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Something extra, redundantly / SAT 3-8-25 / Company founded as Sleeper, Inc. / Not looking so good / Big blanket makers / Garden party outfits often with floral patterns / Thunderbird, e.g. / Areas with nosebleed seats
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Constructor: Joe Deeney
Relative difficulty: Medium / Hard
THEME: THEME — None
Word of the Day: MSDOS [1980s PC standard] —
MS-DOS (/ˌɛmˌɛsˈdɒs/ em-es-DOSS; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system.[5]
• • •
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| ASP |
This is a quadruple quad stack grid! Going from three to four stacked answers makes it about an order of magnitude harder to fill cleanly. Having to do it four times, and having it all connect in the middle, is quite a feat. The price you pay for a construction like this is usually some loss of "flow," meaning that this puzzle feels more like four separate small puzzles. Some people are deeply bothered by this, but I don't mind it too much. I think it's fun to have a diversity of themeless designs, and sometimes you have to sacrifice interconnectedness to flex some chonky stacks.
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| NENE |
One thing about the separation is that the difficulty can vary between pieces. I found the top-left corner to be quite easy, but the bottom-right took me ages to break into. I desperately wanted HOT AS HELL to work, even though it wasn't the right length. I had never heard the expression HOT AS HADES (is it actually a thing? Do I live under a rock?) so that slowed me down. Thankfully, years of crossword experience made UTNE READER an almost-gimme, which was key to unlocking that corner. I wouldn't say UTNE READER is good fill (I daresay it's, in fact, kinda bad ... is it still a thing? Going on the website the articles on the home page are from 2012...), but there's something satisfying about seeing these common answers in their full glory in a grid. LAKE ERIE! JAI ALAI! BRIAN ENO! Sometimes we have to recognize these entries for all their service over the years.
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| RAT |
Overall, the fill is impressively clean given the constraints. Looking at the grid again, a lot of the iffiness is in the bottom-right (the aforementioned HADES, NOT A, BONS, etc.) so that's maybe why it felt harder to me! The NOT A clue [What's added to one to make zero?] felt like a bit of a lipstick on a pig situation, but I appreciate the effort. I also recently read Jane EYRE because it's such common crossword fill and it still took me forever to get EYRE here so I guess it did not help. Good book, though! I love a Victorian novel.
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| ORCA |
Alright, that's it from me. Fun puzzle! See you all tomorrow. Stay safe out there.
Bullets:
- 40D MATE [This might come after the check] — Very clever chess misdirect! Probably my favorite clue in the puzzle
- 13D INCLINED TO [Thinking that one might] — These quad stacks often mean you get one more neutral / boring answer. This is that answer! These prepositional phrases are additionally unfortunate it that their clues often have to be awkward / tortured.
- 33A COLOR CODES [Visual classification systems] — Probably my favorite entry in the grid!
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133 comments:
It figures. Yesterday I couldn't finish an "easy/medium" puzzle, today I solved a "hard" one without cheating, fairly quickly. I remembered UTNEREADER somehow, and assumed EYRE was the orphan (Jane wouldn't work). The clue for ADDEDBONUS (redundant) was helpful in the NW, and the rest just came together smoothly.
I still can’t figure out how REDS are “ports?” Google isn’t helping me. Can anyone explain that one?
Also never in my life have I heard of UTNE READER, and I’m 41. Have I been living under a rock?? WTH is that?
Medium for a Saturday. I whooshed through the upper half but needed help with the Japanese at 46A and the 59A publication, which I didn't recognize. Yesterday I had tea DRESS instead of SUN; today TEA was correct.
Overwrites:
APPLE bread(?) before PRESS at the 19A cider mill
Sra (señora) before SAO at 39D
My 50 Cent hit was OUT of Control before it was OUTTA
ARcS before ARKS at 58A
WOEs:
CECE McDonald at 56A
The meaning of the Arab name ABDI (53D)
Giant dupe anyone?
Yes, it’s a thing, especially among those who are reticent to say hell. Perhaps it’s getting a bit dated.
Always curious about the commonality of certain expressions by region. HOTASHADES is a very commonly used phrase in St. Louis and the Midwest, where it is, very frequently in the summer, “hot as Hades!”
I didn’t particularly like overabound or bons but these are minor flaws in what is a really impressive grid that has few names, only six three letter words and lots of normal vocabulary. All of which are really nice to see. My congratulations to Joe Deeney for an excellent puzzle.
I’ve been doing the New York Times (and other) crosswords for over forty years and I don’t recall ever coming across ABDI. Not a problem because of crosses but just odd. If it’s a legitimate word, why hasn’t it been in other puzzles?
Whizzed through this til the SE corner. Couldn’t grasp the “time” dupe
Medium/Hard? Must have been especially in my wheelhouse, and in synch with my thinking patterns. For me, it fell like a Tuesday/Wednesday with rarely any hesitation (and certainly never stumped) with any of the clues. Easiest Saturday ever with fasted time ever. No great skill. Just luck, I think.
