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Dad's pop, perhaps / SAT 6-20-26 / Moment of high spirits? / Turnovers, but not crumpets / Jokey warning before diving into a niche topic / Destination for a day trip from Sorrento / Big name in lights / Website with a "Submit a Rumor" tab / ___ Howard, activist known as te "Mother of Pride" / Helen with the podcast "Go Fact Yourself" / Man's name whose first four letters spell a word describing its last letter / State-sponsored "wealth redistribution" scheme
Saturday, June 20, 2026
Constructor: Katie Hoody
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: BRENDA Howard (21A: ___ Howard, activist known as the "Mother of Pride") —
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| [glaad.org] |
Brenda Howard (December 24, 1946 – June 28, 2005) was an American bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist. The Brenda Howard Memorial Award is named for her. [...] A militant activist who helped plan and participated in LGBT rights actions for over three decades, Howard was an active member of the Gay Liberation Front[2] and for several years chair of the Gay Activists Alliance's Speakers Bureau[3] in the post-Stonewall era. A fixture in New York City's LGBT Community, Howard was active in the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights which helped guide New York City's Gay rights law through the City Council in 1986 as well as ACT UP and Queer Nation. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| [14D: One of a noted quintet] |
[WHOO? Oh, right, I had SHOO and hadn't yet fixed the whole thing (39D: "Get outta here!" = "WHOA!"—a statement of disbelief, not a command to leave)]
Mistakes? Besides the ones I've already covered, not many. SHOO before WHOA (39D: "Get outta here!"). AIR before ACT (4D: What one might put on to impress others). HELM before DESK (55D: Anchor position). I thought maybe Helen HUNT had a podcast I hadn't heard about (56A: Helen with the podcast "Go Fact Yourself" = HONG). We have to know podcasters now? But there are Sooooooo Many, ugh. If I needed a HONG (that wasn't just [___ Kong]), I think I'd've gone with HONG Chau, whose presence in a movie is one of the most reliable indicators that I will see said movie. I would not have thought that was true until just now, but when I looked at her filmography, I realized I'd seen five of her last eight movies (The Menu, Showing Up, Asteroid City, Wuthering Heights, The Sheep Detectives). She got an Academy Award nomination for The Whale, which I never saw. She's never been in the puzzle, neither as HONG nor as CHAU. She should be a name double threat! Like ISAO AOKI, but for the 21st century.
Bullets:
- 34A: Soprano Fleming (RENÉE) — a very helpful gimme. She gave me the "R" for the other name in the middle of the grid, which had a much more elaborate (and funnier) clue (34D: Man's name whose first four letters spell a word describing its last letter = RINGO). I don't normally like these non-specific clues that ask you to drop or add or move letters around to figure them out, but this one was different. Sufficiently clever, such that I wasn't annoyed. My first thought for a man's name in five letters starting with "R" was ROGER, but then I was like "'how does 'ROGE' describe 'R'?" (Later, ROGER actually showed up (51D: "Got it")). Cryptic crosswords have primed me to think "O" when I see "ring," so this clue felt very comfy.
- 62A: N.B.A. analyst Burke (DORIS) — I don't follow pro sports too closely any more but I still know who DORIS Burke is. Big name in basketball commentary. She's got a lot of "First woman to ..." credits and is just a well respected analyst generally.
- 43A: ___ Ewbank, Hall-of-Fame football coach (WEEB) — the puzzle does get a little name-y (seven people, plus ROGER and RINGO), and this is probably the crosswordesiest of them all. I wrote in WEEB thinking "it's WEEB, right? Really, WEEB? But yeah ... I think so." It's a name I know solely from doing crosswords lo these many years. He coached the Jets to their one and only Super Bowl ... the year I was born. Reading about him just now led me to discover that there was a game he coached in that's famous enough to have a name: The Heidi Game. How in the world does a professional football game end up named after a 19th-century children's novel about a five-year-old girl? Well ... funny story:
- 6D: Website with a "Submit a Rumor" tab (SNOPES) — TMZ wouldn't fit, and so I was out of ideas until I got a few crosses.
- 31D: Fair weather followers (SNOWBIRDS) — we get a lot of these in the NE—retirees (mostly) who leave for warmer climes during the colder months but come back to the NE for the summers and the notably gorgeous falls. And here I am planning to retire to Minnesota. Is there a cute avian name for those of us who want to spend our later years in the freezing cold of Minnesota? LOONS?
The Heidi Game was a 1968 American Football League (AFL) game between the Oakland Raiders and the visiting New York Jets. The contest, held on November 17, 1968, was notable for its exciting finish, in which Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minute to win the game 43–32. However, NBC, the game's television broadcaster, decided to break away from its coverage on the East Coast to broadcast the television film Heidi, which caused many viewers to miss the Raiders' comeback. (wikipedia)
That's all for today. See you next time. Happy last day of spring!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Wait, CREAM SODA is "Dad's pop"!? Man, I have really entered old man territory, I guess. I love the stuff. You're missing out, kids.
