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Rap pioneers, slangily / SAT 2-28-26 / Animals in an early-2000s virtual fad / South Indian lentil stew / Gay nightlife spot with a dress requirement / Innermost moon of Neptune / Principle of improv comedy / Dialect that is responsible for a large majority of Gen Z slang / Weakens, as an overly strong character, in video game lingo / Tolkien ring bearer / Popular role-playing game since 1974, informally / Acting like a sore loser, informally / Affliction treated with a nit comb / Robert Frost's middle name
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Constructor: Adam Levav
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: SAMBAR (37D: South Indian lentil stew) —
Sāmbār, or sambhar, is a lentil-based vegetable spiced curry or stew, cooked with pigeon peas and tamarind broth. It originates in South Indian cuisine and is also eaten in other parts of India.
• • •
 |
| [48D: Blue-roofed restaurant] |
["THAT'S ME in the (NW) corner ..."]
Surprised by the total gimme at 1A: Set unambitious goals (AIM LOW). I wrote it in immediately and confirmed it with WOMB and that NW corner was done in pretty short order. Thanks god for the absolute certainty of WOMB, because I would definitely have misspelled SMEAGOL without it (14A: Tolkien ring bearer). Even now, that "O" looks insane. But right is right, and you can't argue with right, and the crosses are all fair, so ... tragedy averted. The one tricky part of the puzzle was getting into the center. I had no luck at first coming out of the NW into the middle, and so hopped over to the NE corner and worked my way into there. AAVE was a gimme (9D: Dialect that is responsible for a large majority of Gen Z slang), and that gave me REVOLTS, and soon that corner was done too. Coming out of that corner was also a little challenging, but ... I forget which happened first, but either I put LEATHER BAR together from LEA- (finally) or LICE / NEMEAN / AVES (which I had as AVIS) got me the BRACES part of CURLY BRACES (36A: Symbols used to group blocks of computer code). Did you know LESBIAN BAR and LEATHER BAR have the same number of letters? I may actually have started to write LESBIAN BAR in before thinking "wait ... 'dress code'? really? what do you have to wear ... lesbian clothes? That sounds ... wrong." Wrote in BAE for 20A: Term of endearment appropriated from [AAVE], which gave me LEA- for the "Gay nightlife spot," but still had a few moments of wondering (brain: "what are those upscale, tony bars called ... fern bars? Fern ... LEA- ... something about leaves? LEAF BAR, is that a thing?"). But then the "T" from TRIS finally got me over the hump: Aha! LEATHER BAR! Like in Cruising! Nice. Original. Surprising. Easily the most exhilarating part of this solve.
Stuff like NERFS (44A: Weakens, as an overly strong character, in video game lingo) and YES, AND (13D: Principle of improv comedy) might've felt fresh even a year or two ago, but now have appeared enough times that the sheen has worn off. Not bad, just not as original-seeming as they once were. I was mad at ERASER PEN for a bit because I was thinking of an ERASABLE PEN, which I would not describe as an [Error correction tool]—it's a writing tool that has an "error correction tool" attached. But then I realized ERASER PEN must be another thing entirely: something pen-shaped that is just ... an eraser. A pen-shaped eraser, is that it? Yes. It has a pen-like shape for precision erasing. There seems to be some conflation of "erasable pen" and "ERASER PEN" online. Some of you pen-heads (or ... eraserheads?) will be able to speak to this better than I. As for INSTANT TAN, I think the term I know is "self-tanner" or "spray-on tan" (26D: Body bronzer). I believe this puzzle that INSTANT TAN is a thing, but those other things feel more like things than INSTANT TAN feels like a thing, hence my lack of excitement. Also, my "body" has never been "bronze" a day in its life—not even close, it just ... doesn't do that—and I've never had any desire or need to fake it, so everything I know about tanning I pick up from ads. I am not a reliable source of info on tanning products, is what I'm saying. The clue on AIRHORN didn't quite resonate with me either (56A: Musical sample added for excitement). I do not think of an AIRHORN as something that "adds excitement" to any occasion. A truly awful sound, but yeah, you can hear it in some dance music, so it must be "exciting" to someone. Yesterday had funky BASS LINES—a much more "exciting" musical phenomenon to my ear.
[Enjoy the "excitement"!]
- 57A: Animals in an early-2000s virtual fad (NEOPETS) — helps to have had a daughter who was a small child in the early 2000s, though she was more into WEBKINZ than NEOPETS.
- 22A: Part of a Blues Brothers outfit (FEDORA) — dark suit ... sunglasses ... needed crosses for FEDORA.
- 31A: Innermost moon of Neptune (NAIAD) — no idea. Needed virtually every cross. That NAIAD / NEMEAN / AVES bit is maybe the roughest patch in the puzzle.
- 5D: Rap pioneers, slangily (OGS) — "Original Gangsters." From merriam-webster dot com:
Original Gangster
Note: According to an essay by Steve Champion and Anthony Ross, former members of the Crips street gang in Los Angeles, the initialism O.G. was first used by the Crips in the early 1970's; see Champion and Ross, "The Making of an O.G.: Transcending Gang Mentality," written in 2006 and available on the website indybay.org as of 7/12/21. The release of the album O.G. Original Gangster by the rapper Ice-T (Tracy Lauren Morrow) in 1991 likely contributed to the migration of the word from gang culture to more general use.