This grid looks like a quilt block, five pieces sewn together to look a bit like something, a windmill or pinwheel maybe.
I got a toehold over in the east and actually had a little Saturday whoosh whoosh situation going on for a bit. I agree with Rafa that the grid offered limited opportunities to flow easily from one section to another. All-in-all I held my own on a Saturday, which is a bit of an achievement for me.
As usual I pretty much got nada of the foreign stuff, but the cross of STETSON HAT and ALTHO dropped right in, so in my heart I guess I’m just a GOOD OLE BOY.
I wonder if Alisha Rai is a crossword aficionado. If she is, I hope she stops by.
Sign on the locked door of the chapati maker: OUTTA ATTA.
What does Satan serve you to drink in hell instead of lemonades? HOTASHADES.
Trump administration COLORCODES are pretty simple: White = GOODOLEBOYS. Non-White = WERESODEAD.
I guess PASSEDTIME and TIMEPIECES are an ADDEDBONUS?
There's gotta be a joke out there about someone who put the ASS in SASSY. Loretta SWIT? Dua LIPA? Help me here.
Very clean, smooth Saturday. I'm with Rafa on not minding the four mini puzzles. Sometimes that's just what you gotta solve. Liked it a ton. Big thanks, Joe Deeny.
I was very MISLED by some of the cluing. TRAVELVISA (what other kind of visa could there be?). BONS (its actually correct but felt wrong to put an S on the adjective in this phrase). OTOH I always like seeing EVEL Knee el
Port wine is almost always a red wine not white wine. Are there any other kinds of visas?
DOS and MSDOS next to each other? Ugh.
Port is a red wine. The UTNEREADER is/was (?) a prominent counter-culture publication that is maybe defunct now.
Ports as in wine, are generally red wines.
Fun puzzle! I don’t think it was “hard” but it was a solid Saturday. I loved it. I say HOT AS HADES all the time because I’m trying to avoid “Hell”. Never saw ABDI either so that was new for me as well. UTNE READER is something my husband likes so lucky for me. Anyhoo, thanks for filling in Rafa!
You obviously haven’t met my mother, have you.😊
It's "ports" as in the dessert wine
Port wine. https://www.grape-experiences.com/2020/01/white-port-blend-varieties-unknown/
A pretty short write-up today, surely there was a bit more that could be said about this puzzle. Two TIMEs, for example, seems glaringly not ok unless it’s significant in some way, but this is a themeless…?
Hard for me but mostly doable except the SE corner because INBADSHAPE wouldn't fall into place since I had trouble with several crosses down there. I didn’t know ABDI, BONS seemed wrong, and can someone explain NOTA? Is it simply that you don’t add an A to the word one to get the word zero? Can’t figure that one out.
Ports as in port wines
Port is a type of sweet red wine.
Reds refers to the color/type of grape used to make wine, and port (wine) is usually made from red grapes. Utne Reader was a publication I used to read in the 80's, but can't remember too much about the content
PORT, as in the red wine.
I have also never heard of the UTNE READER, and I'm 46, so you're not alone!
Whewww I *struggled* with that southeast corner. Never heard of UTNE READER, could not for the life of me get MISLED, and slapped my forehead when NOT A came through. Not a particularly tough Saturday, but that section slowed me down quite a lot.
Actually thought this was five mini puzzles, if you count the middle separately, which I do. Started with Loretta SWIT and went counter,, or anti, if you're a Brit, clockwise, ending with the execrable ADDEDBONUS, which makes me cringe every time I hear it, which is too often.
Diacritics can be helpful (NENE) of misleading (SRA before SAO, hi @Conrad). HOTASHADES was the first thing I thought of, given its length. Advantages of being of a certain age. Nice to see the full-form UTNEREADER and learn about the NSA symbol. A friend makes his own cider so APPLEPRESS was a gimme. And hello to CECE, the only CECE I have seen since another CECE was a bridesmaid at our wedding a long time ago.
Impressive construction JD, Just Didn't turn out to be as hard as I thought it would. Thanks for all the fun.
Port is a kind of red wine
I don’t see a problem with INCLINED TO, but DOS next to MSDOS? This is the kind of puzzle that seems really hard for awhile and then becomes clear and easy. Liked it!
Oh. Well. Thing of beauty in so many ways.
The elegant grid design, allowing for a spectacular 24 longs. Longs bring the fun of guessing the answer with as few crosses as possible, and today ahas and ohos overabounded. What a pleasure ride!
Pleasure also comes from answers and clues never or rarely before seen in the NYT puzzle. Listen to this incredible fact that I gleaned from XwordInfo data: 199 of the puzzle’s 225 squares belong to answers that have been in the Times puzzle only four times before or less. That's practically 90% of this puzzles squares. 90%! Amazing!
