KidA

I typically only comment when I have been slain by the day’s puzzle as a way to vent, but I have to comment on the “simple” brilliance of today’s offering. I’m sure it was incredibly difficult to construct, and it brought a smile to my face realizing that the constructor had managed to adroitly fit a single ‘L’ into every answer. Bravo!

Loved it. Any puzzle that can squeeze in TURINGTEST and ZEITGEIST(Y) gets a thumbs up from me. Got a good chuckle out the cluing for BACKSPLASH, ISLET, and LAY - good stuff there. I did give myself the ‘N’ in SNARFING/ARNIE as I, like many others, had ‘C’ in there - being much more familiar with “scarfing down”. After filling in the grid and getting “aw shucks” instead of the music, I hit the column and the comments. Gold star by my standards, YMMV of course. re: musical genres. As someone who listens to lots of music and loves exploring different genres (experimental industrial or dark ambient, anyone? ;-), I learned to give these puzzles a pass a long time ago. “Ish” applies here. If it’s close enough, it works. Labeling music to begin with is a divisive endeavor; dancing about architecture and all that.

Proper Friday. Great cluing, many “aha!” Moments. Can’t really see any weak spots in the whole grid. Nicely done. TIL what aficionado really means. Clever misdirect on what typically shows up as “ole” - liked that.

Woof. Over the last year or two, I have really grown to enjoy Saturday’s. I like trying to find a foothold over a cup or 2 of coffee, and then continue chipping away over breakfast (a bacon-egg-cheddar sandwich with a layer of apple butter, eggs fried in the bacon grease - not sorry). I also enjoy enlisting the help of my SO as that makes it a joint activity as we work thru clues and ideas. However, today’s puzzle went from a nice way to enjoy my Saturday morning to a knuckle-bloodying, knock-down, drag out fight that I refused to lose. Clearly I am glutton for punishment as, in the end, I just wanted to defeat it. Everything else be …. Well.. “darned”. As my SO will attest, it did not appear that I was really having fun with this one. If the gold star were a physical object I could pin on myself, I think I would pin it thru my skin like some kind of tribal war trophy and a reminder of the struggle.

“With one breath, with one flow, you will know…” I had to give a hearty laugh at seeing BACTRIAN come together. There is absolutely no way I would have known this except for the fact that I have just started reading the 4th book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (great read for any D&D/HitchHiker fans) where the local population are the two different types of camels. Reading is indeed, fundamental. Had fun with this one - a nice Saturday.

Loved it! Admittedly, most of the grid was fairly easy for me - but that’s fine. I did have a few wrong turns here and there. Loved the extra layer of figuring out the key, esp the ‘C’ clue - quite impressed that a grid that size only had one ‘C’ throughout. Very enjoyable for a Sunday morning.

Heh, what a difference a day makes. A nice, rainy Saturday morning solve over a few cups of coffee and slices of toasted panettone. But, I must agree with others on here that it might have been a little too easy for a Saturday, esp when compared to the buzz saw that was yesterday (still unfinished, btw). Not complaining either way - time to forge a new streak.

Count me as a fan - it was an incomprehensible jumble until it wasn’t - which is typical for Thursday. The (ice?) blocks finally fell into place after I had more than half the puzzle filled in. Then the whole neat/rocks out bits made sense. And, hey - the ice-less entries are all words on their own - no small feat. Good stuff.

Oof, yeah that was some real mental gymnastics there - I mean like triple backflips, somersaults and twists all rolled into one. Lot of twisting and pulling, and not just the taffy. But, I did get it. I “gifted” (not adept) myself lookups for Mrs. Bush - had her face in my head but just… could… not… remember her name - and CISCO. Was surprised that 2 of my early entries, LATEST FAD and HELPLINES were actually on target. So many other pieces and parts were not. Of particular note was TINY->ITTY->ITSY - that had me in some knots for a bit. Oh, and putting NIL early on did me no favors either - that was clearly intended to misdirect. But, now looking at all of the words in the completed grid - that’s a pretty good Saturday. It should be full of words you don’t normally come across in puzzles (typical filler). A solid challenge indeed. Do the kids say, “Tuff puzz”?

Had a lot of fun with this one. Several layers of personal synchronicity going on here. I was listening to the Talking Heads all morning while doing the puzzle so solving 59A made me LOL. I was also thinking of an old colleague who got me started on daily puzzle solving. He had the privilege of seeing said band at CBGB’s back in the day - something I have always been jealous of. Further, Amnesiac is my favorite Radiohead album, despite my handle here.

DNF, even after taking the blue with about 50% done. I’m over it. Went at this at several different times throughout the day, employing the old “put it down and come back later” strategy, but was still making very little headway. This was just wayyyyyyyyyy out of my wheelhouse. To me this was harder than 95% of the Saturday’s - and I’ve been doing these every day for more than a few years. Just. Did. Not. Click.

