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Shell-inspired shade of greenish blue / SAT 12-9-23 / Defiant declaration popularized by the drag queen Bianca Del Rio / Most of the English force at Agincourt / Geographical inspiration for Strauss / Goddess of the loud hunt in Homer's Iliad / Causes to grow, humorously / 19th-century garb completed by top hats and gloves / Fictional Dr. Jones, familiarly / Bootlicker's specialty / Pillar of the superhero community
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Constructor: Doug Peterson and Christina Iverson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: PEWIT (47A: Northern lapwing) —
The northern lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), also known as the peewit or pewit, tuit or tewit, green plover, or (in Ireland and Great Britain) pyewipe or just lapwing, is a bird in the lapwing subfamily. It is common through temperate Eurosiberia. // It is highly migratory over most of its extensive range, wintering further south as far as North Africa, northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of China. It migrates mainly by day, often in large flocks. Lowland breeders in westernmost areas of Europe are resident. It occasionally is a vagrant to North America, especially after storms, as in the Canadian sightings after storms in December 1927 and in January 1966. // It is a wader that breeds on cultivated land and other short vegetation habitats. 3–4 eggs are laid in a ground scrape. The nest and young are defended noisily and aggressively against all intruders, up to and including horses and cattle. // In winter, it forms huge flocks on open land, particularly arable land and mud-flats. (wikipedia)
• • •
The first place where I went "Oh, OK, we're doing something today, are we?" was when I wrote in "CAN CONFIRM..." a perfect little colloquial compression, one that I mainly see online rather than hear in conversation ... but so much more of my communication happens online rather than irl now that I'm not a good gauge of how much certain phrases exist off-screen as opposed to on. At any rate, it is a phrase I've seen/heard a lot, that I've used, and I love it. I also loved "ACT NATURAL," which is such a goofy comedy-scene-about-to-happen thing to say—a great intro answer to the puzzle. I got that NW corner sorted and prepared to whack my way into the thick middle of the grid, when I accidentally entered warp mode and bleep bloop zip I was clear on the other side of the grid:
"WHY NOT BOTH?" is an ultracommon internet meme, while also being just an ordinary expression one might say. It works on ... both ... levels. You don't gotta be extremely online to love it, But It Helps. When I entered the home stretch and saw EMBIGGENS—a "Simpsons" coinage from the peak years of that show (my years of peak obsession), first heard in the voice of the late great Phil Hartman in the role of Troy McClure, who plays Springfield town founder Jebediah Springfield in a cheaply made and outlandishly historically implausible educational film shown to the children of Springfield elementary—I say, once I saw this answer, well, I knew the puzzle was made just for me, with my best interests at heart, and I thanked it. Then "AH, ME" showed up and I wanted to kick it, but instead I just affectionately mussed its hair, called it a lovable scamp, and sent it back to whatever hellhole it lives in on off days.
There was one sort of tough choke point for me in today's solve, and that was on the drop into the SE corner. I had TOBEY, and I kinda wanted SERAPH at 39D: Heavenly being, but I also wanted "YOU'RE OUT!" at 35D: Words to end a play ("YOUR TURN"), and I really Really wanted SOB at 49A: Break down, in a way (ROT). So I floundered a bit. But once I committed (tentatively) to SERAPH, I could see that the first word of 58-Across wanted to be "WHY..." so I tested that "W" and got TOW and that was that. Off I went again. The only other problem I had today was coming up with DUCK EGG, a "shade" I've never heard of (28A: Shell-inspired shade of greenish blue). Eventually I had the DUCK and thought, "well, three letters, must be the duck's EGG," and then the "G" was confirmed by EMBIGGENS (cue Hallelujah chorus) and all my problems were over. Really really loved the way this puzzle UNFOLDED (7D: Played out). Just a ton of fun.
Additional notes:
- 20A: Fish also known as wahoo (ONO) — this is a really good bit of trivia to know for crosswords. Yoko has to work so hard; sometimes she just needs a break. Also, you sometimes see WAHOO in the puzzle clued as a fish, so tuck that info away for later.
- 40A: Safari destinations (URLS) — Apple's web browser is named Safari. I'm using it right now.
- 10D: The Eagle, e.g., for short (LEM) — realizing now that I don't know what the "E" stands for. I think the "L" and "M" are "lunar module" ... let's see ... aha, "Excursion"! Lunar Excursion Module. "The Eagle" was made famous with the 1969 moon-landing announcement, "The Eagle has landed."
- 26D: What might be heard before a bust ("HIT ME!") — oh, this was also hard. I was thinking maybe a drug bust ("OPEN UP!"???) or a breakage of some sort ("OOPS!"??), but it's Blackjack.
- 33A: Founder of the Shondaland production company (RHIMES) — this was a gimme except I spelled it RHINES. Logic: "No, LeAnn RIMES is the singer, Shonda must be a RHINES, with an 'N'.” Sigh, AH ME, etc.