The freshness includes lovely debuts ADDED BONUS, APPLE PRESS, CLASSIC CAR, and even the make-me-smile quaint HOT AS HADES.
So, add spark to the fun of this puzzle.
Not to mention the pleasure that comes from wit in cluing, as seen in the clues for SNOWSTORMS, NOT A, STETSON HAT, and the marvelous [This might come after the check] for MATE.
I crow. I know. I crow for Joe today, for this panoply of pleasure, this sweet outing flecked with beauty. This one was special. Bravo, sir, and thank you!
Could someone explain nota to me? I put in none thinking, what you add to one to make zero was the “n” to make none. Now I can’t see past my own mistake.
Port is a type of red wine. Took me a while too.
Tough to get into that SE section with HOT AS ____? and beyond that just an R and an M leading in. The key to me was finding the much-maligned BONS clue, which gave me enough leverage to get into that section.
Last year I finally got around to reading Jane EYRE and Pride and Prejudice. I found the latter to be a good read, but the former read like one of those YA romcoms that get churned out by the thousands.
Can someone help me out with NOTA/NOT A? I’m completely stumped.
For JJK: If you add "NOTA" to "one" you get NOT A ONE (zero).
You’re right, it does! I actually made a quilt with that type of pattern once. It reminded me of a Dutch windmill.
Yeah, I'm calling BS on over abounds...
I wanted HOT AS BALLS for 30D but had heard of HOT AS HADES and plopped it right in knowing the chances of my version being correct were slim (someday, Lord). A couple of weird dupes – TIME and DOS (I know a different DOS, but still) that I figured Rex would have commented on. Rice flour was the only 4 letter flour I could think of – ATTA rings a very vague bell, but I’ve never seen it out in the wild. Never heard of TEA DRESSES, but never had an occasion to wear one. RIG UP seems mis-clued to me; I RIG UP sail boats and not haphazardly. Couldn’t figure out why there was an “S” on BONS, but the cross helped me there. Enjoyable although easier than normal Saturday. 17:34
NE was really my only sticking point, but woosh and woosh. I didn't get a personal best, but my time was well below average and my coffee didn't even get cold.
I love Saturday puzzles like this, when everything seems to go right. I feel it sets the tone for the rest of the day.
Fun grind.
MILKED for MISLED led (!) to quite the conundrum in the SW where I was able to convince myself that LYRA from The Golden Compass was the orphan of Brit Lit.
TIME x2 is quite the dupe!
I don’t think GOOD OLE BOYS, specifically that spelling of “OLE”, is a thing. Should be “OLD” or “OL’ “, I think. The ol’ is short for old, not a separate word spelled the way it is here. Sort of like the difference between “till” and “ ’til” (one’s a cash register, the other is a shortened version of “until”)
I’m old. I subscribed to the UTNEREADER back in the 1970s and 80s. When I saw that answer today, I thought, “How many people under 60 will know this?” That answer makes MSDOS sound pretty up to date.
Hi Rafa, nice write up, and I enjoyed the gallery of wildlife as well.
A fascinating blank grid which I was drawn to complete. The stark openness of all that white space was just calling out to be filled in. And what a satisfying fill it was - those beautiful crossing stacks and the ADDED BONUS of the long parallel groupings. LISTEN HERE, GOOD OLE BOY, TIME PIECES - and my personal favorite - WERE SO DEAD. And that’s among many others that just glowed. And finally, waiting there at the end of the line holding her POEM, was my old friend Jane EYRE. I recently revisited her as part of my local Library’s winter reading challenge and - be advised, Reader - it was just as delightful as the first time we met.
Thank you, Joe. This was like breathing rarified air today.
Hey All !
Nice puz by Joe "The Deenster" Deeney. Don't know if anybody calls him that or not.
Grid has complete rotational symmetry. Which means, whatever way you turn the grid, all the Blockers are in the same places. Not advisable to turn your screen if you're doing puz on a desktop PC!
Had to Goog three times, as stuck intermittently in various sections. First was RAT (though, in retrospect, should've got that), next for ABDI, as that's a new name for me, finally BONS, as no French here. Two cheats in SW, dang.
Haven't read anyone yet, but Im sure the TIME dupe has been mentioned. As Rex might say, far enough apart to be ok-ish. That held me up for a bit in SW also, as I was resisting putting in the second TIME.
Speaking of TIME, get your copy of my book (I know, you already know I wrote a book! This is in case some new people are here who don't know! 😁) Changing Times by Darrin Vail. Amazon or barnesandnoble.com Sci-fi-y, adventure-y, chases, escapes, true love, miracles ... Oh wait, ran into describing The Princess Bride for a moment. 😁 Get a copy anyway!
Happy Saturday!
No F's (LISTEN HERE, Joe ...)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Hard hard hard hard hard. But also faster than average, so who knows. . By the end, I was staring at 52 Down thinking "HdAT? Wha' dat?" Finally figured it out.
