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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: Thunderdell (17A: Like Thunderdell, the monster slain by Jack the Giant Killer) —
Thunderdell (Welsh: Taranau), also recorded as Thunderdel, Thunderel, Thundrel, Thunderdale, or Thunderbore, was a two-headed giant of Cornwall slain by Jack the Giant-Killer in the stories of Tabart and others. [...] In Jack the Giant Killer, Thunderdell first appeared where he crashed a banquet that was prepared for Jack. During this time, he chanted "fee fau fum." Jack defeats and beheads the two-headed giant with a trick involving the house's moat and drawbridge. // According to one version of the story from 1800, Thunderdell (here identified as "Thunderful") hails from the North Pole. He attacks Jack's banquet in order to avenge the deaths of two giants he had earlier slain, but is himself defeated and his heads sent to the court of King Arthur.
• • •
 |
| [Title role for Paul Newman, 1963] |
But otherwise, The 3 "B"s aside, I was pretty impressed by this puzzle, which managed to be both smooth and sparkly. With the possible exception of two of those aforementioned "B"s (BELTLINES, BREAST PIN), the long answers that converge in the middle of this grid are strong and vibrant. GOD-FEARING and WHATABOUTISM really shine, and the clues on both POLLIWOGS (37A: They croak as soon as they grow up) and SESAME STREET (21D: Noted series with over 200 Emmys ... and an Oscar) are spectacular. In case you're somehow wondering how SESAME STREET ever got an Oscar, here, I'll show you:
Speaking of movies, as is typical for a KAC puzzle, this one had a bunch of good cinema content (Kameron is a movie critic for Rolling Stone and a member of the New York Film Critics Circle). You've got HUD and HEDY Lamarr and MOONRAKER. And while three answers doesn't seem like a lot, I'd bet dollars to donuts that LOCAL HERO originally had a movie clue. It should have, anyway, as LOCAL HERO is one of the very best movies of the '80s (of all time, frankly). I love the movie so much that I am choosing to read LOCAL HERO as cinema content today, clue be damned.
Bullets:
- 1A: Behave like an ass (BRAY) — hee haw, a gimme, right off the bat! Definitely helped me get started.
- 4D: Vulgarians (YAHOOS) — if BRAY helped me get started, then this one helped me get stopped: I decided to go with YOKELS for a bit.
- 48A: Where travelers might take the plunge on vacation (HOTEL POOL) — something about "take the plunge" had me thinking not of a pool, but of something spa-related. I had the HOT- and figured it was an adjective (not the first three letters in "HOTEL").
- 15D: Latvian, old-style (LETT) — got this easily. Not sure I knew it was "old-style."
- 33D: Social media community for avid readers (BOOKTOK) — great answer, although as a phenomenon ... I dunno. I mean, I really don't know, as I have no intention of ever using TikTok. I hate the whole Amazon review phenomenon, I think goodreads is wholly unappealing, so yeah, BookTok is several bridges too far for me. Here's a story about some brilliant BookTok influencer who says: "I HATE third person POV books." So that's ... something. I'm not sure it's pro-reading, but it's something.
- 35D: Animal identity in role play (FURSONA) — OK I don't need to know any details about what the "role play" entails, exactly, but I like this portmanteau a lot.
 |
| [FURSONA, d. Bergman, 1966] |
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ReplyDeleteNot a bad puzzle but too Easy for a Saturday.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
At 5A, I thought Pitt might have been a tory. He was a WHIG.
I had spOTTY for "mottled" before BLOTTY (19A). Like OFL, I really wanted BLOTchY, but it didn't fit.
My 38A "go bad" was turn before it was SOUR
One WOE, FURSONA at 35D. I didn't know Thunderdell (17A) but TWO-HEADED was easy enough to infer.
I resisted BFF for bosom buddy (34A) because the clue didn't indicate abbr.
Ironically, while Pitt the Elder was a Whig, his son Pitt the Younger was a Tory. Both served in the correct century so until crosses kick in that one could go either way.