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94 comments:
Medium for me.
spongeS before chamoiS before WET RAGS for the car wash gear at 14D
RErun before REAIR at 21A
REC room before REC HALL at 21D
ScampER before SKITTER at 30A
@Rex YOU'Re out before YOUR TURN at 35D
TOBie before TOBEY for Mr. Maguire at 43D
sAn before CAL at 44A, even though SAn isn't an Abbr.
aNDY before INDY at 48D; PEWIT (47A) was a WOE
C'mon, Rex. Really? You like 'Batpole'? With no question mark? I guess it's supposed to refer to the hokey routine in the 60s Batman show. But a pole is not a pillar.
I had playitcooL before ACTNATURAL
It started out promising with ACT NATURAL and CAN CONFIRM up in the NW. it felt to me like they drifted a bit too far into “niche” info and trivia after that with Shondaland, a drag queen, Agincort, Homer, TABULARASA, OLIN, INDY and even OPERA CAPES (which I’m certain are/were real but sure seem to qualify as niche, at least to me), EMBIGGENS and CRAPO.
I seems weird to have Rex rave about a puzzle with so much gunk in it, but if there is any bias since he’s pals with the constructor, at least he got it out in the open. It does seem to this long-time reader that today’s review is a little out of character though.
Even though I solved this one more easily than most Saturdays, the puzzle didn't do much for me. NOT TODAY SATAN is a primo center selection, but nothing else really popped.
Nice puzzle - not the epic that Rex claims but by far the best this week. Segmented corners and clueing that tried too hard in spots. The drag queen quote will be backed into by everyone and as much as I love EMBIGGENS it’s niche Simpsons trivia.
HIT ME with your rhythm stick
The SW sparkled - ARTEMIS and PEWIT are fantastic and I like the KOWTOWING string. SE just the opposite - OPERA CAPE, WHY NOT BOTH are unfortunate - WOOLENS is goofy. Liked the alternate ONO clue.
Pleasant Saturday morning solve. Brad Wilber’s Stumper will certainly test you more than this one.
Buck
Pardon my nerd-out to come, but today’s answer set is popping! It’s electric, shimmering. And I’d like to back this up.
XwordInfo makes a diagram for every NYT puzzle – a colorized grid, where every debut answer is colored red, every answer that has appeared once in a NYT puzzle is orange, those that have appeared twice are yellow, three times green, and four blue. Those that have appeared more than four times are gray. Gray answers are stale, or on their way to stale.
My jaw dropped when I saw the diagram for today’s puzzle because there was so little gray – I actually counted the gray squares – 27% of the puzzle, meaning that 73% of the puzzle belongs to fresh answers, almost three-quarters!
Wow! That is one popping grid! And even among the gray words were the lovely SKITTER, TABULA RASA, HIT ME, SERAPH, YOUR TURN, and CURSORY.
EDGY indeed. And that is before superb Saturday cluing, from witty to need-crosses-to-get. Tangled and tough.
What a gem! Brava and bravo, Christina and Doug. This was, for me, a sterling outing. Thank you!
ABROAD took me forever to understand cause my brain kept reading it as “A B Road” (as in, “not an A Road”). Then it was like, “maybe an Ab Road is a thing?” I did an actual face palm when I finally got it. Need more coffee I guess.
I'm surprised by how different my view of this puzzle is to Rex's. I hated the entire NW (it's nice that he insta-filled it; I had almost no ways into it, since the shorter downs were not at all transparent to me), and crossing BATPOLE with PEWIT is gross. Really, PEWIT is gross in general. And since the NW was its own separate puzzle due to construction shape, yeah, hated that especially. STEW makes no sense, AHME is ugly, SADE is someone I've never heard of, EMBIGGENS might have been fun on its own.
Hated this puzzle. Sorry.
ACT NATURAL takes me back to a funny scene in the 1969 movie Take The Money And Run in which inept bank robber Woody Allen presents a note to the bank teller and the bank staff debate over what Woody wrote: Is it "Apt natural, I have a gun" or "Act natural, I have a gub"!
Preface everything by saying I too absolutely loved this puzzle and hope more Fridays and Saturdays are this great.
Having said that, if this is easy-medium, there is no such thing as difficult. This one was insanely difficult, thrice my average Saturday time (37 vs. 12) and filled with so much esoterica that the solve felt like a Times Cryptic, but with the benefit of ample checking letters.
If you breezed through WETRAGS, DUCKEGG, SKITTER, PEWIT, BOWMEN, WOOLENS, and OPERACAPES, then kudos. I imagine it would require several lifetimes for me to ever use or hear these ever again in daily life.
But again, like I said, loved it and welcome more of this type of challenge!
This was not easy/medium for me. Got stuck on the top left and had to google the clue for BLUEDANUBE to finish. Rest was OK.
I’m gonna join the choir here and say it was not my bowl of soup. I do love “NOT TODAY SATAN” which I say at times. But I did not EMBIGGENS which really messed me up in that corner.
I mean for someone who complained endlessly about DLC I would say EMBIGGENS is something far fewer people would know today.
Was a nice "woosh woosh" until the NE and then splat. But loved Bat pole!