- 51A: ___ Tung, star of cable TV's "The Summer I Turned Pretty" (LOLA) — again, no idea. Also, LOL at the phrase "cable TV's." What are you talking about? What channel? Where is this alleged program found besides in the vast universe of "cable TV"? Looks like Amazon Prime, which is ... not cable TV. Is it? It's streaming. What is happening here?
- 30D: ___ Story (punny nickname for the "Iliad") (TROY) — first I'm hearing of this, but I like it. Cute. A Toy Story pun. I won't be using it, but I like it.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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106 comments:
Not a bad puzzle but too Easy for a Saturday.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
LAssi before LATTE for the sipped drink at 4D
My 7A beerball player was a FRAT Bro before he was a BOY
Boo before BAE for the 20A term of endearment
LET out before LET FLY at 24D
I misspelled NEMEAN (31D) a couple of times. Yes, I'm a very talented misspeller.
@Rex AViS before AVES at 32D
WOEs:
SMEAGOL (14A) or any minor LoTR character. Read it 50+ years ago, never saw any of the movies.
I didn't know that Robert Frost's middle name was LEE (28A), but it was filled in before I read the clue.
LOLA Tung at 51A, but easy to get from crosses
South Indian stew SAMBAR at 37D.
I've heard of "hit in the butt," not BUTT HURT (35D).
Nice end of the week combo with yesterday - this one played a little easier even though that central tri-stack appears daunting. Highlight for me was the SMÉAGOL - “Precious” pair. Agree with Rex on BUTT HURT - it may sound trendy but it definitely has negative connotation.
Jerry Butler
Overall fill is clean enough - liked BOLO TIES and LET FLY. LEATHER BAR feels like it’s there for effect and INSTANT TAN is blah. SB stalwart NAIAD is always nice to see. Side eye to the AAVE - AVES adjacency.
Waylon
Enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Anna Stiga’s Stumper today has huge open corners and a segmented center - I found it slightly more or a test than this one.
I was feeling kind of ethereal 'cause I'm PRECIOUS
Fell asleep while working on this, so my timer says it took me 8 hours... While this was doable, it was definitely challenging for me. NW and SE, easy. NE and middle--medium. But the SW corner was really hard for me. I feel like one's skin being ashy is more related to not enough sleep, or dehydration, or lack of makeup, more than not putting on moisturizer.... I had the end of 58A (-PED) and kept wanting REUPPED. Also, I don't really think of an AIRHORN as musical... Took me a strangely long time to think of MOHAIR. And CURLY took a while to see too.... so that SW corner was what I fell asleep doing, and what took me most of the 20 minutes or so I still had to work on this, this AM. So definitely medium-challenging for me (with Challenging on a Saturday meaning I DNFed/cheated). I thought this was a great puzzle! Just right for a Sat AM wrestling match. Thank you, Adam, terrific puzzle : )
I *really* liked this puzzle. It was tough enough to make me work for it, but also managed to keep momentum going throughout. Starting with 7A I was able to place something and just keep building from there. The architecture made it easier - I could work on each corner in turn until it was completely done. It's toughness didn't come from too much trivia or proper names (though I knew SMEAGOL once I had a few crosses).
I 1000% agree with Rex on BUTTHURT. I used to have friends who used that term all the time and I despised it. It was such a crappy way to be dismissive of anyone's actual concerns, or a way to be a sore winner.
LEATHER BAR will always make me think of the Blue Oyster from the Police Academy movies. CURLY BRACES are something I no longer encounter much as a programmer now that I work mostly in Python, but was maybe more of a gimme to me than it would be to others. I never noticed until today that AUTOPAY and AUTOPSY are one letter apart.
Anyway, great start to my Saturday morning!
Naticked at NEMEAN/NAIAD. I thought it was dEMEAN/dAIAD (knowing neither the moon nor anything about the bible), but in hindsight I think I was thinking Damascan? That’s a thing, right? And I know a daiad is a thing. Anyway, rough cross there.
Freshness in the box today.
Not just the obvious freshness of answer debuts, but also many answers I’ve heard of and like but don’t think about often. The grid, to me, seemed like it was popping with zing.
I loved the main bones – the vertical and horizontal stagger-stacks that centered the grid. There was the lovely ring of CURLY BRACES, and when I looked it up, I remembered seeing them in the past, and I smiled. I pictured that LEATHER BAR and that ERASER PEN. I loved the misdirect of [Pressure gauge], where I was foraging for a name for the little pen-sized tool that measures tire pressure.
And, speaking of NYT answer debuts, five of the six answers of those stacks are just that, and the sixth (INSTANT TAN) only appeared once before in the history of the Times puzzle.
The box, on the whole, just had a feeling of newness from start to finish, that I found rare and wonderful, Adam. It radiated personality and made for a splendid outing. Thank you so much for making this!
No idea on SMEAGO? F -eather bar seemed like a nice place to match your boa with a dress. W-eather bar required galoshes, so, no.
A commenter on Wordplay, Marshall Walthew made a terrific catch, that right next to SMÉAGOL, was DEAR ONE, clued [Precious person]. SMÉAGOL often referred to the ring of the story as "my precioussss". I'm guessing that wasn't a coincidence, that it was a little Easter egg.
Not my cup of tea at all, but early returns are somewhat favorable, so it's why they make chocolate and vanilla.
LEATHER BAR wasn't bad, but SMÉAGOL?... no clue. Guess Almighty Autocorrect knew it, as it accented the E. NERFS? If you say so.
