Hard enough I suppose but I didn't enjoy this one. The two obscure-to-me Frenchmen and weirdo Aesop term were annoying. Though ultimately my holdup was simply misspelling oragel. Oh well. Be careful what we wish for? :)
@B Me too! I couldn't grasp the 7/ clue so couldn't figure where my mistake was. Once I checked ORAgEL and made that correction it became obvious.
@B I ran the alphabet for 7/ and thought PALAETTE CLEANSERS was funny.
"41D. This is the first time this athlete has been in a Times puzzle, but I’m sure it won’t be the last: The [French soccer superstar Kylian] is Kylian MBAPPÉ." Some years back, Eugene Maleska (then puzzle editor) was asked whether it was legit to look things up in solving puzzles. His answer was that, yes, it was fine since the people creating them almost certainly did.
@Joe Horton it depends upon what your goal is. Mine is always to do the puzzles without any assistance. Today I could not. It’s a last resort after I have pushed and pushed and pushed. Because I did that, it got down to a little bit in the NE corner. You have to set your own standards, just like in life.
@Joe Horton Speaking of lookups, I've never figured out what's considered "fair". I try not to do lookups at all, unless I'm stuck for a long time right near the end. The most I ever do is one or two; rarely three. But most days I try to finish with no lookups. I guess my question is, is your streak considered tainted if you look something up? I know there's no right answer!
@Joe Horton I’ve recently changed my philosophy about pushing through every single puzzle without lookups. I figure that I’m doing the puzzle for my own enjoyment, and once the amount of time I have to spend on a solve outweighs the enjoyment, lookups are fine (usually on Saturdays). Same for flyspecking a Sunday puzzle— once there diminishing enjoyment returns on the amount of time invested, I hit the “check puzzle” button, wrap it up, and feel good about it. The crossword police haven’t come to my door yet. ;-)
Different strokes. MBAPPE was one of my gimmies.
@Joe Horton Wisconsin author Michael Perry was chided for using some "big" words in his writing. The complaint was that they had to look the words up, to which he replied Well where do ya think *I* got 'em.
@Joe Horton I just take the loss. “No Lookups” is my personal rule. Today I should have been able to win, but didn’t grok the 7/ clue, and was stuck on AErOPICA as the only possible answer. Didn’t think of the possibility that Osaka could be Japan’s Kitchen. I figured it was some obscure Food Channel show. Two “Naticks” precludes the “run the alphabet” last resort. Great puzzle
@Joe Horton I’ve made peace with looking something up as a very last resort. I don’t and can’t know everything, and that’s ok! Plus, once I’ve looked it up, there’s a greater than zero chance that word will appear in another puzzle and I’ll be ready for it.
@Joe Horton My rules, which are mine: Once stuck, I'm allowed to look up actors and actresses (because, no idea). And if REALLY stuck, a geographical reference.
Restoring paintings is so palette-cleansing. ("Is that hard?" "No, I do it pretty easel-ly.")
@Mike How long did it take? Don't leave us hanging. Did you finish it oily?
@Mike I was a terrible art thief — the only thing I got away with was the Statue of Limitations
@Mike I am enameled of your ability to come up with these.
@Mike I wanted to dine al fresco, but the medium brushed me off.
@Mike Do you brush off the artist who put you in the picture?
@Mike Keep us posted on your latest puns, gesso we know.
22A I’m assuming that the answer JUL is abbreviated “July”? If so, then the clue “7/“ ruffles my clue logic feathers. You can abbreviate a date as 7/4/1776, or Jul 4, 1776, but the slash after the 7 isn’t part of the abbreviation of “July”;‘it’s the space between the Jul and the 4. (If the slash is part of the abbreviation, what would the right clue be for a British puzzle? “/7” or “/7/“ or “7/“?) If this was musical notation, it would be like saying a rest after a note is part of the note. It looks like it was trying to be a tricky or clever clue, but I just don’t think it hangs together.
@Fender That's a great point. The slash was really misdirecting. No help and confusing. Though I wonder if simply "7" would have been easier or not...
@Fender I had no idea what either the clue or the answer were referring to.
@Fender Also - this is another great example of the “tricky clues” in the column being selected seemingly at random. “Tree canopies”, for example, has to be one the simplest, most straight forward answers in the history of NYT Saturday crosswords.
@Deb This was kinda hopeless, even for a Saturday.
Not sure who this was published for?… Wow! Talking about obscure, trivial word usage. I am far from the best Crossword enthusiast, nor the smartest but I have been doing the NYT for 10 years or so and this was the most difficult puzzle I have encountered. As a side note… on really challenging puzzle days it always funny to read the comments: “Rather easy puzzle today….” Those people need their ego stroked as much as today’s constructor… Rating: 0/10
@Darren really? They’re doing it for their egos. Something tells me that you might not necessarily even believe them. We all have different experiences, yes? A few months ago, I got to thinking that I was getting pretty good at this. I actually enjoy the process of entertaining the idea that there are people who blow me out of the water at these puzzles. It’s a wonderfully humbling experience.
