This was a really well clued puzzle. It led me astray in so many ways. Adult instead of OFAGE, simmer instead of SEERED, inasec instead of ONESEC, and so on. Of the many delicious clues, my favorite was element of a dating profile for TREERING. I also loved the crossing of DEB and BELLES. I got a kick out of being reminded of MADLIBs. We had great fun with them back in the day, although in our juvenile way we often tried to make them as smutty as possible.
@Marshall Walthew Great post! It's nice to be led astray now and then, innit!
This is Ryan’s third Times puzzle, and his first two were Mondays, so there was no indication until today that he could clue like this, where the box became Wordplay Heaven. Not inferior wordplay either, but clever genuine pleasure wordplay. OMG, one right after another. I marked 18 clues with either wordplay humor or wordplay misdirects, when generally four is a bounty. Wordplay such as [Act like yourself, perhaps?] for DO A CAMEO, [Element of a dating profile?], for TREE RING, [Clicked with a partner?] for TAP DANCED -- three sublime original clues. Wordplay makes the brain work in a feel-good way, and often makes it belly-laugh. You’re not just cracking riddles, but you’re having a good time as well. To me, that’s crosswords at its best. Throw in freshness like NYT debuts, SNIFF TEST, I GOT IN, and DO A CAMEO, and that's crosswords at its very best. Now that you’ve shown what you can do, Ryan, please sir, come back soon – I loved this!
@Lewis I know "it's a clue, not a definition," but I'm not sure there's a strong connection between "acting like yourself" and "doing a cameo." Cameo roles can be an actor playing him/herself, or playing someone else. Alfred Hitchcock famously wrote dozens of cameos into his films, and I don't think he ever played himself. Conversely, there are many lengthier roles in which an actor plays him/herself. Jerry Seinfeld comes to mind first and foremost. I just don't think the connection is that close. That being said, I didn't have to struggle to come up with the answer.
@Lewis "Wordplay makes the brain work in a feel-good way" is a great sentence; it captures the feeling simply and elegantly.
A fittingly tough puzzle for my birthday. :) Neither PISCES nor a JUNEBUG am I.
@J.S. I was a month early at first, and had MAYFLIES. I think I encountered that word (or its singular) elsewhere earlier today.
@J.S. Birthday twins. Love a good challenge as a gift!!
In the minority, I guess. I did not enjoy this at all, and not just because it was hard. The cluing was opaque, with misdirections that frequently verged on the implausible. No fun.
@Richard I am not usually a complainer, but I completely agree.
@Richard “I did not enjoy this at all, and not just because it was hard. The cluing was opaque, with misdirections that frequently verged on the implausible.” Isn’t your second sentence just summarizing a couple of the main ways in which you found the puzzle hard?
@Richard That's the best kind of clues though. The ones that make no sense at first but when you look at them in a slightly different way suddenly click. The bad kind of clues are the obscure proper nouns and trivia that you will never get if you don't have a very specific area of expertise.
@Richard It’s the misdirection that makes a Friday puzzle a Friday puzzle! Dating profile = TREERINGS = Brilliance in my book. Clicked with a partner= TAPDANCE = making my mind see things in a different way. Any clue that forces me to think differently is a winner. Solving 50+ years and still stretching my mind.
Well above my Friday average. I can definitively state that entering -- and keeping for a long time -- SIMMER in stead of SEE RED will really mess up your NW corner. Ouch! For some bizarre reason, I also decided the "red zone" was a basketball term, and then that it was a tricky non-sports reference, with "defense" being something military. GOAL LINE STAND should have been fairly easy, but it was one of my last fill ins. I loved the puzzle, but I really labored over it. Good work out, I guess.
@DYT Boy, did I strip my gears on this one! À propos of your SimmEr, I'll see you and raise you a SEEthe. Ouch squared!
@DYT I had SIMMER for a long time too. Figuring out SCENARIOS was what finally made me remove it.