Similarly no clue on BUTT HURT, but gone from indifference to dislike after Rex shed light on its meaning.
Could have done without seeing a FRAT BOY first thing in the morning (if ever). Had Shades before FEDORA; good clue there. And TROY Story; haha, sounds original.
Rex seemed to like it more than three stars' worth, then a tepid at best write-up justified less. I was initially less fond of the puzzle, but came to appreciate some quality stuff.
Hoping there's enough collective sanity in the world to survive the latest attempt by our Criminal-in-Chief to divert attention from his, and his incompetent cronies, latest diversion from anything the country cares about.
I was very surprised to learn that LEsbianBARs have dress codes, until I realized they don’t.
Hey All !
Daunting at first, but plugged along, and it all fell in 20 1/2 minutes. Seemed longer, which is good. Enough stickiness to keep the ole brain involved without getting frustrated.
Nice center stair-stack (I believe that's what Rex calls it), both Across and Down, with good fill throughout the crosses. Not the easiest thing to do.
Remembered FRERE from a few puzs ago, surprised myself at that! NERFS clued in a way I didn't know (not a gamer here). Chuckled at BUTTHURT, inner 10 year old there. Took too long to realize the School houses clue was for fish.
Two good Themelesses in a row. YesterPuzs constructor with the 20 years, I feel your pain. I just got the email this morning, my latest submission was a No. It was an F Rebus. Truly wanted that one to be my debut! I'm about 15 in myself, lost count on how many I've submitted. I was gung ho for a bit, now only trying maybe 2-3 a year.
Although (you knew it was coming!), I am a published author. BEFORE TIMES as an answer, resembles CHANGING TIMES, which is the title of my book. Search Darrin Vail wherever you get your books online. 😁
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
Five F's - PROPER. Har
RooMonster
DarrinV
Hated this puzzle. Too many short two word answers that aren’t exciting: SATBY, AIMLOW, IMHERE, YESAND (seen recently in a puzzle), ONTRIAL, OFLATE, and ISAYSO (three words). But (no pun intended) the puzzle lost me at BUTTHURT. Sounds terrible, might be offensive, and shouldn’t be in a New York Times crossword puzzle. Get it out and start over. After that I stopped so never figured out that there was an N for the NAIAD vs NEMEAN cross. Total Natick here. Hopefully tomorrow puzzle is better.
NEMEAN/AVES/NAIAD was the only resistance today.
Fair enough. Some of the clues seemed like they tried a touch too hard and may have missed the mark. The pressure gauge clue for STRESS LEVEL is one example - yes, it’s kind of cute, and it works, but just barely. Another quibble might be the seemingly obscure clue for AVES, but at least kudos to the constructor for avoiding the overused variants of “street crossers”. Those are just quibbles though. Similar to yesterday, tough but fair is what we are after - and that has been on display this weekend.
INSTANT TAN probably only used for the second time because it’s not really a thing as Rex noted. INSTANT self-TAN would be better. Or spray-on tan (which definitely is a thing).
Good puzzle. Needed one cheat, for the SMEAGOL/OGS cross (I'm not a Tolkien person). I had "darling" instead of DEARONE and "ringties" instead of BOLOTIES, so the NE was slow to develop. The bottom half was easier for me.
I guessed correctly to get FDR; afterward I looked it up, and (President) Grover Cleveland cautioned him about the presidency when FDR was five years old! Do you think the Roosevelt family might have been well connected in 1887?
I just finished listening to the LOTR audiobooks read by Rob Inglis (he sings! he recites poetry!) - an annual tradition since I first bought these on CD - so Smeagol was a gimme. In the end, the puzzle was a Wednesday time.
I agree with Rex about butthurt - it's never anything but nasty.
I’ve never read LOTR and know nothing about either baseball or hockey. My love of xwords alone is motivating me to gain at least a minimal understanding of all three.
But was that a personal best time for puzzles-during-which-I-fell-asleep, or just an average time?
Who says air horns can't be fun. This happened last night: "A clash of two of the top teams in the East, which the Pistons won 122-119, was put on hold when the air horn at Little Caesars Arena sounded continuously for more than 12 minutes. The fun began when play was stopped with 7:24 left in the quarter, during an ESPN on-air interview with Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell."
6 days w/o Star Wars…can we do a week?
I feel like you read my mind on this one, everything you said was exactly how I felt. I almost stopped doing the puzzle at BUTT HURT but didn’t want to lose my bazillion day streak. Thanks for calling that out. Makes me think of rape and maybe it’s supposed to. Yuck.
Am I the only one that instantly thought of Tobias (Arrested Development) wearing his new "leather daddy" outfit and asking to be taken to the Gothic Castle for Gob's magic show and the cockney cab driver (no doubt influenced by Tobias' getup) mistakenly hearing "Gothic Arsehole" (the LEATHERBAR)?
Regarding BUTTHURT, sure, I've sometimes heard it used in the way described, but its true meaning is that someone is over-reacting to something relatively petty. I can't say that it is part of my regular slang repertoire, but I don't get, well, BUTTHURT when I hear it.
For most of us, NY is what comes BEFORETIMES.
When talking about sea level, it's unusual to STRESSLEVEL.
Frodo definitely had MOHAIR than SMEAGOL. I note that BAGGINS fit in the answer space until quickly proven wrong.
Nice shout out today to A-Rod's brother Tomás, aka TROD.
Isn't OGS text speak for Oh Jeez?