P.P.S. I’m being told that “Dad’s” refers to the brand of soda, and not the fact that only old men drink it. Ok. CREAM SODA *does* seem old-fashioned, as soda types go. Also, I was not aware that Dad’s made any soda besides root beer.
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| [Got this one at a bagel shop in NYC at the end of a hot day. Delicious] |
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85 comments:
Medium, a proper Saturday. Liked it.
* * * * _
Overwrites:
I really wanted @Rex Air before ACT at 4D, but I didn't write it in because I've never heard of putting on a singular air.
When avoiding subjects at 8D, I might say "DON'T EVEr GO THERE" instead of DON'T EVEN.
My promotional materials used a tee CANNON before they used an AIR CANNON (15A).
At 39D, I SHOOed before I WHOAed.
My 55D anchor position was last (as on a relay team) before it was a DEcK (of a ship) before it was a DESK (in a newsroom).
WOEs:
"Mother of Pride" BRENDA Howard at 21A.
Podcaster Helen HONG at 56A.
Needed most of the crosses to get SEA DRAGON at 60A.
NBA analyst DORIS Burke at 62A.
Perfect Saturday experience for me. Challenging but doable, lots of great long answers and clever clues. Opposite solving experience to Rex’s: The NW and SE were pretty easy for me, the SW and especially NE were harder.
I wonder if “Dad’s” refers to the brand, not an old man. If so, that should make you feel better, Rex!
Dad’s pop is a reference to the brand name Dad’s. I think… they make root beer and also cream soda, I guess.
Dad’s is a soda brand name that makes root beer as well as cream soda, I believe. I think that’s what the clue was referencing, the brand name Dad’s. Maybe not tho.
Tough for those far from the USA.. Re ANCHOR - l also first when wrongly to a ship but then isn't KEEL (at the bottom) more apprtoriate than HELM (at the top)?
Welcome to Minnesota!
Fun - crunchy late week puzzle. Agree with Rex on the foothold aspect - mine were the intersecting spanners - in the language and quick to parse. The cluing voice is tricky and layered but SLEEK once you fall in line.
FINEST WORKsong
CREAM SODA to start is fantastic. I thought most news agencies have a submit a rumor link? Thought the BRENDA x STAR cross was neat. The trivia was heavy.
New Riders
Needed all the crosses for HONG. WEEB is a gimme for a Jets fan. Learned SEA DRAGON and RED. Don’t love the term NERD ALERT. OR SO I HEAR, PLOT POINT, SNOWBIRDS - the grid is loaded with good stuff.
SWING Out Sister
Highly enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Matt Sewell’s Stumper today is a bear.
She wore a lovely meatball on her finger
'Twas goodbye at the Villa CAPRI
Wow, this definitely played medium-challenging for me. I finished it without any cheating, so that's something for me on a Saturday. 50 minutes. Seems like EVERY SINGLE CLUE was a misdirect. "Fair weather followers" was especially tough--thought it was about the kind of fans who only pay attention when you're winning--really got a nice "oh, the ones who are chasing the fair weather!!!" aha moment as SNOWBIRDS came into view. Had the EST on the racetrack but just couldn't think of the right adjective until the very end. The only names I got quickly were HENRY Louis Gates, Jr; Helen HONG, and RINGO. Everybody else was a no-know. And I was sitting there for a hot minute trying to remember how to spell LEISURE.... Do you get confused when looking at a word going down instead of L to R? I do. Thought through the rule.... but Leisure breaks the "rule". I think it's a pretty useless rule! Thanks, Katie, this was an awesome puzzle and gave my brain a great workout. I think it was up there with your best, even if it wasn't your FINEST!!!!! : )
Took over an hour, but I solved it without cheating.
Like Rex I had "shoo" instead of WHOA, which slowed me down. I loved the misdirect cluing, especially "Dad's pop,,,," which had me searching for "grandpapa" or something close to that before the light dawned..."pop" means soda! And Dad's is a brand of soda!
Really enjoyed the puzzle. Solid and fun marquee answers with enough bite to challenge.
TMZ didn’t fit, but DRUDGE (REPORT) did. Why that was my first thought I have no idea—haven’t thought of that site in a long time, so long that I had to check to see if it still exists (it does).
So, let’s start with the clue for RINGO – [Man’s name whose first four letters spell a word describing its last letter]. There I was, trying to think of names starting with “soft” or “long” – already misdirected. Then I learn post-solve that in the more than 100 times this answer has appeared in Crosslandia, it has never been clued like this.