@Darren Saturday puzzles are always more difficult and are not everyone's cup of tea. I'm far from the best solver but managed to finish, and enjoy, this one. I got a lot of answers through the crosses, without which I would have bailed after the first pass.
@Darren I thought it was a terrific puzzle. A good mix of lots of interesting things. As is usual on a Saturday, I got about three words in the first pass. But one of them was the delightful MBAPPE, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than two minutes of a professional soccer game. I just read the New York Times. TEXAS TWO-STEP, THE SUN ALSO RISES—these are familiar American touchstones. I was wondering how AESOP’s name would be transformed, and the crosses showed me how. Fascinating! (And makes sense: exotica, erotica—and tying that to “fabulous”—well, just fabulous.) I actually thought virtually all of the answers were squarely in the language and the cluing was quite gentle. It’s on me that I had to get DENEB on the crosses—Astronomy is a shamefully weak spot for me, and I can only plead in my defense a lifetime in the cloudiest major city in America. I envy those who have been enjoying the Perseid meteor showers—I read about you in the New York Times.
@Darren This was a pretty easy Saturday for me (compared to my average Saturday). Not sure how that statement would stroke anyone’s ego.
@Darren To begin, xwstats.com shows that this puzzle wasn't particularly difficult: 🌎 Global Stats Difficulty Average Median Solve Time 17:18 Median Solver 6% faster ⚡60% of users solved faster than their Saturday average. 29% solved much faster (>20%) than their Saturday average. 🐢40% of users solved slower than their Saturday average. 17% solved much slower (>20%) than their Saturday average. But also, they show that 29% found it much easier than average, and 17% found it much harder than their average. Every puzzle is hard for some, and easy for others. But longtime solvers don't find this deviation as wide as do less experienced ones (or just less adept ones). This is because there are more gaps in less skilled solvers' knowledge bases (wheelhouses). Some of the puzzles just happen to have a lot of answers that aren't in your wheelhouse, while others have many that are in your wheelhouse. More expert solvers don't have the same gaps, so the level of the puzzle seems more consistent. People who report on their "easy" experiences are just relating their experiences, same as you. It is wrong to impute motivation for such comments. If an MLB pitcher says in an interview, "Everything was working for me today; my curve was dropping, my fastball was hitting the corners...," do you think he's stroking his ego, or just relating his experience? As a self-admitted inexperienced solver, do you really think you should be rating the puzzles? Or maybe just your own experience?
@Steve L "If an MLB pitcher says in an interview, "Everything was working for me today; my curve was dropping, my fastball was hitting the corners...," do you think he's stroking his ego, or just relating his experience?" The obvious differences are that an MLB pitcher is, by definition, one of the best in the world at his profession, and is *specifically being sought out for that reason to talk about his performance.* That's not quite the same thing as a random person posting their time, unsolicited, on a comments section. I wouldn't say everybody, but I feel that it's pretty clear that most people in any area are bragging when they talk with people they have never met about how well they are doing in something. (One exception, of course, would be wanting to share their joy in doing something well. I notice a different tone in some of those, though.)
@Darren For some it’s not stoking their ego but a plea for harder puzzles. You may disagree and can certainly say so. Have to agree with Steve L. though. You are certainly welcome to rate puzzles but you rating this a 0 doesn’t inspire me to respect your rating system in the future.
Wow, ORAJEL almost sank me! I had a G in there and I was convinced it was correct, except I didn't know what GUL could mean and I couldn't make head or tail of "7/". I'm not proud to admit I resorted to typing every letter of the alphabet into that square until I heard the jingle.
@Adrian I did absolutely the same thing!
(second try, omitted a word) Aesopica: a fable. The tortoise and the hare each began the Saturday NYT puzzle. The hare of course went as fast as he could: HIPPA! TRACTORS! CAPEESH! The tortoise plodded along…”oh look at that, I don’t even know what trou Normand is, but PALATE CLEANSERS fits with my crosses”. You know how this ends: the hare got the “oh fiddlesticks” message, and threw his phone across the room, claiming he didn’t want to solve the puzzle anyway.
@Cat Lady Margaret When I was in Belgium, they told us that the "trou Normand" was a break between courses where the traditional beverage was Calvados, an apple brandy from Normandy.
My favorite word in the grid was MBAPPE, so fun to say, plus because he is so well loved, it comes with heart-warming vibes. My favorite moment was filling in the NW at the end when I felt I had no chance at it in the beginning. I liked THE SUN ALSO RISES actually setting, falling down the center of the grid. I loved the grid design, which enabled an abundant 18 longs (answers of eight letters or more). Most impressive was the triple stack running across the middle – I CAN’T HEAR YOU, PALATE CLEANSERS, and TEXAS TWO-STEP – bright and colorful phrases giving the grid pop, as all are NYY answer debuts. I had serious rub and serious flow, both of which happified my brain, and I left your skillfully-made creation, Blake, exceedingly satisfied. This was a Proper Saturday. Thank you!
