at 1:30 a.m. in the way hours of Saturday morn, and I was on the phone to 911 about my mother-in-law by 3:45 a.m. After 4 days in the hospital (new diagnosis of congestive heart failure), we were able to get her home to MA. But my husband, who took her out there, was one of the many who ended up having to sleep in the airport because of multiple delays and then cancellation. He said there were rats running around on the floor of the airport where people were trying to sleep. Shudder. We're exhausted! Anyhow, except for the crossing of CAIMAN and ACMILAN, which I guessed correctly. It was another fast puzzle for me. I liked the sinister cackle but obviously a call from a bridge would always be make it so! 🖖
@HeathieJ Wow, that all sounds amazingly exhausting.
Aw, @HeathieJ… I have been wondering about you, since we haven’t seen you comment in the last several days. I’m sorry for all the difficulties in your trip, but hope the good memories outweighed the bad. I know you have a lot of challenges before you, but I’m sure you will handle them with the humor and strength you have always exhibited here. HAR and HARrumba, my friend. Raise a glass and dance your cares away.
@HeathieJ As I suspect you know, Spock's greeting is borrowed from the gesture used in making the Jewish priestly blessing described in Numbers 6. So I'll wish you safety, grace, and peace as the world whips by. Long days and longer nights are exhausting. I hope your family continues to support each other.
How come what I find to be tricky clues are never in the column …. Spent almost half the time on BAGCLIP and CREEL. BADE felt right but with some niggling doubt, the rest was good but the C was arbitrary. I still don’t understand but then again it’s but a puzzle. I should take up fishing I guess. 😀 It went past quite fast.
@Ιασων I came here to say exactly this. Are you me? Actually, Thank you for being you. It’s nice to have a kindred spirit!
@Ιασων A CREEL can be either a fishing basket or a lobster trap. Put it in your back pocket; it will appear again.
By one of those weird coincidences, today's Saturday at the Opera being broadcast on our classical radio station is Beethoven's ONE opera, Fidelio, from a Vienna State Opera.
I had to wait until this morning to solve the puzzle because I was watching the United States Men’s National Team’s World Cup debut (their best ever World Cup performance) when the puzzle dropped. Turns out, I probably could have done it while watching the game as the puzzle fell together rather too quickly for a Saturday. It was a small bonus to see USMNT star Christian Pulisic’s club team, ACMILAN, crop up, although that strikes me as a rather obscure clue and answer for the general public. I also loved seeing REGGIEJACKSON in the puzzle. The night he hit three home runs in the World Series against the Dodgers, I was at the wedding of my fiancée’s aunt. My brother in law to be had a transistor radio (remember those) and kept feeding us news as the game unfolded.
@Marshall Walthew There's a story in today's Times about how people getting married tonight are going to handle the basketball game.
@Marshall Walthew Whoops, meant to add that i didn't know AC MILAN from the clue, but knew of them and was able to get it with a few crosses.
This puzzle was a blast for this lifelong diehard fan of Air Conditioning Milan!!!
Well, typical tough Saturday for me, and had to look some things up. No problem - just made for an enjoyable long workout. And - puzzle find today was inspired by 1 down. A Monday from January 20, 2014 by Elizabeth C. Gorski. Theme answers in that one: LINCOLNMEMORIAL CIVILRIGHTS IHAVEADREAM WEAREFREEATLAST and MLKJR Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/20/2014&h=65a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/20/2014&h=65a</a> See you tomorrow. ...
@Rich in Atlanta I didn't know the hip-hopper, but I sure do know the speeches of MLK, Jr. ....still a Leader. Hope you are faring well.
I love vape juice as long as it's not pulpy.
@ad absurdum I've never experienced vape juice, but it sounds as if it's at about the same level of ick as bong juice.
Scratching my head a bit over 24D... Is a multibillionaire a HAVE versus a HAVE NOT? Is that the correct interpretation?
Angela, Other commenters have offered that interpretation (and I don't recall seeing any other interpretations offered).
@Angela, Believe that is the correct interpretation.
@Angela same! I do feel like we reach the HAVEs of this world a whole long time before we get to the billionaires... Oh dear I feel a socialist rant coming on....
Ok, Anglo? Many Irish people would question that . . .
I know Ryan McCarty can deliver a themeless that can make me sweat, but this was not one of them. Solid puzzle, but I was hoping for more of a challenge. I liked the new clue for 1 D. It still made me think of Etta James. <a href="https://youtu.be/1MUilZpErlw?si=bUMvwv1CPH7SI063" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/1MUilZpErlw?si=bUMvwv1CPH7SI063</a> Now, I think I'll go re-ink my STAMP PAD.