What “choir”? Three does not make a choir. This puzzle was great. Lotta sour grapes from weak solvers today. For once, Lewis’s praise is well deserved (and backed by data) 📈
I enjoyed it and relatively smoothly, but ABC TV is not a channel. It is a network of channels.
I really really wanted "Dig locale" to be ROAST instead of RUINS.
I love how puzzles that Rex deems "easy/medium" are damn near impossible for me, but those he deems "challenging" are woosh-woosh for me. Usually those come with a Rex-rant about an answer or two that "nobody is familiar with" - and those were the 'gimme' answers for me in the grid.
Re EMBIGGENS - Sling Blade orders a Venti at Starbucks. Too bad they didn’t have any French fried potaters, mm-hmm.
is that a Biggen?
I'm with ya on everything but BATPOLE. Pillar? Superhero community? Nonsense. That needed to be re-clued.
I had no reference for EMBIGGENS, but my ignorance of all things Simpsons (Friends…Cheers…) often works against me so I don’t hold it against the puzzle. Honestly, this one flowed nicely, if a tad on the easy side for a Saturday. NW got filled instantly and we mostly whooshed from there. As a Friday, woulda been perfect.
FH
OK, so one of the constructors is Rex's friend but.....
CAN CONFIRM? Who says that?
PEWIT? PEEWIT is far more common....and I knew PEEWIT
WHY NOT BOTH? ?????
BOWMEN? Who ever discussed Agincourt and didn't say ARCHERS or perhaps (just perhaps) LONGBOWMEN.....
EMBIGGENS? Hmmmmmm
All that said, I finished it in regular time and enjoyed it.
This was thoroughly off my wavelength, but primary due to the cluing, rather than the answers. Looking at the grid, I can’t really get objectively angry with anything (except AHME). Even BATPOLE/PEWIT was fine, in that as a childhood viewer of the Batman show, I knew to expect a random noun and pillar provided enough context.
But somehow the cluing just didn’t connect, which made everything take longer than it should have otherwise. Ah, me.
Nope. Just nope. Literally no one has ever said "Can confirm!" And what TF is a batpole?
Ah, how I’ve missed PEWIT.
Three kealoas today made this a bit harder than it should have been for me:
Absent – ABROAD
REC room – REC HALL
ScampER – SKITTER
The errant ‘c’ in ScampER actually helped, as it got me to cOWTOWING – wondering even as I entered it whether that was the correct spelling. When ATTEMPT had to be right, changing to SKITTER was a relief.
Not fond of NOT TODAY SATAN as your featured entry (only because I’ve never heard of it). On the other hand EMBIGGENS was super.
TABULA RASA was probably the last really good episode of Buffy.
TIL on PEWIT. Crossing that with INDY, which somehow stumped me, led to me guessing random vowels until the I worked. Otherwise a very easy Saturday.
Hey All !
PEWIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Awesome! Finally found it in a grid. Hi @M&A! Know you're gonna love it!
NW decided to flummox me but good. I had puz all done (albeit with three wrong squares I was unaware of at that time) up to ALSACE, with only NECK in that entire NW corner. Didn't know Strauss inspiration (I do know the name, so not totally oblivious 😁), couldn't get the ole brain to grok ACTNATURAL, and turned to Goog to see what I could get to wrestle down that corner.
First Goog (yes, angstness at this point, so Goog as necessary), Amy TAN. Then good ole Strauss. Figured a long cheat should be enough to finish, and it was. Ooh, I actually Googed the Nutcracker name, too. 😁 (Before Strauss...)
Anyway, no Happy Music upon completion, hit Check Puzzle, it crossed out three letters! Dang. Had cATPOLE/cOWMEN (Har on both), ScITTER/cOWTOWING (want to say legitamit miss, but not convincing myself), and CRoPO/TABULA RoSA, because for some reason, I go to that damn A Every. Single. Time. Jeez Louise.
But a nice SatPuz. Two TOWs, TOW and KOWTOWING. WHY NOT BOTH? Har.
And PEWIT! 😂
Happy Weekend!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Never have I had so many write overs and yet still finished. So many mistakes, many of which are already mentioned but one that hasn't been - kissing up instead of kowtowing. Embiggens is stupid
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts currently has an exhibition combining portraits by John Singer Sargent with actual garments from their collection that resemble those worn in the portraits. The exhibition included an OPERA CAPE. Boy did that help me!
However, I question the clue. If you put on an opera cape, then add top hat and gloves, I would not consider you completely dressed!
So I had that, and realized quickly that BOWMEN was a better answer than yeoMEN. But sometime around then I found a new kealoa, ABsent/ABROAD, and went with the former. Combining that with UNrOLlED for UNFOLDED, and I didn't have much chance of seeing CAN CONFIRM. In the event, following the rule that a 3-letter fish was either an ahi or an eel, I changed unrolled to UNReelED. I think I needed ALSACE before I could see ABROAD.