Not being from the US I count it fair to look up brand names and other such things once I've made a guess as to what they might be; that's reasonable, right? Yeah, I know I only need to justify it to myself but hey, a little validation never hurts!
@TazTheGreat Fair is whatever gives you enjoyment in solving the puzzle.
@TazTheGreat I only look up spelling. Everything else is off limits. Thus I rarely gold-star a Saturday. . But!! It's always a great reason to pour a mimosa to drown my sorrows. Cheers!
Re 39A - sightings of the long-armed squid (aka bigfin squid) are extremely rare, due to the ocean depths it inhabits (as deep as 6000 meters). Here's a video of one in motion: - <a href="https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/multimedia/video-playlist-ex2107-bigfinsquid" target="_blank">https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/multimedia/video-playlist-ex2107-bigfinsquid</a>/
@RichardZ thank you. Since I’m on my iPhone, I had to share your entire comment as a message to myself, then copy it into my browser and delete the part before the link. It was well worth it. Incredibly alien and eerie. The enthusiasm of the researchers was contagious. By the way, if someone knows how to make those links work in a less complicated fashion, please let me know.
RichardZ — that video is fascinating! I was surprised to count *nine* appendages to its body., two of which were longer than the others.
@RichardZ - Beautiful creature; thanks for sharing this video. Part of why I enjoy doing the crossword is learning things like this.
Solved this in below average time but it certainly didn’t feel like it. Surprisingly, despite a lot of gimmes (OSAKAN, THESUNALSORISES, ASTIN, SPILLANE, SCYLLA) I still felt like there were a lot of blank spaces and jumping around. This was a very artful grid and thought-provoking. The SW was the last to fall for me. Despite getting the REPARTEE, TRESPASS and EMPHASIS stack pretty quickly, had to make a lot of stabs for the rest. I certainly wasn’t going to pull out MBAPPE from my pocket, there are a lot of eye-popping props and ring locations, even with a guess on ROOMER (NOSE before LOBE) and lots of princely names that end in ERT. And I don’t think of squids having ARMs but tentacles. But got there eventually. A few other notes: TIL AESOPiCA, a wonderful term I will not forget. In the category of “everything I know I learned from Star Trek” the first episode of The Next Generation was in the DENEB system and who can forget the so-called DENEBian slime devil referenced in The Trouble With Tribbles? (Yes that’s how big a nerd I am, too bad Andrzej is not here to give me moral support). Wondering if folks who don’t know about HIPAA had a Natick with “WHAT A PAL/GAL”? Anyways, fun, fresh and pretty decently challenging for me.
@SP I'm guessing that you are not among the billions who watched or heard about the recent World Cup. Monsieur Mbappe won the individual award for scoring the most goals.
"Wondering if folks who don’t know about HIPAA ..." SP, I think everyone (in the U.S.) has heard of HIPAA.
@SP Oh my gosh, for all of my Star Trek love, that escaped me. After I revealed it (an extreme rarity), because I was tired of trying to figure that section out, I wondered why it was so familiar to me... Now I know! 🖖
Thank you, World Cup, for MBAPPÉ. Thank you, Sting and The Police, for SCYLLA and Charibdes - <a href="https://youtu.be/2xeRnAgEK6Y?is=4NMUaWYH0C92kwG2" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/2xeRnAgEK6Y?is=4NMUaWYH0C92kwG2</a> Thank you, Blake, for making me have to think and either remember, know or deduce a beautiful array of entries. There were quite a few hiccups, too, which made the solve all the more delicious – cArdiN before LAUREN, and a misspelled ORAgEL (though I really wanted clovEs in there) among others. AESOPICA for [Fabulous Collection] was a wonderful TIL, one I hope to remember. For most of the bottom half, I was in flow, but the challenges of the top half didn't detract from my enjoyment. Great puzzle!
@sotto voce Thank you for posting the Police song, so I don't have to. :) Caught between Scylla and Charybdis has always been one of my favorite phrases. Also, thank you for your late-ish post on Thursday which disappeared pretty quickly. You said what I've felt for quite some time, but expressed it far better than I could.
@sotto voce So that's what we've been caught between for all these years! No idea. I listened again and tried to fill in what I would have thought decades ago, but I think it was just gibberish to me at the time. Oooh, I missed drama Thursday? Too bad, although probably for the best.