@Nancy J. I had STeno PAD before STAMP PAD.
@Nancy J. Yea, Etta James. I've seen Beyonce's portrayal of her a few times in "Cadillac Records." <a href="https://tubitv.com/movies/552574/cadillac-records" target="_blank">https://tubitv.com/movies/552574/cadillac-records</a> By the way, it's better to skip over all the scary stuff in that movie--not for kids. Here's Dr. MLK's speech--that goes on forever. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety" target="_blank">https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety</a>
Thank goodness for REGGIE JACKSON for getting this puzzle going for me. And the positioning of the answer kind of made him the straw that stirs this puzzle’s drink.
Seemed like a decent challenge today, though perhaps still a bit "friendly" for a Saturday NYT puzzle. Lots of entries with interesting letter patterns, which certainly boosted the challenge (and enjoyment) for me: PLASMATVS, MWAHAHA, AIMODEL, STAMPPAD, MAANDPA, VLOGGER, ACMILAN. For me, INNIT was simply a guess, though ADRIEN and IRENE seemed sensible. Must remember that a CAYMAN is an island but a CAIMAN is an alligatorid---though the cross fixed that pretty much instantly. THEHEATISON for two more days here in the NE USA. Good day to stay inside and watch some football, INNIT? Nice puzzle!
@Xword Junkie Same experience with CAyMAN and CAIMAN. Also ADRIaN and ADRIEN. Both easy fixes.
@Xword Junkie Yes, one does not want to vacation in the CAIMAN Islands.
STENO PAD? BWAHAHA? BLOGGER? ADRIAN? And what the heck is ACMILAR? I am appreciative of the helpful entries that were my gimmes: AMOROSO! TWILL! IRENE! CREEL! MEARA! And a nod to MLB, "Fidelio", and the CALLER at the square dance. Thanks to climate change, THE HEAT IS ON takes on greater meaning. With the humidity at 86%, we're sweltering. On days like this, my motto is, "In by 10." All y'all stay safe, keep hydrated, and wear your SEAT BELTs.
MOL, ACMILAN, as in Milan, Italy. (BANS, not BArS)
@Mean Old Lady Aw, Shucks Department! Not BARS, but BANS! Milan does make more sense, but I've just never followed that sport. In my day, soccer was a PE game for the girls--and I was one of them, dressed out in my "gym suit" .....LOVING the game!
@Mean Old Lady Associazione Calcio Milan, aka the Rossoneri. (Red and Black.) For years I thought it stood for Athletic Club.
Today’s poem - a haiku! - made from words found in today’s puzzle<br><br> a/ o happy flower d/ with what boundless ambition a/ and into dreams at last
Currently binging Ted Lasso (with closed captioning, because I'm old) so INNIT was an easy one for me. On the other hand, it took an extra 10 minutes or so to parse PLASMA TV and I am now well-read on the topic of PLASMATEs.
Thanks, Jeopardy! IRENE Curie was inn a clue for Marie, just the other night. One nit from a rabid Formula 1 fan: The Circuit de Monaco is a ROAD course; the Gran Prix de Monaco is the RACE that is held on it. Close but not quite. I finished the puzzle just in time to watch qualifying from Barcelona. Come on Max!
@Grant I've just gotten back into watching Formula 1, in my old age. The penalty thing is pretty confusing. I am comforted by the fact that the officials seem a little confused, too, judging by the aftermath of Monaco!
@Amy The pit lane at Monaco is quite narrow, and they added two pit boxes for Cadillac, so if a driver cut the corner there, he wouldn't travel the full measured distance between sensor A and sensor B, and therefore judged to be speeding. (There's a white line that several drivers crossed.)
@Grant Just streamed that Jeopardy last night about an hour before starting this puzzle! Serendipitous. I suppose folk who do crosswords would be drawn to Jeopardy —there is certainly a lot of crossover content. :-)
This was a Tuesday with long answers, but what else is new lately?
What a lovely Saturday puzzle. Unusually for me it flowed very well. Even the fill I had no idea of, such as 13D fell once I’d got a few across squares. Love the animal motif, especially EEYORE. Who doesn’t love that moribund donkey? Just to be clear, 19A is only uttered by total oiks. *clutches pearls in horror*
My solve proceeded normally last night with this very enjoyable puzzle until I became irremediably stuck with nine squares left to fill. Clearly the outdated office item was a steno pad, right? I could not see why aloE JUICE or sloE JUICE would be called "E-liquid"! But to finally figure out HEA / ARM / VAP I needed to see that STeno PAD should be STAMP PAD. I laid it aside and came back to it this morning, when miracle of miracles, stamp hit me right away. A very nice puzzle!
