This puzzle was a total delight.
When I dialed the soda company, I got a fizzy signal. (But I think they have cola ID.)
@Mike You may want to consider changing your screen name to @Mikedrop.
@Mike Dew they know how good your puns are though? Even if it’s a bit past 7up here in Canada, they give me pepsi? So thanks, you crush it!
Brunsworks, Nah. Somebody will tell him it must be Micdrop.
So, how’d the puzzle go today? NOT MY FINEST WORK And how long did it take you to solve it? LET’S NOT EVEN GO THERE ;-)
@otherthings It took me all night. But I also hit my sleep target🙂
@otherthings How does it feel to complete the puzzle? LETS PARTY
@otherthings It was my finest hour today -- 1:00:52 to be exact. In 3 sittings. It really does help to go away for awhile and come back later. But when I figured out to remove hour and replace it with WORK the NE finally started to come together. I also had to get rid of bordom.... and finally got NERDALERT. That helped a lot This was a HARD puzzle, but with 3 or 4 look-ups for names I got it done!
Anyone else have DEcK for [Anchor position]? Sorry Doris (not Doric) Burke! Took me way too long to flyspeck that one. For me, the NW was largely unfilled for the longest time (with only a sad, lone ONION), before I took a chance to partially fill out …SODA for [Dad’s pop, perhaps]. I’m still amazed how fast things can fall into place with a tiny foothold. The misdirects and wordplay made this for me. Thanks Katie!
@Steve YES. I committed myself fully to DEcK and it was your comment that saved me! Avoiding the news has made me forget other meanings of the word “anchor.”
@Steve Fark, yes! See my comment posted shortly after yours.
@Steve Me too. In fact, I finally chose to autocheck for what turned out to be that one square; took the blue star without regret
@Steve Swapping that one square out was my last move to finish the puzzle. It took me a minute to understand why “desk” made sense.
I really really hate that the app info tab doesn’t open to my browser so I can review wordplay as I am solving. It ruins the user experience. It seems to me that the people who created this feature aren’t regular solvers. This needs to be corrected ASAP. As to the puzzle, very well done for a Saturday.
@Red Carpet Why do you want to review Wordplay as you are solving, though? It contains spoilers!
@Red Carpet For the puzzle of the day, you can go to the sections in the NYT app and have the wordplay on a separate screen. But, yes, for the puzzles of another day, you are kind of stuck with the i tab on the games app - unless you do a deep search in the paper app, which has its own glitches.
@Red Carpet I have a work-around for this problem. I do the puzzle in the Games app, and then open the NYT app in another window, go to Sections and search on Wordplay. That gives me the column, comments (and solution when I need it) in another window so I can flip back and forth easily.
So, let’s start with the clue for RINGO – [Man’s name whose first four letters spell a word describing its last letter]. There I was, trying to think of names starting with “soft” or “long” – already misdirected. Then I learn post-solve that in the more than 100 times this answer has appeared in Crosslandia, it has never been clued like this. That’s Katie Hoody and cluing. She finds new angles. She looks in Left Field. Here’s one more – [Sound made when something snaps into place]. There I was again, searching for words for that satisfying click, misdirected. When the answer AHA finally came, it came with a “Hah!” Katie’s cluing is often very funny as well as original, keeping me in a good mood even as my brain is huffing and puffing. Katie, you are sterling cluing talent. This on top of the fresh answers that spark your grids and the remarkable lack of junk answers therein. Thank you for another splendid outing!
By the way, to underscore a point, AHA has appeared in the Times puzzle more than 600 times, but has never been clued like this, not even close.
@Lewis Regarding RINGO. When I read the clue. I literally started getting excited. Like “when this eventually fills in, it’s gonna be a cool observation”. You have got be a crazy right brain to see stuff like this. And the beauty is that as a constructor, they get to actually put these thoughts to productive work! I never read the constructor name before I start. I think that’s generally good. But watching world cup soccer while trying to solve this, was challenging. But I did better than Türkiye last night. Which was the game that was on when I was solving. USA. Even getting to the semis would be a dream
For my money, this was a truly magnificent puzzle. Time after time after time, I'd be rubbing my temples, trying to see something, and I'd realize that the answer I had which sorta fit and was somewhat clever was wrong. And the right one was better in every way than what I had. ONION was just brilliant. I think I had ON__N, and my mind just shoved ONION into the program counter, and suddenly I saw it was a terrific answer to a utterly perplexing clue. Great moments in this one.