Egs, some days you outdo yourself. Your reinterpretations are an extra plus, a free gift, an ADDED BONUS.
I am stumped by that as well. Can anyone explain?
OVERABOUND?...........said no one ever
Abdi? Seriously?
The commentary about this being four separate puzzles couldn’t be more true. I had to get help as I was completely stonewalled out of the SE here. I’m not a long time puzzler so never heard of UTNE reader and I couldn’t grok rig up. I had inabadspot in there as well and so just got toasted down there! Was too bad because I was on a record pace as well for a Saturday having breezed through the other three corners!
“One” would just mean one. “Not a one” (i.e., adding “NOT A” to “one”) means zero.
Google it it’s Bon Vivants
“Not a one” means none (zero)
Thought “NOTA” as “ANEN”… because if you add an N to one, you get None…
And that made me really mess up that whole corner.
Not a one
100%. Good ol’ boys is the expression
There are exit visas, but that would not fit. So, meh.
Impressive construction with pretty good links between the long stacks (sorry Joe can't forgive you for OVER ABOUND) and nice overall feel.
Rafa, thanks for the pix - soothing in their own way
UTNEREADER took me back many years to my younger more idealistic self. We were going to change the world... until we all got wealthy in the '90s. Now, fifty years later, the government 's being overthrown anyway!
I’m a seasoned solver, 55 years old and could not parse UTNE READER. Just plugging away at that southeast corner way too long to get the happy music. This puzzle skewed soooooo old. GOOD OLE BOY indeed. No offense to the constructor today, but I’m looking forward to Malaika’s next offering.
I had the same thing for a while, and could feel Rex having a conniption from here:)
Had to look up the two “A”s, ATTA and ABDI, but other than that worked through the “four puzzles” at a good pace compared with my usual Friday-Saturday struggles. Having BONS in the plural threw me off a bit but seemed the only way to go. Feel that NENE is becoming a crossword staple, entered it as kind of reflex action. Was hard to stop thinking HOTASHell, but luckily there was a workable synomym.
Same problems in SE
- I know BON Vivant, but Rex has trained me to race around and half read clues, so I didn’t notice the plural in the clue. Looking for 4 letter ___vivants, led to MORT, or the living dead. BONS VIVANT reminds me of the mothers in law construction.
- google auto-fill is apparently as unaware of ABDI as I am, bc I typed in ABD, waiting for the auto-fill to give me the last vowel, and it failed.
- I love it when I think there is no way I’ll know a Japanese word, then it turns out to be the one of about 5 that I actually do.
- I loathe it when I think there is no way I’ll know a British orphan and google it, then it turns out to be the very familiar EYRE. Wasted cheat!
- INSADStAtE error led me to _OE_ for the greeting card inclusion: TOES????
- I could go on about almost every clue/answer in the SE being questionable but defensible, but it all sorted out with a little help from check puzzle; feels like a fair half-cheat.
I didn’t believe the NYC snow forecast, yet here are some very large flakes coming down!!! 2 weeks until spring…
I had the opposite experience from Rafa today. I found the puzzle rather easy, got my start in the SE and finished in the NW where I had trouble getting a foothold.
At Crossword Fiend, Amy explains the answer of NOT A as what you can put in front of one, NOT A ONE, which means zero. Thanks, Amy, I wasn’t getting that at all.
I thought the clue for CLUED was tricky. There were only two letters that could end CLUE, an S or a D, so I went with CLUED but “Taking a hint?” doesn’t lead me to CLUED. I needed that D to break into the NW, which was empty except for NSA and the YES SIR Y. Somehow I came up with DEPEND and then DAMP for the finish, whew.
Thanks, Joe Deeney, for an enjoyable Saturday puzzle.
Like several others, I zoomed through most of the grid and then struggled a ton in the SE, even with HAI being a gimme for me and giving me ADORE immediately. I put -ED at the end of 43D (which turned out to be accidentally correct) and guessed UTNEREADER from just -RE-, then I got RIGUP and was stuck for a while. I was expecting a first name at 55D. BONS I should've known, but ABDI? Partial NOT A with a crazy hard clue? (I wanted something that goes after "one", that's how this kind of clue usually works) And I was reading the 43D and 54D clues the Saturday way, i. e. literally. "Took for a ride" = "rode" and "sweet" as in tasting sweet.
You know how in cryptics, words like "man" "woman" "girl" "boy" can mean "some kind of name goes here, good luck guessing what name it is"? Well.. [Arab man and woman step down] is pretty much the worst possible clue for ABDICATE.
Enter bon vivants in Google Translate to go from English and French and you will get bons vivants in French, because in French the adjective must match the nouns for singular and plural. The clue should have indicated the answer was French.
I’m 41, and my high school’s library subscribed to Utne Reader
For me, mostly easy, beginning in the NW and swinging around clockwise, then finishing in a "medium" SW. Maybe not OVERABOUNDING in the most scintillating long answers ever, but it's always gratifying to fill in so much grid real estate on one go (for me, SNOW STORMS, WE'RE SO DEAD, TEA DRESSES, HOT AS HADES). A tip of the hat for the impressive stacks construction.