This was one of the hardest puzzles I have ever attempted - and failed - to solve. The difficulty was beyond Saturday levels, for me. I spent 54 minutes filling the grid, but of course once I was finished I got the "So close" pop-up... Well, it may have been close, in a way, but I needed to check the puzzle to see where I had erred. It turned out going for haKE as the long-bodied fish was to blame. Indeed, some of the resulting entries around there looked like gibberish, but by that stage I was simply burnt out and unable to fix any of it unaided. I also admit to googling DANA White - that SE corner was too full of trivia for me to be able to deal with it on my own. Anyway, given how hard I found this, I'm actually quite proud of being able to get 90% of the puzzle without help. Some of the stuff I didn't know (at all or as clued) but managed to figure out (or get from crosses) was the following: GOAL LINE STAND, MADLIB, ARLO, KAREN, JUNE BUGS, TRAE, TED, CHEN, JACK AND COKE, PISCES, A LA CARTE. I feel dirty after getting PGA quite quickly - I have less than zero respect for golf as a sport so I consider knowing things about it a humiIiating, personal faiIure (and all of it I learned from these puzzles - pox upon you, NYT!) This week so far has been full of puzzles way too easy for their days, and today finally we got something worthy. Nice! I don't get the editors process though. Two Mondays, two Tuesdays, and then a Saturday on a Friday 🤷🏽
@Andrzej Dude, look at all the Americentrisms. How could this grid have been otherwise for you? Your travail was the lazy stroll down memory lane of my early 20s.
@Andrzej "Golf is not a real sport because it's the only activity where you can drive a car, drink a beer, wear loud pants, and still call yourself an athlete. Golf is simply what you play when you are too out of shape to play other sports." Not my personal opinion, just something I found.
@Andrzej I had haKE for far too long as well. My mayflies at 16A didn’t help either
The sheer number of ambiguous clues made this one a worthy challenge. Early xwstats.com info concurs: 🌎 Global Stats Difficulty Very Hard Median Solve Time 14:10 Median Solver 38% slower ⚡0% of users solved faster than their Friday average. 0% solved much faster (>20%) than their Friday average. 🐢100% of users solved slower than their Friday average. 100% solved much slower (>20%) than their Friday average.
@Steve L Funny! The inherent bias of the statistics only including the solvers in the first less than half hour makes the data pretty much irrelevant. Please check it tomorrow afternoon.
@Steve L I solved in 21:55 which is about 2 min under my Friday average of 24:10
@Steve L Hey! What gives? How about the 'IDONEDIDTHISPUZZ" users? 😉
@Steve L I'm not really a fast solver, but I got this one much faster than my Friday average (27% faster). It did not seem that hard to me--it WAS very enjoyable.
@Steve L Here are some better stats from later in the day: Difficulty: Hard Median solve time: 18:16 36% were faster than their Friday average 15% were much faster than their Friday average 64% were slower than their Friday average 38% were much slower than their Friday average Also, I think this website only has data from people who have signed up to it and given it access to their account data, so it is likely skewed towards crossword veterans
@Steve L I finished about 7 minutes faster than my average but it's still been recent enough that I started to be able to finish Fridays my average may be skewed.
Excellent puzzle with lots of good wordplay and a great triple stack. Loved the clues [Not together, in a way] for A LA CARTE and [Two in a row] for FOES. GO BANANAS was the theme on Monday, in a puzzle which also contained SPLIT DECISION.
I very much enjoyed this puzzle (on my birthday too!), mostly because of the clever cluing. TREERINGS was the last one to fall for me.
@Julia. Happy Birthday to you as well!
@Julia And for me it was one of my earliest entries 😃 However, I have a keen interest in archaeology and history, which explains it.
This had so much terrific wordplay it's hard to pick a favorite but [Element in a dating profile] for TREE RING and [Two in a row] for FOES should win some kind of an award. Really nice Friday puzzle, Ryan. I hope you have a few more themeless puzzles in the works.
@Nancy J. I think those are my favorites today, too. What a fun puzzle!
My first ever perfect week (Monday-Friday gold stars)!! I'll have to see if I can get 7/7 this weekend. Knowing that I needed a gold star today forced me to power through today's puzzle even when I was stuck. Southwest corner and the "Element of a dating profile?" both stumped me today. I was so positive that it was "TREND" and not "CRAZE".
Oof! What a great workout today, one scintillating and maddening clue after another until it finally came together. I’m commenting late today and most of you all hit the highlights so I’ll be brief today, at least for me. (Ok ends up, I still wasn’t). That NW was a killer. My only Hail Marys to start were AIR and IQS. Like everyone else I tried SEETHE and SIMMER which were no help. Finally I got to the middle stack (after a short diversion into UNITED KINGDOM) and GOALLINESTAND which was my only gimme in this whole grid, except maybe DYSON—Andrzej, I could feel your pain when I filled it out)—and that at least gave me —RIOS. But it still was a long while before SCENARIOS and then QRCODE finally popped in and gave me some traction. I want to make a plea to newer solvers—just don’t give up too easily. Sometimes you think you are stuck but you sit and EYEUP the grid a few times, maybe take a break and come back to it, work another section, and BAM it just comes to you. It’s really a thing. I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who gave me so many kind words yesterday, I can’t tell you what it means to me and how much I appreciate you all. And also those who are trying out some of my unpublished puzzles—I’m glad I found a way to share them.