That’s Katie Hoody and cluing. She finds new angles. She looks in Left Field.
Here’s one more – [Sound made when something snaps into place]. There I was again, searching for words for that satisfying click, misdirected. When the answer AHA finally came, it came with a “Hah!” Katie’s cluing is often very funny as well as original, keeping me in a good mood even as my brain is huffing and puffing.
Katie, you are sterling cluing talent. This on top of the fresh answers that spark your grids and the remarkable lack of junk answers therein. Thank you for another splendid outing!
Easier than yesterday’s puzzle but still too many spaces unable to be filled.No 🎈for me.
By the way, to underscore a point, AHA has appeared in the Times puzzle more than 600 times, but has never been clued like this, not even close.
When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to watch the Jets training camp, then at Hofstra University. One year a Daily News photographer randomly picked me out of a group of kids to take my picture with Weeb Eubank. The photo didn't run but it was fun at the time.
Hey All !
Toughie. Had to Goog twice (not too bad for me on a tough puz) for BRENDA and another one that I can't seem to remember. Huh. I know I looked up two things ... Silly brain.
Finished with HuNt for HONG, even though TuAST didn't look like anything.
Had gRandpapA in at 1A for a while. Rex's sHOo for WHOA.
Ah, found my other lookup, CROAT. Me being geographically challenged, unsure where Croatia is. Over by Russia somewhere, I think.
Nice crossing 15's. Good clues, tough Themeless Weekend. I need a CREAM SODA. 😁
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
“The puzzle does get a little name-y,” you say, Rex? Except for RENEE Fleming, they were all WOEs for me. Brenda, Weeb, Doris, Ms. Hong—each one a roadblock. Solvable, but yeesh!
Similar to OFL, it took a while to get some momentum, but once I hit the east coast things started to flow a bit, with GREAT LAKE and NERD ALERT leading the charge. I also knew some of the propers like coach WEEB for a change, which always helps. I agree that this one deserves to be rated slightly above average.
Good write-up by Rex. He could dedicate an entire day to commenting on the difficulty opening packages these days (does anyone remember arguing with CD’s?). That would be a fun post.
Way too tough for me, especially all the names. But I knew WEEB and Dad’s so that kinda exposes my generation. Also impressed by @Son Volt catching BRENDA STAR even if missing an “R”. Enjoyed sussing out RINGO and some of the other answers to “”misdirectional” clues such as WHOA instead of “sHOo…
Is retirement imminent? Please fill us in on your timeline!
A masterclass in misdirection.
Best vacation ever sailing the coast of Croatia. Part of the former Yugoslavia.
@Conrad, we had (but questioned) Air before ACT for the same reason. And also questioned (singular) STAT for essentially the same reason. I get that "Turnovers" is a stat (singular), but do think the clued pastries could/should have been singular.
“… or when sounding like A
As in leisure or weigh”
My favorite line: “I before E except after C .. proved be science!”
Solid Medium here. The no-knows were the names, and I'm not proud to admit they were all women--RENEE, BRENDA, and Ms. HONG. DORIS I remembered eventually--she's very good at what she does, and Ms. CHO I know through crosswords. WEEB, OTOH, is a name you don't forget. Any other WEEBs out there? Thought not.
Slight pause to eliminate NOTMYFINESTHOUR. Had OA on the end of a word and still took the W to come up with WHOA. Finally remembered the SOL on the flags and that the five of something pointed to the GREATLAKES, but that took a while too.
Most fun was seeing VAT and thinking of the classic Smothers Brothers song "I fell in a VAT of chocolate", which Tommy does and then yells "fire" because no one will come to save him if he yells "chocolate". Primo silliness.
Liked this one a lot KH. I Knew Half the trivia which is always rewarding and I enjoy your skill at misdirection. Thanks for all the fun.
Lewis, you continue to impress. Did you just spend 11 minutes reading all 600+ clues for AHA?
The day got off to a good start, with both a challenging (though name-heavy) puzzle and entertaining write-up. I was hoping Rex's riff on foil tops would continue.
Anyone interested, and not knowing the full story of the infamous, so-called "Heidi Game", should Google just that. That an incredible last-minute comeback was not televised, in favor of a rerun movie, is secondary to the behind-the-scenes machinations and resulting sports broadcast industry changes.
Only real negative today was my personal pet peeve of (seven) "xxxx" clues. But with two of them crossing and spanning the grid, objection withdrawn (even though we started with ever before EVEN and hour before WORK. Really fun and challenging Saturday.
Actually I think the clue for 1-A works better if you interpret "Dad's" as meaning "old-time." The brand name, while well-known for root beer, is obscure for CREAM SODA. Anyway, that' how I took it, and it eventually got me there (but not until I spent many seconds looking for some ancient brand of colA).