DeleteThis old timer immediately wrote in TORY. Whigs pretty much ran everything from 1688 on, but I immediately thought of Pitt the Younger, the Tory who led the fight against Napoleon. The elder Pitt always seemed apolitical in comparison.
DeleteMe too, I had to really fight my way out of spOTTY! I knew all about ACOLYTE, but I'd thought the aliens ArE my homework, and only right at the end came the realization that then allowed me to find ROWBOAT.
DeleteVulgarians as a clue tickled me right off the bat this morning. Good puzzle, though I had trouble with ‘breast pin’ as well.
ReplyDeleteSame BLOTTY issues. It's not a word
ReplyDeleteYeehaw as YAHOOS might say! That was a chewy breakfast for sure! Solid right on through, a proper Saturday. Except for the aforementioned BLOTTY, which had me thinking that maybe this was a rebus puzzle for a moment, before landing on, nope just a blotch on an otherwise beautiful face.
ReplyDeleteAlgunos ascienden por el pecado, y otros caen por la virtud.
ReplyDeleteA bit of redemption after my struggles yesterday, but of course it comes at the cost of being wide awake at 3:30 am again. I felt like I would be boxed out of this one most of the way through the solve, but then poof the puzzle gave itself away bit by bit. A patience pays off experience.
Way gunkier today than yesterday, maybe that's where I find success. GUNKMEISTER.
Who knew AGASP would obscure AGAPE for so long. Same with SPOTTY over BLOTTY.
I once got a LOCAL HERO award in Denver from Channel 7 despite not being a heroic kind of guy in general. They gave me a nice thing to hang on my wall (and it's in a box in storage now), and I spent several hours with the TV anchor (she was lovely), but I didn't get a key to the city.
I like the drawing of Thunderdell on his Wikipedia page.
I think it's very likely the YAHOOS we speak of are delightful rogues rather than vulgarians, but our fancy New York charcuterie forking boxed wine slurping art show gawking editors are kinda judgy. They should practice more WHAT ABOUTERYISM when imagining others unlike themselves those snobarians.
BOOKTOK is part of TIKTOK so NOTHANKSTOK.
❤️ POLLIWOGS. ACOLYTE. FURSONA!
People: 5
Places: 0
Products: 7
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 20 of 70 (29%)
Funny Factor: 3 π
Tee-Hee: TEAT. TOKES {dude}. BREAST PIN. [Behave like an ass]. {Constructor wannabe tip: If ever the NYTXW grows weary of ASS in the answers -- and they never will-- squeeze your ass into the clues.} [Top(less) option?] UNTEE.
Uniclues:
1 Photographer's goal when they spring the award on its honoree.
2 When you need to go to work, but you need to finish the puzzle.
3 How the vampire's cape stays on.
4 Ice cream, amirite?
5 General reaction in tadpole school when they learn a lotta princess wannabes will be kissing them as adults.
6 Haggis shop.
1 LOCAL HERO AGAPE
2 TWO-HEADED GOTTA
3 BAT'S BREAST PIN
4 BELT LINES BFF
5 POLLIWOGS SOUR
6 INTESTINE STORE (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: How bouncers end up bleeding in the backyard. TRAMP SMASH UP.
¯\_(γ)_/¯
The origin of the term "yahoo" is Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." He coined the term to refer to a race of filthy, brutish and irrational people who possessed human features. The term has since then become a part of the language to mean rude or loutish people in general - and is so defined.
DeleteThis meaning did not originate with the editors of the New York Times puzzle, whom you so glibly, condescendingly and unfairly caricature and demean in your description of them, concluding that they are "kinda judgy" and "snobarians." - which description and conclusion is based upon unfounded assumptions about them, and incorrect information about the meaning and origin of the word "yahoo."
If anyone is being "kinda judgy, ' it is you.
These editors are human beings; not comic book characters there for your amusement.
I just reread Gary's comment- twice-and he definitely does not say anything about the origin of the word YAHOO.