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?” Haha! Love it when I get a spanner right off the bat. How serendipitous to get a clue referencing the only Hemingway book I’ve read - although I am just finishing up The Old Man and the Sea - so another tie-in. And although we just read the Odyssey last year (have yet to see the Nolan film), I credit Sting for teaching me about SCYLLA and Charybdis. I like the comment in here calling out the mini-Odyssey theme between DAWNED (rosy-fingered - yes!), ATHENA, SET SAIL and SCYLLA. Loved PALATE CLEANSERS and will have to look up trou normand. AESOPICA was another fun one. Living in FLA, MANATEE is a gimme. As a long time lover of all things Pythonesque - I must also give a hearty, “Haha!” , to beloved SPAM and now those Vikings will be in my head all day. This was a bright, fun Saturday - thoroughly enjoyed it - of course it helped to be on “the wavelength” as it were too.

Ooof. Definitely a Saturday for a Friday, IMO. Here it is Saturday morning and I have maybe 25% filled in and have already “taken the blue”. Was pleased to find that what paltry amount I did have filled in was correct. But, for now, the rest is just not clicking for me. I can’t even come up with any good guesses. No criticisms here, I’ve been doing this long enough to know the patterns and the drill - “it’s me, not you” Fridays tend to be much more difficult for me than Saturdays as I don’t have the same luxury of time; no leisurely morning coffee whilst having a go, putting it down, coming back, etc. Once we get past dinner and start settling into our Friday night tv routine, the puzzle has a good chance of becoming a streak-breaker if too much is still left. So, I’ll put this one down for now, move onto today’s and come back to this early next week when I want an extra challenge.

Woof. Called for the life preserver after having the Eastern block and most of the middle filled out. Had what I thought were footholds in the other areas, but those all turned out to be wrong - no way I was ever gonna solve this one - just not aligned to me. Took me repeated “checks” to fill in a couple other sections and I still don’t have the puzzle completed as of this writing. The mathematician in me wrinkled my nose at “loci” for spots, but I’ve been doing these long enough to not get too bent about such fine “points”. I did like the grid and how the center was arranged to create, essentially, 4 mini-puzzles. Tough stuff, but, hey, it’s Saturday. I’ll look up the stuff I don’t know and move on.

Surprised to be so aligned with this one today - esp an Agard entry, which usually gives me fits. Hit the ground running with this one with 1A - first word that popped into my head. That was the case with several other entries as well. I almost dread Friday and Saturday starts like that because I typically run out of steam quite quickly and then struggle the rest of the way. Got the top and bottom layers filled out in very quick order and then had to chip away at the middle for a bit. Loved the grid shape right off the bat and looked forward to working out that quad stack of spanners - man, that’s got to be difficult to construct. Loved learning about impossible colors today (TIL!) - went straight to teh inter webs as soon as I had that one filled in. Kinda reminds me of one of the techniques Dali would use where he would press on his eyelids and then try to paint the colors and after-images.

Haha, good times. Loved the crossing of JARTS with JACUZZI. I remember summer days of jarts, drinking from the hose, and catching fireflies right after sunset. Almost comical to think that jarts are illegal compared to other things. Too bad our Founding Fathers didn’t play… Good value for money today, as they say. Enjoyed this one thoroughly for a Saturday entry.

Some days you get the bahr, and some days he gets you. Today was the latter. Several passes and two cups of coffee over a couple of hours yielded a chunk of the NE and that was about it. Just not clicking for me today - clues and answers beyond my ken. After starting to resort to google for help, I took the blue, which wiped out a few guesses I wasn’t too confident about. Maybe I’ll finish this later…

Almost broke me. Started out with wrong answers begetting other wrong answers…. Had the NE and most of the middle done and still couldn’t understand what was going on - downs were not falling into place - I was just not on the wavelength. But, I kept at it and eventually grokked the word play. Hats off to the constructor for making valid words both with and without the “it”. And, yeah, I was also like, “It was Siskel and Ebert, not the other way around…”

Ooof. I got 22A right off the bat, feeling good about myself, and then proceeded to very slowly chip away at the rest over the next 2+ hours. Not complaining - certainly a worthy Saturday. Add me to the list who enjoyed 50A - small chuckle when I was finally able to work that out. Loved learning about quipu’s - half the reason I do these things. Good show.

