SARI is the new Oreo.
@Ιασων It's getting there! For the stat fans: OREO has appeared 523 times in the Crossword, SARI at 466. 468 if we include SARINOTSARI from that fun Tuesday puzzle earlier this month :)
Confabulations to Zhou Zhang for this really fun Friday! And hats off to Sean McGowan for describing breakup sϵx as "touch and go" -- that's a keeper! Also liked the sharpened object theme, with Ginsu, Samurai (whose cutlery was so inspirational), Occam's Razor, and Casca, one of the cabal of Roman senators who assassinate Caesar, in fact, Casca is the first to stab Caesar, shouting, "Speak, hands, for me!" At which point, I believe Brutus rolls his eyes and says, "I mean, come on!" In the company fridge, one of my co-workers (Mark) keeps his jar of Smucker's seeded raspberry with an angry post-it taped to it: "That's my jam!" That's OK, it was way too high in FRUCTOSE for me, as I concluded after several SAMPLES, and I'm a calorie counter ever since they put the stent in. The scholarly jury is out on whether William of Ockham ever uttered the parsimonious phrase associated with his name. The "razor" is simply a term applied to any thesis whose point is to shave off alternative and less worthy solutions. There are other razors: Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Alder's razor: If something cannot be settled by experiment or observation, then it is not worthy of debate. (Obviously Alder was no fun at parties, or even at lunch). Hitchen's razor: That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. John Ezra's Razor: If you call someting a Natick you will live to regret it.
@john ezra. Talking of Naticks , the NE of the midi looked awfully like Natick Central to me on my first pass.
@john ezra 🎩👒🧢🪖⛑️ all off for “touch and go”
@john ezra I don’t remember whether I’ve ever seen it described as Hanlon’s razor, but that is definitely one of my favorite analytical tools.
Thanks for trying your hand at a themeless, Zhou Zhang! This one was fun, and I was glad to see that I could solve it albeit slowly, through the fog of a tired brain.
@Barry Ancona Best wishes for a continuing recovery. It's not fun when your brain is tired.
@Barry Ancona Are those microbes still hanging around? I MEAN, COME ON! Get better soon, please.
Nice way to land on 1000. Silliest effort in streak-maintenance: ran 2 miles out of the Green Mountains at 11pm to the (closed) small town library whose WiFi could be leeched from outside.
@dcy Congrats! Love a good streak-saver story.
@dcy, Well done! Congratulations on 1000!!! 🥳
After a couple of days where I was not inspired by the puzzles, my spirits were lifted to see a Zhou Zhang offering for Friday. And a righteous Friday it was. IMEANCOMEON! It took me so long to get a foothold that I thought my brain would GOSPLAT (great clue and answer btw). In fact it was GOSPLAT that broke the puzzle open for me. The key to this puzzle was uniformly excellent cluing and a variety of fun entries. And, to top it off, I got a trip down memory lane thinking about all the late night television watching I did in my youth, and all the commercials for GINSU knives that I suffered through as a result. I’d love to CONFABULATE with y’all, but my brain needs a rest.
Congrats Zhou! I know from experience how hard it is to construct a good themeless (still unsuccessful). I hope everyone else understands that this is a much more difficult skill than a themed puzzle and not every constructor can make the transition. This one was quite challenging for a Friday and sparkled. Not surprised that you pushed yourself to do it, nor the quality of the work, and hope to see you finish the cycle soon!
@SP "I hope everyone else understands that this is a much more difficult skill than a themed puzzle and not every constructor can make the transition." I would be grateful for some exegesis here. As an ignorant solver, I'd have thought the opposite.
Simply a colorful bouquet of beauty. OMG look at these answers! SNIFFS OUT, BREAK UP ___, GO SPLAT, RAPACIOUS, UMPTEENTH, I MEAN COME ON, ZOOM FATIGUE, IRIDESCE, NORMIE, RECLUSE, BARREN, CONFABULATE, THAT’S MY JAM, OCCAM’S RAZOR. All in one box, IN CLOSE. A windfall. And the skill to throw it all together seamlessly! Took me some delicious brainwork to uncover it all, what with no-knows and slippery cluing. Thus, the fun of cracking riddles rewarded by beauty again and again. Crosswords as splendor. This felt to me like a puzzle not made by a showoff, but by one wanting to share joy. And share joy you did, Zhou. This was a gem, a highlight, a day lifter. I loved it all. Thank you!
