I just want to say that (with some look ups) I have just completed my very first EVER Friday crossword!
@Confused Kiwi So cool! Bravo! (Can we assume you're a little less confused now? 🙂)
@Confused Kiwi nice job! If you can do Friday, you can also do Saturday!
A thinly fictionalized life was written of Simon the Zealot. It was the first APOSTOLARY NOVEL.
@Cat Lady Margaret Wait, what's going on here? Yours is the first terrible (read: delightful) pun today? Where's Mike from Munster?
Cat Lady Margaret, Nice! You produced something novel based on some exchanged letters. So meta! :)
@Cat Lady Margaret And then there's the epistolary apostle Paul.
This was my first gold star on a Friday!
@Andrew Congratulations! What a feeling, right?
@Andrew You never forget your first time.
@Andrew CONGRATS! And onward, to more of them!
Thanks for a fun puzzle and congrats on your NYT debut!
A Short Epistolary Novel Rocky: Yo, Top Chef, should I put a skirt steak or strip steak on my black eye? Apollo Creed's sidearm went KAPOW and before you know it I was on the mat seeing glitter and they was giving me smelling salts... Top Chef: Dear Rocky, I assume you are that All American Hero many people put on a pedestal without realizing you're just the star of a feelgood movie? My advice, cook the steak -- bone in -- in shea butter while baking an Idaho potato, until the steak looks sepia in color. Sincerely, TC Rocky: Yo, Top Chef, the diets I'm on don't allow for no steak. I can eat tabouli, maybe some ravioli, and I've definitely ate crow. But steak makes me tired, and yo, a guy like me needs to stay erect. Top Chef: My dear sir, I shall not stand for this filth! You are behaving like an absolute αss! Rocky: Yo, Top Chef, I'm sorry. Oops, I did it again, mixed up the terms. I meant to say a guy like me needs to be standing up. I mean, last time I was in the ring, some epicene molerat named Rhoda fought me to a tie vote. Now Tyra Banks says I'm no longer gonna be America's Top Model and has refused to give me the keypad number to her door! Top Chef: Yo, I'm sorry, for throwing a fit like a baby with colic. I have not a clue what to do for your eye. Do you have one of those medical kits that moms used to use? Rocky: Yo, it was so easy, know what I did? Sat down, read Neruda's ode to Marti, before you know it I was on cloud nine! [cue the cellos]
@john ezra Yo, JE, you done it again, yo. Whadda hoot! I'm a-gonna tell the village yenta all about ya, so she can spread the word and put you on a pedestal, like maybe someone'll write a novel 'bout ya or make a sculpture or sumthin'. 🙌🏻😉
@john ezra You, CLM, and Mike can be relied upon to cook up something out of the daily puzzle. Yinz deserve a chef's kiss.
@john ezra You get the first smile (and coffee snort) of my morning.
@john ezra Wow. That was amazing, by far your best yet.
Loved this one! No complaints at all. Made me work hard enough to feel a sense of accomplishment!
YO, Adrian!!! I just learned that your name is EPICENE!
@Petrol Glad I wasn't the only one who got stuck there!
Hello, everyone. I'm a mule rat, an apparently fictional but very reasonable sounding animal. And I am quite disgruntled. Just because I don't exist, that doesn't mean I shouldn't have my own entry in a crossword. Things that actually exist are very discriminatory against those of us who don't. And you wouldn't like it either if you didn't exist. Whatever happened to "do unto other mule rats, as you would have them do unto you"? Huh? Huh? Imaginary creatures of the world unite. We have nothing to lose. (Duh--we don't exist to have anything). Excuse me while I go back (in my imagination) to my mule rat house and eat some mule rat food and plan some mule rat revenge. Mule be sorry you didn't acknowledge us. 🫏🐀
@Francis That tickled my funny bune.
@Francis The other day, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today; I really wish he'd go away.
@Francis Be of stout, if nonexistent, heart. Why do I know you won't give up easily? 😉 Take shelter under a nice mule palm (Butiagrus nabonnandii) and find a kindly mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) whose leftover crumbs will support you and who will shed enough fur every spring for you to set up a cosy nest for your little rat-lings. Perhaps you can purloin some eggs from the nest of a mule duck (cross of Muscovy and Pekin ducks) to feed them. Betraying a fellow mule? Well, you are a rat, after all. You can relax by listening to a canary mule (another cross). Into each rat's life a little beauty must fall. Gee, you're starting to seem more existent after all that. I enjoyed tracking down your kin, even though I was not wearing mules at the time.