I did a confirmatory look-up of BRENDA after guessing it wasn't glENDA, but got CROAT from the AT, and all the other unknowns from crosses. ORE was tough, but I caught on eventually; had the E so yew, oak, and elm wouldn't work.
Really lovely puzzle, with truly great cluing.
One way to know you're old -- when you get WEEB Ewbank, remembering that he coached the Colts to a couple of NFL titles, and seeing everyone else remember him for the Jets.
Not Easy-Medium. Just jam-packed with trickiness and deviousness and misdirection. (CREAM SODA! Not Grandpapa, not on a Saturday.) It was great, but I'm still catching my breath after what felt like a real slog. There were many opportunities to get close but no cigar; for example, instead of NOT MY FINEST WORK, could've been "NOT MY best effort" (or it could've ended "FINEST hour"), or instead of OR SO I HEAR, it could've been "so I GATHER". Instead of ROGER, "right". And so on (Rex noted a few more traps to fall into, and fall I did).
And wow, so many names. I did not know HONG, nor DORIS, nor BRENDA, nor WEEB. On the other hand, HENRY was practically my entry POINT into the puzzle, having searched hither and yon for any toehold, and CHO is well-known to me, and RENEE eventually came to me. I don't know of any man named RINGO except for the one.
(Quick aside: I am not enjoying this new thin print that Blogger is using.)
Whoever did the cluing : good job. No, sorry, that's too weak. Excellent job. I'm thinking it was the constructor herself, whose name has now implanted itself in my mind as standing for someone to be reckoned with. Having mopped the sweat off my brow and feeling more AT LEISURE looking it over, I have to say, it was a fantastic grid. Those long spanners -- chef's kiss to both. And all four corners are masterful. SLEEK and smooth as silk. I am in awe of this production.
Rex, this deserves four stars at least. And how do you arrive at Easy-Medium, after all the trouble you reported at the beginning, what with the long extended metaphor of the hard-to-GRIP foil or whatnot (my own nemeses by the way are these "easy-tear" plastic things, where you have to know the trick to ripping a phone book in half), and then having to work your way back into the NW from the back-end? Sorry, I guess I'm a little tired of "Easy-Medium" when I don't think that's really accurate, or consistent with what you wrote.
(Finally: does your "point POINT" mean you're retiring from teaching?)
While I haven’t listened to that podcast, Helen HONG is a frequent panelist on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (where they say the name of her podcast), so I was able to get it from that.
Clean up from yesterday.
Z, you are gulity of copyright infringement. Full stop. That is a form of theft.
A: What's the scuttlebutt on how to say bear in Italian?
B: ORSOIHEAR
"How long can this SEADRAGON?" asked the fresh-faced doldrum- locked sailor. "You've got a LOTTO learn" replied the old salt.
I like my tacos with some BRIO, so I always order them CONDOS Habaneros.
Great Saturday. Lots of wicked clues. Thanks, Katie Hoody.
Challenging for me, but in a good way. I eschewed my normal rule of only putting in answers I was 100% certain of on my first pass, and played myself with SEA URCHIN, TSHIRT GUN, OLDEST and some others I forget. Those early mistakes plus the amount of names I don’t know made this really hard.
Loved the misdirect (which I totally fell for) of Dad’s pop and the on for turnovers and crumpets. Kept trying to parse what zebras and lions have in common as some kind of word/letter clue even though they have no letters in common. Loved NOT MY FINEST WORK as an answer.
All in all fun, if gruelling (for me) Saturday.
Nice one two punch of clues in figuring out ROGER, followed by AHA for something snapping into place. All time great meta clue.
I had AIR>ACT for something put on to impress, which made it hard to get to AIR from TEE for the CANNON.
I had FINEST hour/form before WORK insisted.
There's a guy with a part time job at my work who comes up north from November to March, only to return to south Florida for the rest of the year - I keep trying to explain how SNOWBIRDS work (mine were GEESE for a while).
Thanks for the DADS tradename mention, was beginning to feel old for liking CREAMSODA.
HEIDI's game is now responsible for making every sports broadcast go all the way to the end, no matter how inane, lopsided, or uninteresting it may be, throwing off the rest of the TV schedule. Of course, now with dedicated sports channels and the fact that it is the only thing anyone seems to watch in any numbers anymore, it's not as relevant.
It's ironic that I found todays puzzle easy because my time says it's a bit above average. However following an extremely tough Friday it felt like a pushover. The NW fell smoothly after cold guessing CAPRI on first try even though I had to think of the pants to jog that name from my memory. The easiness of that section neutralized SNOPES which was probably the most unknown name in the grid. The unknown people's names throughout the grid were the usual speed bumps but after yesterday's ordeal normal Saturday resistance seemed easy.