Delete@Charles Kelley 8:39 AM
DeleteMe? Unfairly caricaturizing others others for my own amusement? That sounds like me.
"...our fancy New York charcuterie forking boxed wine slurping art show gawking editors . . . those snobarians" - I think you did go a little too far with this. I mean, for someone who disparages them so much you sure spend a lot of time discussing their puzzles. Maybe show a little respect or appreciation.
DeleteBoxed wine? Horrors!!
DeleteFinished it with no cheats, which felt great because it seemed like an average Saturday in terms of difficulty. Had "uptick" instead of UPTURN until the end (I'm a retired stockbroker, but not embarrassed---either is acceptable). Never heard of FURSONA, but nothing else worked there. The last brick to fall was WHATABOUTISM, which seemed wrong because the clue suggested a plural.
ReplyDeleteI take your point about "whataboutism," but I understood the term to refer to an overall technique or tactic that may comprise any number of attempts to deflect - much the same as a zone defense in a sport comprises several zones defended several times in several ways over the course of the game,
DeleteHands up for UPTICK.
DeleteAs an I Love Lucy fan, of course HEDY LAMARR was a gimme, she was in Hollywood where Lucy saw her sitting at the HOTEL POOL with Walter Pidgeon
ReplyDeleteAlthough, truth be told, I get her mixed up with Hedda Harper who was also at the Hotel Pool.
For Lisa B.: Only a female could possibly confuse Hedy Lamarr with Hedda Hopper.
Delete“A female.” Even by Bob Mills standards this comment is trash.
DeleteI know. What did Hedda Hopper ever do to advance frequency communications in sonar technology?
DeleteKind of an odd KAC puzzle - plenty of the splashy cluing and cultural scope but it felt like just too many long gimmes - PAUL SIMON, MOONRAKER, SESAME STREET dropped right in and filled a lot of real estate. A fantastic puzzle no doubt but maybe softened too much by the editing?
ReplyDeleteI’ll second the greatness of LOCAL HERO - Peter Riegert had a run there - Animal House preceding it and the wonderful Crossing Delancey following
Overall fill is top notch. Yea BLOTTY is funky and the SE corner with INTESTINE and HOTEL POOL is flat but loved the BELT LINES x BOOK TOK cross and the ROWBOAT, ACOLYTE, YAHOOS stack. Needed the crosses for FURSONA. I’m sure it was vetted as an alternate spelling but I only recall POLLiWOG.
Sturgill
Highly enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Try the huge crossing center stacks in David P. Williams’ Stumper today - a little more of a workout than this one.
Leroy boy - you’re my friend
Many consider “Local Hero” to be Scottish director Bill Forsythe’s magnum opus. “Housekeeping” is even better. One of the all-time greatest.
DeleteI took a stab at Downton Abbey - the same number of letters as SESAME STREET. But maybe not eligible for Emmys? So not a gimme for me. And I studied Rex's pic of Oscar wondering “Why isn't there a link to the film?” before I got it. Lots of fun working the puzzle today.
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteNice SatPuz. Put up a decent fight, but the ole brain seems to be functioning decently this morning.
For the TUNDRA clue, had in _U__ RA, put in AURORA, ala an Oldsmobile, but saw said Oldsmobile wouldn't fit in 23A. tidaLPOOL first for HOTELPOOL. epee-OARS, as I'm betting 96% of us did. BLurrY-BLOTTY, etA-TBA, AGAsp-AGAPE, FURries-FURSONA., had a Y for the I in POLLIWOGS (neat, not often seen word.)
Enjoyable SatPuzRomp Nice five stack in Center. Clean fill in that vast Center space, not that easy to do.
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This was almost perfectly average for Saturday resistance. That meant it was twice as difficult as yesterday's disappointment. Weekends are really hit or miss these days.
ReplyDeleteA couple of little slow downs were my confusing the whit/wit homophones with the WHIG/ wig ones and missing the MALL / promenade connection.
HUD, PAULSIMON and MOONRAKER were all gimmies. So was HEDY and thanks to its recent appearance I was confident of the spelling.