@Francis The onion clue was maybe the best example of how great this was.
@Francis This was one of the gimmees in this puzzle for me. I guess because I like to cook stir-fry, often with onions.
Some puzzles are worth their extended solve times. This one certainly was.
Any puzzle with CREAM SODA and RENEE Fleming in it are okay by me. RENEE, Margaret CHO and WEEB Ewbank were the first entries I felt sure of filling in. And then I had HENRY Louis Gates in the SE corner, who made me take out SEAturtle, a bit of a bummer, but thanks HENRY. And the clue for RINGO was fun. In fact, the entire puzzle was a pleasure to solve. Thanks for the fun, Katie.
@Vaer Are okay? Clearly I am not okay. Okay?
Elegant puzzle. Mind you I had the auto check on, but in my book that's not cheating, it's learning :D
Laura V, You're not at a tournament, so it's not cheating. Learning is good!
It's official - Katie Hoody is my favorite constructor. There are others I look forward to, a handful I always enjoy, but recently, nobody nails it Every Single Time like she does.
If you Google "not my finest," "hour" is the word it suggests first, and that was my choice as well. Nice to know that both Google and I were stumped on that one! :-)
Mark, If had consulted the crosses rather than Google, you would have gone "WHOA" and then finished the WORK.
Another delightful diabolical clue. 58A [ Natural resource seen in arboretums?] ORE. Just amazing.
Francis: If you liked that clue you may enjoy cryptic crosswords, if you haven't already been turned on to them.
@Francis This is the kind of clue that separates the good from the great.
A few learning lookups were required here, to fill in some names I didn’t know. But I hammered away at the rest and eventually got there. Quite a workout, this puzzle. And I think I’m going to be haunted by images of, um, highly stimulated power saws for quite some time.
I'm relieved to know that small storage units aren't s•a•fES, and that allies don't share an ENEM•a•. Yeah, I know, NOT MY FINEST WORK... But I got it done in the end, so LET'S PARTY and get down with Kool & The Gang and their Jungle BOOGIE – <a href="https://youtu.be/-BM5wPOe0xQ?is=JcYnM7PLAYnvOEH8" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/-BM5wPOe0xQ?is=JcYnM7PLAYnvOEH8</a> Thank you, Katie, for yet another great challenge! Your puzzles always sing with BRIO. 👏🏻👏🏻
@sotto voce Your answers look like mine, sometimes. If I accidentally hit the CapsLock button my keyboard shifts to cyrillic letters. I lived in Russia for 2 years and needed them -- now I can't figure out how to get rid of it! It's mostly OK and I notice. But I was totally stumped on one puzzle and couldn't find my error because the C on both character sets is the same key on the keyboard, and they lool just alike -- but have underlying different ASCII character codes. That's the code the computer understands. I finally had to turn on Reveal -- and still wasn't sure why the 'correct' letter was marked wrong. It took me a minute....
@sotto voce, Those would be some pretty tight allies, alrighty …
First time that I’ve ever come to the comments for assistance. I had DORIc and DEcK. Deck made sense for an anchor so I didn’t catch that Doric would be an odd first name. I had gone through checking and re-checking a number of times. I still loved this puzzle. It gave me exactly what I looked for even before getting stuck. Every section was a slog. Thank you so much.
@Jake G Doric would be an off first name when there's someone called WEEB?
This was a great puzzle, IMNSHO. Lots of wordplay and answers that were opaque until they weren't. Ok a less positive note, it's probably a sign of the times, but I don't like the puzzle being demoted from the top of the app It's disconcerting and a bit dismaying everytime I open the app.
@PuzzleDog Yeah, this is the second day in a row that they've moved the puzzles around in the mobile app, and it is extremely irritating. There are certain puzzles that I do every morning, and I don't enjoy having to hunt for them.