Then misc before STEW, CONFIRMed by chamois, and getting Shonda RHIMES mixed up lexicographically with Busta RHyMES. I also went with YOU'Re out and, failing to see the 'abbr.' in the clue, sAn before CAL.
___ Championship is in serious contention for the most ambiguous clue ever. So I had to get DUCK EGG - is that really a color? - and then deduced EMBIGGENS. I didn't know the Simpsons bit. That sorted out the NE, and the aforementioned OPERA CAPES did the same in the SW.
But I finished with an error. I somehow had my mice ScuTTER, and then when I had to accommodate KOWTOWING, decided that SkuTTER might be a VAR spelling. AH ME.
KOWTOWING to a friend constructor? Sorry, just couldn’t resist. Appreciate the disclosure, Rex. I was not feeling it quite as much. CAN CONFIRM works without the exclamation point on the clue. That response is delivered unemotionally, flatly, in monotone. “The Cubs win the World Series?” “Can confirm!” Whaaa? “That’s a fact!” Yup.
EMBIGGENS? Literally, never heard or read in any incarnation - either of myself or the universe.
OPERA CAPES are *part* of a set worn to said opera…the gloves and hats accompany the capes, and are not part of them. This clue kept me stuck for an interminable stretch, and should have the word “completed” replaced with “accompanied.” Period.
Those three got me lost in a sea of bad crosswordese misses on fill that frustrated me.
Fortunately tomorrow is a TABULA RASA.
The expression is "you can't eat your cake and have it, too". Of course, one can have cake, and eat it; but not the other way.
Great puzzle, and great write-up (and loved PEWIT getting WOTD, thank you), but I'm so far from the day I'd call this easy. Took me ages, but all fun. I knew I was in trouble when my first thought was THEPLANETS, which were neither Strauss nor geography, so I was worse off than just needing to cope with the ScampER, RECroom, sob stuff. But still a delight. Well, except for EMBIGGENS. Was clueless there.
Ug. This is why we can't let 🦖 make friends.
Yes, indeed, this puzzle was full of crap-o. The marquee answer NOT TODAY SATAN could be a winner except for the clue turns it into another reality TV ho-hum meh.
Yawns: ACT NATURAL. PGA. [Pulitzer category.] ABCTV. UNFOLDED. CURSORY. WET RAGS.
Bad clues: [This and that.] [100% Correct!] [Run like a mouse.] [Long part of a bouzouki.]
Just bad: BAT POLE. Whoever decided that's how we'll spell KOWTOW. THE APE MAN. EMBIGGENS.
Propers: (14!) ONO. ALSACE. RHIMES. ARTEMIS. PEWIT. OLIN. CLARA. INDY. TAN. ANTONIO. SERAPH. TOBEY. SADE. CRAPO.
Cool: DUCKEGG. [Safari destinations.] TABULA RASA. OPERA CAPES. WHY NOT BOTH. SNORKELED. YOUR TURN.
Uniclues:
1 Oft stated phrase of loan officers.
2 Prepare to scramble.
3 Solution of the privileged to mitigate the sad effects of poverty.
4 Composer Schumann went octopus hunting.
5 Cannibal cooks Maguire.
6 Verde luz.
7 "Imma put this quarter here and it means I've got next and you're not gonna swipe it and spend it on weed, k?"
8 Saves like a numbskull.
1 CAN CONFIRM DEBT
2 HAND DUCK EGG
3 LEND OPERA CAPES
4 CLARA SNORKELED
5 RUINS RAW TOBEY
6 YOUR TURN ABROAD
7 REC HALL PACT
8 EMBIGGENS ASSET
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Blacksmith's answer to the question, "What is your favorite tool for throwing out a window?. I GOTTA SAY, "ANVIL."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I agree with others here that BATPOLE should have had question mark. And the OLID/PEWIT combo killed the southwest for me. Otherwise, a fun, clever puzzle.
Lovely puzzle, and a pleasure to solve. I found the left side more yielding at the outset, beginning with the top Downs CLARA, NECK, TAN, and LEM, enough to send me on my way through ALSACE and Agincourt down to EDGY. The SE corner went fast, then I had to get to work, to climb from WOOLENS up to the top. Last in STEW x EMBIGGENS. I really enjoyed the cluing, especially for LEND and DEBT.
Do-overs: REC room, of the apes before THE APEMAN. Help from previous puzzles: SADE. Help from having read an article about showrunners, without grasping what they do: Shonda RHIMES. Help from Gail Collins scathing columns about him: Mike CRAPO.
No idea: NOT TODAY SATAN, EMBIGGENS.
I think it might be an interesting exercise for Rex to review puzzles without looking at the constructor first.
Definitely not a puzzle for old guys like me. EMBIGGENS? (that's just ridiculous) BATPOLE? PEWIT?
Should ADOS be clued as "big deals"? Where did the constructor (and/or Will Shortz) ever learn how a mouse moves about?
I agree that CANCONFIRM is far too mild an answer to "100 percent correct!" CANCONFIRM sounds like a robotic answer with zero emotion, not an emphatic statement.