My only criticism of todays puzzle is it wears its BELTLINES a little low.
I like this puzzle a lot - for most of the reasons Michael points out.
ReplyDeleteOnly disappointment is that, for me at least, the 5 central acrosses fell like dominos. The answers are fine, I just wish the cluing were less straightforward and more challenging. This is, after all, a Saturday puzzle, where the cluing is often front and center in raising the level of the challenge.
And as we reflect on those 200 Emmys and one grouchy Oscar, we might do well to remember that long before he became a star, Kermit was just another anonymous lowly polliwog, struggling to make something of himself and discover his place in the world.
This is a shimmering box in the Crosslandia aisle. Filled with personality and you-don’t-know-what-you’re-going-to-turn-up-next.
ReplyDeleteACOLYTE! POLLIWOGS! WHATABOUTISM! FURSONA! GOD FEARING! BLOTTY!
The center vibrates with freshness. That five-answer stagger stack? – one once-before-in-the-Times answer, three twice-befores, and once thrice before. Furthermore, it is crossed by a debut and three once-befores.
Are you kidding me?
The cluing variety you want on Saturday. Is [Promenade] a noun or verb? Misdirects – [Tanning target], [Sporting blades], [Top option]. Humor -- [They croak as soon as they grow up].
Hidden beneath the flash is stellar construction, the KAC hallmark that rarely gets mentioned in the comments. We take it for granted. But his puzzles are *always* squeaky clean.
Cameron, I knew I was in for a treat when “mottled” and “flutters” appeared in NW clues, and once again, the rest of the box delivered. Thank you, and more please!
A quick note from yesterday: A puzzle that kicked my braying ass, but many of you found easy. I look forward to those days as y'all continue to surprise with your weekend disdain for do-able puzzles and two more entries into the -LY EASY HALL OF FAME. Here's the complete list:
ReplyDelete-LY EASY Hall of Fame
absurdly, childishly, definitely, insultingly, disappointingly, extremely, embarrassingly, eventually, fairly, frifly (?), laughably, mind-numbingly, painfully, preposterously, relatively, ridiculously, really, surprisingly, terribly, trivially, and unusually.
You keep qualifying easy and I'll keep celebrating you.
'Frifly' is taken from the 1981 Denys Parsons book The Best of Shrdlu. Although that book is a collection of quotes, so that is definitely not the first use.
DeleteLiked it more than Rex. Also found it harder, but that may have been because of my own brain farts. TBD for TBA and SPOTTY for BLOTTY had me all kinds of stymied in the NW.
ReplyDeleteA couple of assertively young entries, which I will always struggle with. BOOKTOK and FURSONA to be specific.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, PAUL SIMON is always welcome. IMO the greatest living songwriter.
Have to agree: PAUL SIMON is in a class by himself as a songwriter.
DeleteGotta say it’s been a 2026 feast to have travelled to KACistan twice before spring.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I always hope Saturday puzzles will be. Challenging enough for this Goldilocks, full of colorful clues and answers, drawn from a wide ARRAY of topics that makes my mind ping around the map and across the centuries. KAC, you rule.
ReplyDeleteI know I saw the movie LOCAL HERO back in the 1980s and loved it. Talked it up to friends, the works. Just now I watched the trailer Rex posted and recognized not one scene. Exception: there’s one second of Burt Lancaster at the end, and I remembered that he was in that movie. In one sense, discouraging (is my memory shutting down?). But in another sense, encouraging. I’m looking forward to watching it again—it’ll be like seeing it for the first time all over again.
One of the great pleasures of “maturity.”
Delete@Andy. I too loved and recommended LOCAL HERO and now cannot dredge up any specific memories. I'd like to watch it again, but I don't know where to find it. Any advice?
DeleteAmazon Prime has it to rent or buy.
DeleteSo what's the record number of days without a Star Wars clue? Seems like you don't post it unless it's 0 or 1.
ReplyDeleteYou know, it’s never come up.