@sotto voce AESOPICA was definitely a great TIL. (And for the umpteenth time reminded myself to remember the origin of “fabulous.”) Really enjoyed Blake’s Constructor Notes, as well. Here are two choirs doing Animal Collective’s “My Girls.” First, just the X chromosome: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwiMvaR5Ouo&list=RDcwiMvaR5Ouo&start_radio=1&pp=oAcB0gcJCfkLAYcqIYzv" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwiMvaR5Ouo&list=RDcwiMvaR5Ouo&start_radio=1&pp=oAcB0gcJCfkLAYcqIYzv</a> Then, the Y: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LMbwDq7W-I8&list=RDLMbwDq7W-I8&start_radio=1&pp=oAcB" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LMbwDq7W-I8&list=RDLMbwDq7W-I8&start_radio=1&pp=oAcB</a>
@sotto voce ORAgEL cost me a few minutes of fly-specking at the end, until the penny finally dropped for "7/".
@sotto voce - The Police song ("Wrapped Around Your Finger") got that answer for me as well. I saw the video approximately ten zillion times when it aired on MTV in the 80s; got quite sick of it.
Here's me thinking what "7/" could possibly mean and never having heard of ORAJEL in my life.
@Matthew Orajel is a brand, maybe just U.S. that protects the inside of your mouth from mouth acids. I used it once when I had burned my mouth with a bit of food. I think there is also a gel that adds some numbing meds, I would assume for tooth or gum problems.
@Matthew Like Bongela in the UK - you can rub it on gums when baby is teething.
@Matthew I knew the brand, but had ORAGEL, and could not figure out what the heck GUL was.
TIL about the trou normand -- an ice-cold shot of Calvados brandy served between two rich dishes -- and now I feel that a trip to Normandy to experience the phenomenon needs to be on my (non-existent) bucket list. A nice Saturday puzzle, that was made easier for me by a couple of gimme proper nouns: POUSSIN, SPILLANE, SCYLLA, RICCI, and the Hemingway novel. I was sure 7-Across was going to be TrAiTORS, although I didn't quite know how to parse the clue. As a result, VINAIGRETTES took me forever to see, as I tried to think of every possible meaning of "dressing". And "bow ties" should have been easy. Why did it take so long for me to see? Well, those are the foibles that make for a fun Saturday solving experience. Thanks, Blake Slonecker.
X-PHILE'S BUCKET LIST 1. Create Bucket List 2. 3. 4. 5.
By the way, that's Poussin's painting "Hymenaeus Disguised as a Woman During an Offering to Priapus" that adorns today's column. (Not one of his best, IMHO). But, if you look carefully, you will recall just who Priapus is, by examining the borders of his garland. (Do illustrations need to pass the "breakfast test"?)
I could add ASTIN and MBAPPÉ to the list of proper names that were gimmes for me. LAUREN and ATHENA ought to be on the list, but didn't not come easily. And, finally, after hating it during the entirety of my solve, I am now in love with AESOPICA. Great clue, great word. I suspect its "fabulous"-ness fooled (almost?) all of us.
@The X-Phile So much more civilized than sorbet. Still, I’ve taken a liking to some that our local have created from evergreen needles. They’re quite refreshing.
That “7/“ really stumped me for a while b/c my dumb head spelled orajel with a g
@Solomon It looks SO much better that way, doesn't it? I normally don't care much about liberty-taken brand names but this one... Oragel is already a reasonable contraction for trademarking. 🤷♂️
@Solomon The “number and slash” clue for a month has been used a few times before, so remember it. It’ll be back, but maybe with another number and month.
Aesopica: a fable. The tortoise and the hare each began the Saturday NYT puzzle. The hare of course went as fast as he could: HIPPA! TRACTORS! CAPEESH! The tortoise plodded along…”oh look at that, I don’t even know what trou normand is, but PALATE CLEANSERS fits with my crosses”. You know how this ends: the hare got the “oh fiddlesticks” message, and threw his phone across the room, claiming he didn’t want to solve the dumb puzzle anyway.
@Cat Lady Margaret And the tortoise got a gold star.
Sigh. Sorry for the duplicate, I didn’t think the original would show up.
This is witty, funny, perfectly worded -- you at your best, CLM. You are a treasure here!
Got PALATE CLEANSERS right off the bat, which made me feel happy as a grid-spanning start. MBAPPE is not the obscure answer many are bemoaning. I get that it’s a challenging spelling. The French team made it to the semifinals of the World Cup last month, his name, written on the back of his jersey was splashed across tv screens far and wide, as well as in news coverage for an entire month this summer AND he was mentioned in Ted Lasso this week. AESOPICA is an obscure answer. 😜
@Spelling Marauder Except that some of us aren't watching that on our TVs or anyone else's, and don't read the sports pages either. I was dimly aware there was some big soccer thing going on but couldn't have told you it was called "the World Cup" which I guess is what you're saying. I watch and enjoy Ted Lasso but am a couple of seasons behind now.
@Spelling Marauder A lot of other people have talked about whether MBAPPE should have been known. My interest in soccer is close to non-existent, but MBAPPE did come across my radar. BUT that doesn't mean that I would have recognized him from his first name or that he played for the French. Sports talk tends to mostly mention last names. And then if I figured who the clue was referring to, I wouldn't have known the spelling without the crosses. I'm not saying the clue was bad, just why it was not a gimme for me.