@SP I’ve done a few of your puzzles on Crosshare and enjoyed them all. On Pajama Party, the intersection of 77A and 68D stumped me pretty hard. But no complaints — if I had been quicker to run the alphabet in my head (rather than going back and forth between the only couple candidates I could think of, and second-guessing unimpeachable entries in the vicinity), I’m sure it would have clicked (for 77A) near the end. Btw absolutely loved the punny themers, especially 47A and 68A.
@SP Of course, SummARIeS also fits fine into spaces meant for SCENARIOS and, bonus!, it crosses perfectly with SimmEr. AMHIK 😖
@SP The NW was the only section of the grid I completed with relative ease. It's fascinating how different our experiences often are. The SE was impossible for me without one lookup of the clustered trivia entries.
@SP This may have been just a little before your time, but did you have the privilege of getting to know/talk with Peter Dignan there at Cincinnati Children's? He was primarily in the research side of things, but he went out of his way to be helpful and informative with parents whose babies and children had rare or challenging conditions.
Phenomenal puzzle, filled with nuances and misdirects and many an opportunity to get it wrong before getting it right. After a few of those wrong calls (GO Berserk before GO BANANAS, SimmEr before SEE RED, IT'S ouT before IT'S HOT...) I stopped TAP DANCing all over the grid and started to tiptoe cautiously. Thank you, Ryan! I had to work really hard for that gold star and loved every minute of it. There is no JUNEBUG song, so I celebrated with Wham and their jitterbug song, which was only the beginnings of what would become George Michael's inspired contribution to pop music. <a href="https://youtu.be/pIgZ7gMze7A?is=ModGZElvU3i0n82V" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/pIgZ7gMze7A?is=ModGZElvU3i0n82V</a>
@sotto voce No JUNEBUG song? The B52S would like a word. :) <a href="https://youtu.be/ZXzVsMzNH2g?si=VaLNF980NEkqYw9e" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ZXzVsMzNH2g?si=VaLNF980NEkqYw9e</a>
@sotto voce I had SEETHE before SEE RED
@sotto voce So would these guys: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbnE7n_u3I" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbnE7n_u3I</a>
@sv & Andrew As long as we're putting together a playlist for this puzzle, here's Chevelle seething and simmering: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trinU3VD1Zo&list=RDtrinU3VD1Zo&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trinU3VD1Zo&list=RDtrinU3VD1Zo&start_radio=1</a>
@sotto voce John Prine’s ineffably sad song about the end of a relationship, Far From Me, contains the line “Junebug flew, from the warmth he once knew.” I’d included a link, but my technical competence doesn’t extend that far.
Great cluing! Country club was my favorite, but even the seemingly humble 'water containers' threw me for a loop. Bottles. Cans. Jars. Cups. Dang it. Think. Oh.
@CB You forgot jugs and urns. I'm sure there are more...
You know how sometimes you start a puzzle and you feel as though you're on the same wave length as the constructor and the cluing just clicks? Yeah... this one was not that for me. I can appreciate the beauty of it all now that I'm on the other side, but whoa - everything felt foreign while I was working through it. Woe is me.
Despite today’s reasonably crunchy Friday, it’s as good a day as any to share my test of the “Great Easening” Hypothesis. Many longtime solvers had asserted that Friday and Saturday crosswords have gotten easier, but I (having solved only since 2023) hadn’t observed it, and wondered how much “easening” was real and how much stemmed from solvers’ improving skill or the toughest puzzles being more memorable. So this summer I completed all the Fridays and Saturdays from the first 22 weeks of 2016 (Jan-May). I then compared my times to the first 22 weeks of 2026: 88 puzzles total, same solver roughly contemporaneously. Bottom line: My doubts are gone. The Easening is more dramatic than I expected. Both the Friday and Saturday puzzles from 2016 took me about 66% longer on average than their 2026 counterparts. My Fri means: 26:35 for 2016, 16:01 for 2026. Sat means: 39:16 for 2016, 23:43 for 2026. Fri medians: 22:28 for 2016, 13:43 for 2026. Sat medians: 36:11 for 2016, 19:48 for 2026 (an 82% difference!). There was lots of noise, with some easy puzzles in 2016 (e.g., an 11-min Friday) and some hard ones in 2026 (Fri/Sat max both ~50 min). But the shift was similar across the whole distribution: the easiest puzzles are easier now, the hardest puzzles less hard, etc. 2026’s Saturdays were slightly easier than 2016’s Fridays. Of course, I’m one person--try it yourself! Whether the change is bad is a different question. I’ll add a reply below re my qualitative experience.
