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Hindu clerk / SAT 6-6-26 / Old blades / Groups of female elephant seals / Cleanse negative energy, in Indigenous tradition / Multinational communications giant founded in 1964 / Ce n'est pas du fast food / Pest with a repetitive name / Portmanteau nickname for politician Harris / Ski race that debuted at the Olympics in 1988
Saturday, June 6, 2026
Constructor: Daniel Bodily
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: MUNSHI (4D: Hindu clerk) —
noun
Indian English.
an interpreter or language instructor.
a secretary or assistant. (dictionary.com)
During the Mughal Empire, Munshi (Persian: منشی) came to be used as a respected title for persons who achieved mastery over language and politics in the Indian subcontinent. (wikipedia)
• • •
["I pull out my fiddle and I rosin up the bow"]
Started this thing off with SNEES, which I had as SMEES for a second, confusing my dusty old crosswordese S-EEs for a moment (8D: Old blades). Off that "N" I got UHAUL VAN, which started to make the NW corner seem doable. MUNSHI threatened to kill me the whole time, but once I got done and saw MUNSHI there, I just had to assume it was a thing and move on. From there, it was down into the SE corner. Somehow the second "G" from GANG got me GETS TAN, though the whole time I'm writing in GETS TAN I'm laughing thinking "no, can't be GETS TAN, that's a terrible answer.” Off that second "T" I wanted MOTOROLA for 51A: Multinational communications giant founded in 1964 (INTELSAT), but none of the crosses worked. Then, off the (presumed) "S" at the end of 42D: Gentle hills (KNOLLS), I thought "oh, it's something-SIZE" at 55A: Giant, as a mattress. And the "Z" got me ERSATZ (44D: Faux), and from there I had enough traction to finish that corner. INTELSAT was my MUNSHI of the SE. Every corner in a puzzle like this tends to have at least one MUNSHI. Today's MUNSHIs were MUNSHI, INTELSAT, and CORN CRIB. The SW corner, to its credit, doesn't really have a MUNSHI. It's got the oddly spelled OUTATIME, but at worst that rates a mild shrug and not an outright "what? no!" I don't mind remembering Back to the Future. That might've been the most fun I had all solve, actually.
Got AERATOR off the initial "A" and ATE CAKE off of the last "E," which gave me immediate traction in both those corners. They were easier corners for that reason, and because they had two short (i.e. five-letter) answers instead of just the one that the NW and SE have. Short answers = easiest way to grab hold of a section. NE corner went AERATOR I'M FINE FRILLY, SW corner went ATE CAKE KINDER (how did I remember that?) (39D: ___ egg (chocolate treat with a toy)) SAFARI. Ended on OUTATIME crossing "I'M HOME"—Back to the Future crossing The Shining. And right next door to Laurel and Hardy (PIE FIGHT!) (30D: Staple of slapstick comedy). Something of a high point in an otherwise functional but somewhat bland slog of a Saturday puzzle.
Bullets:
- 1A: Spreads out in the morning? (SCHMEARS) — do you really put out multiple SCHMEARS? Second question: do you own a bagel shop?
- 9A: Tool in the opening scene of Disney's "Frozen" (ICE SAW) — so ... not ICE AXE? OK. I knew it had to be one of those crosswordy ice tools.
- 20A: Showing signs of spring, say (IN LEAF) — timely! My brain wanted IN BUD or IN BLOOM, but we're talking about other parts of plants today. My maples are fully IN LEAF now and prepared to protect my house from the summer sun. Good trees. Best part of this house.
- 35A: Rainer who was the first person ever to win two consecutive acting Academy Awards (LUISE) — ask your grandparents, kids? Actually, don't, she was before their time too. She won her Oscars for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937), where she played the Chinese farm wife O-LAN of ancient crossword fame (212 NYTXW appearances!) (acting in yellowface used to be very popular).
- 12D: 0% in New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska and Delaware (SALES TAX) — good clue. I was trying to think of something about the climate or the population.
- 24D: Religious right? (AMENDMENT I) — leaving aside the awkwardly formal phrasing here, I don't know if the clue is working, even punnily. Freedom of Religion is a "right" conferred by the First Amendment, but the Amendment is not itself a "right." Though it is part of the "Bill of Rights," maybe that's the idea?
- 31D: Ce n'est pas du fast food (ESCARGOT) — wow, I never saw this clue, which is too bad, 'cause it's a good one. Not "fast" food in two senses!
- 45D: Pest with a repetitive name (TSETSE) — I'm guessing this was many people's first word in the SE—one of the few answers I would call an outright gimme. Sadly, getting TSETSE in the farthest corner of the puzzle isn't likely to provide all that much traction. Getting KINGSIZE was the real key to that corner. That "K"! That "Z"! That terminal "I"! A real bonanza if you can work it out.
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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116 comments:
I'd give this zero stars for all the reasons listed in the writeup PLUS the utter lack of a single answer where I thought "Well, OK, that's fun or clever."
The only good thing about this puzzle is that the day can only go up from here. Yeesh.
Hung up convinced razors edge instead of ragged edge for way too long. Think mines better though.
This was a tough one for me, but eventually solvable.
MUNSHI ? BURN SAGE ? ARMHOLES ? SNEES ? MOMALA ? . . .
Rex gave it that extra star, which I think is overly generous. This is as big of a dud as I can remember in at least the last couple of years. It looks to me like it was constructed for one purpose - to kick ass and take no prisoners. This weekend has been a total washout, enjoyment-wise.
One-letter DNF for me at MUNSHe/ROSeNED. At least I got the other three puzzles right.
I was initially surprised that rex didn't know INTELSAT before realizing that the reason it is so familiar to me is I drive past their HQ a couple of times a week. No such excuse for CORN CRIB, which he really should have known.
I’d rate this Diabolical. Oof. I was able to slog through it, but as Rex pointed out, I can’t say I enjoyed much of it.