Do-overs: NSc, OLd. Help from previous puzzles: ATTA, WE'RE SO DEAD, LIPA, HAI. Help from having subscribed: UTNE READER. No idea: CECE.
Same here on CLUED.
“A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says ‘I can't operate on this boy, he is my son.’ How can this be?” In the seventies, the answer to that riddle was harder to get. The answer is the surgeon is the boy’s mother. All that is to say, all this time I assumed “DrA” was a man, only to find on Thursday that DrA is going through menopause! Old prejudices die hard!
No plural for adjectives in English but the French most often add “s” at the end of adjectives to make them plural.
I liked the irony of "added bonus" (a great clue and common phrase) crossing "overabound" (a made up word that is also Something extra, redundantly)
A puzzle where I really had to keep the faith and was quite sure that I wouldn't finish. I was worried that I might not even start. I left the NW with only EVEL very lightly inked in and a guess that DAMP might be right -- though I didn't write that in at all.
STETSON HAT was my best early guess, but I waited for confirmation from crosses before writing it in. SERTA and ARKS were pretty easy, though, and suddenly I had a foothold.
The NE was the easiest section. SWIT and ORCA were gimmes and it helped a lot having seen WE'RE SO DEAD very, very recently in a puzzle. In the SE, it took me a while to remember that EYRE, not (Little) NELL was the orphan. But an "L" at the end of "Did a whole lot of nothing" (lovely clue, for which I wanted WASTED TIME, but the "W" proved to be unfortunate) wasn't likely to work.
Patience and perseverance allowed me to solve this with no cheats -- but it certainly wasn't easy. A CLASSIC and classy Saturday challenge that I really enjoyed. I feel a sense of accomplishment in finishing it.
HAI DOS of OVERABOUND from Joe whose duplicity equals my warped persona today. So much to enjoy here from the CLASSIC CAR & STETSON HAT to TEA DRESSES & UTNE READER. Even his HOT AS HADES plays well for the octogenarian solver whose wheelhouse holds APPLE PRESS parties and NENE visitations. I can sense Rafa’s frustration, but I can reassure her that time will pass and new vast areas of WTF will open—super heroes, rap artists & ASCII coding anyone?
And thanks Rafa for an entertaining response to a delightful grid.
yeet the noxious answer of "good ole boys" & the abundance of too-clever-by-half cluing. the 6 ?s and 15 parentheticals/e.g. felt like the cluing took a backseat to "look at the stacks" .
Abdi is servant. Abdullah or Addallah is servany of God
work visa
Merriam says both bon vivants and bons vivants work for the plural.
Pretty easy for me. All that white space was intimidating but I put in ATTA, DAMP, and EVEL and on my way.
No costly erasures but CECE, ABDI, and HAI were WOEs. The last two made the SE a tad tough, but I’ve heard the HADES expression which helped.
OVER ABOUND was not obvious and ate up some nanoseconds in the center.
Ambitious construction, liked it.
@Lewis, thanks as always for the interesting tidbits of information about the puzzle - hard to believe CLASSIC CAR is a debut! In the unlikely case you hadn’t noticed, I’ll point out an ADDED BONUS: all four edges of the grid contain double letters. They particularly OVERABOUND in the west wall, which has three sets!
I also smiled at HOT AS HADES. I have heard it here in the Deep South, usually from the more genteel folk or the GOOD OLE BOYS who were taught not to curse in polite company. See also HOT AS blazes.
I tried adding “an en” to one to get none but that led to naught.
TIL that you can spell it BONS VIVANTS or BON VIVANTS, and that there is a rarely used but lovely feminine form bonne vivante and its plural bonnes vivantes.
I confess to looking at the grid and thinking “oh boy, five little puzzles,” but I did like how it made way for all those juicy longs. And the solve was NICE enough (it PASSED TIME), even if along the way I was wishing for more creative clues. But once done, what a reward to see the four corners of longs packed like sardines! YESSIR, Mr. Deeney, it’s a fine PIECE of work.
Great puzzle
"Antonym of "iie" in Japanese", "ABDI", "BONS"... You just give up, Deeney ?
Time
Anyone else write in HOT AS BALLS? No? Just me? I’ll see myself out…
No....Of course not! No one else can mishear as much as I do. HOT AS HAITI. Well, Haiti is hot....I need bon BONS.
Like @Nancy, STETSON HAT was my first entry. Then I went about my business hither and yon. SWIT NENE ORCA...my favorite pub. A little answer here and there. I was happy for myself that answers began popping in. Slowly.
The top part was still pretty empty. I managed TRAVEL VISA and then wondered who was involved in thrill shows. At first I wanted Bela. EVEL showed up because of TIME PIECES. Finished (sorta) the top NW. On to the WEST and meet up with some trade winds. That section was (sorta) easy for me...