As Alysa Liu might say, that's what I'm f***ing talking about! A glorious tussle from beginning to end for me. Good-to-great cluing throughout. Sorry, Adam Levav, that my prediction of 3.5- 4 stars yesterday wasn't borne out. On my scorecard it was. Thanks.
As the owner of five fedoras and a dozen trilbys, I believe that the hat worn by the Blues Brothers is a trilby.
Indiana Jones wears a fedora.
I did not find this puzzle easy. I did most of it but couldn’t get the west, south west section.It was me, not you Adam.☹️☹️☹️
Easy-Medium. At first I had trouble getting a toehold, but once that was secured (starting mainly in the NE), it didn't seem so hard after all.
Pretty mixed reaction. I liked the clue for REEFS (School houses?). Nuggets of interest in the clues for FDR and AAVE, although I do wonder where it is carefully documented that a "large" majority of Gen-Z slang comes from AAVE. I knew with dead certainty that Rex would love LEATHER BAR, and he's right that it does pop. I liked the crossing of NEMEAN with NAIAD (although I know some of you don't), and I also liked the crossing of THAT'S ME with I'M HERE.
On the other hand, SMEAGOL to me is a really ugly concatenation of letters. That is to say: "yours truly" REVOLTS at that string. AIR HORN is not at all bad as an entry, but my problem is complementary to Rex's: it's not "musical" at all to my ears; it's just an annoying loud noisemaker which, you could argue, does produce an "excitation" of the aural nerves, just not a very pleasant one. BUTT HURT is, I agree, pretty juvenile as expressions go, some real 3rd-grade-LEVEL schoolyard BS, and I long for BEFORE TIMES when the NYTXW didn't AIM LOW to quite this extent to be "relatable" to their clientele.
It might be just me, but I thought there was something devious (in a good way) about using cluing ERASER PEN using the words "error correction" -- when I see those words, the next word I think of is "code". Error correction codes are things that operate silently in the background to keep internet communications running smoothly and seamlessly. Together with the cross CURLY BRACES, used in some programming codes, I was primed to think that 21-Down would be part of some IT mini-theme, but no, it's just a prosaic ERASER PEN. I don't know whether that was intentional, but even if not, I liked that.
So it was a bit all over the map for me. Is three stars good or bad? Or is it medium? Seems close to right for me; I might have chucked in an extra half-star.
Have a good day, y'all!
15D: And it is a dress requirement is seriously and strictly enforced. I can't tell you the number of times that I've been turned away at the door for wearing my Naugahyde jacket.
I liked the cultural broadness of this puzzle, from Greek mythology to Disney movies to Tolkien to gay culture to computer programming and online and/or role-playing gaming. Also South Indian cuisine, which I had to guess at.
That said, I started badly with Samwise as the ring-bearer--which he was for only a few days, a millennium below SMEAGOL.
Allso,, the moons of Neptune. No idea there; I was about to try Niobe when AVES saved me. It seems odd to me to have a celestial body named for a class of entities, rather than an individual, but I'm not much on astronomy so there many be many more, for all I know.
LET out before FLY, but everything else went in smoothly. Easy but fun.
Yes, I started out with baggins in there too... figured it worked, whether we were talking about LOTR or the Hobbit.
Could not get started on the this one. Finally filled in the SE, then stared. Only when I guessed WOMB did I get an opening in the NE, but success was very limited until I looked up how to finish SMEA-O-….Never heard BUTTHURT before so assume it’s a regional/generational thing. BiTcHes came up short, so was hung up there. Anyway, the cluing and stacks were fine, just off my wavelength. Very much enjoyed reading Rex’s travelogue of how he worked through this one.
Days without LOTR clue: 0. 😄
Answer I liked: LEATHER BAR. Answer I found abhorrent: BUTT HURT. Please let me never see that again in any puzzle. Crossing that felt cruel: NAIAD/NEMEAN/AVES. But it’s Saturday so I suppose that’s fair. Answers besides FRERE that may as well have been foreign words: AAVE, SMEAGOL, OGS. Answers completely unfamiliar: NERFS as clued, NEO PETS, CURLY BRACES, and BEFORE TIMES which also has the same number of letters as GOOD OLD DAYS. And an expression not commonly used post-covid where I live but it sounds very appropriate. Anyway, combine that with what seemed like an overdose of gunk and names, and I’m having a lot trouble understanding why some of you are calling this easy. I didn’t pitch it at Nancy’s Wall, but I came close a few times.
I don't remember disliking a puzzle this much in a long time. BUTT HURT - really ugly - just sums it up for me :(
Thought I might be the only one to try SAMWISE, but @jberg did it too. Sometimes you know too much. That was true for TANTE before FRERE as well, as TANTE seemed to be a more crossword-friendly collection of letters. Mais non.
A flying start in the NW, ditto for the NE, down the East Coast, still easy, some snags in the middle, and spent as much time in the SW as in the rest of the puzzle put together. Things or terms I have no experience with: LEATHERBAR, CURLYBRACES BUTTHURT. And hello LOLA.
Fun stuff for me today--There's a local VT-based country-rock goofy band called The Western Terrestrials whose signature song is ETHAN Aliens. Primo dance tune. Also one of my prized possessions is my late father's FEDORA which is the inspiration for my annual Blues Brothers Halloween costume, and the only reason I own a black necktie.
I liked your Saturday offering very much, AL. You Almost Lost me in the SW (no more ASHY, please) but the struggle made it worthwhile. Thanks for all the fun.