I'm not surprised that Rex Parker liked this puzzle. Every time I like one, he hates it.
This was the toughest Saturday in a while for me. I had only NECK crossing TREKS in the NW and eventually crossed those out because I was making no progress there. I ended up finishing (redundant, I guess) up there, backing in from the bottom. CAN CONFIRM is not in my lexicon. ACT NATURAL, on the other hand, is a great clue/answer combo.
REC room, ScampER, yeoMEN, BAT girl (that was a great clue also, pillar, har), all contributed to my difficulties. At least I never put in Greystoke at 12D!
Thanks, Doug and Christina, this was fun.
I wish the answer "kowtowing" was "sucking up"
Simpson's fans are weird. EMBIGGENS was used on the show and somehow they all liked it so much that it got into some standard dictionaries. Why? Where's the charm? Where's the cleverness?
That wasn't my biggest annoyance, though. Putting THE in front of APEMAN. "Sobriquet" means "nickname."
Count me among those who didn't like it. Besides these annoyances, not enough sparkle for a Saturday.
Found this pretty challenging! Maybe just a lot of answers outside my wheelhouse. Took an hour to solve - way, way longer than my average Saturday time.
This one played harder for me, but I fell into a lot of the same traps that others did. There just seemed to be more of them this time around: Help for HAND. Scatter for SKITTER. Sob for ROT. Yeomen for BOWMEN. Han for LAO. Irr for VAR. Moor for ARAB. Absent for ABROAD. Tough, but fair.
Still. All in all, it was a perfectly cromulent puzzle.
In two words: Im-Possible. I needed 3 cheats to finish: SADE; ONO; ANTONIO.
Look, I was enjoying my suffering, but I do need to have a Life.
Most interesting thing about my solve: I thought of ABROAD immediately -- with no crosses at all -- for the vaguely clued "Not here". Which was later confirmed by the AB, at which point I thought, "No, ABSENT is better" -- so I changed it. Which completely loused up my Northwest.
Also, when my mice run, they ScampER. Which loused up my middle Far West. This kept me from seeing KOWTOWING; ATTEMPT; ANTONIO and HIT ME.
Don't ask.
I've never heard of EMBIGGENS, but I liked it and I guessed it. Maybe I should go into the cutesy slang invention business?
CANCONFIRM is one of the DOOKiest answers I've ever seen. And the "S" of ABsent, which made my letters CANCON?IsM, didn't help.
An erudite and beautifully made puzzle that was a bit too much for my little gray cells today. AH ME.
My dad grew up in “egg and daughter” country in Nebraska. Enjoyed asking him about those memories after I heard the song.
Had BIG data/deal instead of RAW. That blocked up the middle for a bit.
"anonymous" already said this, but my only comments is re. the final clue about eating cake. The original phrasing is actually more to the point, and I contend we should return to it: "You can't have your cake, and eat it, too".
Yes, a very fun puzzle today!
CAN CONFIRM I could have done without CRAPO
I thought this was going to be a "read the clue and fill in the blank" kind of Saturday when the NW was almost all gimmes. ACTNATURAL, BLUEDANUBE, NECK, CLARA, LEM, in they all went, and then ABSENT put an end to all that.
Did you know that a "Pillar of the superhero community" could be STANLEE? And that the S from STAN can lead to SAXONS? Also, doing that will trash any further attempts in the SW. I found all that out.
Otherwise found this just crunchy enough for a Saturday, there was M&A's PEWIT, and I found out that a toy with a string can be a KITE and not a YOYO.
Nice Saturday, DP and CI. Didn't Play easy for me and was Certainly Ingenious. Thanks for all the fun.
Batpole? I remember Batman and Robin sliding down the pole in the Bat Cave when they were really in a hurry, but I never heard them refer to it as the Batpole. And, even if they did, how is that pole a pillar? I had the BAT___E and thought "it must be Bat Cave, but how is that a pillar?" Turns out it's not ... but neither is Bat Pole.
The rest of the puzzle was pretty good. Just crunchy enough to feel like a Saturday, but not filled with obscure references. I've never heard CAN CONFIRM (I've heard "I can confirm" or "we can confirm"); it seems like an affectation, like when authors who are trying to sound noir have their characters say things like "the hell was that?!" instead of "what the hell was that?!"
Full disclosure: Doug and Christina are my parents.
Lately, despite all of my efforts to EMBIGGEN my retirement portfolio, I only seem to be entinying it. Hope I don't have to downbiggen my lifestyle.
Funny that one of the answers is NOT TODAYS A TAN, when 6D is a TAN.
Advice to Vaudeville noob: DUCKEGG! Of course Strauss once BLUED A NUBE, but I'm not going into that here.
The guy who always cracked jokes in gym class was a PEWIT.
Would playing the music of the first Nigerian-born singer to win a Grammy 24 hours a day to prisoners be considered SADEism?
I liked this a lot. It felt fresh and @Lewis confirms that feeling analytically. Thanks, Doug Peterson and Christina Iverson.
