BAuskern

Putting down NEPAL instead of TIBET; not having a clue who Jason SEGEL is; having had mint JELLY many times but never mint SAUCE; and who on earth eats corn on the COB at Thanksgiving? Well, given all that, no wonder today's puzzle was a toughie for me!

I'm absolutely embarrassed to admit that the clue that gave me the toughest time was "Ends with a K, perhaps" . . . . and here I am having signed up to race a 10K on Sunday . . . . .

To the many folks who are complaining that today's puzzle was too hard/challenging/vexing . . . . Go back into the NYTXW archives and pick a puzzle from 20 years ago (or longer). Those were quantum levels tougher than what we get today. (Or else I've just gotten *so* much smarter in my old age!)

True genius. And the cluing was top notch. One of the best puzzles to come down the pike in a very long time.

Just ducky! (Sorry, couldn't resist.) The only thing that slowed me down was confidently writing in SUSSEX and then realizing that that couldn't work. WESSEX was an easy guess. This was such a clever theme, but RUBBER put it over the top!

LOME is not that far from - - - drum roll --- PORTO NOVO, for those of you paying attention to recent NYTXW geography. And also not that far from ACCRA, if you really want to hit the trifecta. But to hit the trifecta you'd probably need a DOPESHEET. Hey, I don't make this stuff up. Don't shoot me. At least not with a WALTHERPPK.

I loved the cleverness of the cluing for ITPRO and USHER. If the puzzle had one flaw, it's that once I figured out the trick for the first themer, it became super easy to get the other crosses. That said (and despite rex parker totally dumping on the theme), I thought it was pretty ingenious and well executed. It made for an easy Thursday, but that's only because the theme jumped out pretty quickly. All in all: kudos to the constructor and the editors.

Even though I solved this fairly quickly (for me), there were so many proper nouns (names of SNL folk; TV people; Swedish cities; Othello character; Korean drinks) that it felt more like a test of trivia. Which is a shame, because I really liked the long crosses. And once I figured out CREW, I thought that that was Saturday-level clever. Speaking of RHUBARB, our three rhubarb plants survive each winter and they have just exploded over the past three days.

A very hard Friday, took me well above my average, and yet I enjoyed every bit of the struggle. SLICEDBREAD was a treat.

If I have two little quibbles (and trust me, it's very very hard to quibble after last night's news) - - - I wasn't crazy about ETHERS in the plural - it's ETHER that knocks you out, right? - - - or NUNHOOD (I was going strong with NUNNERY until I just couldn't any more). But UBERIZE kind of made up for those two little glitches. Says the old guy. All in all, a satisfyingly easy Friday.

Oh my (OHME???) that SE corner was a toughie! And I had LEASESOUT as my immediate gimme, except.it.was.wrong . . .

ABYSM instead of ABYSS felt ABYSMALLY wrong to me. Maybe it would pass muster on a Friday. The fact that Oprah's BFF is named GAYLE is a bit of pop culture esoterica that is way beyond my radar. And the weird spelling of the word formerly known as WHOA was one of those unfortunate compromises that the constructor needs to make for the sake of the theme. I guess I like what the constructor was trying to do, and I can appreciate the effort that went into the puzzle, but there were too many clunkers for me to really love it.

What a puzzle! Slow, but satisfying. 48' before I heard the reqard! The SE corner was my killer. I confidently put down BOWL as a cup alternaitve [PINT] I had PARKAS as the cold weather outerwear. I wasn't crazy about ANORAK because I've worn a Patagonia ANORAK for 20+ years. I don't think of it as a cold weather accessory. I wear it on chilly Spring days as a wind breaker. And I thought BONGOS first (instead of BERETS), so that SE corner was a toughie. So many wonderful answers and clues.

If I had one tiny gripe to make (and it's hard to gripe these days, what with my faith in the jury system being restored), it's that some of the clues (The Turtles; Cheers) were based more on triva that skews toward older Boomers. Otherwise, this was pretty easy as far as Saturdays go.

Haha I'm noticing that some folks are posting the identical comment both here and *also* on rex parker's website . . . . . which I realized feels wrong to me on a deep fundamental and philosophical level. Dudes, you've got to pick a side. One side. And stay there. You can't vote for both the democrat and the republican in the same election.

So much easierthan yesterday's challenge! PAGINGDRFREUD made it all worth it. But as a big fan of the group Yes, is it really referred to as PROG rock, or as "progressive" rock? I know PROG rock is a thing, but I've never really heard anyone use the term. With that said, feast your ears on: <a href="https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=yes+heart+of+the+sunrise&type=E210US105G0#id=4&vid=9805c85732b9c4ee05e4f4deba4f873a&action=click" target="_blank">https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=yes+heart+of+the+sunrise&type=E210US105G0#id=4&vid=9805c85732b9c4ee05e4f4deba4f873a&action=click</a>

That northwest corner was my downfall. I don't think of the Hebrew letter as BETH, I see it as BET. So I had ELIZA preceding BETH, and patted myself on the back, except that it totally screwed me up in that corner. I guess I also don't see a watermelon as an OVAL shape (two dimensions), as watermelons are three dimensional. At least the ones EYE eat. Other than that, I thought the puzzle was masterfully constructed.

Line around the Equator was worth the price of admission. This one felt much harder -- particularly the SW corner -- and yet I finished a good ten minutes under my average? for the longest time I had SAMEHERE, which probably means that I've aged out of SAMESIES. And to the old me - - there is a big difference between creating a MIXTAPE, where you select the songs and their order, and a streaming service where you never know quite what the next song will be. But that minor quibble does not detract from what was a super puzzle. Loved it!

TETRIS as a verb! Who knew? For red sauce I confiodently filled in MARINARA, so the SW corner was a bit of a pause for me, but once I started afresh, this was a fairly easy Saturday.

"The Entertainer" certainly brought back a lot of CHILDHOODMEMORIES. We had an ice cream truck that made its way through our neighborhhod every evening in the summer. We would pause our sandlot softball game to get treats. An ice cream bar was probably 35 cents or so. Man I'm getting old. There were certainly a lot of proper names in today's puzzle, but it was fun nevertheless.

I just left the circles as they were, and had no technical issues whatsoever completing the puzzle. I just went back and looked at the long themers, and I have to say, I am pretty impressed! Well-constructed.

It's rare when a puzzle stumps me - - - - but this one totally did. Because it was a Thursday, I kept on trying to make rebuses where apparently they don't exist. A DNF, but I feel no shame.

But for the unfortunate cross of FRAPPES (a New England-style milkshake) and Arundhati ROY (who won the Booker Prize more than 25 years ago), this was a fun Saturday. If I were to get picky, I'm not sure that thoughts are actually formed in a SYNAPSE - - - I always thought the SYNAPSE merely moved signals from one area to another. I say "merely," but I recognize that it's a pretty cool function.

Having never heard or AMONRA, and misspelling REMY/REMI . . . . . the NW corner was my bete noire. And while absolutely no one in the universe cares if I finish the Friday puzzle or not, it does sort of sting when the clues that catch you up are names of folks you've never/barely heard of. Rant over.

Andre Agassi is an obvious GRANDSLAMWINNER, so that got me hung up for awhile. And then I thought he might be Italian (well, I didn't really think so, but hey, it fit). A few too many proper names for my taste (Panic in the Disco!???), but any puzzle with a triple stacker is a winner in my book.