Add SAMBAR to the list of foreignisms.
I thought at first that the “dress code” clue was a pun referring to drag queens, but did finally get the answer.
AIMLOW x ASTRAL gave me plenty for a quick NW corner, but then I was brought to a halt by the B of WOMB: would its cross be BAE or BOO? First impulse: BOO x LEoTard BAR. But upon reflection, I really couldn't feature it. Okay, BAE, and, aha, LEATHER BAR. After that a slow but steady and enjoyable solve. CURLY BRACES x LEATHER BAR made me envision fancy suspenders possibly worn as an accessory. Also liked NAIAD x NEMEAN and MOHAIR over BRUSHED.
Do-overs: FRAT Bro, AViS, Slav before SERB. Never have encountered IRL: BUTTHURT, and it sounds like that's a good thing.
Anyone whose idea of online fun involves exploring people’s very specific obsessions could do worse than look into the Blues Brothers fedora vs trilby debate.
How about a ban on Tolkien words?
Said “I’M HEREE” at roll call, no one ever. (It’s “HERE!”)
Pretty easy for me too. The SW corner was the toughest section because I did not know SAMBAR and BUTTHURT and because AIR HORN and BRUSHED took some effort.
I also did not know LEE, NAIAD (as clued), and LOLA (and I watched the series).
Costly erasure - Polite before PROPER
Solid with very little junk and a couple of fine long downs, liked it.
Could have sworn Robert Frost's middle name was Murray.
My life was on AUTOPAY till the kids got out of college.
LEATHER BAR reminds me of the time I found a Clif Bar in the back of the shelf from the Clinton Adminstration and decided to give it a try.
I noticed the “precious pairing” also, but unfortunately I could ONLY think of Gollum and I just couldn’t remember his real name so had to rely on crosses.
“BUTTHURT” was new to me, so I struggled with that SW corner for long minutes. People often complain about “old” crosswordese, but this shows that new, hip words can be just as annoying.
Always despised BUTTHURT. Nasty sounding petty sentiment seemingly always thrown out by mocking bullies. I was never bullied, but I can certainly sense the rotten vibe of that term. Hope we don’t see it again.
Agreed re: Butthurt. Ick. Thanks for the REM. I didn't know I need that in my day, but I plainly did. A great use of "That's Me."
NERFS—as in removes any difficulty from late week puzzles. the prevalence of two-word phrases/compound words (~22) made this puzzle feel clunkier and clumsier than it probably is. the middle and the ne are the worst offenders although count me in for SAMBAR at the LEATHERBAR. those were the only two answers with zip. i'm more familiar with the term "rave horn" when an AIRHORN is used in music. the TROY story non-rhyming tongue twister hurts my ears. fortunately rex explained the pun, because i didn't get it. now i'm off to get a curry…
You always crack me up on falling asleep with timer going! Hey…I’ve done it too which is why I almost always solve in morning. Also “ashy” IS a thing and the term is used often by non-lily white people. I’m so fair that my ash is pretty much invisible.
Pretty much hopeless, for m&e to solvequest it cleanly. M&A must be a hopelessly beforetime dude. Lotsa long [and short] no-knows, at our house. Sometimes I didn't know if stuff was right, even after it was all filled in.
staff weeject picks: DND & OGS.
fave stuff: Northern two corners, where I survived the SMEAGOL spellin challenge, no thanx to OGS or LEATHERBAR. Even tho I once conked out in the theater durin each of them LOTR flicks, I did wake up screamin "SMEEGLE!", this mornin, durin the NW solvequest, for some reason.
Thanx for the learnin experience, Mr. Levav dude. BUTT my nanoseconds really HURT.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. TROY Story. har. Like.
Great Friday puzzle! I know, it’s Saturday, but I’ll take one like this any day. Nice diversion on a day I’d like to REVOLT. I had REsisT there first but that’s not strong enough for these after TIMES.
Smiled at the SMEAGOL-Precious pair, just having read the books a few weeks ago. Thought of Baggins briefly, then Samwise very briefly, but waited for crosses. SMAEGOL is the crossword-friendliest of the bunch, after all.
Looking forward to the uniclue offerings fro AIMLOW FRATBOY.
Hand up for wanting AViS, which led to a close encounter with an imaginary NicEAN lion.
Two nits. AIRHORNS are not musical, and I thought the clue for ASHY was weird - is ASHY describing texture as opposed to the usual HUE?
TIL about LEATHERBARs and CURLYBRACES. SAMBAR, on the other hand, came to mind quickly but I hesitated, thinking “No, that’s the Russian stove thingy.” It isn’t - that’s samovar, right?
Congrats, Adam Levav - thanks for fun TIMES.
My sweet one and only objected to "fedora", is a "trilby" similar to a "pork pie"?
Anti-Vegan vibe if no faux allowed!
Agreed.
Had no idea what the clue for it meant but I like your definition of NERFS.
@Rex agreed on NAIAD *but* once I saw it, was like, oh, yeah, Neptune in the clue.
Had oVES for AVES thinking, um, sheep? Easily fixed.
OF LATE hasn't been seen or heard from much, of late.
Not familiar with BUTT HURT and this once was enough.
All in all too easy for Saturday?
