Ιασων

I really must stop coming here immediately after solving in the European early morning. The commentariat is full of the overnight speedy solvers from the US and some of the bragging is a bit too much for me. This was not easy. It was full of trivia that are absolutely not gimmes unless you’re in a particular milieu. It was doable with reasonable effort. It was absolutely not mid week level for me. I appreciate that some have to tell that they solved it in single digit minutes. Well done you. In the role of this forum providing feedback to the NYT folks: crossing IVER with RENEE wasn’t kind 😀 Thanks to the constructor

Nowhere is Kilometer abbreviated to KIL. Nowhere. It’s crosswordese and rubbish. The puzzle was delightful otherwise. Rheas are better than emus.

I found it a very decent Saturday. Thanks to the providers. Thanks @Barry Ancona for stomping on any δέρμα discussion early. For those who claim it was easy … the puzzle contained a US dog society acronym, the name of a ‘sandwich’ that doesn’t exist outside the US, the crossing said sandwich with two proper names, a Greek medical term, the name of a video game !!, a clue for ORCA that required knowledge of recent events in the straits of Gibraltar, knowledge of tennis history, baseball trivia, …. And a misdirection on solar system objects. And that’s not even talking about KREWES It wasn’t easy. Some people are just knowledgeable about all kinds of things 😀

If after years of solving one doesn’t find that the puzzles have become easier then one’s doing something wrong. It’s not the puzzle, it’s you. This was a fine puzzle.

Lords are not MPS. MPS sit in the commons. Lords don’t and can’t. The Houses of Parliament are two. Not sure how BATS swat crickets. I just hope this isn’t some reference to the sport. That would be an insult. The top right was very much not fun for me. While TENREC could be regarded as esoteric general knowledge, crossing it with ANNE Meara and whatever CROCKER was supposed to signify was just making things harder. Got there in the end but it took a while. Thanks

Final change was from TAS to RAS fixing a rather amusing mount TUSHMORE Maybe if they insist on adding a fifth it can be their … Nice puzzle. I’d like to see Bend but it’ll have to wait until 2029.

Unless Santorini is a Greek restaurant in Ithaca NY, if you ask for “a gyros” on Thira you will not get a sandwich … any more than a Brezeln in Bavaria is what you would call a pretzel. Food evolves and I’m delighted that Greeks and Turks and everyone else is exporting tastes and even happier that you like them. What you may want to order in Santorini is “a souvlaki with gyro” (declensions are important in Greek). You’ll have to decide on whether you want onions, tomato, sauce, chips (your fries) etc or just “me ola” ie the lot. Just gyros will get you the meat … Sorry for the rant but I was pretty sure @Andrzej would abide 😀😀 Nice puzzle otherwise

Missed a chance for an old Macdonald clue ….

In English double negation implies a positive but double positive doesn’t imply negation …. said the professor Upon which from the back of the class someone called out YEAH SURE

OLEARY and ULTA … bleh Can we please have puzzles and not quizzes Thanks Herds don’t have wisdom. They follow leads.

I’d love to know what the editors thought the feedback on YHEAR and IZZATSO was going to be. The cleverness of the theme does not excuse the stench of some of the rest. Made it by holding my nose.

NATTY ICE, RAIDERS, TIE, REESES, TESS combined with the very crosswordy NO BACKSIES and needing to know a good score at an LSAT and the unknown CAMPOREE ( jamboree yes but the other one 🙄) made today a pain. A bit too USoteric for me.

The speedsters seem dissatisfied… not clear why. After all, if you’re after a PB why complain that it was too easy to attain. I found it a splendid puzzle requiring some lateral thinking and very few facts. Indeed it was somewhat faster than normal for a Friday but still very enjoyable. Thanks

Deciphering obscure is not necessarily fun. Deciphering clever can be. This was not fun.

A joyful puzzle. Thank you. May the joy the constructor gave us also contribute to the eradication of his bad memories.

Decades ago I subscribed to the International Herald Tribune and tried my hand at the crossword on long flights. I kept going with the international edition of the NYT until they spinelessly cancelled Chapate and editorial cartoons. I also cancelled them then. But I’ve stuck with the puzzle. The best day of puzzling was when some time ago @Deb thought something I’d written was witty. I doubt I’ll have another highlight like that. Thank you Deb for your kindness and guidance

A delightful puzzle. No downs. Only ups. May the comment count only go upupup

HAVOC is not a verb and as Calvin told Hobbs “verbing weirds language”

A tad too much trivia for this member of the overseas contingent. Especially the crossed ones INNES, LASSO UMASS, MERYL, GRETA CUSACK, IVEY, MAMA were getable from the crosses. RAPSHEET came out in the wash and was a 🙄 moment 😃 What’s the EXPO national link?

This wasn’t even fair. COMEHITHER isn’t flirtatious Knowing that Tahoe is a MACOSX version is inane trivia, and plenty of other clues that were not on my wavelength. GEMS, RAGA, and crossing AYO EDEBIRI whom I forfeit as soon as they appeared in this puzzle some time ago with RIRI was just 🫤 Not chewy, just silly. Thanks for the effort anyway

That was a slog. Made it in extra time. Had to dig deep to not look up or give up. As opposed to many here I didn’t find much of it clever. I guess not my day. Completed without a sense of achievement. The USeteric stuff were mostly a cultural reference too far for me. Glad others liked it. As an aside: Non GMO is not organic. It’s not GMO.