As a member of the endangered Independent tribe in Idaho, want to thank Rex for his P.S. restraint; with closed primaries, AH ME indeed. No voice = no vote!
But the puzzle today was a delightful experience at least. Our major issues were beach related: ahiSNORKELED, and visually trying for clam coverings before DUCK EGGS. Other than the tougher NE section where D??T mystified with its crossing EMBIGGENES lost in another SENIOR MOMENT from the Simpson Show trivia repository Doug & Christina’s grid puzzled appropriately for this weekend. Great fun to start a festive, event-laden stretch.
Like Roo, I literally LOL'd thinking of M&A when I saw PEWIT.
Found this one more difficult than recent Saturdays - but it was smack on my average Saturday time (25 minutes, so no speedy solver).
First pass through resulted in a few answers filled - enough to eventually guess/figure out others. But the NW stayed nearly empty for a looong time. Think I had TAN at 6D and incorrect LlM at 10D. Oh and ONO at 20A. Finished in that section.
Oh, had san for 44A instead CAL.
Enjoyed this one.
Great puzzle & great write-up. Most enjoyable Saturday (or any day lately) in a long time. I didn't know EMBIGGENS & BOWMEN but it was fun figuring them out. (I liked SNORKELED a lot).
Thank you, Doug & Christina!
Definitely could have done without right wing Senator Mike Crapo as well as anti-Semite Antonio Guterres.
Haven't read @Rex nor comments yet....Must rush out the door. But before I do:
I'm guessing or maybe assuming that NOT TODAY SATAN happened to be the House Special." I must say this menu looked interesting.
There were many items I had never heard of.....Being a glutton, I was going to try as may items as I could.
I stared for quite a while before digging in. ACT NATURAL at 1A. Do you taste good? Yes. Why did you give me a side of a Disney channel? Spit it out....Dare I taste the wahoo? ONO...you can take that back to the kitchen.
This menu was difficult to swallow in places yet the aromas were quite delicious. I even tried the DUCK EGG my partner handed to me.
Dare I yell NOT TODAY SATAN to chef? I've never heard it uttered before.....Give me some EMBIGGENS for my second course....That one looks delicious. It was.
I picked here and there. It was quite satisfying. Some CRAPO here and there as well, but I took my time. I had to ask the waiter about SERAPH, PEWIT and RHIMES. He told me what they were. I passed.
Dessert was coming. I looked at TOBEY all dressed up in his OPERA CAPES and asked for his opinion. TABULA RASA he proclaimed. Or maybe the SKITTER. WHY NOT BOTH I said.
The food was quite good though it was slow in coming. Some of it hot and some of it cold...but I liked it.
5 Stars.
Yeah I liked almost everything about it but that sucked, and the awful PEWIT (sorry Rex, it’s the worst thing I’ve seen in a puzzle in ages). And the clue for OPERA CAPES sucked too. They’re all accessories, ie they all complete another outfit. Unless you’re going to the opera in just a cape, hat and gloves I guess.
I loved it. Tougher than yesterday; 20 minutes (vs 12) which is just in the perfect range for Fri or Sat. If it's getting near 30 minutes I'm getting a bit frustrated; if it's in the low or mid teens it's over too fast. Sweet spot!
Lots of typeovers, among them KISSING UP before KOWTOWING, WE WANT BOTH before WHY NOT BOTH, and for "Safaris, e.g." JEEPS before TREKS. My confidence in "safaris" being a misdirect was later reinforced by correctly plunking down URLS for "Safari destinations". And I was a big Batman fan but don't really remember BAT POLE being a thing, so hands up for BAT CAVE which might have had rocky pillars.
I also don't love AH ME. Tried OH NO, AH NO, UH OH.
In architecture school we heard TABULA RASA all the time, meaning there were so few restrictions on a project that we could really get creative. For instance, no existing buildings to retain; no neighborhood context to KOWTOW to.
[Spelling Bee: Fri 0, so 6 straight! My last word was the 9er which I should have gotten WAY earlier cuz it appears so often!]
This one had so much dreck in the cluing intended solely to add difficulty that it was unpleasant.
ABCTV - there is no such thing, or at least nobody ever calls it that. It's ABC. An obtuse answer.
TUNER - inaccurate clue ... a tuner does not pull strings. I mean I suppose in the act of tuning a tuner might break a string and then need to replace, or "pull" the string. A tuner does often tighten a string in some way, and you might inaccurately call that pulling, but they don't do it by pulling it ... they twist a know or some other control ... it is kind of laughable to think of a tuner with a string in his hand pulling it. An obtuse clue.
NECK - almost nobody has ever heard of a Bouzouki, so that was impossibly tough. Just difficult for the sake of difficulty. An obtuse clue.
ADOS - "Big deals" Ummm, just no. An "ado" is defined as "a state of agitation or fuss, especially about something unimportant". Notice the emphasis on something unimportant ... big deals implies the exact opposite, that it is about something important. An obtuse clue.