Like yesterday, I spent about 20% of the time getting the last two letters right. But this was a fine Saturday puzzle!
I'll mention that with the clue 22A ("7/" for JUL), I was thrown by the forward slash / virgule / solidus, since I don't think of that typographical symbol as part of anything that means the seventh month.
I had to use check puzzle for NE Corner. I don’t want to be up until midnight and still not solve it. I thought it was spelled ORAgEL. I would’ve never thought of HOLLA. I did not know the mythology answer. I could’ve spent days and not gotten it. I don’t really feel beaten. Getting the rest of the puzzle was not easy. Thank you for what was still an entertaining puzzle. I don’t have to finish it without help to enjoy it.
@Jake G That’s a good attitude. For the record I’m a pediatrician and I thought it was oraGel, and even though I thought JUL was a gimme kept fighting against it for that reason.
Some of you ain't no HOLLA back girls.
I read through all of the ACROSS clues and told myself that today’s puzzle might be a streak-ender. But then I read the clue for 7-DOWN, and I was suddenly back in high school with that book on my desk. It’s amazing how some trains start rolling.
@Paul Geoghegan. Exactly my experience!
Some of philosophers’ greatest impediments Are irrelevant extraneous elements THIC (too hard; i cheated) ORAJEL was impossible because 7/was too hard for my little brain and i resent non-global brand names. But the real Slough of Despond was the NW corner. I love the word AESOPICA but crossed with the only-Americans-will-know-it HIPAA and the obscurely clued OSAKAN (i guessed “TV chef”) and the mercurial POT/DAWNED/REHIRE, it was impossible to get. POT could have been “cup” or “urn” or “mug” and even ICANTHEARYOU could have been “I don’t…”. So I’m the end i was defeated by permutative perplexity. I can’t quite bring myself to say this was a bad puzzle, because it will sound like sour grapes, but it was definitely hard and inclined towards an American audience. I hope @Andrzej is enjoying his holiday.
@Petrol oops - the first two lines of that comment are residue from yesterday, when i was trying to compose a Limerick about William of Ockham, but i gave up. The comment preserved a strangely undeleted snippet my half-digested doggerel!
Today I learned that, when you’re not a big reader, _H__UNALS__ISES is surprisingly difficult to figure out! Great puzzle, person whose name I forgot and which this silly app would require me to close out of this comment to look up!
Bit of an Odyssey mini theme for me today, what with SET SAIL, rosy-fingered DAWN-ED, SCYLLA and ATHENA in the grid. There was a PBS Nature episode or episodes a while back about TREE CANOPIES and the creatures that dwell in them, never descending to the ground. Finally, like many, l was done in by the spelling of ORAJEL and not recognizing 7/.
Like I'm really going to know MBAPPE. Or be able to guess it. At the point at which I had APPE, I looked it up. But it was my only cheat in this bear of a puzzle. Someone will explain to me why "thru" = TIL. PLEASE! I had to think of "erotic" and "exotic" to fill in what remained to be filled in at AESOPIC. What on earth??? Well, I guess you can make an argument for it, but I won't. ATTED???!!! You "at" people on X? That's a "challenge"? So glad I've never been on Twitter/X. It's always sounded quite unpleasant to me. And now it's ruining our verbs, too. Both TVACTORS and VINAIGRETTES were DOOK-y to me and it took me forever to get them. I was wondering why "show faces" was producing TrACTORS. HIPAA. What on earth does that stand for? I wish we could stop with all the initialisms. And finally -- I thought the whatever-it-was from "Japan's kitchen" would be food. There was no "Aha" when OSAKAN came in, but there was a great big "Oh!" I guess a lot of food comes from Osaka? As I say, this was a real bear for me, filled with much struggle and suffering. You don't want to know.
@Nancy Thru and til, basically think of it like x through y, or x until y. Both are then shortenings. Though I only got that when i had T_L. So far from obvious Aesop, as fabulous = of fables Mbappe was a tough one for me too, as i struggled to get the crosses to bring it out. Atted felt wrong, but had to be it, one would have thought it would be at'ed, single t but who knows I guess. 🤷
@Nancy that was literally the only answer I got first run through the puzzle. We all have different interests….
@Nancy These puzzles happen. Marmoset there’d be days like this. There will be others. Courage!
@Nancy griping about initialisms is valid but HIPAA is a weird one to choose. It’s the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and most Americans know it as the policies that keep your medical information confidential. Unless you work in the field (and even some who do) most people couldn’t tell you what it stands for. It’s like complaining about LASER and SCUBA being initialisms. Hopefully the next puzzle is more in your wheelhouse.
I realized after reading the Wordplay "Japan's kitchen" is what's known in Japan as "tenka no daidokoro", a nickname given to Osaka during the Edo period. As the center of commerce and cuisine during that era, "tenka" means literally directly under heaven or the best in the world, and "daidokoro" is kitchen in Japanese ("no" is a particle that can be approximated to a preposition in English language, in this case "of" would be most appropriate). The northeast corner was tough, along with 2 down.