DeleteToday I learned that buLLfrOGs and POLLIWOGS share a lot of letters. Having that “confirmed” kept me out of the SW but not for too long as WHATABOUTISM pretty quickly corrected the mistake. Fun puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI kept bullfrogs for way too long!
DeleteAgree totally with OFL Local Hero in my top ten, and it holds up. Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Peter Capaldi, and the stunning Jenny Seagrove.
ReplyDeleteSome enjoyable cluing today - the constructor obviously has a way with words. A good example of a puzzle with clues everywhere that are tough but not unnecessarily deceptive.
ReplyDeleteI wish they would be less lenient about waiving the convention requiring abbreviations in clues (see 1D), although I’m sympathetic to the view that BLT and PBJ are so common usage that they get a pass (a gray area, but I wish they would err on the side of conservatism there, even on a Saturday).
FURSONA sounds like one of those made up words of necessity, or perhaps convenience. It also serves the useful purpose of letting me know that I will never participate in “animal identity role play”, unless of course someone manages to hypnotize me and I start prancing around like a chicken.
The clue for FURSONA was very genericized. The word itself is not new, dating back to (at least) the early 1990s, and refers to the animal or anthropomorphic animal characters used by members of the furry community as sort of personal identifiers slash roleplaying avatars.
DeleteSo, it's got over thirty years of well-established history but is definitely a niche culture term.
Mrs. Egs: Bae, I need a 9 letter word that describes today's politics. It starts with t-r-i-b-a-l. Do you know what the last three letters might be?
ReplyDeleteEgs: WHATABOUTISM, doll?
Mrs. Egs: Oooh! Thanks. What would you like as a side dish with your pulled pork tonight.
Egs: I'll just have a ROLLWITHIT.
To look more modern, Cathay Pacific Airlines is changing their name to CATHAIR.
I can't wait for the big game when FSU plays RAGU.
PAULSIMON could sure BELTLINES.
Thanks for a very fun solve, KAC.
Hey egs. Ur post yesterday had me laughing so hard and tearing up so that it took a minute or two to get through it. Something about that childish humor that has never left me. I remember in 195? I was watching the Steve Allen Show with my father and he had a skit with a small ensemble and the drummer had some cuts of fresh meat he was playing like bongos. My father started laughing uncontrollably and tearing up…. just as I did yesterday. He finally said “He’s beating his meat.” Not that I even knew what he meant yet but his laughter was contagious and I was full in. Still.
DeleteMoonraker came out in 1979, not 1999.
ReplyDeleteit debuted AS AN ANSWER in 1999
DeleteLocal Hero is at the tippy top of my list. Music, setting, performances, story, all of it.
ReplyDeleteAs I've mentioned before, I'm down here on an island in the Gulf of Mexico (I think), force to solve online. One result is I got I "something amiss" message and spent about a minute tracking on down: One of the Os had been tuped with a 0 (zero)--wouldn't have been possible on paper!
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle, though. I loved FURSONA, a word previously unknown to me, and with a clue that manages to convey the relevant context in a few words. Of course, I don't have much experience in animal role-play.
The PELT clue really took me in. At first I thought the puzzle was calling my skin a PELT before I realized it was not that kind of tanning.
A really fun solve, even online.
Jberg, if you don’t care about “streaks” and whatnot, you can always just do “check puzzle” which will show you your mistake. It usually always indicates a “typo” I made. But yeah, I doubt I’d EVER see the O V. 0 mistake. Have fun in the Gulf today!
DeleteFull wheelhouse effect today as BRAY begat YAHOOS and away I rode madly in all directions. Discovered who Thunderdell might be, but when I first glanced at the clue I saw Tinkerbell. Uh, no. Since I just saw somewhere a reference to FUR types and related behaviors, the only real new-to-me today was BOOTOK, but the crosses were all easy and it made sense. It seems like the only proper name today was PAULSIMON, huzzah. "Graceland" is in my top five albums ever.
ReplyDeleteSaw the byline today and thought "oh oh", as his puzzles in The New Yorker are often full of mysterious (to me) pop culture references. Not today though.
