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Fun puzzle! I knew the theme right away when I saw 18A, and even knew the film off the top of my head--I had bought Ebert's collection "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" at a train station back in the 2000s. My only criticism is that it would have been nice to celebrate both Siskel and Ebert, since I believe this week marks the 50th anniversary of their debut as a reviewer team on television.
FCC, EPA, GULFOFMEXICO--"the President's lawyers" at DOJ are about to sue the NYT for publishing this crossword.
Woke up, made my coffee, saw it was Ezersky, was prepared to hate it, and it far exceeded my expectations. Realizing 1A was VAPEJUICE was like a revolting cherry on top.
Certainly my fastest ever Ezersky, by a margin of several hours.
Was 100% sure that 57A was CHICKENFAT. My mouth started watering as I filled it in. I think every letter was wrong.
@Rahul I had Eminem for a while, but turns out he didn't release an album in 2001.
I thought this wasn't impossible and mostly an appropriate difficulty, but by the time I got to the SW, I had to give up and look some things up. KITES was a really rough crossing: * Lots of things have strings * If you didn't know the sports team (or, like me, had the misleading idea of "Arizona Wildcats"), half the letters of the alphabet could substitute for K * The abbreviation could be many different letters, with "PC" having multiple meanings also * If you didn't know the British actress, it could reasonably be ELLIE or aLLIE (or oLLIE?) * The herbarium item seemed like SEEDS but could maybe also be rEEDS, with 46D being a collective noun or weird plural
Haven't commented here in a while, but this was a great one! Just the right mix of new and old, straightforward and misdirection, trivia with crosses that you can grind out. A perfect example would be LEETIDE. It's a term I'd never heard before, but the starting L got me the LEE part, since I knew there were Windward and Leeward Islands. Had LEEward and LEEsIDE before finally getting the last cross.
Very nice puzzle! Was sad I had to look at the answer key, but I had FLIES (i.e., fly balls) instead of SKIES, and FEWER (i.e., coming in *under* the bottom *line*) instead of SEWER. I knew AWALENS couldn't possibly be right, but I had a couple other uncertainties in the grid, and I wasn't up for spending half an hour checking this morning. Totally on me though!
@Lauren RIGG was clued as an actress named Diana who has a four-letter last name and is in a crossword puzzle. The only other option would be ROSS, who hasn't been in a movie since 1978. I wasn't familiar with the particular TV show, but I filled it in immediately as a guess and started looking at the crosses.
Got the scrabble reference as I was solving, and enjoyed it. Agree that there were too many proper nouns and crosses thereof. I happened to know most of them, or could make an educated guess (DOLAN / RENATO). Still, I was stuck with one mistake for a couple minutes. Finally, decided to look at the answer, figuring it must have been one of the name crosses. Turns out I had AXeS instead of AXIS, and wasn't even checking there. Had been trying to figure out how a ROsé would pair with KORMA--seems tasty enough.
This one was weird but I really liked it. All of the clues and answers were a little uncanny, but it seemed like they all shared the same kind of logic. By the end, I felt like I'd had dinner with a very interesting person and learned a lot about their life.
Really good puzzle! Really, really good. Yes... ha ha ha... yes!
Figured out the twist right away, got most of the puzzle in 10 min, and then spent 30 min on the SE corner trying various words with AbOve and ALOFT before finally giving up and doing some lookups. I think I might have gotten DECOR if I stared at it for another 30 min. The clues are still seem a bit clangy to me, to be honest. Will have to remember arch = OGEE and mustang = TTOP from now on, the same way pasta = PENNE and hockey player = ORR.
126-Across was definitely what inspired this puzzle. Truly saving the best for last. Great puzzle! Or in the spirit of many of the clues, un puzzle merveilleux!
Breathing heavily, but no lookups, even in the (long) checking process.