My husband and I have been doing this puzzle together daily in the app for 7 years. The app allowed us to both enter answers on separate phones via the same account, and upon refresh, the puzzle would update to merge our answers. Something changed recently, maybe a month or so ago, and we are no longer able to work on the puzzle at the same time. I submitted a bug ticket to NYT but have not received a response. Womp womp. This has been such an enjoyable way for us to connect for years, I hope they will consider finding a workaround. Signed, *Mopey in Massachusetts*
@Team Live I hope they can fix it. I am in awe at the excellence of your marriage. My parents had a happy one, but they could no more have done a xword together than they could have flown. I have no doubt posted before about how they bought a top-quality eraser and made a pact that the first one up on Sunday morning got to do the puzzle in LIGHT pencil and then carefully erase it for the later riser.
@Team Live I think they are cracking down on folks sharing an account, like the streaming services, to charge more. Though supporting journalism is important to us, I have “rationalized” our choice not to do that for many reasons. Most importantly, my husband and I share the NYT account since if we chose the printed paper option, we would, of course, both read the same paper. Fortunately or unfortunately for me, he has no interest in puzzles but will appreciatively listen to my word obsessions. Congrats to you two for doing this together! Someone once posted about he and his partner screen mirroring the Sunday puzzle to share via TV screen and I thought that was so cool! Daily on an app is ambitious. 🥰 As far as streaming goes, the two of us are often in different cities, and we are constantly having to verify our info. We have to [gasp] call HULU on the regular. So good luck with the NYT folks answering!
Had a heck of a time with this one. I'll try again later, but I don't really see anything else clicking. I think this is a DNF for me. :( I thought ELLE and VIA for 47A & 51A. But 37D ended that. I resisted putting NELL in because the two Eleanors I know would hate that. Guessed that three lion team might be ENG or ESP, and I don't know what Estonia gets shortened to? EST maybe? Or Ecuador, or other E countries. I knew Shawn/Sean Aston/Astin was Gamgee, but only the pronunciation, not the spelling. The same goes for spelling Spillane/Spellane/Spallane. Thought CAPISCE was capesce, but Hemingway fixed that for me. 19 minutes in <a href="https://imgur.com/a/Afq6ITA" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/Afq6ITA</a> 26 minutes <a href="https://imgur.com/a/WeNNVk6" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/WeNNVk6</a> 33 <a href="https://imgur.com/a/TJ33l2D" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/TJ33l2D</a> 38 and temporarily giving up <a href="https://imgur.com/a/vxygjxC" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/vxygjxC</a>
@V You're doing really well! Try walking away from it, doing something that takes your mind off of it, then return to it and give it another go. It's okay if, even after that, you end up with a DNF. But give it a shot; it might surprise you how you suddenly see things you hadn't seen before. Good luck!
@V This Eleanor has been called NELL as sort of a second-level nickname. I never bristled. The only one I wouldn't put up with was Ellie, who knows why. I suspected Nora wasn't the answer, although it would have been fun.
@V You’re 3/4 done and you’ve got nothing to rip out (I’m not saying that maybe one letter here or there isn’t wrong; I didn’t look that closely). Listen to sotto voce. Good advice.
I never ever remember how to spell kapische.
@Charlie CAPISCE--5 appearances. CAPEESH--4. KAPISCHE--zero.
I loved this crossword! unlike yesterday, I was able to work out nearly all the clues. I had to look up particularly US clues (HIPPA, BRUIN). Only having one sports and one film clue that I didn't know, that helped. Watching the World Cup with my 9-year old grandson helped with MBAPPE. I didn't get HAS (from aha?!). I took too long to remember that PASTA has English language names, not Italian, fusilli. I learned new vocabulary for a fabulous collection. Fabulous!
@Jane Wheelaghan "I was tricked!" = "I was had!" So: "He tricks me with that misdirect" = "He HAS me with that misdirect" It's a bit meh. But it's fair in Crosslandia.
@Jane Wheelaghan Not fusilli (corkscrews) but farfalle.
Seemed much too easy for a Saturday puzzle ... but still it bested me. Had entered ORAGEL instead of ORAJEL, and failed to see to check the clue for 22A. Sadly it wasn't "Cardassian military rank", so GUL was wrong and another streak ended ignominiously.
@Xword Junkie I also missed it by one letter due to Oragel vs Jel and the 7/ clue escaped me
NW corner looked impossible until it dawned on me that Aesopica could actually be a word. Tough puzzle but the fight was worth it.
Didn't expect to finish this one in under 20 minutes when I first started it. But you get a salad dressing, a French football star with a weird name, Mike Hammer's Mickey __, and a five-letter star, and suddenly there's a foothold in all the quadrants! Less than half my Saturday average! This certainly hit my sweet spot of eclectic oddball interests.