Oof. Second Saturday in a row that has just gone plain unfinished. That’s after “taking the blue” and doing a bunch of look ups - something I never do for the gold star. I would guess I can get the star for 75% of the Saturday’s I have done and I have been doing them for a couple of years now. I expect them to be difficult - the ultimate challenge for the week. It typically takes me several cracks over the course of the whole day. I am not casting aspersions on the recent difficulty of the puzzles - as someone else stated last week, the NYT does not owe me anything, and clearly many folks are able to solve these puzzles and appreciate the jaw-breaking crunch, as it were. That’s cool. I am merely sharing my own struggles. Clearly there has been a shift or course correction lately to up the difficulty. I do these puzzles because I appreciate the challenge as well, and I enjoy learning new words, new bits of history or geography, and ferreting out shades of meaning. They force me to think in ways that I typically do not. The last couple have just been really obtuse from my vantage point, but I soldier on.

Nice! I enjoyed it, especially the construction of the 2-word phrases - well done. I didn’t even consider the aspect, as mentioned by the constructor, that these are all “banned” words in crosswords - way to fight the power, sister! Now, why do I feel like having some cake…. ?

It’s been 18mos since I had to take the blue on a Wednesday…. After having half a grid of nonsense, I finally asked for the life preserver to save me. On the left side I had what looked like some Dutch name, while on the right I had 2 long (natch) down answers I was _absolutely_ certain of, but acrosses that made no sense. I just couldn’t fit all the pieces together. Once I cleaned up my grid and read the column, I realized that many of the acrosses I wanted to put in orignally were correct. Guess I should have paid more attention to my spidey sense there. Days like today are why I stopped caring about “streaks” a long time ago.

Haha! Cool. I worked out the theme clues whilst stuck on the dread SW corner like so many others. Broke out the pencil and paper and then quickly realized I didn’t really need it. Initially wondered how and where those clues/answers would fit, but upon seeing good ole Ludwig Van, as Alex would say, the lightbulb went off. Eventually just looked up the rapper’s name - know the Doors, not her - this provided extra boost I needed to finish. Personal fave version of “Break on through” is the live version with the whole “Dead cats, dead rats” intro. “Riders on the Storm” is a prolly my personal fave of their whole catalog - that descending keyboard riff is just sublime.

In to complain about 4D - there should only be one, true, acceptable answer here and that is “Corinthinian” (said with apppropriate ‘r’ trilling and syllabic emphasis, of course). That is all.

Guess I wasn’t the only one who struggled a bit with this. I was afraid I might have to “take the blue”, and for a Wednesday no less! Cut and thrusted with it most of the day. It wasn’t till I finally clocked out, sat on the couch, and beamed all of my mental energies onto it, that I was able to finish. T_PEO evaded me for the longest. Regarding the Doris Day song, my parents were not even teenagers when it came out and yet I am very familiar with it. Perhaps you’ve never seen the excellent 80’s dark comedy “Heathers” or had the pleasure of standing in a packed football stadium singing in full voice, Que sera, sera Whatever will be, will be We’re going to Wem-bley Que sera, sera

Once again laid low by a Friday. They are my streak-breaking kryptonite - much more so than Saturdays. Here it is Saturday morning and I am still staring at a mostly empty grid. Since Friday is a work day, I don’t have the luxury of leisurely solves and my time to work with the puzzle is limited. There’s just not a lot here that is clicking for me and the trivia - which one typically relies on to get a foothold for the trickier/punnier clues - is mostly outside my sphere of knowledge. I did get a few, but I’m just not seeing the words with the letters they provided. Every natural answer I have just doesn’t fit. So, once again I’ll put this puzzle down for a bit and move on to Saturday’s. Lastly, the “Beatle” misdirect in the SE was cruel, man, just cruel - esp since the ‘B’ was right. And when texting amongst _my friends_ the response to “ty” is “yw”.

Tough, but fair. TIL “gneiss” - cool. SE was the final area to fall and I admit that I did have to look up the comedian’s name as there were a few things in that corner that I just couldn’t get even with most of the letters filled in. Even as I filled in ANTECEDENT, I had to look it up - I know I knew that at some point, but I also knew how to diagram a sentence too. Count me amongst those who got a chuckle out of SEXTAPE as well - good cluing there.

I finished the puzzle but am not getting the happy music and “Congratulations!” I have checked it again and again, and, to be honest, the only answer that has me puzzled is “OYLESS”. Cause, I mean it HAS to be “SPIDEY SENSE”, right? right?

Huh, ok. I got the music and credit for the solve w/o filling anything in the circles. Since the answers made sense w/o anything filled in, I didn’t truly get the theme until I came here and read the column. I actually got the revealer fairly early on, but the whole “double” part eluded me. Again, since the answers with empty circles read fine, it never occurred to me that something should be filled in - even tho I am quite familiar with “Thursdays”. Just too late and too tired - I killed my streak and took the blue early on as too much of the grid just wasn’t coming to me. Oh well, note the trick and move on.