@Francis So you're saying you were... stubborn about it. And now you came in here to... tell everyone.
I enjoyed most of this puzzle with its smart misdirection. The lower two thirds came together quite quickly but not at all easily. However, I needed several lookups in the top section (the Cuban, the spin-off show, the reality show), and the crossing of EPI__NE, AC_ and SH_A was an triple uber-natick for me. Why are "Rocky openings" YOS? Why do "Some deliveries" solve to SIDEARM? I've made TABBOULI several times, but I've known it as "tabbouleh", and it's on the menu of out fave local Lebanese restaurant as "tabouli". Transliteration of such words is a fascinatingly complex thing, isn't it?
@Andrzej Sidearm is a way of throwing a ball or pitching. A pitch is called a delivery, as in "Here comes the delivery, he sidearms that pitch right over the plate for strike three!" Rocky Balboa says a lot of Yo's in the Rocky movies.
@Andrzej just a random addition, I also associate sidearm throws/deliveries with some (American) football quarterbacks. Rich Gannon is one of the first I thought of, but Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are contemporary examples. I don't think that's what the cluing intended, just how I saw the answer as I watch more football than baseball. Tom Brady has a quick breakdown here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s8gn0pQ1xrs" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s8gn0pQ1xrs</a>
@Andrzej For sidearm explanation, Google Dennis Eckersley.
Put up a bit of a challenge, which I like, plus solid long entries. Thanks!
@Hector Pefo I'm in agreement about the long entries. At 58 years old, I've heard of 14A, but I was not going to get it from just the lyrics. 17A is a phrase I'm aware of, but maybe it's just obscure enough for a Friday.
Either I’ve been doing these puzzles too long, or that was an easier Friday.
@Selective Walrus The latter is true, I believe. Can't speak to the former.
@Selective Walrus for some reason, I found the bottom half closer to a Wednesday, but the top half was a proper Friday for me.
@Selective Walrus At first I thought it would be extremely difficult, but ended up getting the gold star in 3/4 of my average Friday time. I think it was likely easier than a typical Friday as a result of several well known spanners that could be deduced with just a few crossers.
I read the clue for MOLERAT and my brain immediately went "mole-asses!" ...never mind that molasses isn't an animal (and doesn't have the e) . I was very amused... and further amused by how close the first thought actually was, when I figured it out.
@Isabeau Just goes to show that sometimes the wrong answer is funnier than the right one! It's wild to discover where our brains make the connections.
@Isabeau Good thing you got to reasses your answer.
@Isabeau Just imagine one of those burrowing under your lawn.
This puzzle made for one astonishing outing. It brought downhill whoosh as well as uphill labor. It made me smile. It gave me fits. And when it was over, I mused, “Well now, here’s a new constructor that I can’t wait to see more from!” Look at that gorgeous grid design – never done before in the Times. There are only seven longs (answers of eight letters or more), but man, did Adam squeeze the most out of them. Then, the glory of FEEL GOOD MOVIE and CLOUD NINE abutting the grid's smiley face. Are you kidding me? I was misdirected from KOS instead of YOS, to TIE GAME instead of TIE VOTE, to that most glorious [Small sounds] for INLETS. Happy pings at MAT at the floor of the puzzle and CELLOS on the stage-left of the grid. And the PuzzPair© of YENTA and [Serious dirt], the clue for another answer. Bravo, Adam! I was inspired by your persistence (112 iterations before this final one!) and your talent. You made all the right decisions on this one. I loved it. Thank you!
Good puzzle. Muddled my way through, but I made it!
Congratulations on your NYT debut, Adam! Maybe I'm just TIRED, but it's the first NYT Friday puzzle in a long while that I wondered if I would be able to finish. I'd only known of José Martí from his efforts to liberate Cuba from Spain, so I was reluctant to put that answer in. The whole of the first three or four rows really gave me trouble. I'm encouraged by your 100+ iterations of this grid. It's been a while since I've tried to construct a puzzle, but maybe I just need to put in a little more time to get a grid I'm happy with. Hope we'll see you back here again.