I started out with just a very few gimmes. THE SUN ALSO RISES and SPILLANE, for two, and not much else. I was ready to throw in the towel. It was a very, very long solve, and didn't help to have a World Cup player and French artist, both unknown. But I walked away, and when I came back I finished the bottom half. Still ready to just about give up when I managed to fill in the NW, no thanks to that ridiculous AESOPICA, finally arrived at through the crosses. I was left with the NE, and it looked doomed. Solving on paper, on the rare times I've had to give up I just leave blank spaces instead of looking things up. I finally remembered SCYLLA, even though I actually got an F in my required college Classical Civ class (it was a bad freshman year for immature 16-year-old me). Then it dawned on me that maybe ARM wasn't Lady Liberty's irregular feature, especially since it was already used for the squid (which doesn't seem to mean much in NYT puzzledom these days). Then I put in TOE, and the rest was history. This was a real workout for me. But I did love uncovering VINAIGRETTES, PALATE CLEANSERS, and TEXAS TWO-STEP.
@Times Rita You didn't watch any of the World Cup? "A man should be part of the action and passion of his times, or risk being judged not to have lived." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. True, he gave that as his reason for enlisting in the US Civil War (where he was wounded in the heel and judged all his bedside visitors by whether they could or could not resist alluding to Achilles; it wasn't so much the allusion but the smirk that implied they thought they'd be the only one who thought of it.) But it's a sound principle. Watch in 2030.
Nice workout but "J walked" at JUL/SCYLLA and had to do the lookup (not ORAgEL?). Fun puzzle and thanks.
We had a blast with this as per usual. The content wasn't really in our wheelhouse but as we circled and circled and zigged and zagged the momentum gathered until the thing seemed to bloom like a flower right in front of us. Goodness we love crosswords!
NW corner was BRUTAL for me today! Simply brutal. 😵💫 But this is not a complaint. It's a compliment! Loved this one. The clueing for 42A is a great example of why I love the Saturday crossword.
I did not think I was ever going to get this puzzle. After getting the spanners quickly, I was completely stuck in three places. Finally I decided to do something I rarely do these days, check my spelling of two words--and found I couldn't. Because there is no way to turn off AI in Google. Or in Yahoo, apparently. I don't want a whole discussion, I just want to know whether my spelling immediately brings up what I am looking for. So I was stuck. My last-ditch strategy is no more. My next-to-last strategy is mentally running the alphabet as a memory jog, which I emphatically maintain is not cheating. Doing that in several places in the NW (with no luck), eventually I tried putting the S back in for AESOP (which I had earlier given up on), which gave me OSAKAN, which gave me DROP as a way to avoid shipping. But I got the happy music only because I had happened to guess correctly for the first two letters of the soccer player. For all those who finished this in 15 minutes or less, I am truly in awe.
@Lynn we emphatically agree with you about running the alphabet! We call it using our problem-solving skills
@Lynn Re spell checking Do you put the word and definition or def after it? That usually gets me it as the second thing after the AI entry and I can scroll to it rather quickly.
@Lynn Not sure if this solves the problem you're having, but when I want to check my spelling i use voice input and just say "spell ____" (e.g. vinaigrette for today's puzzle). That way all I get is the correct spelling and no extra hints
@Lynn I can't speak for yahoo, but adding -noai to your search in Google will disable the ai response
Thank you everyone for the tips! I'll start with the Boolean logic. Somehow I assumed AI would find a way around that and give me a discourse about why, apologetically, it would not obey.
@Lynn Something I like to do to check spellings is to use a dictionary app on my phone. It generally feels less likely to just feed me the answer but keeps me from going too far astray when I want to mix up the middle “ai” in VINAIGRETTE or when I can’t remember if SCYLLA has an “i” or a “y”. (And sometimes when I go “is that actually a word I’ve dredged up from somewhere deep in my brain or am I just making one up?”) The one I use also covers a lot of classical proper nouns too, though it wouldn’t have helped me with MBAPPÉ or ORAgEL (today I learned…). There are many tools in the toolbox, depending on how you choose to play your game. Good luck!
Oh, this puzzle was largely outside of my wheelhouse. I got most of it anyhow, including the spanners, but with about five entries left, and a lot of time spent, I just revealed it. There was just never really a fun aha for me. And that's just me, but once I figured out some answers that I struggled with, I was like, oh okay... 🤷♀️ One of the ones that I didn't keep in was revealed to be correct, but I just couldn't see the crosses on it. DAWNED. That was the area I didn't complete. And you know what, it's really okay. Not every puzzle is going to work to my strengths or liking, and even though I didn't finish, I learned some things, including through the ones I didn't get, and hopefully I'll remember for next time. I'm thankful I don't care about streaks. It is rare for me, but if I'm not enjoying doing the puzzle, I figured I'm not required to keep going. ☺️
@HeathieJ That exact spot. I knew it had to be DAWNED, but...
