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Pomegranate morsel / SAT 5-9-26 / Black-and-white debut of 1912 / Portable retirement option / Setup for an extra point / Won land / ___ Kitchen, brand of organic foods since 1987 / Great find in the candy aisle, by the sound of it / 2000 parody of a 62-Across / Skirt with a bunch of leaves / Weighty subject of some children's books / Parlor treat typically serve with the first five letters of its name / Central Plains nation governed by the Nasharo Council
Saturday, May 9, 2026
Constructor: Katie Hoody
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: DABO Sweeney (37D: Clemson's ___ Swinney (winningest head football coach in A.C.C. history)) —
William Christopher "Dabo" Swinney (/ˈdæboʊ ˈswiːniː/; born November 20, 1969) is an American college football coach, currently serving as the head football coach at Clemson University. Swinney took over as head coach of the Clemson Tigers seven games into the 2008 season, following the resignation of Tommy Bowden. Swinney's team won national championships in 2016 and 2018. His 2018 Clemson Tigers have often been considered one of the greatest college football teams of all time. He is the winningest head coach in Clemson football history and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football history. [...] Swinney's nickname "Dabo" was given to him as an infant by his brother, Tripp, who would try to enunciate "that boy" when referring to Swinney. (wikipedia)
• • •
Not always thrilled by the heavily segmented four-quadrant puzzle, but this four-quadrant puzzle wasn't actually heavily segmented at all—lots of nice flow provided by the crossing central 15s, which are probably the element that make this feel much more like a Friday than a Saturday. They gave the puzzle a good deal of whoosh—access to every corner in very little time. The STRAWBERRY SHAKE clue is clever, for sure, but far too easy (for a Saturday) (8D: Parlor treat typically served with the first five letters of its name). I had the STRAW part before I ever looked at the clue. Got KINDA SORTA MAYBE from pieces of SORTA and MAYBE (38: List of qualifications?). I'm not sure I fully believe in the phrase KINDA SORTA MAYBE. "Kinda sorta," sure. The "maybe" part is taking it a little far, but I trust that enough people say the three-part version of this purposefully redundant phrase to make it a valid expression. I certainly got the KINDA part easily enough, and the whole thing sounds ... fine, so ... fine.
While the puzzle wasn't hard today, it did have lots of twisty language in the cluing. Plenty of "?" clues, and then ambiguously misdirective stuff like 35D: Sound made by many fans (ROAR) ("fans" here are at a sporting event or concert or the like). 67A: Skirt with a bunch of leaves is a skirt STEAK and the leaves are a SALAD. The "dash" in 12D: Statement that may be followed by a dash is a footrace ("I'LL RACE YOU"). The "retirement" in 32A: Portable retirement option is sleep (COT) (lots of initial IRAs there today, I'm guessing). The "won" in 52D: Won land is currency (KOREA). The "setup" in 40D: Setup for an extra point is a verbal setup, a word that sets up a further "point" that you might want to make ("ALSO ..."). The subject in 11D: Weighty subject of some children's books is "weighty" not because it's serious, but because the subject. literally weighs a ton (or several tons, I guess—I've honestly never thought about BABAR's weight). Despite all of this trickiness, I only made two real mistakes today, neither of them serious. For 39D: Bath seat? (ARSE), I wrote in APSE (!?!?). I was thinking there's a cathedral in Bath, and maybe you sit in the APSE? But no, it's just British "ass." My favorite mistake, though, came in the candy aisle. I decided, in all my crossword geniositude, that 51A: Great find in the candy aisle, by the sound of it (SKÖR) must be a "great find ... by the sound of it" because you "see" it ... so ... SEE'S! SEE'S candy! I'll accept my Smart Guy Crossword Medal now, thank you.
Bullets:
- 11A: One making calls on the fly? (BIRD) — needed every cross and still didn't really get it. "So... the birds are deciding who's going to eat the fly? What are these, swallows? I don't get it." But no. Birds simply fly ... and make their ordinary bird calls while doing so.
- 17A: Exclamation of surprise from a host ("YOU'RE EARLY!") — on its own, I'm not sure I would've thought this was the greatest candidate for a crossword answer, but with that clue, the phrase feels perfectly natural. Gives some colloquial sparkle to an already fairly sparkly grid.
- 62A: 2000 parody of a 62-Across (SCARY MOVIE) — another perfect clue. Nice use of the self-referential strategy.
- 59D: Kilo follower (LIMA) — NATO alphabet: "... Juliett, Kilo, LIMA, Mike (Mike!?!?) ..."
- 63D: New ___ University of Knuckleheads (fictional institution where Leslie Nielsen lectured about the Three Stooges) (YUK) — a very long way to go for YUK but I really enjoyed the journey. That is, I enjoyed (finally) discovering the answer. Nice callback to MOE, too (6D: One of the Three Stooges).
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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133 comments:
I found it a lot more Challenging and a lot less fun than @Rex did. Probably more Medium-Challenging. Too many overwrites and WOEs to list, but I don't have to: I fell into Every. Single. One. of the traps OFL outlined.
* * _ _ _
Agree with Conrad. Both yesterday and today were medium-challenging.