Nicely done, KAC. I Know Any Crossword probably has a fair amount of gunk.. Not this one , Smooth as a smelt, and thanks for all the fun.
On to the Stumper for today's workout.
The TOYOTA TacomA held me up in the SE for long enough that I was ready to take out BFF. FURSONA, a cute portmanteau but also an eye-roller.
ReplyDeleteAnother costly mistake - buLLfrOGS. And BOOKTOK? Can we not?
KAC, thanks for a puzzling Saturday crossword!
Mine was initially Toyota Tercel.
DeleteAgree, just the right amount of meaty difficulty. KAC can sometimes be too trendy, but not today.
ReplyDeleteAs an old sailor, I can appreciate moonraker as a type of sail, although only on old square riggers. And, as an additional piece of trivia, the term "skyscraper" also did not originate in the 20th century. It, too, is the name of a sail, I'm not sure, but I think just below the moonraker.
Odd experience for me: much of the solve felt like wading through molasses, in part due to some inner resistance to agreeing that some of those entries were good matches for the clues. And yet my time when I looked up made it appear slightly easier than medium, relative to past Saturday solves.
ReplyDeleteReally wanted AGAsp instead of AGAPE, and I really dug myself in when I entered "perk up" instead of SNAP TO, and then left the "up" in for far too long past that point. FURSONA was a complete unknown. I didn't know LEY either. Ditto for BOOKTOK (ugh). Had similar issues as Rex did over BLOTTY and BELT LINES and BREAST PIN (ow! my TEAT!). Thought of "cOraL reef" before HOTEL POOL, and honestly, taking the plunge at a coral reef sounds like a lot more fun than taking the plunge at the chilly and possibly sketchy hotel pool at the Holiday Inn.
Put in (TOYOTA) "Tercel" at first, and quickly retracted it because that had to have debuted by 1984 at the very latest. TUNDRA took a while to cough up. I just don't keep up with such things. Not with SUVs, nor even with SVUs.
Rex must have a sixth sense. "Behave like an ass" sounds like it could be answered in many ways, depending on the meaning du jour for "ass". For example, whenever I hear someone BRAg, to me they are behaving like an ass. But somehow or other Rex zeroes in on the intended meaning, and never looks back.
Despite my difficulties, I found some nice entries in there. I think I liked just about all the long downs. Some good misdirection in there too. Many thanks to KAC for some overall fun, even though the solve often felt sluggish in the moment.
I guess I’m the only one who didn’t get Paul Simon right away! Sitting in the center of the puzzle that was a major block after I finished the top relatively quickly. Nicely done puzzle with very little crosswordese and a fun made-up word like BLOTTY along with FURSANA, a learning experience.
ReplyDeleteIberg here, coming back to add the other thing that screwed me upp—seeing the clue for Toyota introduction and confidently writing in “Prius!” That took some time to fix.
ReplyDeleteAs to fursonas, this is a term commonly used in the “furry” community. See https://furscience.com/whats-a-furry/
ReplyDeleteA nice line-up of Downs got me off to a good start - ACOLYTE, YAHOOS (great cross with BRAY), WHATABOUTISM, HEDY, RAGU, EGO - and then it was a matter of collecting just enough crosses to guess the rest. Really enjoyed seeing MOONRAKER x SESAME STREET come into view, and POLLIWOGS and ROLL WITH IT were treats, along with SNAP TO and IN TOW. Lots to like!
ReplyDeleteDo-over: Bronzer before BODY OIL. Help from previous puzzles: ATTA. New to me: FURSONA, BREAST PIN.
I had bronzer first too. I think I got kind of messed up by “shimmering” and erroneously assigned a bit of “glittery” to the meaning…I guess I think of BODYOIL as just…shiny…until it soaks in.
DeleteSesame Street has never won an Oscar but The Muppets have. Best song “Man or Muppet”. Circa 2010
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Shortz is still claiming that “five or six” bogus entries a year sounds about right. We’ve probably had more than that alre
DeleteIt wasn't a bogus entry. As Rex explained, Sesame Street's Oscar is Oscar the Grouch.