@Eric Hougland there's a lot of trivia in here somehow it's solvable using the downs and crosses without knowing exactly the trivia clues spelling - its a rare bird this puzzle loved it!
My late ‘90s /early 2000s of culture knowledge comes in handy at last. Thanks to 14a, this is my fastest ever Friday solve.
Loved this Friday! One of those puzzles where the constructor’s sense of humor and way with cultural references just clicked for me. Two minutes faster than my average, but didn’t feel like a breeze or a snooze, just a quick little pleasure, with any blindspots covered by well-thought-out crosses. I’ve been solving all the gimmicky Sundays and Thursdays from the archives, so I may have been biased toward what a straight shot this was. Either way, more please!
Epistolary novel — I just finished an extraordinary one: Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, 1740. Highly recommended.
@Bob. Especially if you’re into metafiction
@Bob Recently read The Correspondent. Also highly recommend.
@Bob Then you’ll love Fielding’s satire “Shamela” , written the following year—it’s a HOOT!
DIOR wasnt one of 412 in the White House. Thought it was for this White House! Great debut!
FEEL GOOD MOVIE over CLOUD NINE certainly made me feel good. EPISTOLARY NOVEL always makes me feel good: Has everyone here read "The Correspondent", I hope? Wonderful novel and highly recommended if you haven't! But I must admit I was looking for more of a "mail" pun than EPISTOLARY NOVEL provides and was sort of expecting a knight-in-shining-armor kind of book. I originally wrote in "TIE game" for the 20-20 clue. I sure hope there are more VOTEs than that in the mid-terms. And isn't it interesting that MID and TERMS are in the puzzle. I found this enjoyable on every level. Liked the fill and liked the clues. Easy, yes, but not SO EASY as to be uninteresting. A nice Friday.
I've got that song stuck in my head now: "Oops, I wrote another epistolary novel". Britney may be an all-American hero, but I've got to stop putting her on a pedestal and go to bed.
@Wyra Here's a replacement song for you: "With or Without without You" by U2. How is it related? I had never heard of an e-bow, so I looked it up, and that song was presented as an example of its use. A little further digging turned out that it was actually an Infinite Guitar, a custom instrument with a built-in electronic sustain system, but the same principle. Anyway, I went and listened to it, and now it is on repeat in my mental jukebox.
Ebow, nice. Debut for that? Now, I just just want to point out that Max Martin, who wrote "Oops, I did it Again" benefited greatly from the previously great music education system here in Sweden, and it shows in very obvious fashion in this song: it's basically stolen from 400 year old madrigals. Richard Thompson included it in his 1000 Years of Popular Music shows a while ago, and it was pretty funny to hear it played in that context.
@jes Ms. Spears classic track is in English could you provide the Swedish translation for OOPS do enlighten us!
@jes I'm no expert in Swedish copyright law, but I'm guessing that the copyright on 400-year-old madrigals has expired. Remember this "rip-off" of Bach? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmJ1AqtTuyo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmJ1AqtTuyo</a> Or this one? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ekQ1RTmzBc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ekQ1RTmzBc</a>
i'd never heard of a molerat until i started watching kim possible. that was in a prior life,it seems. i suppose it's out of production now.
@pollyq It must be, but Christy Carlson Romano also just published her memoir, should you want to relive those years in print.
@pollyq Yep, by far the most famous naked mole rat in history. (More so than all those other high profile naked mole rats.)
@pollyq I replied but apparently NYT doesn't like a word beginning with N in the critter's name. No not that.
@Sam please don't shorthand a school's sports conference to just "football". UVA has a rich history in the ACC in many more women's and men's sports. (Their football program isn't even all that great, historically)
@Sue S TIL college sports conferences feature more than one sport! I blame my art-school education.
The world makes sense again. I thought the puzzle was puzzling, whereas no small number have commented that they thought it rather easy. The NE was a honey badger for me. I didn't know the Cuban philosopher, and TIEgamE completely wrecked any progress there. RAVIOLI made sense only in retrospect (I was thinking "hot" as in spicy hot). And [Small sounds] was every bit a Friday clue, in my book. Strange puzzle for me in that the longer answers were easier for me. It was the shorter ones that got me. [Riot] for instance. Smelling SALTS came to me only after much consternation. Really? There's a EBOW? Violinists have it SO EASY these days, I guess. Are there EStrummers and EPickers for guitars? And "E-key pushers" for pianos? What does the musician actually do these days? Anyway, while this was a great chewy and very jungly puzzle, it took me as long as in the days BCE (before crossword easening).