Great puzzle, thanks, Katie!!! Tough one for me.... While yesterday's was tough, for me today's was a bit tougher. I couldn't finish last night and somehow my timer didn't pause, so it says 6:53:01.... Now that's challenging! No googles though. I give up too early sometimes... I know ALOO is Indian potatoes, and I know PANEER is Indian cheese.... so even though I hadn't heard the full phrases, those both ended up easy. Yeah, took forever to see STEAK in STEAKSALAD.... Had literally S____SALAD before I figured out the misdirect. SKOR is one of my favorite chocolate bars, so that was easy. readysetgo at 12 Down held me up for far too long. Finally this morning I took that out, and then the NE came together (BLOG, ARFS, ALOO... then I could start to see the downs). ALCHEMISTS pretend not to be MEREMORTALS, but when their pots of boiling metals explode in a fatal conflagration, St. Peter says "YOUREEARLY!".... Proud of myself for plopping HERE right in. STRAWBERRYSHAKE took me a while to figure out, so that was a terrific "Aha" moment! Nice write up, this morning, @REX, thanks! And a terrific puzzle. I've lost count of the starwars clue counter.... where are we, 12 day without a StarWars clue???? It certainly is a record for 2026....
Challenging until you get on the constructor's clueing wavelength, then it fell fairly easily and was most definitely fun.
Harder than yesterday's puzzle for me. I battled in all four quadrants and thought I might have to put the puzzle down and come back to it later. I had to work for every one of the twelve 10-letter answers, and I had several wrong initial answers (e.g., ANIL --> ARIL, TAU --> RHO, IRA --> COT) to recover from. But I eventually got enough correct to get traction in each of the quadrants. This one fought me.
Medium-challenging because of the clever cluing. I had so many write-ins I was sure of.. only to be erased. Enjoyed it!
Loved this, and I did yesterday’s. My favorite Friday-Saturday pair in quite some time.
— Sir Hillary
One could parse “KINDA SORTA MAYBE” as a more literal “list” of qualifications, if you don’t buy it as a singular cohesive phrase
Easier than yesterday for me and mostly enjoyable. I had SEED for a long time for the pomegranite morsel and didn’t know the word ARIL. I still don’t really get the clue for SKOR and why is KOREA a “won land”?
Another hand up for finding this one challenging. If this keeps up, Gary can start a list of modifiers for “hard”: refreshingly, surprisingly, gratifyingly . . .
Much harder than yesterday for me, but a mostly fun kind of challenge. Familiarity with the proper names makes a huge difference—I’d like to think with AMYS in place, for example, those three long acrosses in the NW would have emerged more quickly.
I agree with Medium -Challenging AND Rex's Four Stars, making it, IMHO, the best Saturday of the year so far,
Very gratifying to get through all the puns and double entendres. Really enjoyed it although I thought today's was medium-challenging and yesterday's was easy. I guess ya know what ya know!
My ideal Saturday puzzle. Challenging (especially the NE) with soooo many great clues.
Hey All !
Proper tough SatPuz here today. Was stuck practically everywhere. Didn't panic, however, and managed a slow and steady solve without resorting to having to cheat.
Loved all the ambiguity in the clues. Made the ole brain think in the third dimension... I mean the third definition.
12D - Statement that may be followed by a dash, of course had me thinking the dash (-), not a race.
32A - Portable retirement option, naturally sent you to IRA, as you can move it around to other investments, hence portable, and it's got the retirement right in the clue. But, it meant sleeping-retire.
52D - Win land, wanted to put usurp in there, but had the O already, Won is the monetary unit.
Some others like that, but you get the point. I like seeing neat cluing like that.
Apologies to SIXERs fans, but as a non follower of bball, I had LAKER at first. umps-BIRD, ira-COT, STRATa-STRATI, Rahs-ROAR, think that's it.
Good puz, Katie, made you think but was still solvable.
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I enjoyed this puzzle a lot!
“Won” is their currency.
If you like the Skor candy bar, you might yell “Score!” when you see it in the candy aisle. South Korea’s money is called the won.
Never having listened to NPR, I, for one, am much more familiar with DABO Sweeney than IRA SHAPIRO.
This is how I parsed it.
I had a good bit of fun with this one. STEAK SALAD made me smile. NE corner had me stumped for awhile, since I always forget ALOO = potato and BLOG/ARFS both seemed too easy.
As a huge college football fan, I enjoyed seeing DABO pop up. All in all an enjoyable Saturday (if a bit easy), letting me beat my average by a good 4 minutes.
The majority of commenters so far disagree with Rex on difficulty - - and I'm, with them. I'd put this in the top quarter by difficulty over the last 10 years. I was also hung up on SMOR crossing MOREA that was really SKOR crossing KOREA. Forgot that SMORE has an E and figured that since MOREA is a place it must have been 'won land' but.... (while I think of it, in what sense is 'KOREA' really "won land"? Oh! The currency.... DOH! Now THAT is a good clue.)
SKOR is a chocolate bar.... kind like a heath but a little more caramelized. So you "score a SKOR" at the store? Won is the name of Korea's currency
One of those times where I had trepidation visiting this blog. "Oh, I hope Rex gives this four stars". TRUE!