This was a VERY crunchy puzzle for me and it was one that I kind of “didn’t like” as I was solving, then looked back on it once finished to appreciate it. Ok. I could’ve lived without learning the term BUTTHURT for sure. Oh…I said “finished it” but I actually didn’t since I cheated to search Gollum’s name which allowed me to correct fEATHERBAR (boas required!) and hitLOW. [eyeroll]. And yes, I thought D’OH once I saw LEATHER.
Of course, SPRAYONTAN fits perfectly if you want to slow your solve waaaay down...
Personal Best for a Saturday, sometimes things just click.
There are lots of words I am tired of in the Crossword, and there are words that I find offensive and, even, utterly repulsive. Furthermore, I don't like seeing Yoko Ono clued as if she were the second coming, or Michael Jackson clued as if children were actually safe around him. I hate the ubiquitous use of stuff from the Marvel Universe, the Harry Potter series, and the Star Wars never-ending franchise. So too, I find all too many pop culture references to be downright silly and vacuous. And, yes, I think the use of the term "butthurt" is about as condescending, nasty and disrespectful as it gets, spoken by small-minded and petty people.
But most of all, I like being an American. And I like the idea that here we don't ban words a priori because we don't like them. In crosswords or in life. Instead, we deal with them.
Am I the only on who doesn't know Tolkien lore, so ended up with FEATHERBAR? lol It's got a dress code, and I haven't been clubbing in age, so it sounded plausible.
I did FEATHERBAR too! If it's not a thing, it should be
Just like yesterday: not too easy, not too hard at just under 20 minutes. Which is a bit surprising because there are a LOT of Unknowns here: SMEAGOL AVES NAIAD ERASERPEN BUTTHURT SAMBAR!
Yes, I've never heard of ERASER PEN. However back in the 1980s before computers replaced everything in architecture, we did use electric erasers which were very handy. I worked on a giant condo complex in which the two buildings were mirror images, so we drafted up the left hand one, then had blueprints made on erasable plastic, erased all the text, flipped them over, and redid the text on the back side. Just imagine!
Some related answers: AAVE above AVES, and FEDORA crossing BOLO TIES. And one big messy typeover at 26 down where I had TANNING BED before INSTANT TAN which I'm not sure I've ever heard. And I'm proud of myself for getting AAVE instantly, and even spelling it right for once.
SMEAGOL was a completely unknown to me, even though I saw--but not read--LOTR. So I assumed the complete unknown gay bar in question was a FEATHER BAR, because why not SMEAGOF.
Otherwise an unusually easy Saturday.
BUTT HURT has made a resurgence lately because Travis Kelce used the phrase multiple times on his Podcast to express how he felt when Taylor Swift wouldn't see him before a concert - before they met and started going out. She made fun of him, and the phrase, for many of the reasons stated here. If you're wondering why it's popping up in a NYT Crossword at this moment, that's probably why.
Enjoyed this. A little easier than normal for me at 15 minutes, but a pleasant 15 minutes it was.
@DeeJay. I don't have as many as you (including straws, probably 6 fedoras and a couple of trilbys) but I have been a big fan and constant wearer of hats for over 50 years. A few years ago I was gifted a photo taken by an old friend in 1970. In it are two men on a street in the Gastown area of Vancouver, smoking cigarettes and looking extremely pensive, perhaps cogitating on the origins of the universe. Perhaps just wondering where they could score some good acid. One of these guys - me - is holding his shoulder length dark locks in place with a leather fedora, hand-crafted, I presume, by some local hippie artisan. Perhaps I was on my way to a LEATHER BAR. Likely not. Anyway, it's been a long time since I have been seen without a hat.
I always thought that "fedora" was a general category of hat and "trilby" was a subset, but you've sent me searching. Seems they are distinctly defined by brim size with trilbys having narrower brims, 1.5 inches or less, and fedoras 2 inches or more. (What are you wearing if your brim measures between 1.6 and 1.9 inches?)
Interesting thing I discovered while tumbling down this rabbit hole: both trilby and fedora were originally hats for women and the names come from stage plays of the late 19th century. The titular character in the play Fedora
wore one. Princess Fedora was her name and it became the name of the hat. Trilby was an 1890s novel turned into a play and its lead actress sported a narrow brimmed hat that came to known by that name.
Thanks for sending me on this search. I really had nothing useful to do this morning. ;-)
Wow, so much I didn't know today and so much I learned! I welcome the new knowledge of SAMBAR, NAIAD, NEMEAN and AAVE - no idea about any of these until I came here.
Not as excited to learn BUTTHURT, I never heard that until today and I wish I never had....
Overall I really liked this one - had just the right amount of crunch without me ever wanting to give up all hope. The center stack was a bit sticky for me as a couple of the downs wouldn't click. 24D for me was LETout for a good long while and 26D was sprayonTAN. AVES took a while for me as well. While I didn't find the work terribly exciting, it was still worth the effort to see them all fall. Especially liked the cluing for STRESSLEVEL.
I had no clue re: SMEAGOL in the NW, so that held up an otherwise easy piece of real estate. The Tolkien universe, along with Star Wars and gaming, never grabbed my attention so those are always going to give me a bit of heartburn. That's not a dig, just not my cuppa.
Thanks Adam for a Saturday that kept me working and kept my interest!
My knowledge of all things Tolkien and LOTR comes solely from crosswords. SMEAGOL was not on that short list. Also know next to nothing about "Rap pioneers", slangily or otherwise. So I had to run the alphabet to get that crossing G. Throw in some unknown "Animated friend of Sebastian the crab" and this was a most inauspicious start to the puzzle.