DeleteWell, I didn’t think BRAY was a gimme. True, it was the first thing that came to mind but I was doubtful because “behavior” put me off. As usual, thinking too literally.
ReplyDeleteOnly had a couple write overs: UPTick for UPTURN and buLLfrOGS for POLLIWOGS. Hadn’t heard that word in ages. Now I want to see POLLIWOGS and bullfrogs together in a grid.
WOEs: Thunderdell, HUD, BOOKTOK, and FURSONA. GOTTA love that last one, although I share OFL’s hesitation to learn the details.
Just finished rereading MOONRAKER so that was a real gimme. Glad @Rex posted the picture of Bond - all the time I was reading I couldn’t remember if Moore or Connery had starred. Mostly I was picturing Connery. He certainly looks more like the description in the book. There’s actually mention of an actor that he resembled, who I had to look up. I had to look up a lot of things, because the setting is decades before I was born. For instance, I’d never heard of the Goodwin Sands, the 10-mile long sandbar near Kent which has caused over 2,000 shipwrecks. Maybe reading Ian Fleming is good preparation for solving a (London) Times puzzle?
Good times, @KAC!
Oh, the traps we create for ourselves: I entered POLLYWOG, which led to WHAT ABOUT YOU, then sat stupidly staring at that mess for five minutes before unraveling it
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Rex, I can say that MOON RivER did occur to me, at least to wonder if that song was ever the 007 theme song.
ReplyDeleteAnd to the BOOKTOK influencer who hates third person POVs - wow, you are going to miss out on a ton of great books. Though there was a time when I refused to read first person POV books. I got over it.
Tougher than yesterday’s but still pretty easy.
ReplyDeleteCostly erasure ArE before ATE.
WOEs - BOOKTOK, LEY, and ATE (as clued).
Smooth with some fine long downs or what @Rex said, liked it.
For “Bosom buddy,” anyone else start with BRA?
ReplyDeleteI give you the Atlanta Beltline. https://beltline.org/visit/
ReplyDeleteYou've got to love a puzzle that includes POLLIWOGS and PAUL SIMON; TEAT, TOKE, and TUNDRA; BELTLINES, BREASTPIN, BATS, and BRAY. I wanted Blotchy but finally recognized BLOTTY must be a real word. Had Bullfrog before POLLIWOGS, FURSoul before FURSONA. The whole puzzle was fun to work through. Thanks for a fun Saturday, Cameron Austin Collins!
ReplyDeleteOops, that should be Kameron, with a K.
DeleteExcuse me for a moment while I brag about putting BRAY in immediately. (Moment of pleasurable sigh). Haha…we ALL know that some days you just have all the cylinders humming. Plus…I always LOVE KAC puzzles and must be on the KAC wavelength. Well, other than the 3 Bs that Rex mentioned.
ReplyDeleteOh. And I am the only one to call out TEAT? How could I go my entire 71 years, raise two children, and not hear of anything with respect to a baby’s bottle except nipple? Gotta, say…my only nits today are the 3 Bs and the T.
And KAC…I still LOVED the puzzle. But please drop in and tell me when a BREASTPIN doubles as a fastener. I suppose it could keep a lapel from flapping?
Easier than yesterday.Agree with Rex about blotty.What an enjoyable puzzle.ππππ
ReplyDeleteOMG I did not get the Oscar bit for Sesame Street until seeing it here. I just assumed there was some documentary about them at some point that won an Oscar.
ReplyDeleteOf all the ways to clue TUNDRA, it has to be a friggin' brand name??!
ReplyDeleteNo one else had 'fart' for Behave Like An Ass?
ReplyDelete70-worder SatPuz. Got more words for yer money, than yesterday's puz. Altho, 34 of em were 3-4 letters long, of course. But the longball ones were extra-primo, today.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject pick: HUD. It was part of the film-mini-theme, along with MOONRAKER & LOCALHERO.