Only three four-letter answers, two of them referencing the Three Stooges. Hand up for IRA before (wonderfully clued) COT. Also hand up (and head down) for Ira before ARI SHAPIRO. Ira Glass; Ira Flatow; ARI SHAPIRO. Got it.
Found it harder than Rex, though, due to so many clues with misdirection and clever wordplay. The puzzle came together SORTA Willy-nilly, one-off answers all over the grid, eventually coming together with much satisfaction.
In addition to the crossing spanners, twelve (!) ten-letter answers, in neat three-to-a-column stacks. IMHO, this is the kind of feat that makes for a great puzzle from a solver's standpoint. Agree with earlier post, wonderful Friday-Saturday combo; ended the week on a high note (after a disastrous first three days).
Almost every week I find the Friday puzzle harder than the Saturday. Perhaps because I’m expecting all the misdirections in the cluing?
Slightly, but not significantly, easier than yesterday. Really bad PPP start in the NW with AMYS and LEOI, but that turned out not to be typical of this generally well-filled grid.
The cluing was top-notch today.
A segmented grid with limited travel opportunities, so each section played like its own mini puzzle. Fortunately, I knew ARI SHAPIRO, and the other sections had reasonable long answers like ROOFTOP BAR, STEAK SALAD, etc.
I also was on enough of the same wavelength that I handled the potential misdirects that Rex mentioned with unusual ease for a Saturday (stuff like ALSO, KOREA, the “dash” for RACE and even the qualifiers in KINDA, SOTA, etc.).
Not much doubt that for me, this one was easier than yesterday.
Looked over the clues trying to find a starting point and wound up with MOE, ATOLL, and TOGA. Not much. Somehow the "gold" in 1A and the M from MOE led to ALCHEMISTS and the S from ALCHEMISTS led to STRAWBERRY something and boom, there were toeholds galore. Some nice sideways cluing led to some extra cogitation but I want that on a Saturday.
DABO Sweeney is one of my favorite sports names, along with Mookie Betts. Mookie is another mispronounced first name, it's actually Markus. Didn't know AMYS, was thankful for crossword friend ALOO, had PANE something and was thinking of the PANERA guys, but that was an easy enough fix. A couple of crosses even led to remembering ARIL, yay.
I liked your Saturday very much, KH. A King-sized Helping of fun, for which many thanks.
I usually like Katie’s puzzles.But this one was impossible for me.I’m surprised that Rex and others found it easy. Rex, would you please explain 62 Across?No🎈for me.
The Won is the basic Korean currency. I know that well, having been to Korea 5 or 6 times, and I still couldn't get it without lots of crosses!
This was more challenging than yesterday even considering the usual step up from Friday to Saturday. It's always nice when they get the difficulty progression right. I recall the NW to be the easiest section as I found ALCHEMISTS to be an obvious answer. The SE was the most resistant. I had to wait for the fog It's clues set up to clear. The one for KOREA was probably the most baffling as I read "Won" as a verb until the last letter went in.
I don't recall the clue for DABO mentioning that it was a nickname. It would have made little difference as it was a complete unknown.
Loved this puzzle!!
Also: who knew that HITTHEROAD has the same letter count (and a few common letter placements) as WENTONTOUR? Anyone else get tripped (!) up on that?
This one was really hard for me; I just couldn't see a lot of clues. I spent a lot of time wondering whether 16-A was naan or roti, until I finally noticed the potatoes. But ALOO didn't help me A LOt; I wanted hippo or rhino before BABAR and rental caRS before DOG SITTERS. I went on and on like that, slowly filling in things like RHO and SPRY. I'm not a sports fan, but I know who Julius Erving is, and even that he plays basketball, but not his team. Fortunately, I do know that the nInERS are football, so the crosses helped me when I had enough.
At last I had enough crosses to see BERRY, and soon after was able to put in the STRAWS. The rest was relatively easy; but only relatively. If you don't know anything about Indian food those two paratha dishes must have been real stumpers.
It was fun all the way, though. Each difficult clue was a joy to work out.
Great puzzle. But it's a little arrogant to use "You or me, e.g." to clue MERE MORTALS. Speak for your self, puzzle!
Me, too
14D is an unusually long KEALOA – it could be PETSITTERS, CATSITTERS or DOGSITTERS.
I found that corner tough and had to google ALOO to finish.
I still don’t get the 62 across clue. Could someone explain
Won is Korean currency.
My times for today and yesterday differed by less than 10 seconds, both a few minutes less than my Friday average. I found both of them fun and fairly wooshy.
webwinger
BTW, I think the clue for SKOR was punning on “score”, and Won is the currency of Korea?
Definitely challenging for me — and one of the most fun puzzles I’ve done in a long time. Loved all the wordplay. “Won land” is inspired.
Every day I’m stunned how many of you comment without even bothering to read the blog.
"SCARY MOVIE" is the title of a movie that parodizes the scary movie genre.
Me too. Especially the less fun.
So much easier than Friday's puzzle, which makes no sense.