@PuzzleDog I had no idea they did that, because I’ve bookmarked the puzzles I do, so they always come up the same way.
Found this one somewhat easier than yesterday's, but still a solid weekend puzzle. Solved it without assistance in about twenty-five minutes. Highlight for me was ONION RINGo vertically near the center. Didn't know BRENDA, RENEE, HONG, SEADRAGON, DORIS or SOL (as clued). Also didn't know the precise locations of CAPRI or Rijeka. (So much trivia! ;-) ) But all of these were easy to get from the crosses and a bit of commonsense reasoning. Was slowed down by having GEEKALERT before NERDALERT, and by the lack of Hebrew words in the grid. Arboretums also made me wince, but just a little.
"Was slowed down by ... the lack of Hebrew words in the grid." Xword Junkie, Too funny!
@Xword Junkie Geography and flags are not trivia, ever. I was amused that people still use the name DORIS. Bertha? Hazel?
@Xword Junkie Oddly I knew the location of CAPRI but not Sorrento; I think of CAPRI as a day trip from Napoli.
Rarely comment on these, but this was an exceptional puzzle. Very clever clues, high-quality fill, and two impressive and fun spanners. Kudos to the constructor.
I thought this was a good puzzle. It was hard but not because of too many trivias or arcane words but rather by clever clueing.
Whooo that one was great! One of those epic puzzles that took me on a roller coaster ride from utter hopelessness to delicious satisfaction. I enjoyed every minute!
So many people who have never seen a laundry chute! If you can find the right moments, your childhood will be enriched beyond measure by what you can send down one.
@Flamingo G.I. Joe made the drop many times!
@Flamingo got in trouble a lot because my grandma had a laundry chute.
@Calig Why, did your grandmother also have cats?
@Flamingo Loved this! Still chuckling. I can only imagine what you sent down that chute, and I'm pretty sure they weren't love notes to your mom...
I’m sure to some extent folks who successfully solve a puzzle rate the puzzle higher than those who weren’t in the constructor’s wheelhouse and the comments skew that way but… Today was significantly better than yesterday’s puzzle, in my humble opinion. I ran out of patience running the alphabet on all the naticks yesterday. Here’s a vote for adding a “Run the Alphabet key” to the app to take some of the slog out of those puzzles. Today’s puzzle was plenty hard and the design left me work to do in all four corners without much to connect to, but the clues and answers seemed much more polished. There were names I didn’t know today, too, but much more interspersed with clever, thought provoking clues. For reference, I’ve solved every puzzle for the past 7 1/2 years so I don’t relate to the good old days of impossible Saturdays, but this was a good puzzle. Very well done, Katie. Keep ‘em coming.
@Nate Yesterday’s puzzle maybe should have been a Saturday, but I didn’t find it impossible. It’s just a matter of how much experience you have, and I dare say that even 7.5 years may not have been enough to have made yesterday’s solve a breeze. I don’t mind when people say a puzzle was too hard for them, or even that puzzles that hard shouldn’t be allowed. I do mind when people call it a horrible puzzle because it was too hard for them.
Katie says she hopes this doesn't turn out to be her finest work, but personally I'd be thrilled if all her future puzzles were merely as great as this one. But why must we endure the liberal agenda of the editors? First they foist upon us the sacrilegious "theory" that humans descended from apes. Since that didn't pan out, now they would have us believe that we are descendants of cream soda?! Do better, NYT! Better yet, repent.
@ad absurdum Where is dad absurdum? (And ptsd still has me worried a one liner won't post.)
@ad ab-burp-um As difficult as it is for you to digest, we are descendants, on our fathers' sides, of the MRCSD*--known in the popular press as the "Carbonated Adam"--a ginger beer who lived in Leeds, England, around 1760. He is not to be confused with the *matrilineal* common ancestor, who most likely lived much earlier, in France, and is known as the "Effervescent Evian." It's a (sorta) free country, and you're welcome to disbelieve, and sip your Sweet Tea in the cafe at the Museum of Flatness, Petersburg, KY. *Most Recent Common Soft Drink
I saw her name and I hooted. I literally did. Startled the cat, even, as she's not used to such εjαcυιατιοηs (settle, Andrzej!) from her human. And from this couch, spent, lazing and stupefied, basking in the glow of this golden grid I do declare that if Queen Robyn has well and truly fled: The Queen is abdicated...long live the Queen...Katie Hoody.