This post was originally emued, and thus the underscore after "BREAK UP" instead of the actual word. That did the trick. The original post, I'm sorry to say, may appear later on.
A lovely, crunchy puzzle with some baffling-to-me clues (apparently I don’t get out much). My only nit to pick today is a minor one, and likely of the “your mileage may vary” ilk. (Brief pause of gratitude for our beloved Saint Deb of Amlen.) If older siblings still bicker as they age, do they resort to “UNFAIR” for parental judgments? My remonstration was always the less grammatically correct (but way more satisfying) “NO FAIR.” And now that I come to think of it, I still use the latter. Y’all have a lovely day and remember to be kind.
@Barb Prillaman No fair was my first thought, and yes, it's much more satisfying!
@Barb Prillaman Agreed. I had the same thought. UNFAIR sounds out of register for squabbling siblings complaining to mom and dad--although "That's not fair!" is on the mark to me, even though it's longer and a full sentence.
It's funny how a wrong answer with a right letter can accidentally unlock things for you. Facing a three letter "project" (for I could only conceive of it as a noun) I thought of Job (not the character—that's intended to be in "capital correct/lowercase incorrect" format); checking whether and how the J would work in the across clue with the few other letters I'd put in there, I came up with THATSMYJAM and was excited enough about this that I forgot about finishing the Job until it was obvious that it was JUT and "project" was a verb.
@Stefan I had the opposite experience. I already had THATS MY JAM, so I filled in -OB off the J. That didn’t help me in any way.
@Stefan That's a great reminder that solvers shouldn't be afraid to guess. Even if it's wrong, it might be right-ish.
@Stefan I had a similar experience after entering voracious (and crossing it with the TV show svu). Both were wrong, but they got me unstuck
@Stefan Welcome to my world! I did exactly the same thing! Project vs PROject. I didn’t quickly get UMPTEENTH, but recognized (in my mathematics teacher mind) that …NBH made zero sense as an ending for ‘an unspecified large number’ and most likely ended in (good ol’) NTH!
Like many others here, I loved Zhou Zhang's Friday themeless. Well done, with fresh fill too! But let me comment tonight on the Mini. While I enjoyed the visual triplet, I think Sam intended for us to spot the quintet: MOBS MONEY OCEAN SHORE SAND ... Atlantic City!
Loved it! My solve started fast, slowed way down, then sped back up, finishing just barely below my average time. But the creativity was the main thing. As soon as I saw the clue for 17 Across, I started wondering, "How daring will this get?" Just the right amount, was of course the answer. Also loved "etch" crossing "itch."
Thank you for a challenging Friday puzzle. Really had to work my brain. I know someone will still say that it wasn’t tough. I’m quite satisfied with getting it done without any help.
Hand up if you thought of Barry Ancona at 2D. 🙋🏻♂️
@NYC Traveler 🙋🏻♂️ In fact, just about everything makes me think of Barry.
My mom died suddenly in April from a fall in her nursing home. I am still lost. Mom had been on a 5 year spiral into vascular dementia set off by a dissected aortic aneurysm (TAAA) in the early months of COVID. Her illness taught me to appreciate a different definition of CONFABULATE. Merriam-Webster says “Confabulate is a fabulous word for making fantastic fabrications.” Telling a completely believable stories about the cruise she never took and how her toothbrush ending up in her purse — and she clearly thought she was telling the truth — but IMEANCOMEON. Her storytelling was our first sign of what was to come, and also hilarious. Thanks for a reason to make me smile, Zhou Zhang.
@Cheri Thank you for giving me a different way thinking about things related to my mother-in-law's dementia confabulations. May each day see you finding your way a little bit more, as you continue to find joy in your mother's memory.
@Cheri My grandmother was in an Alzheimer’s ward in a nursing home and every time I visited she was on a different vacation. Cruise, NYC and Cape Cod were the most common. She didn’t seem to notice the bowling alley right outside her window. She always knew me as a relative but rarely the right one. I was comforted that she was having fun on these “trips”. Sorry for your loss, the loss of one’s mother is particularly difficult.
More RAPACIOUS and CONFABULATE for us please!
@Peaty & Oaty and IRIDESCE!