@SBS couldn’t the recent puzzles be easier simply because some of the sources for the clues, such as the culture, current events, sport and popular figures, are still fresh in our minds but puzzles dated back in 2016 require knowledge most of us don’t keep?
@SBS, I have to respect the scientific method evident in your analysis and the undeniable statistical strength you've laid out to support your conclusions. The only variable is that those issues, names, topics and cultural discourse of 2016 are distinctly different from those of 2026 and are more likely to take more time to recall, for in the nonce we've had end of Obama, Trump I, Covid, Biden, Trump II, lots of different music, books, ideas, topics...which may skew your stats...
@SBS Some qualitative thoughts: First, what exactly has gotten easier? That might be important to how you feel about this shift. I prefer when crosswords are rendered harder by tricky, misdirect-filled clues, rather than excessive arcane trivia--although a reasonable dose of arcana (especially with fairly accessible crosses) is one reason the crossword is a learning experience. The 2016 puzzles felt harder in both of these senses, but *especially* in terms of arcane facts, often many crammed together in a single part of the grid. This was true for basically all of the hardest puzzles of 2016--the numerous Saturdays and handful of Fridays that took me upwards of 45 minutes. Those longer puzzles really did feel like slogs....they reminded me of the rare brutal puzzles occasionally still published today, which this Comment section is consistently very harsh on (notwithstanding the Great Easening critique). So I think the Times knows what it's doing here. It's hard to fault it for not wanting to deeply frustrate most of its readers. Now that said, the "slog" perception might have been amplified by my mulish determination to pursue this test..44 of these are a lot to do in a month or so. Most were fun, and I'm glad the Archive is there. Personally, I'd be happy with a Friday distribution more like most of 2016's (not the high-end Friday outliers), and I'd be happy if the Saturdays were halfway between today's and 2016's.
@SBS I'm impressed with your ability and your perseverance, but there's one important thing you haven't mentioned. 2016 was ten years ago. I suspect that there were many contemporary references that would have been well known to puzzle solvers in 2016 but not to solvers in 2026. That doesn't mean that the puzzles in 2016 were harder for solvers then, but rather that solvers in 2026 have a different set of references.
@SBS Too all those who say the older trivia is to blame for the perceived difference of difficulty - nope! As a Pole I know almost none of the US trivia, old or new, and I find archived puzzles much harder than current ones. These days I'm able to solve almost all Fridays and Saturdays without lookups, reveals or puzzle checks. That almost never happens with grids from 2020 (which is where I'm at in the archive). There is much more misdirection, on average, and thus fewer gimmes.
@SBS The Times decided quite a while ago to insert easier puzzles mostly on Friday and Saturday to make things more accessible to newer solvers and drive up subscriptions. If they need more revenue to survive, that's fine with me. This comment section is a live test to see how long it takes people to move on.
@SBS I assume that you also did Sunday to Thursday puzzles the first 22 weeks of 2026, but not in 2016. As any clues and answers first appear in easier, more approachable, forms Monday through Thursday, that weakens your conclusion.
@SBS The later days of the week have gotten much easier in, I’d say, the past year or so. I’ve been doing these for decades, and it’s only recently that my Friday and Saturdays times have gotten so fast.
@SBS For an idea of the relative difficulty of the two years’ puzzles, look at the xwstats for each period. The difficulty levels are from just the past 60 days. So pick a Very Hard one from 2026 and another from 2016 (or even a pair if Average ones), and see what the mean solving time is This will give you data from when it happened. You’ll find the the Great Easening is real.
@SBS As someone who does archived puzzles from at least 10 years ago, alongside each day’s offerings: yep, the difference is truly dramatic. And if you go back another few years, e.g. to 2011, the difficulty increases further. Sure, *some* of the increased difficulty is due to the trivia from that time being less fresh. But in my view, the biggest difference is that, to paraphrase a recent line from Rex Parker, the NYT of yore simply did not care about the solver’s feelings at all.
@SBS Good analysis and precisely my experience. And I have to point out the trivia and cultural references from 10 years ago are also, if anything, more accessible to me then the trivia today so that shouldn’t be a factor.
I came here with trepidation and crossed fingers, hoping I wouldn’t find a bunch of “too easy” comments. I found this one pretty difficult, yet I was determined to solve without lookups, and I did! Eventually. I’m looking at you, SW corner with your misdirection of a 4-legged “stool”, growing FERNs instead of coRN plants, and the weird way you EYED me UP. Other parts were equally mysterious but ultimately made sense, in a great “aha” kind of way. Themeless puzzles are not my favorite, so I don’t know that I’ve ever loved a Friday puzzle before. But I loved this Friday puzzle.