@RP: yep. "Local Hero" is one of the flicks in M&A's mini-stack of "ever-ready-to-play" film faves. I'd tell y'all the others, but the stack keeps growin, and is now up past 25 super-great flicks. Will mention that my fave oldie flick in the stack is: "Bringing Up Baby".
Really loved the theme music, at the end of "Local Hero", btw.
some puz fave stuff: TWOHEADED. PAULSIMON. POLLIWOGS & its clue. SESAMESTREET clue. And The Jaws of Themelessness, of course.
Really thought it was gonna be WHATABOUTITS, but "Some rise by TIN, ..." just wouldn't float.
Thanx, Mr. Collins dude. Nice one. And congratz on yer BLOTTY debut.
And congratz to all, on survivin another Friday the 13th.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
@Christopher XLI @ 9:23
ReplyDeleteLOL! Thanks.
What a treat. I’m way behind in my duties this morning. No time to organize my thoughts into coherent paragraphs, so just some notes:
ReplyDelete19A BLOTTY. Really?
27A BREASTPIN. Huh? I wanted some variation of brooch but I looked it up post-solve and it is a thing.
23 & 41A TOYOTA TUNDRA. 1999? I thought it was earlier than that. I was sure I remembered my sister and brother-in-law owning one in the early 90s.
54A TEAT? I’ve always called that thing on the baby bottle a nipple.
17A TWO HEADED. Jack the Giant Killer. I just don’t know Jack about giant killers.
4D YAHOOS. Had yokels, like a lot of you.
31D MALL. I couldn’t shake the shopping mall image. Took some crosses to bail me out.
35D FURSONA. I’m sure I know that from a very recent puzzle.
Had a good time with this. Thanks, Kameron.
Weird... after a couple of easy days, I found this quite challenging at just under 35 minutes. It felt like forever but really satisfying to finish clean. I think it's due to KAC being just off my wavelength... his puzzles always feel tough to me.
ReplyDeleteLots of Unknowns today: Thunderdell, FURSONA, BOOKTOK. I spent a long time trying to make BREAKING BAD fit for 21 down... SESAME STREET?? Are you kidding me? And I remember having TIDAL POOL for 48 across.
I thought BLOTTY was the blottiest thing in the puzzle.
Shocking news: we had snow overnight. Once again, it didn't stick to any of the roads or sidewalks and it's pretty much melted by now. But snow!! The weather office is calling it a "trace", maybe because the airport is lower elevation and closer to a big lake. It would have been only our second measurable snowfall since Dec. 4.
Re: BELTLINES. I needed to look up bodacious 50s/60s actress Julie Newmar the other day, and learned that when she was cast as Catwoman in the campy BATMAN tv show, she moved the belt from her waist to her hips to make her butt look cuter. Just thought you should know.
ReplyDeleteLoved everything about this one. Lovely stack in the center, as well as many other longer entries. Admittedly, BLOTTY is not the best but I didn't hate it and it in no way took away any of the fun.
ReplyDeleteLOCALHERO fell with no letters at all thanks to the great clue, and while that didn't open up all that much, it sure did help.
FURSONA is new to me, as well as BOOKTOK, I'm not likely to use either in a sentence in my life time, but they look nice in the grid.
Some very small hold-ups, *vat* before the correct WOK and *Tercel* before the correct TUNDRA.
Loved the cluing for SESAMESTREET and BELTLINES. The former fell way quicker than the latter, but provided a nice "Aha!"
Also had fun with POLLIWOGS. Initially wanted TADPOLES to fit (not even sure if that is factually correct) but the crossings wouldn't agree, that took a minute or so to click.
PELT also put up some fight. The mis-direct caught me fair and square - I first put down *palm*(??!!) I thought heck, it's a part of me that never sees the sun, maybe it's a thing to get them tanned these days... finally understood the kind of tanning we were talking about and problem solved.
This had so much that I like in a solve - thank you KAC for the great Saturday!