Either my brain has fully recovered, or this was an easy Saturday. And I don't think I'm all better. Some interesting REPARTEE, but not nearly enough for me. Oh, well.
@Barry Ancona Will you tell us what happened to your gourd, unc? Or have you aleady and I just missed it? I know you were MIA (TIA?) for a bit... Glad to see you back.
@Barry Ancona Glad to see you back--it is always a bit worrisome when one of the veterans disappears for a bit.
I did post very early in the Friday puzzle comments. Still trying to figure out what's acting up; maybe my gall bladder.
@Barry Ancona The Friday and Saturday puzzles are sometimes adjusted to be easier for inexperienced solvers. This has been going on for a long time.
Early on I was ready to throw in the towel, having filled out only 3-4 entries in 15 minutes. I made a couple of wild but educated guesses and little by little things fell into place. I didn't know most of the references but once I got a few letters I was able to guess at the rest. I didn't need any lookups although I was sorely tempted a few times. Anyway I finished in 35 minutes which was one of my better times for a Saturday. It was a fun puzzle, though; and tougher than my time would indicate. I just got lucky with some of my guesses.
AESOPICA? That’s a new one for me. Coupled with an errant guess of rbis that made the NW a bit of a sticky wicket for me. I liked PALATECLEANSERS crossing VINAIGRETTES. And of course I loved the Monty Python tinged reference to another culinary comestible: SPAM. I always get a giggle out of that sketch. “Well there’s SPAM, egg, sausage and SPAM. That’s not got much SPAM in it.” My father loved Python, and my brother and I were exposed to heavy doses at a tender age. I still have long portions of many Python skits memorized. My real dirty secret is that I actually like SPAM ( and Taylor’s pork roll and Scrapple), although I haven’t indulged in a long time.
@Marshall Walthew I used to eat a lot of Underwood Deviled Ham. To me that fancy white wrapper over the can meant "quality".
It hooked me with "The Sun Also Rises" and tested me in the SW corner. About the only prince I know is from that old prank call about having Prince Albert in the can ("You'd better let him out!) and that ended up working despite earlier wrestling with CONED, NOSE, and GUN for the across clues. Thank you for the puzzle!
MBAPPÉ was a gimme for me! Especially during the World Cup, there's hardly a kid here who isn't wearing a Mbappé jersey. Good puzzle, although I had to look up SCYLLA. That corner would not budge for me. I found the author's comment on Animal Collective being "rough on untrained ears" to be needlessly condescending. I clicked through, and no I didn't listen for long. I suppose we all have areas of knowledge that we feel others might understand if they just learned more, but there is such a thing as simple taste. My taste in music does not hurt my ears. I'm hardly a musician, so I guess my ears are untrained. I used to own a chocolate shop, and the "untrained" comment reminded me of people who obviously thought their taste in dark chocolate was in many ways superior to the taste of those who preferred milk chocolate. It was hard for me to not roll my eyes. FWIW, I think dark is better with some flavors (cherries, orange peel, toasted coconut), but milk chocolate is better with others (strawberries, peanuts, caramel). But that's just my (highly trained) taste.
@Nora Granddaughter also wearing Mbappe jersey.
@Nora Lucky you to have owned a chocolate shop. Mom and I made fudge when I was a child. My tastes in chocolate have developed to also like chocolate and coffee (even Kahlua), coffee and mint (Creme de Menthe), coffee and ginger, and I'm off to that pint of raspberry chocolate chip ice cream in my freezer right now. (By the way, if that isn't dark chocolate, I'll be disappointed.)
Re 11D [The second one on the Statue of Liberty is longer than its first one] From Google AI: "A second TOE that is longer than the big toe is a normal physical variation known as Morton's Toe or Greek foot. This trait occurs in roughly 10% to 20% of people and happens because the bone behind the big toe is shorter than usual." and "Many people on Reddit agree that having a longer big TOE (Egyptian foot) is more common, which leads some to wrongly think a long second toe is unusual."
@lucky13 Well so much for AI again. “It occurs in 10-20% of the people” and “it’s not unusual.” Really? So usual? Something is either usual or unusual. Well my second toes are longer. I guess that’s unusual, at 20% or less, but I would never put it in the category of freakish. Maybe that’s what AI was trying to say, but couldn’t bring itself to.
In case you're wondering about the illustration, the POUSSIN painting in today's Wordplay column--"Hymenaios Disguised as a Woman During an Offering to Priapus" From the internet "The Premise: Hymenaios fell in love with a noble Athenian maiden, but because of his lower social rank, he could not openly court or propose to her." "The Disguise: To stay close to her during a sacred ritual dedicated to Priapus (the fertility god of gardens), he dressed in women's garments and blended in with female worshippers." "The Resolution: According to classical legend, pirates attacked the celebration and abducted the women. Hymenaios rallied the remaining youths, fought off the pirates, rescued the maidens, and secured permission to marry his love as a reward." IMO, it's good to know who is the fertility god of gardens!! Pray for rain!