@Dan I still take notes on a steno pad and use a stamp pad for my licensing stamp. Maybe I'm the one who is outdated! Cheers.
@Dan There were STAMP PADs in the column photo the other day, and I never figured out why. Maybe that one should have run today?
SW corner went crazy there for a minute!
Other than a longer than usual flyspecking session (SEGO SEGO SEGO SEGO SEGO SEGO...trying to remember that) that was a fairly straightforward solve. I thought BADE for [Wished] was Saturday-ish. And AMOROSO may have been a bit tricky for those not into music? SEX DREAMS was clued quite straightforwardly, but I'm guessing there are a ton of funny clues that could have been used. I invite this way over-educated, over-literate, over-witty group to offer other possible clues for SEX DREAMS.
@Francis "Generational aspirations?"
@Francis "Reasons to pitch a tent nightly"
@Matt @Andrzej I knew I could count on you two, at least, to have something to make me chuckle.
@Francis “A place where Freud hopes to see a relationship with your mother, but you pray you never do“?
And if it ever appears again, I hope they use one of yours.
Wow 12:45 EST and not many comments yet, wonder what that means? I thought this was a solid Saturday, not the hardest by any means but not the easiest. Those corners were pretty cramped and could give someone pause; it did for me in the SW where REEL made sense but I hadn’t heard of CREEL, I never can seem to remember the AMA Reddit abbreviation, and I don’t usually use BAGCLIPS (and if the chips are downed then they are all eaten and why do you need a bag clip?) A few random thoughts: MWAHAHA was my first gimme, love the image that portrays. My second was REGGIEJACKSON. I remember people complaining that Anne MEARA was obscure last time she came up, I hope not this time, she was a real trailblazer in comedy and under-appreciated. Had SEXDRIVES before SEXDREAMS which repressed me for a bit. I know PLASMATVS are outmoded but don’t people still use STAMPPADS? If not what have they been replaced by? (Well there are self-inkers now but don’t they have pads inside?) TIL VAPEJUICE—cool. Where have I heard or read INNIT? I know I have. Sounds like something Dorothy Sayers would have put in the mouth of Lord Peter Wimsey in that affected British colloquial tone of his. Last, I hope you rabid anti colonialists jump all over ANGLO. The Angles were German tribes who invaded Britannia and basically conquered all the natives, Celts and Picts and Gaels and all those. Sure they gave England its name, but some wounds never heal and some atrocities should never be forgiven.
@SP INNIT is a non-posh way of saying "Isn't it?" I don't think you'd hear that from Lord Peter, but if you listen to Ricky Gervais, you'll hear it all the time.
@SP Hot enough to boil a monkey's bum, INNIT your majesty?
@SP But where would we be without all those Anglo-Saxon words? It might be Erse.
@SP my favorite INNIT comes from Ursula in The Little Mermaid. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J6mF8ZDnhFA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J6mF8ZDnhFA</a> Actually my real favorite is the meta version: (this is from memory and may get some details wrong) Pat Carroll (who voiced Ursula in the film) guest-starred on WKRP in an episode called "Number One Fan". It was a parody of Stephen King's Misery, and she played a woman who kidnaps Les Nessman when she learns he plans to discontinue her favorite segment. She gives him an ultimatum, and when he protests she says, in perfect Ursula voice, "Life's full of tough choices, innit?" cannot find a clip of that one. ;)
It's nice when you make a guess at a longer answer, and it turns out to be right. But when all the longer answers seem eminently guessable/knowable, well, you don't have a Saturday puzzle, do you? REGGIE JACKSON was the first thing I put into the puzzle, followed soon by LOS ALALMOS and SEX DREAMS. CATCH IN A LIE and THE HEAT IS ON are fresh enough, but easy to guess with a cross or two. Well, it's a nice puzzle, even if it's way too easy for a Saturday.
@The X-Philey yeah that Reggie Jackson clue was way too straightforward for a Saturday.
@The X-Phile I couldn’t have said it better. 38 across was the only Saturday clue for me.
@The X-Phile Yeah, REGGIE went in first for me too, and instantly. Seems I found this one a bit more challenging than you (and many others) did.