Overall liked this puzzle for a Saturday, and especially how a couple words had consonants and vowels in unexpected places and combinations: NCISLA, AMENDMENTI, SUPERG. The last 10 minutes came down to me checking the NW and the SW. I had SNEES, which I'd never heard of, and cETTER, which didn't seem right but all the crosses looked fine. NETTER makes sense in retrospect, but I kept thinking of a lepidopterist in terms of mounting, not catching. I finally googled ELSTON and OUTATIME to make sure those were right, and then I just started going letter by letter until I got it. Was I the only one with CLASSPIc instead of CLASSPIN?
For people who like having their MTWRFSS in order from slowest to fastest: remember when that unusually easy Saturday came around on July 1, 2023? I never thought I'd beat my time there on a Friday puzzle. Until today. Now I just have to figure out how to do a Thursday even faster than this.
Tricky! Interesting grid, the middle section effectively made it almost like four separate puzzles blocked off from each other. Started off in the NE and went clockwise, with each quadrant getting a little harder than the last.
Fun, but really a weird puzzle! Filled in ATP immediately, but was not expecting it to be the right answer, if you know what I mean.
If you haven't heard of an OSMIC acid stain, don't despair--I'm not an expert in the field by any means, but I've spent dozens of hours taking pictures on an electron microscope, and it was new to me as well! Fun but tough, tough but fair. Glad that seems to be the consensus! Usually with a grid like this, there's one corner that gives me trouble--this time it was all of them.
@John Rarely as confident in a 1A as I was in that one. I even thought, could this be my new Friday record?
@Kevin Rebuses are pretty common in NYT, and most of the cross clues requiring the PHI rebus were easy and unambiguous (AMPHIBIA, SOPHIA, DOLPHIN, PHILBIN). The Atlantic crossword never has rebuses, if that's your preferred solving style.
@Jamie Wait until you find out about EKE and Bobby ORR.
Somehow ended up with Jane hAYER, Jacques TATo, and a derelict house that is a hONEYPoT (??). I guess it made sense to me at the time. Had to do a quick Google for the first time in a while. I'll need to check out one of Mssr. Tati's films. Fun gimmick, not too tough.
A lot good in this puzzle, but a couple big clangs for me that made it overly tough: EVENSTEVEN, FEUDISTS, DICER. I had never heard of EPT and will probably forget it in ten minutes, but the crosses were straightforward enough.
Nick and I must be on the same wavelength, because this was my fastest Saturday ever, and within 5 seconds of my fastest Friday! I think I beat my previous time by something like 20-30 seconds. I guess it was helpful that I happened to know most of the trivia items for the long answers right away, and they were well-connected to the rest of the puzzle.
I did this one 4% faster than my Friday average, too easy, I'm canceling my subscription. (just kidding! although that college application article from last night had me strongly considering)
@SP I happened to get a ton of these right off the bat--RIGVEDA, DOGBREATH, MATEINONE, GOREY, ECTOPLASM--and this was still hard for me!
@Richard As I filled in letters, I kept thinking MUNSHI would end up being some word I'd recognize, but no, it wasn't at all!
@Tony I passed a 4mm kidney stone a couple months ago and was in so much pain I vomited.
@Barry Ancona 29D: Perhaps I've been getting a bunch of scam emails about car payments from the same address, or the same domain. I would set up a filter blocking that domain, so I don't get them anymore. Yes, it's more tenuous than SPAM, but I also say "spam emails" much more than "email spam." 56A: In the sense of "the die is cast", meaning the opportunity to reach a different outcome is gone. People are allowed to post about their wrong answers here!
@Dave K. Since you're a fan of science, "The Human Cosmos" by Jo Marchant is an incredible book about how astrological observations in ancient times led to astronomical observations throughout history and into the present--and the frontiers of human understanding that's still exist. I'm a chemical engineer with a PhD, but the history can be fun to think about, and informs my understanding of art and literature. And I notice whenever I get a personality/work-style test at work, the personality types often map exactly onto the astrological signs. Humans have been saying the same thing in different ways for a long time.
@Steve L I didn't know the name, and I was looking at it while trying to fix EMAILScAM. I did know Mystic River was about Irish-American people, so I thought LEHANE was more likely. But the possibility of ETALII did get me thinking as to whether it could be Dennis LEviNE. (OSCARHOSTS was pretty set as a cross though)
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