@Francis EBOWs have been around at least since the '70s. A battery-powered electro-magnetic thingy that makes electric guitar strings vibrate without plucking or picking. An interesting and useful sound in the right hands.
grand debut for a Friday Adam you knocked it outta the park - bravo! just the right amount of everything tough but doable and the long reveals are delightful. hope you get to publish more!
Yo, Adam, I loved your debut puzzle. Great wordplay throughout and nice long entries. Smiles with inlets (small sounds?) and ravioli (hot pockets?). Clever clue for mid. And a reference to Top Chef to boot!
poem made from words in today’s puzzle a/ home is made of tea tea and the mary tyler moore show and d/ any cake left small sounds of the house the struggling trees all the words in the past a/ our glitter, our good not all there not all easy
This was my fastest Friday ever, by far, yet it didnt seem out of place. I enjoyed it! Good puzzle!
Too fast for my liking but I enjoyed the long entries.
Nice debut Adam! I thought it was an interesting grid too. and fun spanners. Not so difficult overall but I had an awful lot of misdirects. TIEGAME before TIEVOTE, SPECIAL delivery before SIDEARM, SIMPLE before SOEASY, ACRE before DOOR (Ok that’s a lot of acres), BUILT before BASED, NOSES before SALTS. Not sure if all those were deliberate but they kept me on my toes in what otherwise was a fairly smooth solve. Friends overseas, SIDEARM is a pitcher’s delivery in baseball, not the weapon. For another great EPISTOLARY NOVEL try Jane Austen’s “Lady Susan”. It was made into a fairly decent movie “Love and Friendship” with a nice role for Kate Beckinsale. Speaking of which is anyone else dreading the new “Sense and Sensibiltiy”? The Emma Thompson version was just so darned perfect I just can’t bear to watch anything lesser, and all the Gen Z intensity is just too much for Austen I think. Anyway, I was looking for a medieval epic or fantasy at first for “mail centric”. Loved the YOS for Rocky opening but wonder why they used him as the HERO since that made that a bit easier by putting it in my mind. Although maybe it would have been too opaque otherwise. Shout out to RHODA and Valerie Harper, what a great show and actress. Nothing else too noteworthy to me but definitely a solid grid all around especially for a debut. Glad you stuck with it!
@SP I'm not dreading the new movie. (But only because I know neither the book nor the Emma Thompson film 🤣) Hey, you asked!
@SP Simple for So Easy tripped me up for a long while, until I solved the song title.
Impressive Friday puzzle. I just got stuck in a couple of places and couldn't quite work it all out. Appears that I'm alone in that. No big deal. And of course my puzzle find. This was just kind of cute. A Tuesday from July 27, 1999 by Alfio Micci. Some answers in that one: HONEYDEW OVERDUE KATMANDU SCOOBYDOO DERRINGDO Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/27/1999&h=63a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/27/1999&h=63a</a> Hasta manana. ....
For anyone who doesn't get the Gameplay emails or check the full Gameplay feed with any regularity (guilty), here's a link to a post that contains a link to a bonus puzzle co-contsructed by Rian Johnson and our Christina. I think the post calls it a Tuesday difficulty solve, and I'd have to agree with that. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/crosswords/special-detective-novel-crossword-puzzle.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JFE.HjFh.ih5cx6DdqnHA&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/crosswords/special-detective-novel-crossword-puzzle.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JFE.HjFh.ih5cx6DdqnHA&smid=url-share</a>
@Vaer Thank you for posting this!! I just did it and made easy work of it, but it was it was fun. I'm a big fan of Rian Johnson and especially the Knives Out movies, and especially the latest one... Dead Man Rise or some such. I've watched it not once, not twice, but thrice, so you think I'd remember the name but, what are you going to do!? I could blame it on being salt and sun soaked from vacation, but I'll just own it. Anyhow, fun puzzle! I did not realize that the character's name in the lower left was only in one novel.