@Matt -- I didn't hoot, I pumped my fist, but it's all the same. Katie is one of the few constructors who gets me excited when I see their name atop the grid. And this after only nine NYT puzzles. What a talent!
I said it before and I’ll say it again: more Katie, more Robyn
@Banjo Nelson I don't think Robyn's listening, alas.
I give this puzzle one of the highest compliments I can give: This was the hardest puzzle I solved (without look-ups) in many years! And that includes solving in the Archives from 10+ years ago. Of course, being difficult doesn't necessarily make a puzzle excellent. This one is because with each difficult answer I puzzled out I didn't say "Ugh!" or "That's not a real word." or "That was an unfair clue." But rather "How clever!" and "I should've seen that earlier!" This exemplifies what I like in a puzzle. But someone tell me what this says about me: that I enjoy feeling "No way will I be able to solve this", yet somehow I do. Why is that a wonderful feeling? Thanks, Kate Hoody! Great puzzle! I hope you make us suffer in this enjoyable way again soon!
@The X-Phile totally absolutely fully agree with your observations
@The X-Phile "No way will I be able to solve this", yet somehow I do. Why is that a wonderful feeling? Bravo. This couplet of yours exquisitely distills the essence of this addiction.
@The X-Phile my thoughts exactly. What a gem of a tough solve.
@The X-Phile -- "I hope you make us suffer in this enjoyable way again soon!" Whenever I want to convey the delicious feeling -- and it is! -- that you describe, I use the verb "suffer", with quotes. So that when I say I "suffered" during a solve, you'll know I had a wonderful, if extremely challenging time. And therefore when I use the verb suffered with no quotes at all, you'll know that 1) I really struggled and 2) not all that happily, to tell the truth.
Katie Hoody, I read your note. 37A? 8D!
I was awfully close to losing my gold star streak today. Took me a while, but eventually a couple clues in the top left and top right opened the floodgates. Harder than usual, for sure.
From all the love for this puzzle, I'm going to assume it is popular amongst Americans. For anyone not intimately familiar with American history and culture this was unsolveable. There was no balance between difficult answers and getable ones. So for now, I will say that this was a terrible puzzle for everyone else. What has happened to the creators that could make a difficult puzzle without resorting to arcane and regional knowledge? All that being said, I thing the clues were very challenging and unique, and if the creator would close the encyclopedia for a second I think she could create some legendary puzzles!
@Hitch Yes, I agree! Struggled with this one, and did not enjoy nearly as much as comments suggest others did. Needed quite a few look ups for the trivia ( a football coach and an NBA analyst in the same stack??). Diluted the enjoyment I got from some of the clever cluing. It's been a tough couple of days back to back!
@Hitch So it's a day off and I like reading your comments so I decided to drill down on your critique. I sifted through the clues and by my lights the list of Americo-centric or -adjacent is: 1A, 19A, 43A, 46A, 48A, 56A, 62A, 14D, 11D, 31D and 53D. 1A: Point Hitch. I see no evidence that neither Dad's the company nor CREAMSODA the drink has ever hit your shores. 19A: No way 99% of Americans know that the eyes of the American coot are red. This was universal murk. Judges say "no." 43A: WEEB Ewbank. All you. 48A: Margaret CHO has never done stand-up by you. But her films and TV appearances are international in these days of streaming. Point Hoody. 56A: Helen HONG. I don't consume more than a handful of podcasts on the regular. No idea who she is. Also, podcasts are global. Might more Americans than S. Africans know her work? I suppose. I'll give you a half point. 62A: You all can watch NBA but not with her analysis, I'm sure. Again...point Hitch. 11D: I doubt any Americans other than those with a burning love for abusing and betting on the ponies got this. But fine. Yours. 14D: GREATLAKES...is this not a world geography/general knowledge kind of clue? Judges say it is. 11D: The web tells me the phrase SNOWBIRDS is understand by you all, as well. Which, frankly, surprised me. It's virtually everywhere English is spoken. 53D: HENRY Gates? Yours. By my count you have 5.5 justified quibbles. Is that a high number for a puzzle published in New York?