Impressive feat that makes a dry slog—totally agree with Rex here. One thing I noticed was how many of the longer answers were multiple short words, which contributed to the lack of interesting fill. But I will say that I had only thought of one sense of ESCARGOT not being fast food, so the blog did at least increase my enjoyment a wee bit in retrospect.
I’m glad Rex made it through unscathed. Me, I’m lightly scathed. Two days in a row I’ve finished on the word of the day, both WOEs: yesterday POTOROO, today MUNSHI. OK, if you say so. Other writeovers included RazorsEDGE and AMENcorner. Well, a corner is a “right” angle. I still think it’s a better answer than AMENDMENTI, which I thought must be some Italian term I’d never seen before. Maybe a tempo marking in a score by Stravinsky.l
Totally with Rex on the grid. Took one look and said, “Ugh.” Four tough little minis.
At one point I actually turned to Mrs. Freude and asked, “What do you call that process where you BURN SAGE?” Still couldn’t see the answer.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen less black in a grid - wild layout. Not my favorite architecture either - presents a real cold flow to the solve - four distinct midis. Two threes and two fours.
RAGGED Wood
I liked RAGGED EDGE x SCHMEARS and BURN SAGE. Other than that there is limited enjoyment - a lot of forced mid length fill that doesn’t hit. Rex highlights most of it - SNEES, NCIS LA, MUNSHI, DEARIE ME - only there out of necessity to build this grid.
Hot Water Music
I do love seeing the great ELSTON Howard and I liked the clue for ARMHOLES. MOMALA is brutal.
Chevy VAN
Not an overly pleasant Saturday morning solve. We get an actual Stan Stumper today which I love to see - it’s also a highly segmented grid but more enjoyable to work.
Man OUT of TIME
I thought burn sage was OK. The rest was intolerable.
Tough one but I actually didn’t mind it today. I knew the 1A clue would be something about bagels, and once SCHMEARS locked in, the NW corner fell into place.
Some favorites:
- 36A Tough crowd, GANG - cute clue
- 38A Took Marie Antoinette’s advice?, ATE CAKE
Some un-favorites:
- 7D What those close to failure are said to be on, RAGGED EDGE - I’ve never heard of this phrasing… is this a thing?
- 29D Doc’s license plate in “Back to the Future”, OUTATIME - come on.
Have a good Saturday everyone! 😄
I also had RAzorsEDGE, thought it was a nice down so imagine my disappointment when I saw it wasn’t right.
Medium. Good Saturday difficulty level. Liked it better than @Rex and most of the early contributors.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
ICE axe before SAW for the Frozen tool at 9A.
I'M okay before I'M FINE at 9D.
For religious right at 24D, AMEN corner (thinking it might be at the right side of a church) before AMEN-DMENTI.
Slalom before SUPER-G for the 41D ski race.
WOEs:
MUNSHI, the Hindu clerk at 4D.
I know Zapata but not that his first name was EMILIANO (11D)
Didn't fully remember Doc's license plate (29D), but I got the TIME part right away and that helped (OUTATIME).
Multiple Oscar winner LUISE Rainer (35A).
KINDER egg at 39D.
Fell into the 48A trap thinking of the wrong type of pot: ante up before STIR IN.
I really enjoyed the four separate puzzle design. It's actually 5 parts if you count that easy center. Another feature was how few unknowns there were. MUNSHI, ELSTON, LUISE, OUTATIME and INTELSAT were all of them for me.
The NE was the one corner that was actually easy. AERATOR and CORNCRIB were both obvious. This was also the only corner without any unknowns.
The solve went clockwise from the NE and the resistance increased steadily. The SE had only INTELSAT as an unknown but I had to deal with an AMENTOTHAT/AMENDMENTI write over complicated by OVERSIZE/KINGSIZE.
The SW had the crossed LUISE and OUTATIME entries to ramp up the resistance. The NW was the one really challenging section with MUNSHI and ELSTON right next to each other. While I'm not accustomed to ELSTON as a person's name it is the name of a major street here in Chicago so in that sense it wasn't a complete unknown.
The segmentation of the puzzle didn't bother me. Anything that keeps late week puzzles from being too easy is an asset.
This is the first NYT puzzle for as long as I can remember that I simply couldn't get a foothold in and gave up on after a couple of minuted. Wasn't in the mood for it. I'm rating this one as more than challenging.
Well yes. This was a feat puzzle, with its seas of white, its remarkably low 60 words and 26 black squares, its 22 longs and a mere two 3s. With its elegant debut grid design.
But, IMO, a feat puzzle doesn’t count for much if it provides a lousy solve. For me, it did not do that. It made me work hard in many places, and my brain takes pleasure in that – in figuring, configuring, throwing in stabs, throwing in bits of answers, working on riddles behind the scenes while working on other riddles in the moment.
Then there was that instant that I actually smelled burning sage though none was here. And another where I similarly tasted a churro. There was the inner LOL at [Ce n’est pas du fast food]. There were exclamation-point yesses that accompanied filling in many squares, and the satisfaction that came from revisiting long-unthought-of friends such as ELSTON and OUTATIME.
So yes, a feat, but a most worthy one. Thank you, Daniel, for this impressive and satisfying creation!
DEARIE ME. Which is somehow one of the better answers in this.
Never heard of MUNSHI, or RAGGED EDGE. (Razors and Knifes both fit and are a million times more of the language.) Heaven help anyone unfamiliar with Yankees from 70 years ago. And what’s particularly Mexican about a CHURRO?
There’s a difference between a challenging puzzle and one that’s an indifferently constructed letter salad.