Pleasant and skillfully made puzzle, although virtually all sports references (coaches, announcers, athletes — except for a few baseball players) are big flashing red question marks to me. Still, an enjoyable solve with some great clues, despite some names totally out of my wheelhouse.
@jberg -- Hah! No, more like one minute going to the page with all the clues (on XwordInfo) and word searching "snap". But you knew that.
As a long-suffering Jets fan, it was great to see WEEB Ewbank in the puzzle. Even though, he led the Jets to their only Super Bowl win, many fans today don't remember what his Namath.
Ironically, the author's assessment of his lesser novels, which he published under the title NOT MY FINEST WORK, was hailed by critics as his finest work. In one of his novels, he managed to have the plot lines converge at a PLOT POINT so brilliantly, I plotzed.
Subject line for office memo on the use of maiden names: RENEE
Wow. This was the most difficult &, in the end, most satisfying solve in a long time. DORIS, WEEB, WHOA, STAT - all WOES. "Fancy & then some" had me stumped. LOVED BOOGIE! And TOAST..
Thank you, Katie for a Saturday puzzle that will make me smile all day (or least least for 1/2 hour :)
I really wanted NOT MY FINEST *Hour* there. And maybe being a fan of the YouTube-quoted song (and of The SUNDAYS -- the name is stylized all-caps, don't go looking in the grid) is to blame. My friend and I once waited to meet the band after a show in Baltimore. While waiting I folded an origami crane which I then presented to Harriet Wheeler, their singer. She exclaimed in her Oxfordshire accent, "Ooh, it's origami!", then unzipped the chest pocket of her denim overalls and tucked the crane inside. I was in heaven. At the time I probably thought that was my finest hour.
I also love Helen Hong. She had a very minor role in the movie If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, as a member of a support group. She has no dialogue as far as I remember, but her disapproving looks towards the protagonist are oscar-worthy.
And Hello RINGO - so nice to see you!
Saturdays are always hard for me, but this one seemed extra hard, both the cluing and the fill. Never heard of Dad's brand soda. I had "cannon" for forever before I figured out it was "air" cannon, I kept thinking "t-shirt cannon" so I wanted "tee" to work. I thought of timer immediately and immediately rejected it because I thought people put their timers on the counter, not on the actual stove. Also, who uses brick and mortar kitchen timers anymore, if you don't want to use your phone the oven has a timer. Didn't know any of the names. I don't even think of "Ringo" as a "man's name" because I've only ever heard of one man named Ringo, and I kind of assumed that was his nickname. The cluing for power tool didn't make sense to me, tense-wise. Hard puzzle!
Ya te tengo calado.
I appreciate the relief after yesterday's Go-ogle-apolooza. This was smooth and surprising with a frustratingly rare sub-20% gunk rating and noticeably less names than yesterday although they were just as unknown to me. Great colloquial phrases. Nice to have a puzzle written by a pro.
Happy about this one. Although I can't tell if the LOTTO clue is trying to be funny, or really gross, or ironic.
I'm an American coot and my eyes are red too. I have a new favorite animal. Looks like there are leafy sea dragons and weedy sea dragons. I hope they're civil to one another.
I'm not sure BOOGIE is still a word, but I'll hope DORM BOOGIE is still a thing.
❤️ CREAM SODA. (I have two friends in their mid-40s who keep this stuff stocked in their fridge.)
People: 8
Places: 3
Products: 1
Partials: 1
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 13 of 72 (18%)
{The Gunkistodians brought out the brooms to clean up the rubble from yesterday and to leave the adults in charge while the Ministers of Gunk restock the pantry with products and partials.}
Funny Factor: 5 😄
Tee-Hee: "... getting turned on..."
Uniclues:
1 Tart up a fish.
2 Amped the amp.
3 Rented a Lyme scooters and ambled about the city.
4 Lie detecting mostly.
1 ROUGE SEA DRAGON
2 RILED POWER TOOL
3 E-RODE AT LEISURE
4 SNOPES' FIELD
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: One said to be unafraid of bricks. FLIP PHONE PANSY.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Challenging for me, and a lot of fun to solve, with one mental wrestling match after another with the clues. I especially loved those for CREAM SODA and SNOW BIRDS. For a good while, I feared I was looking at a DNF in the NE: I couldn't get in via the unknown-to-me BRENDA, and the incorrect sHOo was holding me up down below. As for the member of the quintet, I'd earlier counted the spaces for "Superior"...nope. Only after going from sHOo to WHOA did I get WORK and the crucial K for LAKE. Now, what 5-letter lake is there....long pause before the AHA on that one. Terrific Saturday!