@Matt Helen Hong is a Korean-American comedian and actor. I wouldn't say she's widely known here either. I, and no doubt others here in Crosslandia, know her from her appearances as a panelist on Wait Wait....Don't Tell Me, which I will allow Wikipedia to describe: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is an hour-long weekly news radio panel show produced by WBEZ and National Public Radio (NPR) in Chicago, Illinois. On the program, panelists and contestants are quizzed in humorous ways about that week's news. It is distributed by NPR in the United States, internationally on NPR Worldwide and on the Internet via podcast, and typically broadcast on weekends by member stations. The show averages about six million weekly listeners on air and via podcast.
@Hitch kind of like taking a swing at the Sunday Times Cryptic I’d guess
@Hitch Before today I’d never heard of BRENDA Howard, RENEE Fleming, WEEB (!) Ewbank, Helen HONG, or DORIS Burke. Margaret CHO was iffy and HENRY Louis Gates was the only truly familiar name to me. However, I was able to get all those TILs because they were sprinkled evenly throughout cleverly clued but gettable words and phrases, and 3 out of 5 were standard first names. You might have a point with CREAM SODA but, again, gettable with crosses. Nary a Natick to be seen. So sorry, I don’t buy the Americo-centrically unsolveable accusation.
@Hitch Admittedly most of the proper nouns I didn’t know—but I could get. But I’d hazard a guess that many of them are people that Katie DID know, appreciates and would like us to know about. I like that that’s an expression of her personality and her gift to us. I’ll say it again, if you don’t want to learn about new words, concepts and people then this is not the pastime for you.
@Hitch I admit that as I was solving I was picturing people all over the globe hurling their phones at the wall in frustration (WEEB? srsly?) But at the end of the day I solved it without any lookups. and of the proper names the only ones I knew were RENEE and CHO. I thought it was hard (xwstats agrees) but I thought the crosses were fair.
What gorgeous cluing! Although I'm a huge fan of tricky, clever Thursday-style themes, sometimes all you need to make a themeless puzzle hugely enjoyable is imaginative, colorful and off-beat clues. There were so many today: CREAM SODA; SWING; PLOT POINT; CHUTE; SINGS and the one that gave me by far the most trouble: TOAST. Wonder if it's new; it's certainly very clever. Not the hardest Saturday I've ever done, but one of the most entertaining. I feel that Katie had a lot of fun with the cluing and wanted us to have fun too.
I want to climb a mountain and shout "I did it!" and hear it echo throughout the land! That's how psyched I am right now!!!
I enjoyed this twisty puzzle. The NE was not my finest work, because I had not my finest hour instead of NOTMYFINESTWORK, I guessed that Big Sandy was the oldest, not the WIDEST, track, and I was unfamiliar with BRENDA Howard. Eventually seeing GREATLAKE helped me undo my mistakes. For anyone who has never seen a SEADRAGON, they are mysterious and beautiful creatures.
@Marshall Walthew Those who haven't seen a sea dragon must have clicked on the comments button so quickly that they didn't see the Wordplay picture. 🙂
What a great start to the day! Absolutely first-rate cluing which brought smiles to my face upon figuring them out. Thank you, Katie!
Two nice toughies in a row! Made this one a little harder by leaving my anchor on the deck
WHOA!! That was another toughie! But unlike Friday when I couldn't complete it, today I present to you my huzzah and my hip hip-huramba!! 💃🕺 LETSPARTY!! 🕺💃 I would not impress anyone with my time, not that I ever share it, but this one was too much fun to stop and I really never thought I couldn't get it, like I did with yesterday's. Or it might be today's. Meaning Friday's. Is today Friday still? If so, which year? Anyhow, perhaps if timing matters, ITSNOTMYFINESTWORK, but by my own metrics of completion without any lookups, I'm pretty proud of it! I'd be hard pressed to say a favorite clue but so many of them made me giggle with childish glee... The clues for POWERTOOL, SNOWBIRDS, LETSPARTY, and PLOTPOINT would certainly be at the top of my list. Even if I did want "Get down" to be partay, BOOGIE also made me smile. Fun puzzle! Really enjoyed this one! @SP: lacking neutrality this time? Har!