On to the middle. So, 7D.....I had OVER in place. Can it be OVER A BOUND? I've never heard anyone say that. Am I missing something (again)!!!!.
On to the bottom EAST. IN BAD SHAPE stare and hope I'm right. I was. Now to figure out who this servant of God is. I toyed with Ahab and Alla and other made up names. Cheat. ABDI. Will I remember who you are?
Finished with PASSED TIME and was proud of myself. This took time to complete but it was enjoyable . I send a COO.
Agreed, this puzzle was so much fun.
Have to believe Rex would have been apoplectic over the doubles today. Not only TIME, but DOS and MSDOS back to back. Very sloppy constructing.
Travel visas are a thing, as opposed to work visas. You can come, but you can’t stay or work.
A little short of medium. It would have been closer to easy if I hadn't hesitated on putting that second TIME in. I guess the no duplication rule only applies between each clue and its direct answer. Working on 1A I had to keep reminding myself that EXTRA could not be a part of the answer.
The SE was probably the most challenging section. No surprise that ABDI is a debut. I didn't get the NOTA clue until I read today's review. That was a very Saturday level clue for a common entry. My OLD/OLE write over added a mini speed bump.
In the NE my KIWI/NENE over write didn't last long as it is sandwiched between SWIT and ORCA. In the SW SRA/SAO lingered a little longer.
I solved on my phone last night and didn't realize that DOS was in that center section. It's the most interconnected and I filled it in without ever reading the clue for 42A.
Filling the NW was almost early week easy. Having to start the other three quadrants from scratch and the hesitation on the TIME dupe brought it to near medium. A fun puzzle but much more of a construction feat than a solving challenge.
Yes, it made me like this puzzle much less.
This is so amazing: 20 ten-letter words, and not a clunker among them! I winced a bit at OVERABOUND but it's fine. Very impressive puzzle.
It was pretty medium difficulty for me; I ended up with everything filled in except a total blank in the lower left. Looking at 38 across -----ONHAT all I could come up with was [TEN]GALLON HAT where TEN would have to be a rebus.
Always look forward to your five favorite clue/answer combos each week, Lewis. I’d say nothing will top the STETSON HAT entry this week.
A typical Saturday puzzle. I was surprised to see TIME twice - TIME PIECES/PASSED TIME, didn't know ABDI, HAI, CECE but not a stumper for me like some of the themed puzzles lately. Medium/Hard but doable.
Well, the clue asks for a “certain southerner”, so maybe the constructor meant far south, like Mexico, and it’s a Good Olé Boy.
Had “wasted time” in the southeast which messed me up for a bit. Also thought “anen” was the answer to the one to zero (as in, add an en to one and it makes none!). Didn’t see how a poem would be “sweet” in a card (was looking for a four letter candy). And never heard of Abdi. Luckily, a good ole boy saved me and I finally got that corner.
The duplicate DOS/MSDOS and TIMEPIECES/PASSEDTIME were big oofs for me
Back in the day, as they say, I worked for a large newspaper in downtown Vancouver and when the stress got to be too much for me I would talk my good friend and colleague Vic into going for a lunch time walk with me. On the way back from Taco del Mar we would often stop at a nearby small (maybe 12 twenty foot) newsstand and peruse all the niche magazines and foreign newspapers. Usually returned to my desk in the graphics pit with a copy of Modern Painters or, you guessed it, Utne Reader. And a cold burrito.
NENE, per xwordinfo.com, has appeared in the NYTXW 324 times over the years, the first TIME in 1944!
66-worder themelessness. 10 debut entries ... all longball ones, except for ABDI. btw: OVERABOUND ain't a debut, technically -- twas used once back in March 1960, sooo ... just 65th anniversary meat.
There were a mere 8 weejects, all swirlin around that center circular area like a buncha Roman candles. staff pick: HAI. Kinda liked its iie-based clue. IIE definitely needs to be a runtpuz entry, soon as possible. HAR HAI.
Do four 4-deep 10-stacks make for a hard SatPuz? Like many, M&A is on the fence, there. It was mostly just that there SE stack that got extra-hard-as-Hades. That stack reminded m&e of a Wiener Dog Runt, due to some of its Down crossers bein as desperate as snot. [especially: NOTA. BONS. ABDI.] Also, GOODOLEBOY? [Sounds like an ardent fan of a Gulf of Mexico re-rename.] But, hey -- viva the Ow de Sperations.
Thanx for a doozey of a DeeneyPuz, Mr. Deeney dude. Terrific overaboundin wordstacks. Next up for U?: 5-stacks.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
... and now for a mini-solvequest, not stacked against U [much] ...
"Core Samples" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Good puzzle. Surprisingly, below my average time for a Saturday.