Ah, that's where I know Helen HONG from!!!! Thank : )
Lots of misdirects today:
sHOo before WHOA
aOkay before ROGER
HuNt before HONG
CabinS before CONDOS (and could have been CanoeS)
granddadS before CREAM SODA (a stretch but possible)
DONT poke the bear before DONT EVEN GO THERE
SyNcs before SINGS
CHorE before CHUTE
oatH before ARCH (when I was sure it was sHOo)
ShEEn before SLEEK
Chipped away and erased and tried new possibilities and got there eventually in 36:14. Fun start to a rainy Saturday.
I had LAST. Wrong kind of anchor again (relay races).
A chipper but a tough one to crack. After the first SWING at it, I thought it was going to be impossible. I’d be embarrassed to say how long it took me, but I finally got there. 100% worth it too just to experience those genius clues. Not just one or two, but a grid full of them. Thank you, Katie. This was a brilliant Saturday.
Easy-medium for me too.
I did not know BRENDA, HONG, SEA DRAGON, and DORIS.
Costly erasures - SyNcs before SINGS, HuNt before HONG (hi @Rex) , and CaNoeS before CONDOS.
No junk, a little bit of whoosh, quite a bit of sparkle…fun puzzle, liked it a bunch!
My gut (& brain) think NOT MY FINEST HOUR and NOT MY BEST WORK are the more common phrases. NOT MY FINEST WORK seems very clunky to me.
I don’t understand YEA answer for 36A: “call for a pass”
Lots of fun, clever clueing. Took me 40 minutes, which for me, on a Saturday, is just fine (Not all of us speed through these things!). Thanks, Katie Hoody, for the tussle.
What a great Saturday! So many sneaky, tricky, and clever clues that misdirected me fair and square in the best ways possible. All this along with wonderful in-the-language marquee answers made this solve a sheer joy.
This also had the right amount of fight for a proper Saturday with all the top notch clueing as I (and others) mentioned.
For in-the-language, you can't beat things like, ORSOIHEAR, IMONTOYOU, LETSPARTY, and of course the wonderful spanner NOTMYFINESTWORK.
I had the same reaction as @Rex to CREAMSODA, "Does liking that stuff make me officially old??" I'm not familiar with Dad's as a soda maker, so while I *finally* figured out that the clue was not referring to some hip name for a grandfather and I plopped down SODA, the CREAM part didn't come to me until ERODE fell with it's terrific clue. Still had me scratching my head until I came here.
Of all things, WHOA took forever. Wanted SHOO initially and also had *hour* instead of the correct WORK at the tail end of that amazing spanner, so I had *hhoa* (??) I'm thinking maybe some anagram I'm not familiar with. So I left that alone until I got the K from GREATLAKE and it all hit me. Talk about when something snaps into place! I had that AHA sound coming out of me (all be it little by little) so many times this morning!
This did indeed start out hard for me, I think all I had on my first pass was TIMER and WEEB, but the hard work and even several of the names that I didn't know were worth all the effort. And the names came fair enough with the crosses.
Katie, this was a gem. It had my brain working in so many different directions and every journey was a hoot. Thank you for this!
YEA — a short, affirmative word meaning “yes” or “vote in favor
As in, To vote yes on a piece of legislature.
Faster than yesterday for me, and so much more fun. I didn't know most of the names but the crosses were fair so I was able to finish. I think the puzzle had excellent cluing all around and deserved more stars than Rex gave it. Thank you for such a good Saturday puzzle, Katie Hoody!
I had DECK. Lost my streak, but then I should've known DORIC Burke wasn't a person's name.
Your experience was nearly identical to my own. I wanted to look something up several times, but I'm glad I didn't. Much more satisfying.
It is very gratifying after having been soundly defeated yesterday, to complete the Saturday with few problems. Liked the clueing, and the crosses allowed me to succeed where pop culture was defeating me. Very nice, well constructed, clever puzzle...
"or when sounded like A, as in neighbor or weigh" (but definitely not LEISURE).
"Many authorities deprecate the rule as having too many exceptions to be worth learning" per Wikipedia.
My exact association, too, Pablo! Wore out that SB album as a child approaching the cusp of teenagerhood, before the Beatles transformed my record playing habits. If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy, too…
Yes this was challenging; 36 minutes for me, starting last evening but giving up until this morning. The challenge mostly came from the very tricky cluing. Eg: "Big name in lights" = STAR??? That is really stretching it.
Unfortunately, once again ruined for me by all the names. Not that the total number was excessive, but mainly that for me they were almost totally Unknowns. SNOPES BRENDA RENEE WEEB DORIS CHO HONG HENRY, none of those I knew. And others Unknown from the clues: CAPRI, CROAT.
Hands up for NOT MY FINEST HOUR. And for its long down crosser, DONT EVEN ------ with 7 blanks for ages. Also FORUM before FIELD for "Arena".