I loved the cluing in this puzzle. STRAWBERRYSHAKE and SCARYMOVIE and ILLRACEYOU and STEAKSALAD were all absolutely brilliant. I had no qualm with KINDASORTAMAYBE, which is a phrase I've at least heard verbatim.
“Scary Movie” is the name of a movie that is a spoof of scary movies.
Easy?????? I mean, I know we can't all be on the same wavelength all the time but sheesh. I usually target 15 minutes for Saturday and often beat it now that they've decided to court more subscribers by backing way off on the end-of-week difficulty (oddly, the LATXW has been stepping up the difficulty to where it's often harder than the NYTXW, which never used to be the case). But this one took 28 and change. DABO was a huge roadblock, among others. Just not the kind of name you're gonna guess-without-knowing. I loved all the oblique cluing, had some wild guesses on the long answers that proved out, so it was definitely enjoyable. But I had a lot of time staring at huge blank areas.
Cruel that TERRY GROSS has the same number of letters as ARI SHAPIRO
ARIL is really *reaaaally* old-school crosswordese. Means "seed covering," and usually clued as such without any misdirection as it's not exactly common outside XW-land. Pomegranate seeds have a fruity coating that's actually the part you eat. Hence "pomegranate morsel."
Rex, you truly are the greatest crossword solver in the universe. Fantastic entry today but certainly not easy.
Exactly how I felt. Love it when you get the constructor’s vibe.
For some reason, I was exactly on the constructor’s wavelength today. Even when I didn’t know the answer I understood the clue, e.g., I immediately knew “won” was a currency although I didn’t know in which country without some crosses.
I’d never heard of the football coach but the crosses there were fair. I appreciated learning about the origin of his nickname. My name (Yat) also comes from a childhood mispronunciation.
The movie SCARYMOVIE is a parody of scary movies, ie. usually there is a GROUP of people who are in a remote location, something happens that is scary, their transportation gets inoperable, AND they split up to “investigate” instead of staying together…all the horror tropes were thrown into the parody.
Took a while, but I finished it with no look-ups. STEAKSALAD didn't seem to fit the clue, but I entered it at the end anyway and the music sounded. I also had trouble coming up with COT as a portable retirement option, because I took "retirement" too literally (bad on you, Bob).
MOE must be thinking he's in a Monday puzzle, with that clue. So many great ones, exactly the kind of wordplay I like to see.
NW started slow but filled in quickly once I got toeholds. The NE was quite a bit trickier, despite ALOO into BABAR into BLOG & ARFS being pretty easy. I wanted the "fly" in the clue on BIRD to be sports-related. And with B-R- in place, I thought that maybe BART Simpson had a second notable pants-based quote, other than "eat my shorts", about someone's "fly". I'LL RACE YOU was hard to uncover, I understood the "dash" part but wanted something akin to I'VE GOTTA RUN.
I brought a little trinket back from Korea for my friend Juan. He protested that I shouldn't be spending my hard-earned money on him, but I said "Hey, it was only one Won Juan."
ESTEE is a big factor (but not the Max Factor) in the MAKEPGAME.
Many ATOLLs charge ATOLL to visit, so I don't go ATaLL.
Is a POKERPARTY another name for orgy? A good bet you'll SKOR there!
Really nice cluing today. Thanks for a whooshy, exhilarating ride, Katie Hoody.
On the challenging side. I greeted Rex's assessment of "easy", and even more his opinion that this was "way way way easier" than yesterday's, with a "pfft". (Well, you have your opinion, and I have mine.) Anyway, no whoosh to speak of really; every scrap was hard fought, and in the end I appreciated that. The cluing was very good on the whole, even for entries that look unremarkable. Like the one for ALSO ("Setup for an extra point"). And for SKOR. Some pleasant misdirection for MCAT (of course I was thinking of work in the lab).
I surmised the Nato alphabet thing for 59 Down, but who among you has memorized the Nato Alphabet? LEED right next to it: complete unknown. Glad those crosses for DABO were accessible.
Boo to 39 Down. Any residual transgressive Tee-Hee factor has long since evaporated, and you're just left with a crudity. So I'll respond in kind: stick it. You know where.
It seems that I recognize Indian cuisine vocabulary when I'm sitting in the restaurant, what ALOO and PANEER and Sag and Gobi mean on the menu, but that I don't necessarily have instant recall for it on the outside of the restaurant. (Had contemplated POKER mAtch coming down.)
Good clue for ROOFTOP BAR (and good entry, too). I was KINDA SORTA MAYBE thinking something along the lines of those Kava bars, where the drinks (teas) can get you high. Definitely would like to patronize such a joint one day. You can get a slight tingle just from the grocery store Kava teas (Yoga Tea makes one), but I expect that doesn't come close to the proper experience.
Glad to have Rex on hand to explain "Won land" (KOREA). That one had gone completely over my head. Again, nice clue. On the other hand, I don't see why BIRD as paired with its clue was hard to get.
Katie Hoody, excepting 39 Down, this was a very fine construction. I'd even call it ADEPT. Beautiful little stacks and colonnades. And if you all on the NYTXW were responsible for some of those excellent clues, then I thank you as well. It was worth the effort.