I wear hats. Plenty of them. Have for many years. Probably have about ten fedora type hats and a handful of caps and toques. Came down to my studio this morning to do the puzzle wearing a black Dobbs porkpie. It's not a STETSONHAT, its just a Stetson. The hat part is just redundant.
ABDI is a mess of an entry, at least as clued.
ABDI has never been in the Times Xword before but there’s a Somali actor named Barkhad Abdi who won a best supporting actor BAFTA and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Captain Phillips. Def puzzle worthy IMO.
Put me down as another who thought this was a very NICE Saturday puzzle with lots of interesting stuff to CHEW on all over the place.
I can imagine a case where 1 Across isn't redundant: "If you order today, as a BONUS you'll get a free subscription to the UTNE READER! And if you double your order, as an ADDED BONUS we'll throw in a STETSON HAT!!"
I've heard the phrase as HOTTER THAN HADES so the slightly cooler HOT AS HADES worked for me ALTHO looking at it later in grid made me wonder "What kind of SHADES were those?"
Having lived and worked in Japan in the 80s helps with xwords now and then. You hear an emphatic HAI (yes) all the time. They love saying that but you rarely hear its opposite "iie" (no). As a collectivist society where group agreement and harmony are the highest virtues, saying "no" is to be avoided if possible. (Pronounced "high" and "eee eh".)
There's a wealth of information on xwordinfo.com on "New York Times Crossword Answers and Insights" available for the price of a fast food meal these days ($20 per year). For instance, I see that ABDI makes its first appearance in over 80 years of the NYTXW. That's not exactly a grid fill friendly sequence of letters so it might be another 80 before it appears again.
Apparently, he totally ad-libbed the famous line. “I’m the captain now“.
@Les S. More, was that the Sun or the Province? How far back... 1980s?
*hand up* for wasted time, also had apple corer and color charts. rough outing, but sure am impressed by the puzzle. thanks Joe!!
Also, navigation lights on the port side (left) are red
Or a student visa.
I had trouble there. I thought I needed to add AN EN to one to get none.
@egs what @andy said! 😂
@Anoa Bob -- I was coming here to say the exact same thing about ADDED BONUS and I would have chosen a similar sentence. The phrase doesn't bother me at all.
Moreover, I would argue that ADDED BONUS is not even redundant. BONUS has the connotation of something good, something desirable. ADDED just means more of something. That added something may not be any kind of BONUS. "Now that the leaves are falling, I have the ADDED CHORE of raking our yard."
Another puzzle where my first thought was "cool grid!" Intimidating with so much white space (seemed to have more than a typical Saturday) but a couple of gimmies in the NE started the ball rolling.
I was able to land UPPERDECKS in the West with just the K from ARKS and that area started to fall as well.
I had ADDONBONUS for the longest time and, as often happens with me, I refused to let it go until EVEL and DEPENDS solved that problem.
Very impressed with the 4 stack longs today. It did indeed make this feel like four separate puzzles but (like Rafa) that never bothers me all that much if the long fill is fun, and this was. I never heard of UTNEREADER but happy to learn about it here. I was sure it was wrong (those first four letters really do seem wonky and not at all pretty in a grid) and I guess I've never spelled out BONS VIVANTS because THAT answer also looked wrong. So the SE was quite a battle for me but worth the fight at the end.
Lots of good, clever cluing today and mis-directs. Loved clues for STETSONHAT, NOTA, and PRIVATEAGREEMENT.
All in all, a good, fun workout.
“Not a one” is none, or zero. I didn’t get it either.
My problem with this is that a BONUS is always ADDED. If there is a bonus on top of a bonus, that would be an ADDED BONUS, but I find that unusual. I hear ADDED BONUS when folks just mean BONUS, and that's what bothers me.
Loved, loved, LOVED this puzzle! I made it 3/4 of the way through with pretty good momentum, considering I solve for fun and not so much for speed. my nemesis was the stacked Northwest. Needed what I call a half cheat to get ATTA. (BTW nicely rhyming with OUTTA.) COLORCODES. And ABDI also gave me pause. Faves included CLUES for SNOWSTORMS (here in Michigan, we are indeed planted in winter), LISTEN HERE, and TEADRESSES (great wardrobe choice!).
Kudos to the constructor! You made our Saturday! A great escape from this week’s abominations!
If you've ever made Ranch Dressing at home you know it has to have Butter Milk and it FIT. Loved the misdirect. I had a subscription to UTNI Reader in the 60s. I'm old.
I read a lot of books and articles by southern writers, and it seems that they often spell "ol'" as "ole." The country singer Don Williams had a hit with the song "Good Ole Boys Like Me" some years back. I also often see "gon'" (as in "Are you gon' do that?") spelled as "gone" -- the southern soul singer J-Wonn, for instance, has a dance track out called "If You Gone Pop It" -- which I admit reads really clumsily to me, but that seems to be the standard, at least these days.