Simply a colorful bouquet of beauty. OMG look at these answers! SNIFFS OUT, BREAK UP SEX, GO SPLAT, RAPACIOUS, UMPTEENTH, I MEAN COME ON, ZOOM FATIGUE, IRIDESCE, NORMIE, RECLUSE, BARREN, CONFABULATE, THAT’S MY JAM, OCCAM’S RAZOR. All in one box, IN CLOSE. A windfall. And the skill to throw it all together seamlessly! Took me some delicious brainwork to uncover it all, what with no-knows and slippery cluing. Thus, the fun of cracking riddles rewarded by beauty again and again. Crosswords as splendor. This felt to me like a puzzle not made by a showoff, but by one wanting to share joy. And share joy you did, Zhou. This was a gem, a highlight, a day lifter. I loved it all. Thank you!
@Lewis I totally agree with your sentiments. My first run through the puzzle led me to think I wouldn't finish, but persistence revealed those delightful answers. I haven't enjoyed a Friday puzzle as much as this one!
Whew! That was fun and challenging. Felt like a good Friday puzzle (no pun intended).
I grew up thinking Bart Simpson’s catchphrase was AY CARuMBA, and as SUP made a plausible synonym for “deplete” to me, (depleting via drinking/eating, like RAPACIOUS LEMURS), I thought this looked fine under OCCAM’S RAZOR. Picture me half an hour later about to GO LOCO, poised like a SAMURAI brandishing GINSU knives, and shouting “UNFAIR!” at my seemingly perfect fill. In such a conundrum, one usually SNIFFS OUT the problem eventually (with a few OMS), but after coming up BARREN for the UMPTEENTH time, I accepted my NORMIE solver status and used my web-browsing APP to relieve the metaphorical ITCH. To ERR is human, but I MEAN COME ON.
As my Granny would have said: "Woo-ee!" This puzzle too me on a wild ride, I must say...from AHA! to Oh Dear! I don't really spend any of my time clutching pearls, but there were a few AY CARAMBA! Moments... THAT'S MY JAM? I MEAN, COME ON! This took it to the UMPTEENTH Level. Gotta drive downtown this morning for an appointment, but I will take my book of Xword puzzles (now past its 10th birthday) and contemplate that lovely quote from Robert Penn Warren or perhaps the wonderful wisdom of William of OCCAM, whose RAZOR cuts through a lot of CONFABULATion. See y'all tomorrow. SHALOM.
Now this was the perfect level of difficulty for a Friday!
Popping in for my usual "yay, Zhou!" comment. So glad to see others enjoyed the "sparkling" fill that's become Zhou's trademark style (I've also called it zippy and breezy)!
It's Friday, Friday, Friday. Solved in my usual Friday way of slight panic after the first pass yields virtually nothing I was willing to commit to. Knew the COUSINS, no, not those played by Patty Duke, and somehow SERT. Then a few more came in doing the Downs, hi SAMURAI and ESC key. And then my brain eventually settled down and was able to focus. So it was a nice challenge for me. Bob Seger reminds me of the summer after the album with Hollywood Nights on it came out, 1978? The guy in the house next door would come home after the bars closed, put side A on the turntable (yes, turntable, youngsters) and leave it on autoplay after he passed out. Good times. <a href="https://vimeo.com/339883490?fl=pl&fe=sh" target="_blank">https://vimeo.com/339883490?fl=pl&fe=sh</a>
@Vaer nice post-puzzle Friday morning music!
@Vaer But does a hotdog make those royal cousins lose control? 😏
I had only ever heard of “confabulate” in the sense of “making stuff up”, but I see that “to chat” is actually the more common definition. Interesting.
@Bryan I disagree that "chat" is "more common" or even an accurate clue for CONFABULATE (as did the Google dictionary)... You were correct. We have a lot of real life examples all over the news these days to back this up!
What delightful, interesting fill. BREAKUP SEX; ZOOM FATIGUE; UMPTEENTH; CONFABULATE; SNIFFS OUT; GO SPLAT (this puzzle didn't!) -- even UNFAIR is clued in a highly colorful manner that gives nothing away. I do question ANECDOTE being clued by "recollection", though. It really depends on who's doing the recollecting, doesn't it? When your conversational mate is an amusing and witty type, every recollection will be an ANECDOTE and you'll be spellbound. But when your conversational mate turns out to be a bore, every recollection will be drawn-out and dreary and you'll want to get away as fast as your little feet will carry you. (I do have someone in particular in mind.) What a wonderful time I had with this. I love the fill and I love how gracefully it all links together. Best of all, no pop culture, no crosswordese, and no techie cyberspace terminology. I think a copy of this puzzle should be sent around to all constructors with the headline: "Hey, people, THIS is how it's done!" A wonderful Friday themeless.