Ok so not fun for all of the reasons previously stated. But - of all of the things that I find insufferable it is the use of a thing that is not a thing. DEARIME is not a thing. DEARI - Find it for me anywhere else. DEARY yes. DEARIE also yes, DEARI - no - it’s making studs up. Can you give minus stars. Or 5 hot peppers or 5 circles with a line thru it. O stars would be too charitable. I feel like the Riddler from Bat Man. When is a thing not a thing? When it’s DEARIME. Hmmmmph.
same here
Wow, I guess Rex really doesn't like this segmented grid. I kinda enjoyed it. My timer says 8:39:15 (!) cuz I went to bed 3/4 of the way through.... My hardest corner BY FAR was the SW. UHAULVAN, SNEES, ARMHOLES helped me in the NW; ICEaxe before ICESAW (no word for alone was going to start with an X), MOMALA, and NCISLA helped in the NE. INTELSAT was a gimme for me (my dad was in satellite communications in the '70s). The downs in that SE section were all pretty straightforward. Got really stuck on AMENcorner.... even when I had it, I was thinking... AMEN_MENTI as if it still started with AMEN. Even after DESKSET went in I was still scratching my head, finally reparsed it as AMENDMENT I. D'oh! Had ATECAKE but also had ANTEUP for add to the pot.... then I went to bed! Finally this morning my wife helped me with KINDER egg, and I had my foothold. Somehow the exclamation point in "Honey!" makes me not think of "Honey, I'm home!" which definitely has the exclamation point at the end, in my head. That through me off. Of course LUISE as spelled was the tricky part there. Wanted haute cuisine or some such french phrase for elevated cooking for way too long... finally, after I got the DEAR part, I saw it had to be ED, and then got ESCARGOT.... phew. Wow, impressive puzzle. As @Lewis mentioned, 60 words, only two 3-letter entries. I loved it. Only LUISE and MUNSHI were utter stabs for me, so that's pretty sweet fill. Thanks, Daniel, for the toughest doable puzzle of the year for me so far!!! (there was one a few weeks ago that I DNF'd on. This one was way better than that for me : ).
There was a Maleska-esque quality to today’s puzzle that almost made me nostalgic. I agree ATE CAKE was a terrible answer, but for me it was saved by the clever clue, which gave me the only smile.
Razors Edge here as well. Much more apt.
Hey All !
Nice construction feat. Solved it slowly, but steadily, finishing up in NW corner. Lots of unknown things up there. Got all, except ended up with BURseAGE/MUsSHI/ELeTON. I thought MUSSHI sounded Hindu-like. Not too bad for me to be my only errors in a puz like this.
LOL at reading that AMENDMENTI was referring to the first AMENDMENT. I was reading as one word, kind of like an Italian-church thing. "It's AMENDMENTI time. Please pray."
Almost complete rotational symmetry, but for the extra Blockers after DEEM/before GANG. I'm sure Daniel gave it a go, but adding those two Blockers made filling less of a task. (Can't say easier, cause I know this wasn't easy to fill.)
Nice brain tickling SatPuz. Cool grid, ultimately figureoutable. Thanks, Daniel.
Have a great Saturday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Shockingly I blew through this in record Saturday time - just on the same wavelength as the constructor, for better or worse. As noted, really four separate mini-puzzles. In the NW, the CHURRO/UHAUL cross gave me all the traction I needed to infer the otherwise unknowable MUNSHI. IN the NE, ICE…/CORN… and the AERATOR gimme crosses likewise. In the SW, COPED, ATECAKE and IMHOME also felt like gimmes and made the vertical crosses easy. In the SW, DESK…/KNOLLS/KINGSIZE crosses opened the quadrant, with crosses reminding me of the unfortunate MOMALA. Finishing by staring for a bit at the AMENDMENTI- I was trying to make it the AMENDIATI - that little-known cabal of right wing priests who secretly rule the world. Solved the puzzle without grokking the I for an 1 substitution, which I call a foul, like the n for an ñ swap.
Same. Argh.
North of Medium; not as hard as some recent Saturdays. I admit that I'm a little disappointed by the two stars and the overall grumpiness of the review, but I also admit that Rex makes some interesting general points with respect to construction. Speaking for myself (who else?), the shape of the grid visually appeals to me a great deal, with its clean elegant lines and economy of black squares. Yes, the shape also preSAGEs some of the challenges that lie ahead, but my own RESPONSE was more like: let's dig in! Starting with CHURRO, my first answer. Who doesn't like a CHURRO?
I'm not crazy about all of it. Particularly, NCISLA is an ungainly series of characters, and that at least exemplifies Rex's point about 6 x 8 chunks of puzzle occasioning at least some clunkiness. I also see why AMENDMENT I might wrinkle his nose. And MOMALA. Good god, the stupid and cringey monikers that politicians (or their PR teams/supporters) come up with, desperately trying to make them seem more relatable. Another that comes to mind is "the scrappy kid from Scranton". Oh, please just shut up already. I think this might be more a Democrat problem. Republicans in the past few years have won on a different formula: just proudly be the unrepentant stinky ARMHOLES that you truly are; that's much more relatable. Don't try to construct these ERSATZ narratives that sound wholly made up.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the puzzle. ESCARGOT is absolutely brilliant, both in entry and cluing. Contra Rex, I think ROSINED is quite all right, maybe even a little unexpected. (Memories of my dad who took up the violin again in middle age, rosining up his bows.) IN LEAF is kind of poetic. WAYFARER: nice old-fashioned ring to it. (I cannot help but be reminded of this extraordinary performance of the gospel song "(The) Wayfaring Stranger".)
There are some other old-timey touches. Like "DEARIE ME!" (like "Land's sake, child!"), and SNEES (gesundheit!). Throwing a bone or two to the old-timers [hey, I'm getting there] ain't necessarily bad.
Honestly, I think the constructor pulled it off. No Bodily harm resulted for those who completed it. Thanks for this!
Is ARMHOLES because if you stand with your arms out your shirt makes a T shape?
Me too for AMEN corner, reasoning that saying "Amen" can be the equivalent of "Right!"
DNF here. ESCARGOT had a nice clue, the rest of this puzzle sucked.