WETRAGS - that is a thing the same way GREENPAINT is a thing. It just combines an adjective with a noun. Equally relevant would be DRYRAGS, BIGRAGS, SMELLYRAGS, OILYRAGS. And nobody in compiling a list of equipment for washing a car would put on it "Wet rags". They would put "Rags". So even the description of it as being "equipment" is obtuse.
That's just the dreck on the top row of downs. I could go on, but you get the idea. Getting your difficulty from imprecise and obtuse cluing just makes a puzzle a slog.
There were some good entries here, too. I liked YOURTURN and its clue. ARTEMIS was difficult but fair. KOWTOWING was also tough but fair and provided a nice "A-ha" moment (even though I started with "SUCKING UP"). SERAPH was also tough but fair. You don't need to add a bunch of "let's fool them with imprecision" clues when you have as much legitimate difficult but fair clues as this one.
No the expression is indeed “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_can%27t_have_your_cake_and_eat_it
Thx, Doug & Christina, for this crunchy challenge! 😊
Tough (nearly 2x avg); grateful I got thru it unscathed, tho.
Far, far off D & C's wavelength.
Very impressed with the clever clueing. Hats off to the whole team; constructors, Will & crew.
CAN CONFIRM at least a couple of educated 'correct' guesses involving EMBIGGENS & CRAPO for two. Toss in DUCK EGG for good measure. Thx for fair crosses! :)
Listen to 'The BLUE DANUBE' every nite before drifting off to sleep.
My most egregious entry: FOUL BALL before YOUR TURN. D'oh!!
My coincidence of the day. Just listened to ANTONIO Guterres on the 'Consider This' podcast.
All-in-all, a wonderful TREK; loved every minute of the battle along the way.
___
On to Brad Wilber's Sat. Stumper. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
So out of my wheelhouse, it was an alien landscape. I was 100% incorrect repeatedly: ScampERS (isn't that what mice really do?) before ScaTTERS before SKITTERS. ABsent before ABROAD. RECroom before RECHALL. Such before STEW. (STEW??) Plonked down BLUE DANUBE and SADE as guesses out of the gate, but second guessed them throughout. Washrag and hoTRAGS before WETRAGS. yoyoS before KITES. BATcave before BATPOLE. OvER (coats) before OPERACAPES. Confidently thought the first person plural of "Let's have our cake" would start with We, rather than WHYNOTBOTH. And tons of unknown CRAPO (for me) throughout: CLARA, NECK (as clued), ONO, ALSACE, DUCKEGG, RHIMES, BOWMEN, PEWIT, OLIN, SERAPH. I can usually conquer a Saturday without Uncle Google but today was not that day. No whoosh for me.
Quite a screw-up on reversing the idiom referenced by one of the Statler Brothers' hits…
You can't have your Kate and Edith too /
You rascal you, yodel-a-dio
Challenging even if you liked it DNF
Thank you for referencing the Hallelujah Chorus on the day that the Binghamton Downtown Singers are performing the Messsiah (at Sarah Jane Johnson church in Johnson City)! I feel both seen and supported in my musical endeavors!
PEWIT?!! noooooooooooo… [yer number of ooo's may vary].
faves: NOTTODAYPEWIT & CRAPO. And a big har for EMBIGGENS.
staff weeject pick: ONO. Named a fish after her, in the cluin. Different. M&A likes different. Also, ONO is kinda a relative of "oh noooooooooo…"
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr, Peterson dude and Ms. Iverson darlin. Had fun with the solvequest, until I hit PEWIT down there at 47-A -- which was positioned way too high on the RATPOLE, btw.
But, hey -- it's been over 10 years since someone splatzed in a PEWIT, and there *were* quite a few U's, sooo …
ok [snorta]
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
So many haters for the poor pewit! Such a pretty bird, with a heartstopping habit of flying up from under your feet almost. Will taunt dogs into chasing them across the meadow and away from the nest. More pewits please!
The E in LEM is for Excursion, Apollo Lunar Excursion Module as opposed to the Apollo Command and Service Modul (CSM)
Hi Mods - I deleted my 1st comment because I wanted to change a couple of things. Apparently you thought I double commented and didn’t post my amended one? Should I try again?
@jae
Yep!
Any of you who saw my post yesterday will have seen the effect the moving stress has on me. All I have focused on is getting a place to live and a mover a d an estate sale agent and on and on. By late yesterday, I had convinced myself it was Saturday! I may have been too tough on the odd grid for yesterday’s themeless puzzle.
Today really is Saturday and it had some extremely challenging moments for me as well as some large easier sections. The NW fell fairly easily with BLUE DANUBE being a gimme. Right from the off I knew safaris were not going to be TRipS so TREKS also slid right in. I loved seeing LEM and its clever clue. What took me forever up there i. That corner was ACT NATURAL. The clue didn’t click and my mind remained pretty blank.
My solving route whooshed from the NE diagonally down through the SE with very few stumbles along the way. Where I got stuck was in the SW. i had real difficulty with the BOWMEN of Agincourt. Getting SNORKELED and KOWTOWING. Helped that section.