@Nancy I wish the contrast you set up were true. Alas, it is possible to have a boring anecdote. AMHIK! 💤...😴
Usually I struggle through a puzzle and come here to be told it was too easy. This is the rare day when I breeze through but others don't. So, yeah, more like this please!
There are (too) many other things I should be doing but I'm sure glad I took the time to work through this gem. Must have been a refined toddler to have said, "My dear brother, that is simply UNFAIR." In our house it was "noFAIR!!" Nice one and thanks.
The SW corner was NOTMYJAM. NORMIE vs NORMAL. Country HAM is a thing apparently? Finally guessed UMPTEENTH which led to APP and guessing HAM, which gave me RAPACIOUS which solved JUT and TRU. And I'm still l not sure what TRU is. The rest went pretty quickly, only 4 minutes over my average, and at least all of that was the SW corner. I really enjoyed working it all out. :)
@V TRU is a play for one actor based on the life of Truman Capote AKA "Tru". I believe Phillip Seymour Hoffman made a great success in the play's premiere.
@V NORMIE is the noun you use for a normal person. You'd never say "look at all those normals" I'm with you on country HAM though, what even is that? 😂
@V. I had Country JOE for a long time. The rock musician who took his name from the USSR ruler. One summer driving through Virginia there were country ham stands and we stopped and bought one. Apparently smoked and aged dry in a smokehouse, not brined like “city ham”. We hung it in a sunroom in a place we rented in Ithaca NY but at night the cat repeatedly jumped from a nearby table and clawed shreds out of it… shreds on the floor totally eaten by the cat. Downstairs neighbors heard the cat thumping all night… upstairs our bedroom was far away, and no clue but some scoring on the ham. Took us a while to sort it out.
@V "That's my jam!" Said nobody, not once, never, nowhere.
@SBK in TO PSH was in the movie Capote and won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance. As Times Rita said, Robert Morse was in Tru. Personally, I had the pleasure of seeing him in a number of on and off Broadway plays and a brush with greatness when we were in the same subway car once. Lol.
@V Country ham is very much a thing and it’s delicious!
Typical tough Friday for me, but just made for a nice long workout. One appropriate puzzle find today - a Friday from July 13, 2018 by Trenton Charlson. Three answers across the top (straightforwardly clued): RAZZ PIZZA FIZZ And then the 'reveal' near the bottom of the puzzle: ZZTOP Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/13/2018&h=52a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/13/2018&h=52a</a> Might put another puzzle find in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta And the other puzzle - also appropriate for today - a Wednesday from September 3, 2025 by Michael B. Berg. Four theme answers in that one. Here's a couple of them with the clues: "Neutral shade in some Florida decor?" TAMPABEIGE "Lightheaded invitation for joining one's sled team?" SKIPTOMYLUGE And a couple of other theme answers: THEDEADSIEGE BUCKAROUGE And then - in the very middle square of the puzzle: "Fancify... or a phonetic hint to 17-, 23-, 50- and 62-across" ZHUZHU And that and 'ZHUZH' were the only ever appearances of "ZH---ZH" in any puzzle. I'll shut up now. ....
@Rich in Atlanta This was a toughie for me, too. There has been a couple Friday puzzles that were less difficult, as for those I didn't need the "Easy Mode" clues. I needed eight Easy Mode clues today.
Quite hard for me. THAT'S MY JAM - not heard that, unless someone is making toast. Country HAM, TRU, GINSU, UBE, RIC, huddling, SAMS, ALI, FAM, NORMIE, the COP - didn't get them. But, I remembered that COT is a bed for adults, not babies. Learning American, one bird at a time.
For me, it went pretty quickly. Never heard to Tru. And I'm still not sure I get how a HOSE is a plot device. Watering a garden plot? OK I guess.
@LpR4 It's the opposute of chewy. Mushy?