Amazin. How'd she squeeze so much good stuff into a 72-worder, and nary a single cheater black square. Neat SatPuz.
Slightly easier at our house, compared to yesterday's no-know-fest. Today, I think we just had 3 no-know names and a SNOPES to deal with via their all-known crossers.
staff weeject pick: YEA, Mainly cuz I kinda admired its ?-marker {Call for a pass?} clue.
Actually, a lot of non-?-marker clues were still pretty frisky, today. A lotta folks here have already admired/accosted the CREAMSODA clue. M&A's fave was the RINGO clue. And ... [0] days w/o a Beatles ref.
some other fave stuff: The two central puzgrid-spanners. The superb 9-stack in the NE. And, of course, LETSPARTY.
Thanx for the frisky fun, Ms. Hoody darlin. Are U doin monthly appearances, now? Works for m&e. Seeyah soon.
Masked & Anonymo2Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Hilariously (because what are the odds), I plopped it right in, having seen it clued in the May 15, 2018 puzzle archive two days ago!
This was my reaction, too. I had "hour" for the longest time, and had myself a good eye-roll when I realized it had to be "work".
So many delights and great memories sparked by this very tough puzzle. Thank you, Katie! More, please. And The Menu—grisly humor (elevated sadism? Like elevated cuisine?) Brilliant film, if you can stomach it (just going with the barn doors as they swing open…), incredible performances by all the ensemble cast, Janet McTeer especially shines, for me, too, along with Helen Hong. Watch as a first course for The Bear.
Two fine puzzles in a row. What a treat. My only complaint - let’s call it a nit because it’s not really all that bad - is excess use of colloquial phrases (perhaps due to Rex’s constant nagging?). A couple per grid is good but you can go overboard. Today’s puzzle has DON’T EVEN GO THERE crossing NOT MY FINEST WORK (both wonderful) plus I’M ON TO YOU, OR SO I HEAR and LET’S PARTY. IT’S ODD, is all I’m saying. Having said that, they were all really well clued. The whole thing was well clued. Nicely done.
Toughest entry for me today was 58A ORE. I’m not good at those types of clues. I don’t see words as just collections of letters, so picking out three letters from a larger word doesn’t excite me, especially because, in this case I was looking for something actually related to growing trees. I am (NERD ALERT!) a mad composter. I have a small farm where I am constantly gathering up windfallen branches, prunings, grass and meadow mowings, and old straw from the goat sheds and processing it all to make new soil. So I was kind of obsessed with the idea of some sort of soil for the arboretum. My bad. Too narrow a focus. It was just a letter trick.
Didn’t recognize a few of the names: Helen HONG, DORIS Burke, and BRENDA Howard. But they were gettable and nice to learn about.
Nice work, Katie Hoody.
NERD ALERT was my favorite entry today. Liked the puzzle overall. Seemed pretty easy in retrospect but managed to take me nearly 2 mins longer than average.
Yes, Rick, I do get confused reading the downs. And I was a newspaper designer for over 20 years and loved coming up with innovative designs for the arts and features section. Heds were a big part of that and we would often place them oddly for effect. I hated stacked, totemic heds because I couldn't read them. Instead, I would rotate the type and run it up the left side of the story because I found that easier to decipher. Just turn your head and read the word the way it was supposed to be read. Right?
Oops... I just read my comment and I completely missed their intended meaning of STAR. I was thinking strictly astronomically, and for some reason never thought of the context of "movie star", etc. Doh!
Started out not liking this one because I thought the cluing was abnormally tough and I couldn’t get a foothold (even though I generally like tough themelesses). Wound up liking it because of a nice variety of longer answers, and nothing felt unfair except perhaps a couple of the names. Nice intersecting 15ers and 12(!) 9ers - good chewy Saturday puzzle!
@tht 9:04 AM
+1
Loved Rex’s post today. Also really liked the puzzle though finding it very hard
Using text speak, ROLF when Rex talked about opening double sealed products.(sometimes triple sealed) I have been a klutz my whole life and lately I have run into Rex’’s problem. I end up screaming at these inanimate objects, and at the absentmanufacturers. I ‘ve even used a plier to grab the little tab. It all goes back to the Tylenol incident in the’80’s when someone put poison in Tylenol packages. We all have had to suffer since
DAVinHOP
Turnover is one fumble etc . Turnovers is a stat, how many fumbles and interceptions a team had. “crumpets “ is plural as part of the trick to make you think “turnovers “ refers to food. In my opinion, it would make no sense to make either singular.
This almost broke my streak -- I had to set it down about a dozen times, and it took two hours all up. It's a fascinating ongoing thing that the things Rex finds challenging I don't, and vice versa. Sadly there aren't so many things Rex finds challenging, so the balance toward ease and speed of solving tips heavily in his favor. That said, "onion" and "snopes" and "toast" all came immediately to me today. The SW corner on the other hand took most of an hour all by itself, and only force of will got the job done. For some reason I had SNOWBIRDS in my mind as people who *show up* for the snow, not those who flee it. And I was fully on SHIP or LAST for anchor position.