Eh -- Utne Reader wasn't as righteous as it claimed to be. From personal experience, I can tell you that they'd request an article on spec, the writer would send them a manuscript, and the article would show up rewritten and unattributed in the following issue. It's actually the same scam that those "Women's Magazines" like "True Confessions" used to use -- a writer would send them a story, and then they'd print it unattributed and retitled. I personally know at least one woman this happened to, back in the 1950s.
I finished this in record time but found a lot of the entries objectionable. In particular, I am not a native Arabic speaker but studied it and lived six years in the Arab world, and Abdallah is “servant of God”. Abd or Abed is servant. You might see Abdo or Abdu as a nickname for Abdallah, but this Abdi thing is nonsense. Never seen it.
tough one for sure just a heads up todays WSJ sat march 8 puzzle is a GEM not a bot I subscribe to Rex NY times wash post and WSJ today is a goodie
I thought Roomonster was a woman, and something recently suggested man. (Just checked, Darrin name of author for book promoted here).
DrA has given herself away before:)
Someone beat you to it…
I thot maybe you meant DOS and MSDOS
I see Utne Reader is another name unknown to younger people.
It used to be crosswordese. Appeared frequently (The clue was often ____ Reader) I don’t recall seeing it in a long time. It took me a while to realize it was back; “alternative “ should have been the give away. The
Dupes don’t bother me. It is fortunate for me because Shortz has NO rule against dupes. They show up all the time. Note the blogger didn’t even mention it.
Max W
Lot of people in this country. Lot of Southerners who might have different ways of spelling what is after all a non standard word. Ole Miss is a thing the odds are good ole boy is a thing too.
Bon Vivants would be an English variant. It is now in English after all. So technically, in English both are right. But my guess most English writers would leave out the first s so that made the answer more difficult. It still is a valid (Saturday) answer in English.
Hope all you early birds are enjoying a lovely dinner about now while we PST folks are just coming in from a beautiful sunny day in the mid-70s with spring making herself seen everywhere.
Great job, Rafa. I am in the “oh no! A four puzzles in one stacked grid - on Saturday no less!” crowd. That said, after working on this intermittently since about 10 this morning, I finally got it and am feeling pretty good. Some easy spots for sure. That NW corner got my hubris jacked up, especially since the NE didn’t give me much resistance either. I made it all the way down to the “ranch dressing” clue at 38A, apparently failed to notice the ? and since both mayonnaise and butTermilk fit, and the second T actually worked, I assumed (certainly making that answer the proverbial ‘ass’ of me) that it was correct and moved on thinking, “well, the tough part of a good Saturday puzzle finally hit,” and I came to a screeching halt. And had to move on to let that section ferment for a bit.
Overall, the puzzle skewed a little old in spots, (good for me) starting with the dang ranch dressing clue.
I doubt any of you make ranch from the packet any more but when it was first on the market, the only way to get it was to buy the packet and add mayo and buttermilk. It was during the 60s? when everyone had the little bottle to mix various dressing packets with vinegar and oil. Everybody had the little bottle with the lines on it. Then came Hidden Valley and it instantly became a way to get kids to eat veggies/salad fixings. Ranch dip was born!
HOT AS HADES is another oldie, HADES just being a synonym for hell - back when people didn’t swear constantly and “bad words” really were frowned upon. Using HADES allowed one to complain vociferously about the heat without swearing.
In addition to ADDED BONUS, I thought TRAVEL VISA felt redundant even though there are visas for work, education etc. but at the end of the day you don’t need a VISA unless you have traveled to gain entry into a country not your official home, right? Yea or nay, I just thought that one was strained just to fit the stack. Since it was easily gotten, I just give it a teensy meh. As for OVERABOUND though, I just say no. Redundant for sure. So much so that I feared we had a themed Saturday (perish the thought!!!) and I actually scanned the grid for something that smelled a bit like a reveal. Thankfully no.
In the toughish SE, had I not been certain of UTNE READER (again, skewing old), and GOOD OLE BOY being just so common in Oklahoma speech, I would not have finished. Just like the STETSON HAT (which, by the way I think is one of the best clues in ages!) I was 100% certain that wAStED TIME was correct for “did a whole lot of nothing” at 61A. And I will die on that hill because PASSED is not as strong an answer for the specific clue as is wasted. Or maybe it is because Mr. Deeny’s misdirects are always among my favorites. I was thrilled to see his byline again. It’s been quite a while and I am aware that he enjoys constructing themeless puzzles and using this type of isolated grid sections.
So, welcome back, Joe!! As usual, you had me on the ropes for hours, but I finally made it. Buckled down, put on my STETSON HAT (hold the mayonnaise and the buttermilk) and struggled through. It was not waSTed TIME!
Har! Thanks @burtonkd! But yes, male here. Don't you ever read my second posts? I always sign off with RooMonster (some witty remark [😁]) Guy.
I knew nobody reads me ...
RooMonster Feeling Feminine Guy
😜
I had a kealoa experience with 20 across: first MEND, then MELD, then WELD.
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