All in all a decent if not completely sparkling Saturday. A decent night’s sleep probably had something to do with that.
@LenFuego - The bouzouki figures prominently in Monty Python's 'Cheese Shop' sketch, so will be familiar to millions, although few of them will be young.
Tough for me too with the west side much tougher than the east which was mostly easy-medium. AceS before ADOS kept me from seeing BLUE DANUBE which was obvious after I took a break. No idea on the drag catch phrase or the U.N. guy as clued. Also, irR before VAR, Nose before NECK, room before HALL, and hURried before CURsory.
Solid challenge with more than a bit of sparkle, liked it.
@M&A - long time since the last PEWIT.
In my earlier comment about the eating and having cake, I mistakenly reverted back to the common phrasing, and my point was entirely lost. My bad! Thank you "anonymous" for catching that. YES:
Correct phrasing (and what I meant to type earlier!):
"You can't eat your cake, and have it too".
Okay, Rex, I get it. One of the constructors is an old friend, but you were unusually diplomatic in describing what is clearly a sub-cromulent puzzle.
My brain is rather ABSENT today. Turns out it's ABROAD. Little UNFURLED for me from there. Had it only UNFOLDED!
But fun to see Lena OLIN sliding down the BATPOLE.
I loved his puzzle. Tough but fair. As for ANTONIO Guterres, he is an execrable person who 100% should be in the crossword. Same goes for Mike Crapo, Ilhan Omar, MTG, AOC, etc.
Agreed. This is the first Saturday puz in 2023 I was unable to complete. Almost the whole grid played out like that for me and I was bewildered by many clues even after revealing. Couldn't get a toehold almost anywhere.
Anyone else have CLEANSLATE before TABULARASA?
Fitting!
Bat pole doesn’t need a ?
It’s a Saturday misdirection (person v object) Happens all the time.
Pewit was an answer not that long ago That’s why I got it fairly quickly. It is also not uncommon not unusual for a Saturday
Remember, the puzzle meant to be difficult, and people complain all the time when they think it’s too easy.
I did find this one hard, but there was nothing unfair about it.
Fun puzzle and a John Prine video I hadn't seen before. Good stuff.
For those who got the Sunday Magazine but who are not planning to try the Diagramless since they're sure they can't do it: Today may be your day.
In a Diagramless, "regular crossword symmetry", which is what you get most of the time, is not your friend. "Right-Left" symmetry IS your friend; it makes it much easier to avoid big gaps in your grid and have building blocks you can trust and build on from top to bottom.
I'm not especially talented at Diagramless puzzles. I finish maybe 35% to 45% of them. This one was quite easy for me. For those who have been thinking about trying one sometime, this is definitely the one to try!
Has anybody ever actually spoken the words, "Ah me!"?
Couldn’t get anywhere with this one. One I saw embiggens I wadded it up and threw it in the trash.
Best Saturday in a while. Tough (not easy/medium), loved the struggle. Had to set it down for a bit to complete the SW section. KOWTOWING BOWMEN slowed me down. Finished with one sloppy error(ANO for ONO)
I had to choose between CRAnO and CRAPO at 44D. 56D was either OPERACAPES or OPERACAnES. Canes complete hat and gloves don’t they? I only went with OPERACAnES because I had a hard time believing a distinguished Senator would hava CRAPO as his last name. I was worng. Beaten by a nasty Natick. Rex would normally be all over that flaw but one of the constructors is his friend so I gues that explains the glowing review.
Was torn between OPERACAPES and OPERACAnES at the crossing of CRAPO or CRAnO. I did not think a Senator would have a name like CRAPO so I went with CRAnO. And I figured that a cane is a perfectly fine piece of “garb” to go with hats and gloves. I guessed wrong of course.
POETRY RHIMES
CLARA and CAL made up A PACT,
I CANCONFIRM THE CURSORY fact;
WHYNOT LEND A HAND
to ABROAD and A MAN
to ATTEMPT A NATURAL ACT?
--- ANTONIO HALL
Two arreas caused short hold-ups: ABsent before ABROAD and RECroom before RECHALL. It's great to NECK to SADE's music. Yeah baby.
Wordle birdie.
Great puzzle!
(Even with 2 wrong letters.)
Definitely Saturday hard for me.
Brain still hurts, but a bunch of dormant synaptic connections have lit up. I like when that happens.
Not at all easy, here. Two major, MAJOR misdirections lead the way:
-->"Not here" = ABsent, would you not say? I would.
==>"Words to end a play" = YOUREOUT! That one almost caused a DNF.
Also noted: "Alas!" Not oHno, but AHME. Threw a WETRAG into the NE.
Never heard of the drag saying, doesn't even make sense to me, really. And EMBIGGENS? I thought he was joking, but apparently it's a Simpsons thing. Never got much into TV animation.
When all done, I agree that the puzzle has some zip, but getting there? A pile of triump-h points. Birdie.
Wordle par, with no Gs till the final putt.
EMBIGGENS? No, absolutely no! I hate dreck like this.
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