Things smoothed out a bit after that. I learned that those squiggly brackets are called CURLY BRACES. INSTANT TAN conjured up images of some prominent politicians.
"Decorative items worn at Western galas" was a gimme. I have a couple of BOLO TIES in my Etsy shop.
If someone accuses me of being a nit picker, I don't get BUTT HURT. I just say I'm trying to prevent a 34D LICE infestation.
I also hated butthurt, and honestly I can't believe it's allowed to be in the puzzle. I always thought it referred to pain from not entirely consensual sex in the butt. Such a gross phrase to use.
@okanaganer. I remember those electric erasers, We used them in the graphis pit at the newspaper. They would rip the crap out of anything drawn on light weight paper but they were great on heavy Bristol or mylar. I have at least 6 Staedtler ERASER PENs in my studio. I
Somehow I manged to hit reply before typing my whole comment. I was going to say that if I get stuck for an idea, which is often, I will pin up a sheet of printmaking paper (not too much tooth) and start smearing it with big swaths of something eraseable like chalk or charcoal or graphite. Then I'll take my Staedtler ERASER PEN and start carving out some sort of image with it. It's like working in reverse. Kinda fun. Gets the juices flowing. Gets rid of the whole backgound/foreground thing. I love my ERASER PENs. Those electric ones were pretty clumsy.
No idea when to us boo vs bae or if they are interchangeable but I stuck with boo for way to long. For a hot second, making my Leather Bar "Leo the Lion" a an infamous furry themed bar??? Don't think Smeagol aka gollum is a minor character. Butt hurt is terrible to my ear vaguely homophobic, but perhaps corporal punishment reference. Nerfs came from some video game weapons inadvertently being made way too powerful and when the developers release it they make it weaker turning it into a nerf version of the real thing.
As is often the case, original intent is overwhelmed by actual use. I’ve only heard it used to be dismissive of other people, regardless of relative (subjective) pettiness. The people I’ve heard use it typically lack empathy and decide anything they aren’t directly affected by is to be summarily and nastily disregarded.
As does FAKESUNTAN.
Can someone explain why the clue on REVOLTS has a question mark? Goes against the rule? I get it can be rule as in ruler/monarch, but is it more than that?
AIM LOW to avoid disappointment (my life's motto). I was amused by Adam's comment yesterday, predicting a 2/5 review. Congrats on the extra star!
*Record scratch* at BUTTHURT. Was curious to see what the comments would be, and it's about what I expected. It didn't have the AIRHORN accompaniment of 2021's GAYPORN, nor the ick factor of 2023's DIVACUP (Hi Malaika!). Can't think of a 3rd, so congrats on the Bronze. BUTTHURT is no more offensive than calling someone a diva. Or cry baby. Man-child? Tempted to post a pic of Trump without an INSTANTTAN (oh, the irony). Google at your own risk.
Enjoyed the puzzle, thanks Mr. Levav. (How to be annoying: emulate an AIRHORN. BWAH BWAH BWAAAaaah...)
PS. I wanted to look up the origins of BUTTHURT but didn’t want to Google it. Tried etymonline.com just for kicks and it was there, with a great quote:
butthurt(adj.) also butt-hurt, term used in reference to perceived overreaction, by 1996.
“Good grief. If we can't laugh at ourselves, and at one another, in good spirit and without malice, then what fun can be left? If we must withhold all ribbing in the name of protecting everyone's feelings, then we truly are a toothless society. We will reach what I call ‘the lowest common denominator of butthurt.’” [George Takei, Ohhh My! There Goes the Internet, 2012.]
I read it as just a "hint-hint nudge-nudge" that rule might mean something other than what you might first read it to mean, but that both, in their own way, are valid. That's how I would rule on this, anyway! ;)
Have to agree, this puzzle was NERFed.
I learned the little that I know about baseball from doing xword puzzles.
Ese soy yo. Estoy aquí.
Another lovely and super fast outing with a rare sense of humor. Straightforward cluing may add some grumbles about it being overly simple for a Saturday. I checked to see if I set a personal best, but not quite. Pretty good week for the New York Times crosswords.
New slogan for the United States: We AIM LOW. At the moment we're blowing up Iran. We're a delight.
The editors seem to hold fraternity members in extraordinarily low esteem. Never sure why all the bro hate. Beer or not, they're just as likely to end up in jobs they hate, paying ridiculous mortgages, and wondering what happened to their dreams. The girls I knew involved in those esteemed fraternal (sororal?) organizations never seemed to be shy about knocking back a few themselves.
SMEAGOL is such a wonderful LOTR answer. And character. Poor guy. Really got caught up in something way beyond him. And I adore "Precious" following the next clue.
Ah jerk: One day a TIC or a TUG, one day a MEANIE, tomorrow a CHICKEN (hopefully). So many ways to jerk.
Not sure why an identifying feature of a LATTE is its sip-worthy-ness. Isn't every beverage often sipped? Who's glugging all the ALT beverages?
I always remember the AA part of AAVE and can never remember the last two letters. I wish they'd call it Samantha instead.
In New Mexico, BOLO TIES are worn for every day wear. I have one strapped around my neck daily at work, but it's mainly for carrying keys and my name badge. We have galas here, but I find ways to avoid them. Maybe they wear PROPER BOLO TIES there.
People: 5
Places: 2
Products: 7
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 68 (34%)
Funny Factor: 7 😂
Tee-Hee: BUTT HURT.