That’s obviously what the clue means but the answer *has* to cohere as a thing to be a valid answer.
Excellent review today.
Agreed on LAT puzzle, which today took me twice as long to finish as the NYT offering did.
Wow. I thought yesterday’s puzzle was MUCH easier than today, which I guess is just a wheelhouse thing OR my brain wasn’t on all cylinders today, but was yesterday. I appreciate the clever cluing but the enjoyment during the solve just wasn’t there and I was left with the admiration of the puzzle post-solve. That’s on me.
My least favorite clues were “husky hellos” (does anyone else think of ARFS coming from small dogs and “woofs” coming from larger dogs?) and STEAKSALAD…which…I guess is “a thing” because I looked it up…but when I’ve ordered salads, it usually has an “add a protein” option. Anyway, I tend to think of it as salad WITH steak added, or chicken, or shrimp, or whatnot.
Like Roo I started Dr J as a Laker before changing him to a SIXER. I revisited Dr. J’s career (he’s 76!) and found out that when the ABA was absorbed into the NBA that the Knicks turned him down- which was considered the WORST decision in the Knicks franchise history.
Lots of fun cluing! Slow start and then picked up speed with more footholds. Played easy-medium for me.
A proper Saturday puzzle.
Perfect Saturday toughness. I struggled through all of it only to get very stuck in the NE. Had ScirrI before STRATI, fIsh before BIRD, roti and naan before ALOO, IRA before cot, and CLAM before boar so it was a mess to untangle. But I got there when I figured out that the "dash" was about racing, which gave me ILL RACE YOU which made ROOF TOP BAR (I knew it was some kind of bar) gettable and then it finally fell into place. But hoo boy.
Excited for the day when a puzzle like this becomes easy. Not anytime soon. 42:36
And curriculum vitaE has the same number of letters as KINDA SORTA MAYBE. With only the terminal E in place when I hit that clue, I fell right into that trap,
Easy end of a solid Saturday, tons of sparkle, zero gunk, and ample whoosh.
One won is about one fifteenth of a cent. Now I'm trying to imagine what you could have bought for that. My guess is 500 grains of rice.
Nice mini today
NOT easier than yesterday. It was leaning that way until I found myself completely stymied in the NW. 4D, 5D and 8D were in, with a _OE at 6D for jOE or MOE and...nothing. As if I would have any idea what basketball team Dr. J played on. I threw in lakER and sat there waiting for inspiration. I finally crossed out lak and AMYS appeared. I used to eat an Amy's palak PANEER frozen dinner nearly every night when I was still working (now I try to cook my own meals) but I don't think I ever saw "Kitchen" as part of the brand name. But thanks, Amy!
I saw through all of the misdirections, starting with COT. Though I first thought 12D was going to be "Ready, set, go!" (But I didn't put it in, hah).
Katie Hoody, thanks for a tougher Saturday puzzle!
That's who I was trying to think of - Pretty long kealoa:)
Llegaste temprano.
I've had to look up several words on two different days this weekend, so obviously I'm losing my mind, or more likely {prepare for a parody of the scrumpdiddlyuptiously easy weeping we often endure from the overly seasoned and spicy solvers facetiously preparing to quit over doable puzzles} ... or more likely the NYTXW has caved into the I-like-it-hardsters and society is going to the cranky dogs and I think I'll quit and go do grocery store anthology puzzles where the crosswordese flows like cheap wine at a shag carpet and mustache party. An altogether more entertaining POKER PARTY.
This is the funniest puzzle in too long and slam dunks the rare clown award. See how it's done grasshopper. A masterwork of YUK.
I'm probably just dumb about organic food and pomegranate seeds and whatever LEEDS is and everybody named DABO. Weirdly, as a frequent complainer about Asian food ingredients in the puzzle, I've got ALOO and PANEER locked down tight thanks to so much saag in my culinary adventures.
Kids, in case you are wondering, Dr. J is 76 years old. His last game was in 1987. The SIXERS are in the playoffs right now with players that are in the news right now. Maybe time to delete SIXERS from your word list if Julius is your frame of reference.
❤️ ALCHEMISTS. SCARY MOVIE. KINDASORTAMAYBE.
People: 6
Places: 2
Products: 6
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 18 of 70 (26%)
Funny Factor: 11 🤡
Tee-Hee: ARSE {our old friend who started it all}. CRAMPS.
Uniclues:
1 Magical scientist's golden middle finger.
2 The central point wandered.
3 Commenters on the RexBlog.
1 ALCHEMIST'S BIRD
2 CRUX WENT ON TOUR
3 TEAM CRAMPS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Rule of survival for girls in the 80s. SAME HAIRDOS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My favorite kind is "properly" hard.
DOGSITTERS today after yesterday's CATSITS. Curious if this was an editorial choice (bothsiderism!), or just pure chance. Should we be on the lookout for FISHSIT, BIRDSIT, or GERBILSIT tomorrow?
On the easy side for me. I jumped around the grid a bit after only getting MOE and AMYS in the NW but my solve was most whooshy.
Being familiar with Indian menus was helpful.