Should've stuck with the 1 star.
Er, um....I believe the answer in the puzzle is DEARIE ME.
Umm.... there are 8 letters; it's DEARIE ME. Not great, but not made up.
I interpreted the T as short for tee shirt
Man. I hated, hated, hated this puzzle. Could hardly get a toe hold. Stilted vocabulary. The second star was two too generous in my estimation.
The grid made me immediately think "A.I.?" What's next? No black squares?
Me too, had to see Rex’s grid to spot the error and get the happy music
I think it's because the armholes are slots in a T-shirt. Bit of a stretch to call them 'slots,' but hey, it's a puzzle.
No te preocupes. Estoy bien.
MUNSHI. That's what defeated me. MUNSHI. It could've been in Persian (منشی) and been every bit as helpful.
As 🦖 says, four puzzles in one with so much ugh-ery it's easy to forget the positives. So let's go looking for them:
M&A can make quick work out of his wee-ject selections. Only two, but maybe a lot of pressure to pick the right one.
Every reference to Frozen reminds us of a time when little girls sang that song at the top of their cute little lungs for two years straight. Using it as a cringy clue for ICE SAW can't stop the echoes of the music in the soundtrack of our nightmares.
Remember moving? U-Haul makes it great.
Remember MOMALA? And having a glimmer of hope for America? Those were the days.
We sell locally grown sage in the store I run and when I pick it up, I like to leave it in my car overnight and it gives the car a mystical overpowering punch in the nostrils that lasts for days.
I thought the real PRESTIGE artists want is a Chihuahua posse.
The great news is there's no shortage of giant multinational corporations you've never heard of no doubt making wonderful things to make our lives better and easier. It's nice to know the dark forces of capitalism are out there doing something wonderful.
So many NETTERS in the world, so few Lepidopterists. Glad they helped me out a ton with that fancy word.
RAGGED EDGE and ROCK BOTTOM have the same number of letters, they both start with R, and people actually say the one not in the puzzle.
I did a deep dive into images of CORN CRIBS and I kinda want one now. I wouldn't put corn in it, but maybe I could trap a lepidopterist in it and give him a taste of his own medicine.
AMEND-MENTI (n) Social class of editors.
❤️ T-slots = ARMHOLES. ATE CAKE. PIE FIGHTS.
ERSATZ is my 17th favorite word.
People: 7
Places: 0
Products: 7
Partials: 0 {!!!}
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 16 of 60 (27%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
Tee-Hee: STARLETS {mmm}. HAREMS. GETS A TAN.
Uniclues:
1 Purpose of 🦖 vis-a-vis crosswords.
2 How I greet my harem.
3 How we spend the evening.
4 County treasurer.
1 DEEM INANE
2 STARLETS! I'M HOME!
3 HAREM'S PIE FIGHT
4 SALES TAX SENSEI
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Hose down hillbilly. SOAP REGULAR JOE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also a member of the Razors Edge club. Considered Knifes Edge, too. I have never heard the expression on RAGGED EDGE. And I guess I haven't been doing xwords long enough to know SNEEE. MUNSHI? Nope. UHAULVAN crossing AVAILED was a decent toe hold in the NW corner, but I still spent half of my time finishing up there.
I got a slight aha moment from T-SLOT, but a slot is not a hole.
I am familiar with INTELSAT, but maybe from working a technical field.
A real slog. Bullied my way through one quad at a time. 2 and 4 were the easiest for me, finished 1 last. Several annoying clues. I think "schmear' would have been a problem for gentiles and/or non New Yorkers. The central intersection was almost no help. The one I hated most was "burn sage." That is indeed what is done, but the activity is called "smudging." Fixing that and using all French for 31 down (cuisine rapide, not fast food) would at least given this an air of authority. This was work, not fun.
Better clue for DESK SET would have been the title of the charming 1957 movie starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.
Thanks for the great PIEFIGHT, RP!
Despite all those cigars, Gracie Allen's husband George's at death was 100: BURNSAGE.
I keep telling my wife she is WAYFARER than all those STARLETS I spend all my time drooling over.
What Stan Getz does at the beach: GETSTAN
Where you will find one vertical line and three horizontals: INANE
*******
Ellie Howard was a rock behind the plate for the Yanks for all of my youth: from 1955 until traded to Boston in '67. He was the AL MVP in '63 and in the World Series nine times (!) with NY (and once with the Sox in '67). He was only 51 when he died from a heart disease. The Yanks wore a black armband in his honor for the 1981 season. Red Smith wrote: "The Yankees' organization lost more class on the weekend than George Steinbrenner could buy in 10 years." The plaque honoring him at the Stadium calls him "A man of great gentleness and dignity." I just learned that the current Knick Josh Hart is Ellie's grand-nephew. Go Knicks!
Like everybody, I gather, I got the NW fairly easily, and without getting anything else. But DEEM, AMEN, and AERATOR got me up into the NE, and I was thinking this was too easy for a Saturday. I was wrong!
I finally gave up and looked up LUISE. I know a LUISE, and she is German, so maybe I could have got it with more crosses, bug I couldn't get them either.
It was still tough, mainly because I'd put in lots of wrong answers--ante up, AMEN corner, PIE Fling. Personally, I enjoyed the struggle, but I can see how others may not have.
This puzzle set a new record-- 135 squares that do not touch a black square, even at the corners. In the constructor's notes he says that he had written computer code to find such a grid design (in 100 hours!) Of course, if you didn't like the puzzle to begin with, that probably makes it worse.
Interesting division here between the urbanites who have never heard of a CORN CRIB and others of us who live or grew up in farm country, where they are all over the place. At least, on the remaining family farms; I think the megacornfields of the West are picked directly into trailers that are driven right to the plants where they turn the corn into ethanol. I'm surprised at Rex, though, I'd think there would be some in the country around Binghamton. Maybe it's an age difference, they may be less common today.