I recognized Zhou’s name before solving, so I looked up her XwordInfo profile. Lo and behold, her crossword-publishing career lines up with my crossword-solving timeline. Down to her first published Monday was the first Monday I solved with no hints or checks! Not to mention, she’s made some of my favorites (that up/down Wednesday, IYKYK). Here’s to hoping you hit for the cycle Zhou, and maybe I’ll hit for the cycle of solving (not a thing) and actually go for a Saturday (perhaps it’ll be yours).
@Elena Definitely go for Saturdays. Soon, they’ll be your favorites.
@Elena I agree! The very sight of her byline gives one a frisson of delight (perhaps tinged by fear...)
I love a game of XW-Clue: Did Samurai Iridescent do it* in the sea lab with the hose and Occam’s razor? *it being, of course, break-up coupling with the rent-a-cop. A puzzle that sure did neonesce!
Can we really be the first to mention FAKING crossing BREAKUPSEX?
Not sure why the early commenters thought this was challenging. I was only a few seconds off my personal best for a Friday. The fill was fun and fresh, but I thought the cluing was fairly straightforward for a late week puzzle. Or maybe the constructor and I are just on the same wavelength.
@Jim A few 'Americanisms' that were tricky for non-natives. I'm sure this was a breeze for US solvers.
AY CARAMBA! BREAK UP SEX for the UMPTEENTH time? Talk about RAPACIOUS! On another note, I spent too much time trying to think of what Yogi said besides Hey, Boo Boo!
@Nancy J. Oh my gosh, me too on the Yogi saying. I laughed out loud at myself when I realized what a silly bear I was!
Like many of you, I was delighted to see Zhou Zhang's name on the puzzle today! THAT'SMYJAM, I exclaimed to myself. As usual, myself and I agree, she did not disappoint!! I did not know IRIDESCE as a verb, and now I'm very pleased to know it. What a lovely word to describe such loveliness. I also did not know for the life of me what Country ____ would be. Even after I switched voracious to RAPACIOUS and HAM filled itself out entirely by the crossings, I still sort of couldn't believe it was right.... Sheesh! I've read up about it now, but it's just kind of funny that I needed crossings for a simple word like HAM. Though I've been known to ham things up a bit, I've never been a huge ham eater... though I do enjoy a hot, melty ham and cheese sandwich on a roll sometimes. Mmm! Thinking about ham that much just made me hungry! Anyhow, very enjoyable, might I even suggest, IRIDESCEnt, Friday! Cheers to the weekend!!
Could someone please elaborate on why themeless is harder? I would have sworn as a consummate non-constructor that the opposite would be the case.
@Matt If there's one thing that emerges from those wretched competition shows, it's that constraints are a boon to creativity and success, contra to your and my expecrations.
@Matt I came here to ask that. I would have guessed that coming up with a good theme, and then executing it well, is much more difficult than constructing a themeless.
@Matt I will try to share my experience, without boring you to death. When you begin to construct a themed puzzle, you’ve got an idea, a phrase, adage, play on words… and you collect examples. You sort them out based on length, charm, zip, and then (my greatest weakness) create/find a grid that works with the themers and revealer. So, any day but Sunday, three-ish themers and a revealer. Then it’s fill time! A themeless begins with…a cool word..? A fun phrase? Hopefully, a few of them..? So you gotta reinvent the wheel with only a few potential toeholds, because THATSMYJAM may not work in the grid you’re using. So you can change the grid, but then GOSPLAT may suddenly go splat. In the trash. Themes decide and structure a puzz, making them an oft-helpful springboard.
@Matt To start with, on the most obvious basis, themeless puzzles are expected to have a lower word count. Themed puzzles generally have a 72-78 word count and themeless, 72 or less. So it’s much harder to have good fill. Then, as CCNY indicated, having a good theme does most of the work for you. The theme may suggest a few fresh entries and the rest can be pretty standard and come from a standard wordlist. Also the grid shape is suggested by the theme requirements. For themeless, you really need at least a few long, original entries you can’t get from the standard wordlists or the software. Often people will start with a fresh seed entry or two that excited them. The best solvers, I think, collect interesting phrases and add them to their word lists. And, of course, balancing trivia and proper nouns with other exciting words and phrases that are more accessible. And then, of course, the challenge of clueing the whole thing cleverly so that there is enough of a challenge (clearly a difficult task for your standards lately) but not completely out of reach and finding clues to clue the more obvious glue (because there always is some). It’s an entirely different experience for a constructor and quite daunting.