@Heidi Congratulations 🥳 I used almost all word checks
Took me more time trying to figure out why the answer to 15 across was 'seered' than the rest of the solve. And why they'd use a word that doesn't exist. Then the penny dropped 🫣...
@Hitch Did you see red when the penny dropped?
I searched the comments for an explanation, so for me penny only dropped now! ;)
Where to start? (...aside from expressing icy fear about what we'll see tomorrow since this sure felt like a Saturday Killer Puzzle...) DHubby and I agree that JACK AND COKE is *not* a cocktail; it is an atrocity. He suggested PIKE and it's not his fault I put it in the Down column instead of the Across row. It didn't much matter, as I was stuck for a longish time in the SE after entering ONE SEC. Never watched "The Office." Never saw "Aladdin." Don't know what UFC is, let alone its CEO. And NBA? Pfft! 36A could have been DEA, DMV, FTC, FCC, etc., etc. I do my puzzles IN PEN, but happily it's a FriXion PEN that one can erase. MADLIBs!! We loved those. Last into the grid: TREE RINGS. Must go lie down now....
@Mean Old Lady In fairness, when Jack is all that is available, coke is a life-saving necessity. Cheers!
I loved the playfulness of this puzzle's clues!
Two birthdays today — J.S. and Julia! I'm sure we'll all want to wish you a H♥️A♥️P♥️P♥️Y🎂🎂B♥️I♥️R♥️T♥️H♥️D♥️A♥️Y!
@dutchiris Birthday wishes for a happy and healthy year ahead to both Virgo cruciverbalists!
Has anyone else noticed that whenever there are a bunch of complaints about a Thursday "gimmick", the editors, in a fit of pique, give us a themeless Friday? (I'm not wrong.)
@ad absurdum Fridays are always themeless.
a. a., You're catching a few...
@ad absurdum Lol, thanks for the chuckle :)
Let us all thank the puzzle gods for continuing to make resourceful, imaginative, witty, and clever puzzles like this one possible. We whine and gripe and take potshots at constructors, but somehow these brave and resourceful people carry on and give us puzzles, day after day, year after year. A little incense on the alter now and then is warranted.
@dutchiris . . . altar. If I remembered sometimes to proof before submitting, I wouldn't have to make so many alterations.
Wonderful challenge - thank you! (About twice my average time)
No one bothered by 51A - EYED UP? I've been here long enough to know that there's no point in my saying that no one has ever said that. But is it common parlance in the streets of Adelaide or the fields of Missouri? Are you all eyeing each other up on New York's avenues or in London pubs? I've never seen this expression in any tense in any type of writing and, one way and another, I read /a lot./
@SBK in TO Heh, if you run it through a Google Books search, you’ll find some hits. None of which, I suspect, you’ll be heartbroken to have missing from your home library.
@SBK in TO Also, Doctor Who and Gavin and Stacey aren't chopped-liver creations, imo, and the expressions are used there.
@SBK in TO I’ve mostly encountered it as “EYED UP and down.”
I really only know EYED UP and EYE UP because they've both been in the crosswords a few times in the last few years, but not since 2024. And it doesn't seem an unreasonable phrase considering how almost everything gets shortened these days.
@SBK in TO Late to the party, but EYE UP is very common in BrEnglish. Used by both males and females - eyeing up the talent. It's not ogling or leering, but an appraising glance.
@SBK in TO as a Missouri resident, I can tell you it’s not common parlance here.
Speaking of clicking with a partner, Star Trek fans will appreciate this call out to Data and Dr. Crusher tap dancing together: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PCPKhVr7ys8&t=15s&pp=ygUPRGF0YSB0YXBkYW5jaW5n&ra=m" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PCPKhVr7ys8&t=15s&pp=ygUPRGF0YSB0YXBkYW5jaW5n&ra=m</a> It is of note that Gates McFadden was a professional dance and choreographer before Star Trek, and Brent Spiner did musical theater (he was John Adams in an early revival of 1776, and you can still watch him in the televised version of “Sunday in the Park with George” on a small role.)
@SP Thanks for posting this! So fun! I've watched every minute of Star Trek TNG more than once... or twice.... or err, more than thrice.. but I don't remember that scene.
Nice, tough Friday! I did solve it but I don't know if I've ever confidently entered so many words I had to take out on the next go-round. I was sure of SIMMER then SEETHE, MAYFLIES, tried to put in SEVENANDSEVEN. It was a lot of fun.