@Rick Sacra 7:49 AM
Your eight-hour solves make me laugh every time.
Awful.No 🎈for me.
This. I also was unfamiliar with frisk being used that way
I was smoking a blunt while solving and I got the MUNSHIs.
Interviewer: How would you characterize your round of one under today?
Tiger: Deficient.
Interviewer: Deficient?
Tiger: Yeah, SUBPAR.
George BURNSAGE became the focus of his humor after Gracie Allen died.
In polite circles, one says ARMHOLES in lieu of a**holes.
I like Penne Alla Vodka but I hate eating pasta ALLALONE.
I'm not sure that AMENDMENTI makes SENSEI.
I hope ICESAW how much we all appreciate them when they went to Minneapolis.
I had a KINDER, gentler reaction than most commenters, finding this kinda tough, but enjoying a @Lewis type solve. Thanks a bunch, Daniel Bodily.
Wow! I must’ve gotten lucky or just on the right wave length today because I flew through this and loved it. I was really shocked to see so much negativity expressed in the blog. To each his own of course; just expected the usual too-easy laments.
I had debated even taking the time for the puzzle today but when I saw that beautiful wide-open grid,* I couldn’t resist tackling it. So glad I took the challenge. And it did challenge. And yes, it is rigidly segmented. Oddly enough, after my first run through, I had the eastern half nearly complete, with practically nothing in the west. It was like starting a whole other puzzle. But that was part of the fun and challenge
Brilliant clue for ARM HOLES. My only complete WOEs were MUNSHI and KINDER egg, never heard of either one. Also stared AMENDMENT I for a very long time and never quite saw it but knew it had to be right. I did not count them but seemed like a low level of names and trivia. Overall, one of the best Saturdays in recent memory for me. Thank you Daniel, a real delight.
*According to Wordplay, the puzzle set a record for the number of white squares which do not touch a black - 135 vs. the previous record of 132 - and a total of only 4 with over 130.
I saw the grid and knew it might mean logjams would ensue. And they did. And I COPED.
Best wrong answer of the day: "AMEN to that" for "Religious right?" But DESK SET was so obvious that I took the bottom half out of that answer and continued on.
The SW section was the hardest. Certainly, ATE CAKE was a gimme, and I wasn't fooled by the clue for SAFARI but my "ante up" for 48A's "Contribute to the pot" caused a long hold-up. It didn't help that for the longest time I was seeing 50A as a past tense of bing, not binge. I figured it was some sort of computer action, like ping. PIE FIGHT saved me and got rid of the ante up.
Daniel Bodily, thanks for the tough Saturday puzzle!
I agree with Rex's analysis. Not a fun puzzle. Needed several cheats to finish.
The NW was impossible, with SCHMEARS, MUNSHI, CHURRO, and BURNSAGE alongside ROSINED (is that a real word?). I haven't cut anything with a SNEE lately, so I guess I'm SUBPAR.
Oh, DEARIEME...now I'm OUTATIME.
I was out on some kind of (L)EDGE
Also Razors Edge, but even before that had On The Ledge, which fit nicely.
Don't think we've ever had so many answers typed in, only to be ripped out completely. Example: Ante Up (confidently) before STIR IN ("oh, that kind of pot").
Thank god for solving on line, as well as Country Boys; as it was, we were eight minutes over our average time.
Echoing all the negativity about the grid shape and compartmentalizedness (is that a word?) It's my guess that the constructor fell in love with AMENDMENTI (hilariously not Italian, @Andy Freude) which is the longest answer in the grid (tied with RAGGED EDGE) but is clearly not a thing. So I'm exercising my First Amendment Right to DEEM this puzzle SUBPAR.
@John H 9:01 AM
Smudging! Thank you.
Maybe just not patient enough, but I resorted to Autocheck eventually and the assistance made the last third of the puzzle pop into shape enjoyably. I can't remember the last time I had to do that on a NYT puzzle (happens at the NYer every once in a while).
I got to the center, where all the short answers were easy and thought that would at least help in getting from one segment to another - NOPE!
Like some of the others, I was struggling with how to read AMENDMENT I. Closest I came was maybe AMEND MENTI was some Latin term for having to correct your state of mind
Maybe it’s my age, but INTELSAT was one of the few things I knew here.
Yep. RAZORS EDGE for a long time, and when I eventually knew I had to remove it, JAGGED EDGE until the very very end.
Wouldn't a CORN CRIB be where they just keep the baby corn?
I judge a Saturday puzzle by whether it's hard enough to feel like a grind but ultimately solvable. And this one delivered. So many wrong answers that had to be erased and tried again. Like many, I had RAzors EDGE, which made me erase my correct answer for ROSINED for a long time, only to get back to it when I figured out ARM HOLES and then AVAILED. This corner is where I spent a third of my time, and ultimately finished.
SE was the first to fall, followed by the SW and the NE. I, like I'm sure many, figured that it was CORN silo, but was also pretty sure that NCIS LA was correct, leading to lots of back of forth there. Lucky guess on HAREMS gave me SCHMEARS and then PRESTIGE (I wanted some kind of cREd answer there) and finally with the BURN SAGE and MUNSHI.
Loved the struggle, only because I got there in the end. 53:44
This wasn't as bad as some of the other puzzles of late (sorry NYT).
I'll start with what I did like - SAFARI & SCHMEARS (especially as an opener).
WOES = MUNSHI, BURN SAGE, ROSINED, DEARIE ME (who says that?), IN LEAF. I'll take Kamala Harris any way I can get her (MOMALA) & I think of DESK SET when I think of Spencer Tracey & Katherine Hepburn (great movie).
Knife's edge for me.
Never really parsed AMENDMENTI either, thought it might be a weird plural I'd never seen before.
This puzzle was definitely hard for a Saturday, not medium.
So much I didn't like about this puzzle.