@The X-Phile You do you but I had to look him up even though I had the REGGIE part. Sports--especially player names--are just not in my wheelhouse, though I have been doing this long enough that a few have acquired their own neurons. ELI ALOU OTT & ORR (though I'm still not clear on which is which)
Yesterday BABAR and today EEYORE. It reminds me of my childhood. I was probably lucky to have Mom read these to me, rather than listen to Elmo, Bert and Ernie talking baby talk and slotcho. I could see Mom making the words. I read about a study of baby boys. They found that the boys who used binkys/pacifiers were slower to talk, because the other boys could imitate mom's mouth movements--to practice for talking--unimpeded by the pacifier. Talking is a physical act--like dancing. Suffice it to say, there is plenty nice about "Sesame Street." It just wasn't on my playlist.
@lucky13 Sesame Street is a bit frenetic for my taste, too. Both as a mom, and as a grandma. I was just grateful that age-wise, my kids just missed the Barney demographic.
@lucky13 And did binky use make no difference for baby GIRLS?
@lucky13 I was born the same year as Sesame Street and devotedly watched it a couple times a day until I learned to read from it, at around three, at which point I switched to obsessively following the adventures of my new friends Babar, Eeyore, et al.
Thiis was fine; didn't exactly scream Saturday. "Have" was a bit chewy. I liked the stacked animals. But I mostly stopped by to conditionally recommend today's LA Times entry by Kyle Dolan. Very tough one for me. Hope everyone is having a fine summer. (Also, the New Yorker has a nice archive of Cryptics.) /reaching the Acceptance phase re: the Great Easening of the NYT Crossword
Given that my friend dragged me to the Marie Curie museum when we went to Poland last summer, I should have known 8D. I didn't. I took an educated guess. I assumed CAIMAN is an [what's the Spanish equivalent of Anglicizaton?] of Cayman. I had a PLASMATV for 10 years. It was top of the line when I bought it. It broke a month into the pandemic. I wanted to replace it with another one, but the same friend convinced me to get a QLED instead, since Plasma was by then outmoded, as the clue confirms. Got a bigger and better TV for half the price of what I paid ten years earlier. Funny how quickly technology evolves. I will say, I'm not so sure how obsolete stamp pads are. Every office job I've ever had used one. But I've mostly worked under professional licensees who needed to stamp documents. Maybe by the time I'm in an office again, the government will start allowing digital signatures, if they haven't already...
@Steven M. Bigger, better and I'd bet half the weight?
@Steven M. Maybe that's why the clue was [obsolescent] and not [obsolete]. We still have them in my office, and maybe we're still using them, but not nearly as often as in the past. My notary seal is a rubber stamp. (No raised seal required in Vermont.)
Just right. Thanks for a clever puzzle.
Was anyone sad to see the crosswords demoted to the middle on the Games app? C'mon, the NYT Crossword is the King of Games and deserves the place of pride 👑
@Julie Hasn't moved in the Android app. Still just below Crossplay. Again I ask, does anyone actually play that?
@Julie I was more confused than sad. Ideally we could change the order ourselves by clicking and dragging the tiles...
Loved this puzzle, but the SW corner ruined it for me.
Great Saturday puzzle but the USMNT played its best game ever last night and that is all anyone should be thinking about right now.
This puzzle has my brain swirling with music. I would post Etta James's AT LAST, but that would be a disservice to MLK Jr. and take away from one of history's most memorable speeches. Glen Frey's THE HEAT IS ON has been taken care of by @Vaer's earlier post. And so, here is Marvin Gaye, with one of the greatest songs about the HAVE nots– <a href="https://youtu.be/57Ykv1D0qEE?is=gLU_zZhkmIL4t-BP" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/57Ykv1D0qEE?is=gLU_zZhkmIL4t-BP</a> Not just for the musical inspiration, but thank you Mr. McCarty for a very pleasing puzzle that didn't lack in a certain resistance until all the pieces fit.
@sotto voce What I mentioned in my earlier post: CIVILRIGHTS IHAVEADREAM WEAREFREEATLAST and MLKJR ....
@sotto voce For 24D, I was thinking of Billie Holiday: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp349H8G0XQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp349H8G0XQ</a>
I dunno, I think it's a far stretch from "I sure can" to "I'm happy to help!"
@Teresa Are you hearing it in a snarky voice in your head? Is that why it doesn’t seem like “happy to help”? Kind of more “I guess I can”?
Any puzzle with EEYORE in it is okay by me. He is one of my spirit animals. SImilar to Friday's puzzle, I found the clues very straightforward and if you knew the facts, the fill came easily. I only had trouble when I couldn't recall the fact. Looking at you, CAIMAN and AC MILAN. Sidenote: Am already tired of soccer. And finally, THE HEAT IS ON for sure. <a href="https://youtu.be/uZD8HKVKneI?si=2SkKEkoyf6Mgawrx" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/uZD8HKVKneI?si=2SkKEkoyf6Mgawrx</a>