What a rewarding puzzle! As others have mentioned, for me, this was a chewy puzzle. It has me saying more than DARN IT… And it took me a few minutes longer than my Friday average, but I solved it without lookups piece by piece.. The NW corner really had me stuck as I really wanted 15A to be SIMMER.. Great puzzle! Rating: 10/10
Once or twice a year I will hear my wife screaming and thrashing about. I will inevitably jump up and run to the room she's in, with my sword drawn and my loins girded, ready to do battle, imagining myself confronting a dragon, at the very least. But it's only ever a June bug. She is *terrified* of June bugs, and simply cannot countenance their existence. I often chide her about this because she is an enormous animal lover--squirrels and dogs and cats and birds. But bugs, no. Not now, not ever. She will say with a straight face when I ask her why, as an animal lover, she hates insects so. "They're not animals" is her confident reply. In all fairness, she recognizes the inconsistency, but is adamant about maintaining it. Anyway, this one particular night, I found an empty large peanut butter jar, joking that I was going to trap him in the jar while he was in flight. AND I DID! FIRST TIME! I held the jar up, snapped the lid in place and there was a nice, big, beautiful June bug in it. I fell like Sir Lancelot and Batman and The Incredible Hulk all rolled into one.
@Francis Bravo! But I'm with your wife as far as insects go. My personal taxonomy is: -things that bite -things that sting -things that get into your closets and linens -things that get into your food -things that get into your hair -things that get into your eyes, ears, and nose 😳 I love birds not only because they are beautiful, colourful, melodious, and good parents but also because they eat insects by the pound. (Applauding you, purple martins.) Insects are creepy, crawly, sneaky, ugly, destructive, and itch-ifying. That's that.
@Francis - She hates bugs? OK, then - If it makes her feel better, you could tell her that a June bug is not a bug, but a beetle. I am sure this helpful information will be accepted with copious relief and gratitude. You should be prepared for her outpouring of emotion at hearing this wonderful news.
@Francis I scream only for stomach bugs. I've caught one from a jar.
Ok, I have my post gin club dark shades on, I’ve had more than one coffee, I’m ready to go. Today’s offering was a bit tough on my delicate grey matter, but thoroughly enjoyable. Chewy in places with the obligatory unknown names/sports terms, but I got there in the end. I know Mayflies, but JUNEBUGS haven’t made it over here unless they go under another name?
@Helen Wright Ah, memories of The Feathers at Woodstock, and the botanical bounty in that bar. Oh gin, that juniper berried ode to England. Oh to stroll to the local, where spoilt for choice (by Yank standards), all was well, when in my cups. Cheers, Helen Wright. p.s. Nothing a cuppa won't fix, ye of shaded orbs. 😉
@Helen Wright JUNEBUGS are strictly North American, as far as I know. You probably don’t need any new garden pests in your neck of the woods. They’re rather pretty, so Junebug is occasionally used as a nickname here. I recall the father of the title character in Juno sometimes calling her that, and there was a movie by that name that brought Amy Adams to prominence. No doting father ever called his daughter Mayfly.
OK get out your covfefe and hamdergers. Sorry to be political, but here's my Presidential Mad Lib. At the gazebo the President aired the QR Code and segued the tree ring before beginning his speech. “Junebugs and orcas” he began. “Foes are in pen and I’m here to relay something about it. Are you Karens gonna bark me or am I gonna have to pike you in my sniff test? It’s your Macs: you can either be a Fern or a Dana! And if you so to say then dare me.” At the end of his speech, the deb who had been listening eyed up the President and decided to usurp the crazed Nas.
I can't even begin to tell you how worried I was about what the server's warning would be. Whew! It's just IT'S HOT. What a relief! Of course I didn't find this out until the end of my solve, because the NW was the last to fall. It required two cheats, TED and TRAE, to finish. This was added to my one cheat earlier in the NE, where ARLO the dino, enabled me to change grasP to USURP and thus be able to finish that section. I was stuck there, too. Three cheats on arcane names in a single puzzle! Often the need for me to do that makes me SEE RED and I just won't. For me, cheating that much is often a sign of grudging respect for the puzzle: "Other than the awful names, I'm really enjoying this a lot and cheating makes it possible for me to continue. Otherwise, I'd have to stop." The cluing on pretty much everything that isn't a name is terrific! UNITED NATIONS; SPLIT DECISION; FOES; OF AGE (I thought it would be ADULT); RELAY; TAP DANCED; DO A CAMEO; TREE RING -- all are world-class clues. I feel that a lot of thought was put into every single clue -- even the ones that weren't that tricky. So, a very good puzzle that would have been even better -- certainly for me -- without the names.