Amendment I?! Upon reading the clue, I wanted something like "free exercise." Even when I filled in the answer from crosses, I didn't realize it said Amendment I. I thought it was some Latin word amendmenti, like the right to change one's mind? Literally no one, including First Amendment lawyers and scholars, call it Amendment I. Hated this clue-answer combo.
Hate the clue "repetitive" for tsetse. It's not repetitive in its native language, where it just means "fly." It's only repetitive from the point of view of an English speaker, but it's a loan word, so repetitive just doesn't make sense in this context. I can see how "tsetse fly" might be called repetitive, although the more accurate word would be redundant. Anyway, tsetse fly wasn't the answer, tsetse was, and it's not "repetitive."
I knew the morning spread clue would be something breakfast food related, but it took me forever to get schmears.
Never heard of a corn crib.
Never heard of snees.
Never heard of munshi.
Never heard the expression "ragged edge." Ever. I got "edge" at the end but couldn't figure out what could come before it, because isn't it just "the edge"? I tried "knife's edge" but that didn't work.
Desk set?? I got that just by trying something random. I had "set," and thought, this sounds like something that would be on a desk set. I didn't expect it to actually work, because "desk set" is just not a real thing.
Hated Intelsat.
What's a netter?
Yeah, didn't like this puzzle and it was hard.
Oh yeah and I also didn't like the broad clue for "burn sage." "Indigenous" can refer to so many thousands of cultures all over the world, may as well just omit the word entirely from the clue. It should have just been clued with some other hint, like incorporating the idea of heat or fire, or of herbs and good smells, into the clue.
One more: Didn't like U-Haul van, because it's a U-Haul truck. Who rents just a van? I thought of U-Haul truck right away, but it didn't fit, so left that answer alone for a long time. Can't believe it was U-Haul van the whole time.
Enjoyed the challenge in this one. Recently my complaint has been that the puzzles are too easy — definitely not the case here! I don’t mind a bit of odd stuff creeping in on a Saturday, and I really like seeing a sparse diagram that makes me wonder if I’ll be able to finish — keeps me on the ragged edge, you might say.
I'm with the crowd that doesn't like the four-puzzles-in-one design. No flow, less fun.
Had CHURRO and UHAULVAN in the NW before trying my luck elsewhere. AERATOR and EMILIANO and SALESTAX opened up the NE very nicely. If you're thinking of packing up and moving to NH, BTW, be assured that the lack of a SALESTAX is very misleading. I could show your our property tax bill if you needed proof. This is how we fund our schools, so that wealthy towns have better schools, believe it or not.
SE was opened up by KINGSIZE and ERSATZ and SENSEI, not too bad. In the SW ATECAKE was obvious and so was ANTEUP which I of course had to erase. Finally guessed at PIGGED and PIEFIGHT appeared, whew. Last letter in today was the N in the BURNSAGE MUNSHI cross, which when I saw it was obvious. I had been trying to make BUR_SAGE one word. TIL LUISE, total unknown, although they all said she was not half bad.
Many no-knows today but CORNCRIB was not among them. Redeeming features were the reappearance of MIA for too long TSETSE, the complete version instead of the TSE, and especially SNEE. Thought you were lost and gone forever.
Impressive construction, DB, just Didn't Bring a lot of joy my way. Thanks for the mental workout at least.
I'd love to see the stats on the grid gunk gauge.... like what's average? What's a "low" reading there? I feel like 27% is pretty modest--like low medium, right? 35% and up are on the high side? Is there such a thing as too low?
Can’t recall the last time I thought of a CORN CRIB, but seeing that entry instantly triggered images of the old open-air structures. Don’t see many of them these days. In my neck of the Midwest, we don’t have what I’d call mega fields, but it’s commonplace to see trucks moving right alongside the pickers with the grain going from the stalk into the bin and then out into the hauler. In bumper years, there are lines of semis backed up on the highways and if necessary, excess grain is stored directly on the ground and covered with tarps until the market hits the right price to sell it.
I like your AMEN TO THAT. I also tried ANTE UP, then CHIP IN before seeing the T in TIME.
The tough NW kept me from having a clean puzzle. But I do think Rex was overly critical of some of the cluing: HAREMS / CORN CRIB / KNOLLS seemed fine to me. But a lot of the fill was indeed very odd, like RAGGED EDGE and OUTATIME. In the end, SIUBPAR / MUNSHI / PRESTIGE did me in. Oh well. Looking forward to tomorrow.
I'm with you, Lewis. Knew it would be a challenge when I saw the grid, but stuck with it. Put answers in, took them out. Old enough to know LUISE Rainer and grew up in the Midwest so CORN CRIB was a gimme. I am convinced people don't like a puzzle because they don't know the answers. Thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.
NE, NW and SW super easy. Got stuck in the South East because I didn’t want to give up “Amen to that” for 24 down.
I also finished this one quickly. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but these are my favorite kinds of puzzles. I love long answers and seas of white. Kind of like wheel of fortune meets the crossword. And I find the short 3- or 4- letter filler answers in a typical puzzle (OLEO, ANA, EDAM, EPEE, or any number of directional SSE NNW NNE answers) far more boring and clunky than an obscure long answer like corn crib or intelsat. Not that I easily came up with either of them, but I found it far more pleasurable to figure them out. I was also on the same wavelength as the puzzle-maker, I suppose. I instantly thought of schmears and U-Haul van, and thanks to my 5 year old I knew ice saw immediately as well. Burn sage and armholes also felt obvious to me - NW corner was the easiest part. I do agree with the critique of how the 1st Amendment clue was phrased, but I really found this overall to be a puzzle low on nonsense junk answers and my personal 5-star kind of puzzle. I always check this blog when I love a puzzle and was disappointed to find such a dismal review.
Today’s crossword was a gloriumptious little beast.