No costly erasures and DABO, YUK, LEOI, and PAWNEE were it for WOEs.
Haven’t seen ARIL in a while.
No junk, two delightful 15s, more than a bit of sparkle, liked it.
@Andy Freude 7:15 AM
For whatever reason, we are quick to - LY-itize the word EASY, but when it's HARD, we tend to think that's enough said. Perhaps when it's easy, we think it's somebody else's fault and we're extra judgemental, but when it's hard it's best not to draw attention to ourselves?
@kitshef. They say it takes one to know WON. I guess you WON.
Egs: Your first pun won me over. In your hotel in Korea, did you keep your money on that little table next to the bed? You know, the won night stand?
kitshef: Per Mitch Hedberg (RIP): Rice is a great food if you want to eat 1,000 of the same thing.
I'm in the harder than yesterday and very enjoyable crowd today.
I managed perhaps my worst write-over answer of all time when I plunked in gooseBERRY _ _ _ _ _! I think I was thinking of a "parlor" as a fancy Victorian sitting room where some delicacy might be served alongside a goose entree. Actually, I don't know what I was thinking. It's possible that I wasn't thinking. I think.
Medium, not easy. Perfect Saturday, really enjoyed it.
I have come to enjoy solving online, but it has a disadvantage -- I can't mark up the grid or the clues to remind myself of something I want to say. Today, I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I enjoyed having both ESTEE Lauder and her unaccented sister ESTER in the grid together.
An anonymous commenter expressed surprise that many people post without first reading Rex. That's actually a fairly common strategy; solvers want to start by giving their own reaction to the puzzle, uninfluenced by either Rex or other commenters. I did that myself for a few months, and then realized I enjoyed the interaction more. But when I did I tried to make it clear what I had not yet read.
So for openers I thought it was a great Saturday puzzle. I absolutely cruised through the east top to bottom. Thought I was going to be writing a review about how it was more like a Monday. But found the west, again top to bottom, to be somewhat of a challenge. A lot of self inflicted wounds did not help. PETsitter, kiloGRAM instead of LIMA. Loved the cluing in this one. Calls on the fly being one of them.
Slowed down by several mistakes in the NE. IRA for COT, CLAM for BOAR, and UMPS for BIRD. Didn't notice that UMPS needed to be singular. Also was fixated on DUMBO for 11D. Oof, so close and yet so far.
"Don't know what I was thinking. It's possible that I wasn't thinking. I think". Been there, Tom.
A great Saturday puzzle. Enjoyable without a struggle. Loved SKOR, BABAR even though LIMA & DABO were a struggle. Thank you, Katie for a nice Saturday :)
Terrific Saturday challenge, emphasis on the last word. Glad Rex found it easy. Geeesh!
Erving is aseminal figure in the new NBA. I.e., the league created with the de facto merger with the ABA. He was the high-flying dunk artist of his generation. Changed the game. No reason to be glib about his age Gary.
That was fun! On the difficulty front, for me it hit the Goldilocks sweet spot of "just right" for a Saturday: I had to work at it, but with the rewards of seeing an answer snap into place or understanding a tricky clue coming at an enjoyable pace. What a great stack in the NW as an opener! And I loved the joke of BIRD as my closer.
Do-over: pet SITTER, STRATa, SCOUtS. Help from previous puzzles: LEO I. No idea: DABO. Small moment of triumph: immediately seeing through the COT clue.
Wow. Just wow. Superbly clued and filled SatPuz rodeo. It was like a panel of sneaky experts convened to think up almost every clue. fave one: {Husky hellos?} = ARFS. That clue gets a complimentary belly-rub.
staff weeject pick, of 4 choices: COT. Also had a great, sneaky, tho non-?-marker, clue.
fave filler: KINDASORTAMAYBE. For sure.
Thanx for the pure themeless fun, Ms. Hoody darlin. Come back any Saturday.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Yeah there was a whole host of “[GENRE] MOVIE” movies for a while. I think the SCARY movie series has the most entires, but there was also DATE MOVIE, TEEN MOVIE, etc. They were extremely slapstick parodies in the vein of AIRPLANE, TOP SECRET, NAKED GUN and other 80s movies by the Zucker Brothers.
Medium-Hard, tough clues! I had IIRC (if I recall correctly) for the clue "I could be wrong, but ..." I considered the more common IMHO, but I didn't think opinions could be wrong. Yeah, well you know, that's just like uh, my opinion, man.
From Season 2 of The Pitt:
Mateo: Speaking of layups, what up, Dr. J?
Javadi: Oh, right. That was, um, some sort of basketball player, wasn't it?
Dana: Shame on you. Only the greatest SIXER to ever play the game.
"LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the world's most widely used voluntary green building rating system." Seen it a few times in previous crosswords, but I look up the acronym every time.
Really great clues. Thoroughly enjoyed the proper FRI SAT puzzles this weekend. Kudos, Katie!
Challenging for me but in a good way, not a slog way. Live KINDA SORTA as an answer, but resisted dropping in that MAYBE because I’ve never heard anyone use all three in a row. But love the misdirect that had me trying to find synonyms for resume. Had POKER NIGHT before POKER PARTY and …. I’ve never heard someone refer to having people over to play cards as a PARTY rather than a NIGHT or a GAME.