Uniclues:
1 C-getter on beer.
2 Get a stupid hat on payments for a perfect angel.
3 Said it was quadraphonic when it was half that.
4 Stew-y projectile for a food fight on New Delhi.
5 Reassuring energy bit adhering to my belly.
6 The current "leader of the free world."
7 Thursday night activity for nerdy gays.
8 Rich British pedos, unlike the American ones.
9 Ego-centric improv-er mantra.
1 AIM LOW FRAT BOY
2 RENT BAE FEDORA
3 RETYPED STEREO
4 ASTRAL SAMBAR
5 I'M HERE CALORIE
6 BUTT HURT MEANIE (~)
7 LEATHER BAR DND
8 ON TRIAL OF LATE
9 YES AND I SAY SO
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Apparition with a wardrobe malfunction. PEEK-A-BOO WRAITH.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Les, I remember doing the same thing with the electric eraser, except it was when I was doing a rendering of a design. I would color the whole sky blue with pastel or pencil crayon, and then use the eraser to create clouds... things like that. The good old days!
Conrad
Your list of first guesses today almost exactly matches mine Except I had something else instead of lassi.
While I did see (25 yr ago) the first LoftR movie (not good) with a nephew I likewise last read it over 50 years ago. Had the same trouble with the spelling
Also no knows Lee & Lola. Got them from easyish crosses.
I was channeling you I guess.
AAVE may be a gimme if you're in academia; SMEAGOL is a gimme if you read LOTR 14 times while in high school. Not that i'm familiar with either group.
Roo
Ah yes the Frere in that round.
BTW I wasn’t saying you should have known it. Just that I realized from your comment that it wasn’t taught in French when you were in elementary school. Reminded me how old I am.
Bob Mills
Yes FDR’s family was well off (among the “old wealthy in the Hudson Valley) and well connected. Remember he was distantly related to Teddy Roosevelt who was Eleanor’s uncle. FDR’s family was in contact with Teddy’s family when he was young.
Anonymous 2:58 pm. & Floating Boy
Had no clue about this expression. Never heard it, never saw it. But. I do know that a very negative connotation can often drive out the milder original. So I would tend to agree with Anonymous.
The words butt hurt seem very vague in relation to the meaning.
Les S. More.
Interesting discussion about hats.
( About the clue/answer. detailed distinctions like that. almost always get lost among everyone else. The answer works in a crossword). I knew that FEDORA was a women’s name for a man’s hat and just this week I was wondering why. So you did the research I was too lazy to do.
FWIW. I believe FEDORA is the Russian version of Theodora.
tht
I don’t know the % stats you questioned about Gen Z slang. but I do know that a significant % of American slang going back to the 19th Century stems from AAVE. With the advent of the huge popularity of rap ,( which is heavily influenced by AAVE) the answer makes sense to me.
pabloinnh
I also had the most trouble in the SW and that nasty term was involved. Also I couldn’t remember an easy one the N in the DND abbreviation so no AIR HORN. Unlike you I gave up and dnf not. About ASHY someone above said it used by people with darker skin so it is a thing. That one I got but didn’t understand. I have no objection to it now.
Had to solve on my phone for lack of printer. An unpleasant experience for me, just navigating is hard! Makes it difficult to evaluate any puzzle because I cannot see the puzzle as a whole with all the clues before me. I suspect even on paper I would have found it hard! Pushed through to the end though, SW corner the hardest.
Art Wholeflaffer
About AAVE. been in the Times a lot lately. Just before you Gary says he half remembers it I am in the same situation. Neither of us are “academics” if I get your my. Figuring out stuff like this is one of the reasons why I like crosswords.
I loved your take on FRATBOY. I dunno, there are guys in small colleges that almost HAVE to join fraternities (young ladies also with sororities) because there isn’t adequate dorm space. Then there is a true FRATBOY. I went to a large university and avoided Greek life and could still run into into beerball peep types. Not that I think beerball existed THEN. Beer, hard liquor, and pot did whether or not “beerball” did.
Good post and quote (because I love George Takei) but (oops) I still kinda hate the term BUTTHATE even though I like what it is trying to convey. Oh…DOES convey…just in a bit of a crass way.
@pabloinnh 10:41 AM
Another SAMWISE-r here.
Well said. I HOPE we continue to not ban words a priori, but….not looking good right now.
Late post, but this is what I found which maybe supports that trilby is a subset:
Yes, the Blues Brothers (Jake and Elwood) famously wore black, narrow-brimmed (or "stingy brim") fedoras as part of their signature look.
Add on this…
Yes, a trilby is widely considered a type of stingy-brimmed fedora due to its narrow brim (usually 1.5 inches or less) that is, crucially, turned up at the back and down in the front. While often confused with a standard fedora, the trilby is characterized by this shorter, fixed, and narrower brim.
you sound a bit butt hurt rex.
Tell me you don’t know what a priori means without using the words I don’t know what a priori means.
I’d normally delete a comment like this but I put it through because I won a bet with myself that some dope would make this joke by day’s end 💰
Above was me (Hugh). New laptop, keep needing to change anon to my name (?)
@dgd Yes, certainly, not questioning that, and not saying it doesn't make sense. Just wondering where such a positive declaration is sourced and quantified.
@Rex Parker 8:59 PM
Congrats! (?) 🙄🤪
@Anoa Bob 1:48 PM
Nice stuff in your Etsy.
not easy at all
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