Got there eventually but the cultural chasm today was deep Never heard of THE FLOOR IS LAVA, no idea what a TPED house has had done to it, and it’s a Pub Crawl not a BAR CRAWL. TGEL through the crosses but that’s par for the course. Crossing it with WELTY was not really a Wednesday thing 😀 The theme was nice. Thanks

Solving this without any prior knowledge of wicked is, nor the song or for that matter the singer was quite hard. But it was done. Mini brag 😀

Too many proper names that didn’t travel well across the Atlantic. Only MOB RULE and SAAB were gimmes. Not doable for me without ADAM SILVER. I know this is sacrilegious here but I had just gotten used to Joel and it was nice. Maybe just a bad day …

Only disappointed that Right, right, right didn’t solve to left. An excellent puzzle. Only gimmes were AESOP and VESPA (the latter only because I used to go around on one). Liked MESA for flat earth. Thanks

Straightforward with the exception of the C in CANO & NSC. Puzzled by the photo in Sam’s column. Did ladies in the monochrome days really hike in heels?

Doing a NY puzzle implies accepting certain constraints. The wrong spelling of colour, bizarre crosswordese, pop culture that is particularly US centric etc, etc. The benefits are in the “cleverness” of the clueing or the themes. Today sadly failed on all counts. Having to also speak with some particular accent was beyond me. Finished it without a clue why it was constructed on the first place.

Took for absolutely ever. 🫤 Way too much trivia for my taste. The BAMA BADU AMANDA AMIR block went way beyond the natick. It was cruel. The gimmick was ok and cleverly executed. STELMO should have sufficed but it took UNDERTHETREE to get me there. Tomorrow’s another day. Thanks.

I came to say that anyone who found that easy is on another planet. Then I found that it’s just me who had to work at it. Never mind. I found it Friday worthy. It was work and was enjoyable Thanks.

It seems to me that Sam Corbin is doing just fine in her Greek mythology … “Idioms are the sirens of crossword clues, beckoning you into a sea of false interpretations.” Brilliant! 😃😃😃 And a nice straightforward puzzle

Wishing Deb a speedy recovery. Puzzle was a good early morning Friday.

the gimmick of having to delete the dancer to complete was way beyond me. Spent longer trying to find the error than solving. Very much spoiled a perfectly decent puzzle. 🫤

MOE, RHO, TECUSMEH, TRINI, HORCHATA, BACNE, PEETS, ALCOA, SMITH, WESSON, PAT, RIBBONS are all Americana and largely uninteresting. Tecusmeh and ΣΓΡ being the exceptions. Got there in the end but it wasn’t particularly entertaining for me. No sense of accomplishment at the end. Glad others enjoyed it. Never mind. Some puzzles just turn out that way.

It’s a comment section folks. All people are free to comment. Those who found it easy, those who found it obtuse, those who thought IDIOLECT is a neologism that only made it into the dictionary because the compilers lost the will to fight, and those who just came here to say: Meh 🫤 it was okay. Made the train ride to Paris this morning less tiresome.

Ice hockey (hockey is another sport), American sitcoms, miss universe and indie pop, sci fi movie, and an American church acronym in one puzzle is a little too much. Done but the clueing for LARA, IVAN, and ESSO was super esoteric. You can keep RETTA. One in a puzzle is totally ok. It wasn’t a hard puzzle, it was just awkward. Thanks anyway. And who puts extra cheese on pie … yuck

Rule the first: The emus should allow any word that has sppeared in the puzzles.

I suspect that the setter doesn’t choose the day of the week the puzzle is used for, so for those who found it easy why don’t you pick on the editor or would that be anathema here? I found it just fine, chewy enough and with some clever wordplay. The trick took its time to reveal itself. MACGYVERED was super nice. Thanks to the constructor and the editor

Commenting early means you’re with the quick folks. 🫤 For me this was a slog. Certainly not easier than yesterday which I also took my time over. No one PRATEs

Unquestionably the hardest for a very long time. Doable but it took for ever to get the top done. It never occurred to me that not being a US taxpayer would have drawbacks… IRS logo … 😀 OPEN MARRIAGES was cleverly clued. No idea what a GORP is. Probably doesn’t matter Thanks

Absolutely no joy not even sarcastically. Whoever LAMAR JACKSON may be, he is unknown to me, as was TYRONE. Who CABSITs ? Not even a word. It’s a BRAUEREI and not BRAUHAUS not fun, not clever, not nice Glad the M contingent in 48D enjoyed it

Thank you Deb for making sense of all of this with humour and kindness. It’s been a pleasure to read your column. Enjoy your next adventures

A puzzle worthy of a Saturday

I can see the antinumerists possibly having objections but I found it to be a very nice puzzle. 👍😀 The calories clue was clunky — amount of an energy unit — 🫤 A little bit of mental arithmetic, a little bit of knowledge about units, and TWOD for plane elicited a smile. Thanks to the setter and congratulations on an excellent debut.

So it’s themeless and thus will land on Friday or a Saturday. Not much trivia to artificially make it hard. So in order to make it a Friday we’re left with the cluing being fiendish. Well it wasn’t. It was benign. A nice set of answers that merited better.

Answering the constructor: it didn’t need the highlighting. The aha moment would have been enhanced. A clever and entertaining puzzle in any case. Thanks.