Not a fearsome beast, mind you. Not one of those enormous Saturday monsters with yellow teeth and a taste for solver confidence. No, this was a curious Wednesday creature: bright-eyed, mischievous, and just clever enough to hide your socks while helping you look for them. The theme scampered through the grid with the delighted energy of a child who has learned a new joke and intends to tell it repeatedly until someone laughs. Fortunately, the joke was rather good.
The long entries seemed to tumble about the place as though they had escaped from a cabinet where sensible phrases are normally kept under lock and key. TOO LATENOW arrived huffing and puffing, having clearly missed some important appointment. ATELIKEABIRD fluttered in with great indignation at being accused of overeating. SICSTHEDOGON bounded across the grid with muddy paws and no regard whatsoever for furniture. They were not elegant answers. They were better than elegant. They were alive.
And what a pleasant thing it is when a puzzle chooses delight over showing off. There are crosswords that stand on a chair and shout, “Look how clever I am!” This one merely grinned. It tucked little surprises into corners. It arranged clues and answers the way a friendly prankster arranges frogs in a headmaster’s desk. Not enough to cause genuine distress. Just enough to improve the morning.
The clueing, too, possessed a marvelous lack of meanness. One never felt bullied. Never felt that some dreadful crossword authority was lurking nearby waiting to sneer at a mistake. Instead the puzzle seemed to take the solver by the hand and lead them through a garden of words, occasionally pointing at something ridiculous and saying, “Look at that!” And indeed one did look. And smile.
By the end I felt the way one feels after finishing a particularly satisfying slice of cake: pleased, faintly surprised by how quickly it disappeared, and briefly tempted to have another. A scrumdiddlyumptious Wednesday. More, please.
It looks like I'm in the minority but I liked this one well enough. Second day in a row that I looked at an empty grid and got a bit scared. "Look at all that white!!"
This was indeed like solving four different puzzles, but I kinda liked that today. While it was near impossible to get any traction from other parts of the grid, I eventually got enough in each corner to get moving. Though admittedly very slowly.
My solve went counter clockwise. SE fell first as for whatever reason KNOLLS came right away. That got me DESKSET and it went from there. Never, ever heard of INTELSAT but the crosses helped out. Like someone else, even with AMENDEMNTI all written in, I continued reading it as some Latinish word that I figured I didn't know. Had to come to @Rex to clear my head for that one. It got harder for me from there.
NE was next, MOMALA I remembered so that fell. Had CORNsilo for a while until that didn't work, but inch by inch, things came together.
NW followed and it was harder still. CHURROS was easy enough but then nothing for some time. It was the clever cluing for ARMHOLE that finally hit me and that gave me enough to get some slow traction. ELSTON was before my time (and I'm a Mets fan) but as a small kid, I do remember Phil Rizzuto mentioning him from time to time when I (seldomly) tuned into Yankee games. So that came next. Like others, had so many different EDGES, ledges and so on until SCHMEARS finally gave me the R.
Last to fall was SW. I had two of my many costly errors in that neighborhood: *sawto* instead of the correct COPED and *antein* before STIRIN. That made me sweat things out for a long while there. Even though that corner was the last to fall, I couldn't tell you what finally made things click (maybe CLASSPIN??)
So... while this was challenging and had some fill that made me scratch my head, i.e. INTELSTAT, AMENDMENTI, ROSINED, I had enough aha moments to make it worthwhile. No spanners and not much in-the-language stuff that I *really* like to see, but I had a good time with this one. I agree with some of what's been said, but as I often say, it doesn't bother me too much and there was still joy left to be had in the solve.
Thanks for the workout Daniel!
I knesw that MOMALA was what Harris's stepkids called her, but I never knew it was a generally used nickname. Seems pretty obscure to me.
Love your idea for the lepidopterist in the CORN CRIB. Stick that in your NET and see how you like it. 🤣 Your interpretation of AMENDMENT I isn’t far from the way I tried to parse it, trying for something along the lines of “glitterati” but couldn’t quite make it work.
I absolutely adore that movie and watch it every year at holiday time. The dinner scene in Katharine's apartment, with Tracy's shoes in the oven drying out, and Gig Young walking in on them...priceless!
KathArine Hepburn, with an A in the middle.
It's repetitive because the TSE repeats. And DESK SET and CORN CRIB are well-known phrases.
“Where my intels at?” THANK YOU for the laugh. NW was brutal 🤦🏻♀️
You can't expect xwords to be quite so literal. There's always some fudge room.
Hah! Terrific post. I especially liked AMENDMENTI/SENSEI!
Could someone please explain the ESCARGOT entry?
Since when is OUTTA spelled OUTA? I really can't believe they let that one pass.
I'm with @puzzlehoarder in liking today's grid layout....Saturday tough for me! And satisfying to finish. My first 3 quadrants - NW, NE, and SW - were slow, but in each I had a couple of answers that got me going: CHURROS and HAREMS, MOMALA and CORNCRIB, and ATE CAKE x CLASS PIc. I appreciated the easy bridges DEEM and GANG!. In contrast to the other sections, I quickly slalomed (I didn't read the date on the clue and wrote it in) to the finish in the SE with the Downs line-up. I liked the puzzle a lot - a workout and with plenty of answers that were fun to write in.
Awful upper left corner in particular. Editors should be making sure the crossings are fair/gettable. Yet another fail on that score, plus some tortured cluing elsewhere.
There’s a famous—and crucial to his character development— scene in the fiom Jeremiah Johnson in which a father has stadhed his eifeband children in a corn crib for safety. Johnson explaons such an effort is futile.
Medium-tough for me. The east side was easy medium but the west side was took some work.
West side WOEs - LUISE, MUNSHI, HAREM, ESCARGOT (as clued?), KINDER, and OUTATIME.
West side costly erasures - misspelling CHURRO and me too for RAzors EDGE..
West side cringe - NETTER
I’m with @Rex on this one.
Take at least one more star off for "Honey I'm Home" "Dearie Me" and "Desk Set."