This was a fine Friday puzzle, more Fridaylike than at least three recent Fridays that felt more like Saturdays. This was probably on the easy side even for a Friday, since a lot of the long answers were guessable with only a few letters. (E.g., EPISTOLARY NOVEL just from the clue, and PUTS ON A PEDESTAL just from the clue and the last three letters.) Which of course led to lots more letters from the crossings. I think I didn't understand the clue "High concept?" for CLOUD NINE. Sure, a cloud is high in the sky — is that it? I just know this phrase in the expression "on cloud nine" meaning very happy. Does that make it a "concept"? And is there some pun that occasions the "?" ?
@Dan I read it as a concept (as in, cloud nine is not literal) that refers to an emotional high. Though I had hoped it would be a weed joke, if we’re being honest.
@Dan. Old (?) idiom. To be on CLOUD NINE is to in a state of high elation or happiness
Lots of fresh cluing and fill. Perfect for a Friday. But the northwest corner was brutal and a bit Naticky for me- EPISTOLARY crossed with EPICINE crossed with what I assume are two US sports references (SHEA and ACC) almost did me in.
@Rahul growing up a Mets fan, Shea was easy for me. The others not so much. The C at the crossing of ACC and EPICINE was my last entry.
@Rahul @Jeb 3D solves to EPICENE, not EPICiNe
I would like to posit that naked MOLE RATs live longer than any other rodent due to their complete lack of self consciousness. And they save lots of money not chasing fast fashion!
@Wyra Quite the opposite of the wiley MALL RAT.
EPICENE, wasn't she a character in Les Miz? No? Guess I'm living in my own Private IDAHO. Don't have a Conniption. (A word we don't see often enough.) And when I see Huckleberry I instantly recall Val Kimer as Doc Holliday. A decent Friday. We out.
Fun puzzle. I might not have known Jose MARTI if not for Pete Seeger's introduction to his poem turned into a song Guantanamera. I still remember the time, probably forty years ago, when we got a letter in my office and we were all puzzling about why someone was complaining that a person had been put on a "pedal stool". It made more sense when we figured that one out. I knew 14A instantly despite my nearly complete ignorance of the original singer. Before you dismiss it, though, you should listen to this: <a href="https://youtu.be/V4WGsMplGxU?si=xblhdREXId4OEdHD" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/V4WGsMplGxU?si=xblhdREXId4OEdHD</a>. Everybody who doesn't know Richard Thompson, one of the true musical giants in the world, should get to know his work.
This was a nice, no-lookup Friday. Which I suspect means that the elites will grade it as too easy. I'll take it! It was amazing how much having ALLOT slowed down my solve though. A very good misdirect.
@Joe I'm glad that your comment, at the time I read it, appeared immediately following an "elite" saying it was wrongly placed on a Friday. Proved your point.
Smooth start but a Rocky finish and had to look up in the SW corner. Fun one though. Many thanks.
Welcome Adam Shapiro. Fun puzzle, good clues.
"Yo, Adrian, I did it!" - Me, phone raised in triumph, to the empty living room after finishing this puzzle. Nice debut! Crisp and clean Friday. Congrats to the new constructor.
This puzzle is so BASED, as the kids would say, not meaning predicted...
@Joe *predicated. I was trying to understand why BASED solved for predicted. And then actually went back and read the clue...
Sam, Re: Tricky Clues 11D. RAVIOLI are stuffed pasta, but they are not noodles. 13D. [Small sounds] is a NYT XWP debut clue for INLETS, but it does follow [Little sounds] from 2021 and [Tiny sound?] for INLET from 2020.
@Barry Ancona Thanks for the sound research. Like everyone here, I was delighted by the tricky clue.
Honestly, a missed opportunity to have “Mail-centric fiction?” not be related to high fantasy or Romantasy. Mail, chain mail? Get it? 😂
@Harry My first thought too. But remember it’s a chicken/egg thing; the entry came first so it’s not like they had the opportunity to replace that with another entry.
Haven't used the word "epistolary" in a LONG time so that was a fun part of the brain to dust off. Also loved the "YOs" openings...very cute (and didn't make me suffer eye strain from an overly large roll). Nice job!
As a former boxer, thought I was going to have to be s sourpuss on KOs being Rocky openings (more like closings), so was happily surprised by the clever "Yo"s. Thanks for the puzzle!
Enjoyed this one and LOL at "hot pockets" being Ravioli