Such clever, funny clues. Maybe my favorite Saturday ever.
Very hard puzzle, but still enjoyable! (took me well over an hour to solve)
This was hard but fair. Had to call in the cavalry (my wife) and together we got it squared. That SW corner was crispety crunchety. Had everything right except had DECK instead of DESK. I was thinking ship anchor, which was I think the intentional misdirect. DORIC didn't seem entirely impossible as a name so I was stuck flyspecking all over the map. Finally turned it off for a while and the answer literally came to me in a dream as my brain clicked that it had to be DESK. Thanks for the fun 68 minutes. This was a pretty clever one.
Excellent Saturday puzzle. Tough but a totally fair challenge. Took me a bit more time than usual but never felt like a slog. Getting each corner done was a little triumph. Well done!
Emus ate this, trying again, sorry if it posts again: You don’t know how relieved I was to see Katie Hoody’s byline today. Not just because I love Katie Hoody puzzles—and I do—but because EVERYONE loves Katie Hoody, and after yesterday’s nasty-fest in the comments I’m hoping we can all get along today. LETSPARTY! I was off to the races in the NW—while I couldn’t fit in rootbeerSODA and teeshirtCANNON the second half of each was enough to get me going. (Thanks for the Father’s Day call out). The bottom half fell into place more gradually, about average difficulty for me with the usual Hoody gems—especially SNOWBIRDS and POWERTOOL (OK, I actually parsed that one that way first but “Saw getting turned on is” is pretty cute nonetheless.) Finally the NE which gave me my expected Saturday teeth pulling. I thought I was so smart pulling LAKEHURON out of my α$$ immediately, and was on the right track but not quite. Also CHORE before CHUTE and OLDEST before WIDEST and ALARM before TIMER. Finally I could say IMONTOYOU and smile at NERDALERT. Last comment. Have to ask JG who yesterday seemed to think that only men “use specific facts and names and clues/answers”—umm, CHO, WEEB, DORIS, CROAT, HONG, BRENDA, CAPRI, HENRY—most of which I didn’t know but was happy to learn about and didn’t detract from my solve—um, Katie, have you had a sex change lately? The rest of you, did this meet your rigorous standard of trivia and proper names? Thanks Katie, brilliant as always.
@SP "What might lead to a pile of dirty laundry" ? CHild seemed pretty clever to me.
@SP I also thought of “chore,” but reasoned that that would be backwards.
"For a minute I wondered if the “Dad” in question was the same everyman behind all the jokes, but it’s surely a reference to the lineup of sodas made by Dad’s Root Beer, a Chicago brand founded in the 1930s." Now that's elegant.
@Moira the cool thing is it can actually be both, as it was in the Dad’s ads (see the link in Wordplay). I grew up drinking Dad’s, although a lot more root beer than cream soda.
Okay.....to everyone who accused The NYT of giving us puzzles that are too easy: I hope this "Stifles comment, colloquially" (three words, 12 squares, one snarl.) This took me at least an hour. Seven (or more?) names; I knew only three; and WEEB was not one of them...Srsly? But you didn't want the NAME of the GREAT LAKE; how is that fair? Don't Bring That Up. Not for Discussion. Not my Finest Hour. FIRE ANT. Not a fond memory. Must go lick my wounds now. It's storming again.
@Mean Old Lady Dear Hubby didn't know WEEB Ewbank???
@Mean Old Lady It’s fair because the answer fits the clue. It’s on you that you didn’t think of it. WEEB is better known in NY. He and his QB, Joe Namath, led the Jets to their only championship ever, in 1969. (The Mets followed later that year, and the Knicks the next year.)