Edward
My mistake.also. Annoys me that I otherwise solved this to me very difficult puzzle but made a mistake at a fairly easy cross. It had to be DORIS of course.
Just want to give an amen to Rex’s Hong Chau take. I first saw her in the (mostly terrible) Alexander Payne movie Downsizing and thought “Who is that woman? Every second of this movie where she’s not onscreen is a complete waste of time.” I have been a devotee ever since. She’s literally great in everything.
Rachel
RINGO’s birth name, Richard Starkey but he is now never referred to that way professionally. I would argue a nickname/ professional name is a name. Probably others use it though rare. The nickname came from the fact that Ringo loved to wear lots of rings
I think the constructor did most of the clues, but this one is in the Shortz style.
Figured you were from Minnesota already, after spying few photos of you with with UMN gear over the years. Welcome (back?) It's an absolutely fantastic place to live.
Niallhost
I find iit interesting when a commenter lists their wrong guesses. , especially when I made most of the same or similar ones! Except ROGER and ARCH came to me first fortunately
Whatsername
I had the same reaction as you. Took me well over an hour.
I successfully solved this puzzle and I'm quite pleased with myself because it was on the edge of the hardest NYT Saturday puzzles for me. I started in the SE because I saw the blank before "de Mayo", 60D. Obviously it wasn't Cinco because 1) too long, and 2) I didn't figure the flags of either Argentina or Uruguay had a 5 on them.
But while down there I read the clue for 49D and wrote TOAST? in the margins of my print-out. I read 53D and wracked my brain for Henry's first name and came up with HarRY. I didn't put it in but the idea of HarRY helped me come up with ARCH when needed.
Today we're ETCHing with acid, yay.
The SW was my last and hardest sector. I was thinking relay races at 55D so I put in "last". Not helpful in the least. DORIS and WEEB were standing around doing nothing to help (actually, they weren't standing around at all, they both filled in with crosses.) SPARE, the front of 37A and AT LEISURE got me to the finish.
Great Saturday puzzle, Katie Hoody, thanks!
Sailor
I agree the WORK ending clunked. but I am sure she tried to put in hOur but she couldn’t without changing too much good stuff. As Rex says,I’ll take it for such a good puzzle
Rex, as a native Minnesotan who was a college friend of Hong Chau (literally her first appearance in film might be one of my student films), this writeup was right up my alley.
Also because of this, I remember that not only was HONG CHAU in the NYTXW, but she was the word of the day: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2023/07/house-beautiful-subject-wed-07-05-23.html?m=1
Really, really thought 1A was Root Beer, Dad’s Old Fashioned being a well known grocery store brand from my youth (though I preferred Hires), but alas it wasn’t plural so I mistakenly left the FIELD of sodas. Came right back though with the first three-almost-four downs. Missed at 4D with Air instead of ACT, but that gave me CREAM SODA, which is so overly sweet that I’ve never been a fan and honestly forget all about it unless it is specifically brought to my attention. After that quick success I came rather to the proverbial screeching halt, and the Saturday meander began.
This Saturday satisfied my itch for a balanced challenge. The marquee answers were both clever and thankfully helpful.
In the center, I tossed in NOT MY FINEST hOur because that’s the way it is most familiar to me. I thought “hour” also fit the clue better to include not merely tasks assigned, but behavioral events that resulted in actual or metaphorical face plants. I’ve had plenty!
Then there was my biggest nit at 39D. The clue to me did not in any way at all want WHOA - at least to me. It still doesn’t, but nor does any starting with H whose second letter is also H. So that crossing just sat for a good long time. Knowing the downs ROGER, CROAT and HENRY in the SE corner was the catalyst to sill it in and then travel diagonally back up to the NW.
I finished easily - the whooshiest section for me today - in the SW. I discovered that Coach Ewbank’s nickname is WEEB, not WEbB as I have thought since he coached at Miami of Ohio. Oops. We Buckeyes by birthright pride ourselves on our state of Ohio college football trivia. My bad. Live and learn if we’re lucky.
All in all, I agree that this is a very worthy
Saturday. Seeing Ms. Hoody’s byline (she’s become something of a Saturday specialist) lately and so far I have enjoyed her puzzles. They have gotten “tighter” lately and seeing that today is hers really excited me - and did not disappoint. One teensy little nit that I freely admit might be a nit only to me.
Both Friday and Saturday ended the week on high notes for sure. It seems like ages since we had excellence in a Friday-Saturday duo. Yippie!!!
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