AMENDMENTI bugs the hell out of me -- I still get cranky when a "letter" morphs into a "number" (or vice vesa) when it's crossed. A lot of folks complain about the Spanish "n" as in "ano" (sorry, don't know how to put the diacrtic in there) being crossed with the English "n"; this one, to me, is just as arbitrary and egregious, and it seems to happen all the time.
I have a love-hate relationship with puzzles like this one. For example if you get the north east corner filled 1st all you have to go on with the rest of the puzzle is an a! All that hard work doesn’t get you too far
Desk Set is also the title of a famous movie. One of the Hepburn Tracy classics.
I'm fine with this prestigious puzzle! I knew I'd have to ante up once ice saw all those king sized white spaces or I'd get tanned. The top fell quickly but the SW took time to pig out on all that escargot.. This took way less than one cup of coffee. I may have netted my personal best.
I had AMEN TO THAT and thought it was a clever clue, even though AMEN is the only "religious" thing about this phrase. AMENDMENT I meant nothing to me as a non-American.
Exactly my experience, well said.
Starlets I'm home ROTFL! Your sage treatments must be what keep you in your usual jocular mood!
Different. Four desperate word square runtpuzzles, connected by a weeject tunnel.
Was able to get them 4 tunnel words pretty quick. Then I guessed AERATOR and BOXER, which led to a successful NE runtpuz solvequest.
Next up was the SW, after guessin ATECAKE/PIEFIGHT [an almost gimme pair]. Then the SE, thanx to the SENSEI/KINGSIZE startup.
That NW runtpuz was the hardest, at our house. I do luv them CHURROs, tho -- especially at this one eatery we go to here, which has great, yummy ones. But, MUNSH?/ROS?NED got botched by my "when in doubt, guess U" rule.
staff weeject pack: DRE & ERA.
fave things: AMENDMENTI & its clue. GANG clue. BOXER clue. CHURRO. Pastry-rich PIEFIGHT/ATECAKE.
Thanx for the puzs, Mr. Bodily dude. Mucho sufferin, for both the constructioneer & the solvers, I'd reckon. Viva the differentness, tho.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s.
(Just one) Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Glad to have your company as someone who also thought well of the puzzle! But I didn't fly through it like you did.
Which day's puzzle were you doing, again? The entries you capitalized were from a few days ago.
Thank you, @RP, for not noping out and writing that excellent review. I did nope out. After solving 2.5 quadrants I encountered ROSINED and quit. I wonder if Ezersky and GANG will accept it. How about unrosined? Some of the cluing was iffy, too. Isn’t AVAIL to make use of, not to prove useful? I did like the ESCARGOT clue.
WOEs abounded: MUNSHI ELSTON BURNSAGE LUISE EMILIANO INTELSAT. Never heard the expression RAGGED EDGE - I’m on team RAzor’s.
The name of Maugham’s book The Razor’s EDGE, according to Wikipedia, comes from a translation of a verse in the Katha Upanishad, paraphrased in the book's epigraph as: "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard."
Wish this could’ve been merely hard. Hard is good. I don’t mind the occasional cheat on a Saturday, especially for proper nouns. But if a puzzle is going to have so many names, the clues better be top-notch. I’m going into the archives to find another Manny Nosowski puzzle.
Songs of a WAYFARER
It's an exact read of license plate referenced in the clue.
The only really awful clue was for ARMHOLES. The best lawyer could not win a case for slot being equivalent to sleeve. I really enjoyed this solve. It was a good quad workout.
That’s how it was spelled on the license plate in the movie.
Why 2 stars? Go with your gut, this is a solid 1-star, four puzzles, no fun answers, no connections and the made-up cruft made it hard, not medium. Amendmenti?! That’s the connecting answer?
I remembered ELSTON Howard as the Yankees catcher in 1967; he was traded to the Red Sox mid-season.
So, while not a rookie, as a 1967 player, we resisted entering his name until the crosses made it obvious. "The Yankees must have had a Black player before him, right?". Nope.
Jackie Robinson "broke the color barrier" in 1947; Howard first played for the Yankees in 1955. Baseball fans here (I'm one) would be interested (as I was) in reading Howard's impressive bio (Wikipedia).
Red Sox fans here (if you're old enough) may shamefully remember that it took two more years before the (racist-owned) Red Sox became the last MLB team with a Black player.
I think SCHMEARS was used as a verb.
And does anyone else think “Browns” solving to GETS TAN is a bit…insensitive?
I also had ICE axe and the AMEN corner
U-Haul rents out a lot of vans here in NYC because apartments are small and often come with basic furnishings. Probably not used much anywhere else though.
I want to know your 16 most favorite words!
lotsa looking stuff up today. ugh. what a slog. zero stars.
Smudging! Yes! That’s the answer Mrs. Freude gave me, but it didn’t fit.
SPREADS as a clue is a noun in this case. And SCHMEARS likewise.
"corn crib" is a decidedly midwestern phrase. happily, the (scathing) NY guide to the Midwest (Broadway's "The Music Man") does reference it in "you've got trouble" ("A dime novel hidden in the corn crib...")
This was an acceptably challenging puzzle, except for that brutal upper left corner. I had the other 3 filled in correctly, but almost nothing top left. SCHMEERS (with 2 Es) crossing RAZORS EDGE. Tried CARGO VAN then PANEL VAN and never thought of UHAUL. I ended up cheating by checking multiple words, which finally got rid of RAZORS. I also Googled ELSTON who is a total Unknown for me. Plus MUNSHI, yuck. Biggest fail in years for me.
Elsewhere I got pretty lucky by knowing INTELSAT and EMILIANO right off the clues. (I remember from an old movie, someone shouting EMILIANO ZAPATAAAA! at the top of their lungs.)
Many typeovers early on, eg CORN SILO, CLASS PIC. And first time I've ever seen LUISE spelt that way.
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