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"Right?," in British lingo / SAT 6-13-26 / Lovingly, in a score / Sinister cackle / Retired rapper Azalea / Many a modern chess-playing program / Submissive sort, informally / Obsolescent office accessory / Outmoded living room fixtures / Alligatorid of Central and South America
Saturday, June 13, 2026
Constructor: Ryan McCarty
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: IGGY Azalea (46A: Retired rapper Azalea) —
Amethyst Amelia Kelly (born 7 June 1990), known professionally as Iggy Azalea (/əˈzeɪliə/ ə-ZAY-lee-ə), is an Australian model, businesswoman and former rapper. Born in Sydney, Azalea moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a career in music. She earned recognition on YouTube with the music videos for her 2011 songs "Pussy" and "Two Times". She then self-released her debut mixtape Ignorant Art (2011) before signing with American rapper T.I.'s Grand Hustle Records.Azalea's debut studio album, The New Classic (2014), peaked within the top five of several charts worldwide and later topped the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, making Azalea the first non-American female rapper to do so. Its preceding single, "Fancy" (featuring Charli XCX), achieved significant commercial success; it peaked atop the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for Record of the Year at the 2015 Grammy Awards. Azalea was featured on Ariana Grande's 2014 single "Problem", which peaked at number two behind "Fancy". The two songs made Azalea the second musical act (aside from the Beatles) to rank at the top two spots simultaneously with their debut entries in the chart. The album spawned one further single, "Black Widow" (featuring Rita Ora), which peaked within the chart's top ten. [...]
In 2024, Azalea announced her retirement from music as posted on her social media and by Billboard. // Azalea is one of the best selling female rappers in the world, and her accolades include two American Music Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a People's Choice Award, and four Teen Choice Awards, in addition to nominations for four Grammy Awards. Her YouTube channel together with other collaborators has accumulated 7 billion views, and 15 of her music videos have received over 100 million views on Vevo. (wikipedia)
• • •
The puzzle was also really uneven in terms of difficulty. A tough clue on HAVE plus the improbability of a single ALARM BELL meant that I couldn't get into the middle on the first pass. Had to reboot in the SW, which I did in the strangest way—I considered RARE for 24D: Multibillionaire, e.g., even though I knew it could not be right (clue is a noun, so answer has to be a noun). But for some reason I still decided to check that "E" from RARE against the cross and somehow that "E" alone got me BADE (31A: Wished). I wasn't sure about BADE so I checked crosses and confirmed it with AMOROSO (32D: Lovingly, in a score). Except then I wasn't sure about AMOROSO, so I checked its crosses, and both POP ART and AMA checked out, so I was up and rolling again.
Bullets:
- 1A: Bring together (AMASS) — yes, I too tried UNITE here at first. Crosses didn't check out. Then I tried AMASS, and suddenly ...
- 19A: "Right?," in British lingo ("INNIT?") — ha. Loved this. Can't believe it's been nine years since this very familiar bit of British slang has been in the grid. Five common letters, how is this answer not more popular? Maybe it's less generally familiar than I think it is. Maybe people in the U.S. don't watch as much British TV or as many British movies as I do. It's possible.
- 42A: Festival flier (KITE) — what sort of festival? Is it a KITE festival? I guess I don't go to enough festivals to know why there would be KITEs there.
- 7D: Actor Brody (ADRIEN) — I get ADRIEN Brody and Adam Brody confused. I mean, not if you put them both in front of me, I can definitely tell them apart. But ... two tall dark and arguable handsome actors named Brody, both of whose first names start "AD-" .... wait a minute! OMG I just realized that I'm not confusing ADRIEN Brody and Adam Brody, I'm confusing ADRIEN Brody with Adam Driver, and Adam Brody is somehow acting as a catalyst in this confusion (I know Adam Brody from The O.C., though he appears to have done a lot since then, including getting nominated for an Emmy for something called Nobody Wants This (Netflix, 2024-present)
- 46A: Retired rapper Azalea (IGGY) — "Retired" made me laugh. Out loud. Since when is the puzzle using "retired" for anyone besides athletes?? Since never. Literally never. I just looked over ~175 clues that featured the word "Retired" and that word has never been used in conjunction with any person who wasn't an athlete. It's also been used for old aircraft (SST) and old cigarette mascots (JOE CAMEL). For a rapper? It feels at least mildly insulting that the only adjective used to describe IGGY Azalea is "Retired." Maybe her self-proclaimed "retirement" is the most famous thing about her now, I have no idea, I haven't heard her or seen her name in ages.