@Matt A theme in a puzzle means an automatic touchstone, so to speak. There will be at least 3 entries that fit the theme, and often one can guess some of them. (This is especially true with puns on a Sunday, for example.) Themeless puzzles are like rock-climbing faces...few toeholds!
2 hours and 9 minutes, but I got it with no lookups. RAPACIOUS and TRU were the hard part for me. I saw TRU in Los Angeles a long time ago, but it did not come to me right away and I thought of VORACIOUS. Difficult corner!
AYCARAMBA, I had NINJA in place of GINSU for the longest time - and I suspect any other millennials who did not grow up in the US might also have?
@Erin I’m a millennial that grew up in the US and I have no clue what GINSA is. I also had Ninja to start
@Brad But wait. There's more. Sample Ginsu knife tv ad from 1981. <a href="https://youtu.be/u_JCDR_QQ80?si=pWozhXXLyXfXyg27" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/u_JCDR_QQ80?si=pWozhXXLyXfXyg27</a>
@Erin To be clear, hand up, but I am a boomer still.
@Erin "In Japan the hand can be used like a knife...but not on a tomato!" Always loved that line.
Never heard of UBE, so I had AY CARA MiA instead of CARAMBA for “Dios mio!” In fairness, in my house, “Good God!” is often followed by, “Gah, honey…” I reserve my sweetest smile in reply.
@Sam Lyons I went to an up-scale breakfast place recently, and they were serving UBE French toast as a special, and I thought to myself, "UBE? I've only seen that word in crossword puzzles. I'm so glad to run into it in the real world." But I still didn't order it. I got the regular French toast, and it was awesome.
@Sam Lyons I had Ay Cara Mia before Ay Caramba too. (And, embarrassingly, I had Ay Dios Mio before that.) But Cara Mia is Italian and Ay is Spanish, so Ay Cara Mia wouldn't seem to be a common phrase. Unless you ask AI for examples. I'm pretty sure AI just added "Ay" to sentences with Cara Mia in them. It appears the first rule of robotics is now "If you can't corroborate, confabulate."
Today’s poem for Hank Williams goodbye joe a/ when you leave you leave a song d/ to scratch the heart of country a/ hush hush
Such a good Friday puzzle!! Had very little on my first pass, struggled to get a foothold for a while, and then somehow, one by one all those tricky clues clicked into place, and I was smiling as I filled in the answers. Loved how light it was on obscure trivia and proper nouns, especially in the longer entries.
A beautiful, crunchy Friday puzzle? THAT'S MY JAM!!! Country HAM? Not so much. But out in the rural sections of Kentucky, if you can find a real country store, there will be a couple of whole country HAMs hanging by the deli case. Aged for a long time, super salty, it's best served in small slices on home-made biscuits. But it's never been my cup of tea. Now, if you've got some nice burgoo or barbecue mutton at your church picnic, I'm there!
@The X-Phile Oh, dear! I *love* country HAM... You can keep your "hot brown" and burgoo; I say red-eye gravy with a yeast biscuit and HAM is the stuff of dreams. ...and mutton???
What a quirky mind this lady has. I enjoyed so much being on her wavelength. The only word I couldn’t suss out but got as a result of trial and error was CASCA. Shame on me for not remembering the villain who first stabbed Julius Caesar.
One more answer history search, inspired by the current storm. Wondered about... LALALAND and... yep - it's been an answer in 12 puzzles. But what was a bit more surprising was that... LALALANDING was an answer in a Thursday puzzle from December 9, 2021 by Alexander Liebeskind. Some other answers in that one: JURASSICPARKING KNIVESOUTING KILLBILLING Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/9/2021&h=18a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/9/2021&h=18a</a> ....
Regarding 38A (clued "Rock musician Bob"): I'll always think of Hüsker Dü guitarist Bob Mould before I remember Bob SEGER. 😅 <a href="https://youtu.be/HOMqbw7uYTk" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/HOMqbw7uYTk</a>
@Matt Saw him live in 1991 with about 75 of us crammed into the tiniest club/bar. He was heartbreakingly brilliant and mesmerizing.
@Matt I'm old and went with DYLAN first, although I thought it a blah clue for him. Perfectly fine clue for SEGER though.