Loved the self-referential clue on SCARY MOVIE and for whatever reason enjoyed the very straightforward STEAK SALAD. Knew “spirits were high” would refer to a liquor shelf of some sort, but took a while to get ROOFTOP BAR. Wanted a statement followed by a dash to be MORE PEPPER? but that’s a question, not a statement.
The NW was hardest for me because I’ve never heard of AMY’S Kitchen and I couldn’t figure out how to build off of CRUX/SIXER. when I finally got ALCHEMISTS and MERE MORTAL I loved them. Especially ALCHEMISTS.
@DAVinHOP 8:11 am, there was a HECK of a lot more than "three four-letter answers"! I'm guessing 25 or so?
Absolutely brutal that CURRICULUM VITAE fit perfectly in the middle clue. I ignored the question mark and it set me back for a long time.
You and me both.
“ While the puzzle wasn't hard today, it did have lots of twisty language in the cluing.” YESSSS! You said it best.
"Easy"???? I'm gobsmacked that anyone found this less than medium. For me, very challenging and I ended up having to do a little cheat to get there.
My problem was the upper right. For 12 down, I had ILL CALL YOU and it seemed just right to me. And I didn't have any of the other 3 downs up top: (not BABAR), (something)BAR, and (something)ERS. And all not helped by that stupid Unknown college coach's first name which is not a real name, it's just random consonant/vowel/consonant/vowel. So I cheated and looked him up, which gave me the initial D of DABO, and I was moving forward again.
And other tough ones: two "__ paratha" clues!!! Yikes. Two Unknown Names at 1 and 2 down. And of course lots of typeovers: TAU before RHO, APACHE before PAWNEE, and TAIWAN before KOREA.
And a final typeover for "Kilo follower" with GRAM before LIMA, which had me pleased at first because of yesterday's stupid non-metric KPH.
The doc had a nice moment in the movie Philadelphia, with Denzel.
i thought i was missing something when i saw "easy" so glad to see that the consensus agrees with my experience. yday was like saturday and today was like tricky saturday. i wasnt sure i would finish. lots of ? clues without the ?. i mean, 21A had one despite being one of the easiest to see and 40D and 52D didnt? i like the grid structure; where usually the 4s give you a toehold on the long ones but not today. i did enjoy the cluing tho so one of my favorites in a while. ordinary words made interesting by the clues.
Dr J used to live in my neighborhood in the 90s; drove a recognizable brown 2-tone lincoln and always waved out the window when he drove by. super nice guy.
I was much more in sync with the constructors cluing vibe today compared with yesterday. Breezed right through.
STRAWBERRY SHAKE: The little shuffle Daryl would do in the dugout after parking one in the upper deck at Shea.
TOGA: Where Braves' fans head for a game.
ALOO: Good to find when you gotta go in London.
BABAR: What my deadbeat cousin kept running into when he tried to get his college degree.
MCAT: Siamese Wolverine fan. Go Blue!
YOU'RE EARLY: Words my daughter has never heard. I once remarked that there is the planet Earth, and there is Caity, ten minutes later.
Agree, almost as difficult as yesterday for me
Pretty good, but POKER PARTY was atrocious. No one has ever used that phrase, ever.
When I was a kid my favorite meal was a cheeseburger, fries and a STRAWBERRY SHAKE. If I ate that nowadays, I would probably go into a hyperglycemic coma.
I've been playing poker for a long time, usually in a home game with people I've known for years. Never heard the term POKER PARTY.
My all-time favorite ROOFTOP BAR was El Gato Negro (The Black Cat) in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I was sad to find out recently that it has closed.
I lived in KOREA for half a year. How can it be a "Won land", as clued? The KOREAn War ended in an armistice; there were no winners or losers. (Hey, I'm a MERE MORTAL. I was going for a YUK or two there.)
Oops... obviously I didn't have TAIWAN before KOREA cuz it's the wrong length. BURMA maybe? It's hard to remember; I solved last evening which was a long time ago!
I would have given this six stars - sheer beauty all around. I found this to be a proper modern-era (in terms of difficulty) Saturday. A highly segmented grid which made you work hard throughout, but look what you get as rewards. Stunning long downs and acrosses, cute-as-a-button spanners and some brilliant cluing.
Loved the normal, everyday language of YOUREARLY, WENTONTOUR, SCARYMOVIE,MAKEUPGAME, and KINDASORTAMAYBE. The clueing on that one, along with MAKEUPGAME and SCARYMOVIE: close to perfect Saturday fare.
ROOFTOPPARTY looks especially pretty. That whole neighborhood in the NE got a bit sticky as I had *umps* instead of the correct BIRD even though the clue did not call for a plural. I figured the word play made sense - umps do make calls on fly balls... so that took a while to sort out until ILLRACEYOU clicked.
I also loved the creative cluing on the one piece of much used short fill, OREO. It seems like everywhere you look, there's something close to magical here.
I could go on, but much has been said already. IMHO, a top notch Saturday. Thank you Katie for making this!