@Nancy I was able to get TED and TRAE and ARLO from the crosses, which to me is what a good puzzle allows. For me the tricky name was Julie from Big Brother. I had no idea, but the crosses gave me CHET, which sounded plausible, and I GOT IT sounded fine for a [delighted cry upon acceptance]. Only in flyspecking and looking it up did I realize that I GOT IN was another possibility - and frankly a better answer. But those kind of names with multiple valid crosses are extra tricky.
@Nancy I started out with a warning of CORNER which made that NW particularly difficult. There were a lot of name look-ups for me as well today.
Ended up working my way from the southwest to the northeast...ended up with my avg time. TREERING was a *stumper*! Ha. Overall, I enjoyed the clues but thought some of the answers to be a bit clunky, like DOACAMEO.
Tough but satisfying. 49m 38s to solve unaided. Like for quite a few here, it required perseverance and a lot of chipping away. NW was the last to fall.
Oh, MADLIBs! ❤️ Those were so much fun!! As was this puzzle!! It's so deeply rewarding when a puzzle feels somewhat impossible, but you just keep chipping away and chipping away... and one thing leads to another, and your Diet COKE has finally kicked in, and all of a sudden everything that seemed impossible is filling itself in, and then, if you're solving online or in the app, there's the dunce's music!! 🤯 That was me today. I was really shocked when the music went off, not because I thought I had something wrong, but because I was just surprised that I had finished it already. I wouldn't say it was giving me FITS, but before that there was a lot of just jumping from clue to clue and not filling much anything out. Lots of really nice Mr X! Yes, that is now how I describe wordplay trickery in the puzzles. Mr X! I'd like to thank my voice to text for the inspiration for new coinage! Har!
@HeathieJ Took me a minute but what a serendipitous incorrect-ion by your machine. Definitely terminal har-worthy! 👏👏👏
ditto on last few comments esp "crunchy delicious friday" and "so deeply rewarding when a puzzle feels somewhat impossible, but you just keep chipping away and chipping away..." I never get anxious when my first pass or two come up SPARSE (EMPTY? I might panic) I do xwords in the morning with coffee + bfast so I expect to sorta wake up in stages and sharpen up in waves... today was classic in that regard a few longshots a few sorta guesses that had to be proven a little bit of the alphabet game and a lot of "area parsing" if this is a plural that's an S so the adjacent word must be this so then the word below must be X etc... there MUST be a better way to describe the above but one of the most satisfying gold stars in recent memory fwiw I recently added WED to my usual THU / FRI / SAT / (SUN) routine and when I get caught up I treat myself to TH / FR/ SA puzzles in the archives I also TURN OFF THE TIMER and the MUSIC! don't care about STREAKS altho I have many minis both BLUE & GOLD hey I was a BRUIN LOL fwiw after years of doing all ACROSS and then all DOWN am now much more fluid to the order depending on mood and success process = pleasure completion = calm TMI? AI? FBI? AYE YI YI!
So, I completed this puzzle, then realized I forgot to do the Monday puzzle so went ahead and started on that -- only to realize it also had "split decision" and "go bananas" as answers. I thought I was losing my mind and had accidentally started playing the Friday again. I bounced back and forth between the two before slowly reclaiming my (relative) sanity. I mean, we're not talking "oreo" and "epee" here, these are two reasonably novel expressions to have twice in the same puzzle four days apart. I guess NYT was hoping nobody was on a Friday-back-to-Monday solving schedule.
Some brilliant clues: DAMS, TREE RINGS, SEE RED, TAP DANCED, SET PIECE, UNITED NATIONS, even DYSON (Just this week my Dyson stopped working. I took it to pieces and fixed it, it's working perfectly, but I have 3 tiny screws left over..) But, but, then came the JUNE BUGS I'd not heard of, nor MAD LIB, and ARLO, DANA, KAREN, CHEN, NAS and ABU, the red zone, the cocktail, the buckets (never been in a KFC) and I struggled. Why is ball girl DEB? And I'm completely baffled by "plant Mom" I'm not complaining, this European loved the wordplay.
@Jane Wheelaghan It is a well-known but poorly understood physical phenomenon: the act of taking a machine apart and putting it together produces screws, apparently materializing them out of nothing. If you need some screws, simply take something apart and put it back together.
@Jane Wheelaghan I had never heard of "plant mom" either. Apparently it's someone who dotes over their houseplants in the same way a mother dotes over her children. Given that we all eat plants, often while they're still alive, it seems like a difficult bit of self-delusion...but yeah, there's people out there that manage it.