@Steve L Re your first sentence. I think MOL knows that. She was just using hyperbole for effect. Or something like that. I did not take her SRSLY.
Last week on a trip back home I took the kids to the deli I grew up going to, and my son wanted to try the Dr. Brown's Cream Soda*. I told him that was my father's favorite. So 1A rattled me! Is cream soda what everyone's dad used to get? Did the constructor tap into my memories? Well, apparently "Dad's" is a brand, but I'm going to pretend I don't know that. *He loved it, and we had to go back for more the next day.
@Jake That clue also spoke to me. My Dad (b 1924) also liked cream soda. I never understood the appeal but once in a great while I’ll try some, just because.
BRIO twice in one week. Never heard that word in my life before Sunday. Not sure how I would have worked out the SW without it. Went through two wrong definitions of anchor and incorrectly tried last (as in the anchor of a race) and moor/dock. Took me a minute after I finished the puzzle to understand that DESK meant a news anchor. Had ArmCANNON before AIRCANNON. Was considering argoN before ONION. Tough puzzle, but never felt like I was stuck at any point. Kept making slow progress until I solved it
@Steven M. Amen to that. Welcome to the world of, "Let's drill that into their solving beans." Brio. Keep that in your puzzle pocket with ELAN, LUXE, MOED and GLIM. It's part of that Pavlovian system guaranteed to git ya that gold star! 😉 The NYT wants us to love OREOS, LSD and fine ALE, while vibing to EMO.
@Steven M. Wahoo! Thank you! I knew anchors don't sit on the DOCK but could NOT make that switch to DESK. (Gotta go see why I had O not E on the cross....)
I REALLY wanted this one! About 40 minutes in, I was pumped. Picture "Bronn" from Game of Thrones back when it was good, in full fight fury. My loins were so girded that no one has ever seen loins girdeder, and testosterone fluxed through my bloodstream like Niagara Falls, but going through a straw. It was just... (pause while warrior Bronn takes the dogs out to poop) ... a Do or Die puzzle. A battle to the death. A battle beyond the death to the pain! Oh, to be 70 again! I guessing this puzzle is going to go over about like yesterday's (which I did not get).
@Francis I’m on the edge of my seat. Did you vanquish your foe?
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, Katie Hoody, for another amazing puzzle! There was so much to ADORE here: SNOW BIRDS, SEA DRAGON, NERD ALERT. The clues for 26A and 48A were pure genius. I wanted 46D to be cabins, since that's what I stay in when I visit Minnesota's GREAT LAKE.
@Katie CabinS or CanoeS was my struggle. And also SNOWgeese for 31D, meaning Minnesotans (and others) who fly south for a few winter months. Perhaps they rent CONDOS.
A proper Saturday workout, great column and even better constructor comments. Always something to learn here. Alas, I've been working on yesterday's for over 24 hours (not in a row) but had to throw in the towel - totally stuck in the NW and after seeing the solution don't think another 24 hours would have helped. So some welcome toughies to finish up the week. Many thanks.
So! Many! Wonderfu! Clues! My solve began pretty fast, and for about half the puzzle I seriously suspected someone had inadvertently (or advertently) switched the Friday and Saturday puzzles this week. Now a swath around the NW-SE diagonal was filled in. But then I got into the rest of the puzzle and its magnificent clueing struck me like a cosh. I finally solved the entire puzzle but for an unfortunate DORIc crossing DEcK, since I didn't know the analyst and "anchor DESK" never occurred to me. The sooner I see more puzzles by this constructor, the sooner I will enjoy her extraordinary clueing.
PS But I was puzzled by one clue/answer combo: "Attempt, informally" for SWING. I'm not familiar with this use of the word "swing". If someone says, "Can you swing it", that means "Can you arrange it?" (make it happen), not "Can you try it?". Nor do I find support for this meaning in dictionaries.
Well I thought that puzzle was deliciously puzzling and pretty darn fine work - thanks for all the fun, Katie Hoody! (Anyone else try CHild for "What might lead to a large pile of dirt laundry"??)
@Sian Here’s a thought. You can use the search function above to search for “child.” Then you’ll know. Or was that a rhetorical question?