@tht
I was in the Army years ago, and the NATO alphabet is seered into the ole brain. One of the few things I can actually remember!
Roo
Anon 8:36: In fairness he mentioned skor but didn't really explain it (but if you say the name it's fairly obvious), but also yeah.
I think that was a typo as there were 3 three letter answers
I am a bit of a college football fan and that is how he is known, if you said his "actual first name" Swinney I would say "who". See also Babe Ruth, Bo Schembechler, ....
You know the rumor about his wife Turquoise and Teddy Pendergast, right?
Totally agree this was a great puzzle! And I expect DAVinHOP intended to write: "only FOUR THREE-letter answers"...
Totally agree with ARFS. Especially with the double meaning of HUSKY which indicate WOOFS or BARKS but certainly not wee, shrill ARFS
I always read the blog, but I missed the info about the Won somehow. Glad to have learned that tidbit.
Same for me UNTIL I took a break, then restarted from elsewhere. Fun and easy from there. Sometimes a break and change in perspective helps!
And TOURGUIDES has the same number of letters as DOGSITTERS. Also GAMEDELAY and MAKEUPGAME.
I’ll just chime in to agree that this was easier and more enjoyable than yesterday. I particularly liked the SCARYMOVIE clue. I have POKERnight for POKERPARTY, which doesn’t feel like a real phrase.
NOT A KEALOA!! No letter in the two names are the same in the same place!
Very hard for me especially the SE because movie and Lama before LIMA, and I’m not a meat eater. Never heard of DABO or AMYS or LEED or SKOR, and the perfume references were tricky too. Enjoyed ARIL and finally figuring out STRAWBERRYSHAKE.
@jberg. I made the transition to online solving a few years ago. Loved working on a clipboard but I got really fed up with printers running out of ink or not connecting properly to the network, or whatever. Now, instead of making notes in the margins of a print-out, I just employ a pad of 8.5 x 11 inch lined note paper right beside my keyboard. Works great.
Oh yeah, a pen's nice too.
well, he was super nice to everyone except her.
@ChrisS, of course! I should have thought of that.
What delightful clueing! It took me half as long to solve as yesterday’s puzzle, but it didn't feel all that easy because the clues/answers were so clever. A delightful puzzle. Too many good examples to list.
5 stars
I no-looked curriculumvitae without any crosses. When it fit I moved on. Boy this puzzle was a slog. Who the heck is DABO? And when am I going to learn that the only Indian cuisine is ALOO?
I live in Clemson so was excited to see Dabo.
The “list” gist was how I got there, too. It was the ? on the clue that bugged me. It should have appeared without it - IMHO.
Late again
Anoa Bob. It took me a while to get KOREA from crosses but when I did I remembered that won is their currency not a verb. I thought I it was a good but very tricky clue.
Not easy for me at all! Twice as long my average time. Liked it.
Lots of tough clue/ answer combos
Surprised only one other commenter mentioned the clue for OREO. It was a rare gimme for me. but still inventive.
wow... I've contributed to this blog for a long time and Rex doesn't share many of the posts about my feelings about a given puzzle or the state of puzzling or anything no wonder the ny times never publishes one of your puzzles Rex you don't even let the people who support you share their feelings no offense you've never shown respect for me personally I've solved puzzles on the ny times since 1984
those who support your blog have interests needing to be known about as well www.linktr.ee/glassjonespiano you trash puzzles that have merit and you do know the good ones - I am a supporter of you but you're not a supporter of those who support YOU this is a personal message I have solved crosswords since the 80's on the New York Times PRINTED paper in Boulder CO then NYC where I lived for 24 years - I don't understand your disdain for others efforts to make crosswords without A.I. just book learning reading real things I feel like you you have not respect for Will Shortz or the NY Times
Well, starting the puzzle, on seeing “List of qualifications”, I threw. CURRICULUMVITAE right down there, which messed me up for quite a while. I guess I was KINDASORTAMAYBE TOOEARLY…
Only four THREE-letter answers; thanks for the math help, friends. I'll ask my granddaughter to help me with my counting
Seriously, over-abundance of threes is one of my biggest pet peeves. To only have four is exemplary, as was this puzzle overall. So I'm chagrined that I didn't get it right.
Besides, there weren't any Stooges with 4-letter names.
Anon, good point re not getting DABO unless you know it. Even with three of the letters...huh? Presumably, those here who weren't roadblocked have had some familiarity with college football. So conversely to it being a stumbling block if you'd never heard of him, if you had how do you forget "DABO"?
At first I was opposed to writing in SIXER for Dr.J (Julius Irving), since he was initially drafted (after a year at UMASS, of all places) by the Nets.
The (now Brooklyn) Nets are an NBA team, but when Irving played for them, they were part of the fledgling American Basketball Association (ABA). He was traded to Philly; one of many Nets trade blunders.
Erving, not Irving; geesh. 🤦♂️
It was yesterday's puzzle, so maybe it's a tree falling in the deserted woods and no one notices.
Some would argue that Wilt Chamberlain was better, but as Celtic Bill Russell routinely ate Wilt's lunch, I'd support classy Dr. J.
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