@Jane Wheelaghan Perhaps it was the three screws you hoovered up that caused the malfunction! ☺️
@Jane Wheelaghan In an otherwise great puzzle, I thought the clue for FERN was weak.
@Jane Wheelaghan Debutants often come out at society balls.
@Jane Wheelaghan I think fern clue is based on the idea that ferns are easy to propagate. The “mom” here is the fern itself (mom to other ferns), not a human who owns a fern. Or so I assumed.
Tough one but fun. Favorite clues were 'Country clubs' for United Nations and 'elements of dating profile' for tree rings. Sucks for Dyson gave a smile. And thank you Ryan , I did find the two word answers in SE corner "lively"! And always like a reference to The Office. Check out Rooster on HBO if you are missing Steve Carell.
@Jeff B MD I was not fond of the two-word shorties here or in general. ARE NOT, ARE TOO, DARE ME (huh?), etc. are the worst combination: dull per se and impossible to clue in interesting ways. If no one ever sets another SOAMI in a grid, I'll applaud.
There is such a thing as being TOO clever. This puzzle felt more like showing off than anything else.
@Joe I don't think it's a matter of the solver being "clever." It's more an issue of being on the same wavelength as the constructor. Every one of us has had puzzles that were easy for us and hard for others. My experience has been that the only people who say that it has something to do with intelligence are the people who want that to be the case.
@David Webb Sorry to hear you couldn't solve it. Good luck tomorrow!
Whew! Tough but fair, and what a workout. I thought my streak had met its end until I nearly gave up and just started throwing in my best guesses, eventually piecing together JACK AND COKE and then the long acrosses. The NW corner was the last to fall for me. It had me stymied as I kept coming back to the (wrong) IT'S NEW, SONG of Solomon, SEETHE, and TRAY Young. Chewy solve with a satisfying end. Thank you for a solid Friday puzzle!
All my pals and macs in line at the Apple Store are wasting their time with those nerdy online dating profiles. These days, the belles and buds find the hand-written, dead tree edition fresher and more pleasing. And waltz beats tapdancing, imho. Nice puzzle.
@Mr. Logdriver I hope with that nom and this post, you're familiar with the Canadian folk song, "The Log Driver's Waltz." Here is the link to the NFB short animated film of the song. <a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/log_drivers_waltz" target="_blank">https://www.nfb.ca/film/log_drivers_waltz</a>/ Warning: listen once and you've got yourself a lifelong earworm. Enjoy.
@Mr. Logdriver Well, you're sure right about solving on paper (preferably with a pen.) I could never succeed in dancing...for one thing, you have to tell right from left, and then there's the matter of facing an instructor and then performing the actions s/he wants me to mimic...
Started off slowly, but eventually made progress. For me, this was an appropriate Friday workout…definitely a challenge but just plugging away led to success.
Finished, confident all were correct, but no! Something off! Went over it 30 million times.. thought I was losing my mind!! FINALLY cheated and googled completed puzzle…mine looked identical. Until.. “ I GOT IN’ (not IT) aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!! Can I go back to bed now please thank you
@Anna I had the same experience, but with a different clue: I thought 14A (Figuratively speaking) had to be NOTTOSAY and that 14D (Additional schoolwork?) could reasonably be NUMS. So, gold star lost by one bad square. Oh, well. It's happened before.
@Anna That was my flyspeck too, don’t feel bad. And CHEN was unknown to me so that was a bit of a Natick.
@Anna - That was the last square to fall for me as well. Fortunately I figured it out without cheating, but it did take awhile.
Element of a dating profile would also be a great clue for CARBON
I was expecting a bunch of “too easy” comments because this is the second or third time I have ever completed a Friday! I loved this puzzle. FOES and UNITED NATIONS stood out to me as clever clues. Took me 52min but I’m proud of myself!
31D [Act like yourself, perhaps?] Alfred Hitchcock is well known for his CAMEO roles in many of his movies. A favorite of mine is in "To Catch a Thief." Cary Grant, hightailing it out of his amazing Riviera home boards a bus and grabs a seat in the back next to the rotund Hitchcock, already a passenger. Another notable CAMEO. Erin Brokovich plays a speaking part as a waitress serving Julia Roberts (playing her in the biopic) with her kids in a restaurant. Here's a list of notable CAMEOs: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameo_appearance" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameo_appearance</a>
BONkers instead of BANANAS for a while. One of those puzzles where the left half was much tougher for me than the right. Some will disagree and this is just right for a Friday puzzle.