- 31D: It comes in handy when the chips are downed (BAG CLIP) — this clue is trying to do a punny thing with the common idiomatic phrase "when the chips are down" but wow it really fails on a literal level. What does the BAG CLIP have to do with chips being downed, i.e. eaten? Yes, when I eat some, and not all, of the chips, it's handy to have a BAG CLIP to keep the remaining chips from going stale. But there is no direct correlation between the eating and the clipping. The BAG CLIP comes in "handy" when you need to store the chips. If I've eaten all the chips, I don't need to store them. So the clue should be something like [It comes in handy when some but not all of the chips are downed]. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Or maybe "downed" is being used in some extremely tortured way to mean "depleted"; maybe the idea is that the chip level, the number of chips in the bag, has gone "down." I am overthinking this, but only because the clue is underthinking it. If the chips are, indeed, "downed" (as in "consumed"), then why in the world do I need a BAG CLIP?
- 6A: Alligatorid of Central and South America (CAIMAN) — "Alligatorid," what a cool word? I liked it slightly better when I thought it was "Alligatoroid," which sounds like an awesome '70s mutated-animal disaster film
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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113 comments:
A note about AI MODEL. It’s not AI in the sense of generative AI and chatbots, but AI in the sense of machine learning that existed way before generative AI came about. Search up AlphaZero!
Fun puzzle for me today, loved MWAHAHA.
Reggie Jackson has been retired for almost 40 years! Maybe a Monday clue at one time but Monday solvers tend to skew younger. Clued like this, I’d say it was a solid Saturday hint.
Hats off to those who knew it was spelled CAIMAN, not "Cayman" (which is maybe where they are found?). Also, what is a CREEL? Less important footage than a "B reel"?
This is Saturday
Easy-Medium. Good puzzle but only a Friday-level challenge.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
Like OFL, for my first pass at 1A I was thinking unite or unify, but it turned out to be AMASS.
bWA-HA-HA before MWA for the 2D cackle.
Misspelled ADRIEN Brody's name as ADRIaN at 7D.
Misspelled CAIMAN as CAyMAN (6A), fixed quickly because I knew IRENE Curie (8D).
Confidently put in Arsenal before A.C. MILAN for the 10D football club.
At 18D, my obsolescent office accessory was a STeno PAD before it was a STAMP PAD.
I had ALert(something) before ALARM BELL for the danger signal at 27A.
My 28a blocks were dAmS before they were BANS.
No WOEs.
24 minutes for me, so that's around medium for me on Saturday ( I think 25 minutes and over is Med-Chall for me.... so this was just below that). All my problem was from the NW corner... Plopped in ToILe and LoMAx for 12 and 15 across and just could not see AMASS. AMASSING things is about accumulating them, not uniting them. A matchmaker brings a couple together.... but doesn't AMASS them. So I fell for that misdirection hard. Wanted AMASH there for a while. Finally took that corner out, decided AIMODEL was right, and ATLAST was right, realized it was LAMAR and SLR.... and finally got the happy music. Woke up this morning because of a dream where I almost fell off a 1000 ft cliff.... would have preferred a 16 across, I guess! : / 51 across was ShEEp before t was STEER, but EEYORE definitely saved me there.... the early SAD paired with the late EEYORE is a nice set of brackets on the grid.... and in between, we GOT MAD, and got caught INALIE. Got 4 animals in the grid too.... CAIMANs and STAGs in addition to the county fair couple. Nice grid, tough Saturday for me, thanks Ryan!!!
No mention of Eeyore clue?
I found this one challenging, which I enjoyed for a Saturday! I messed up my NW stuck on "unite" instead of AMASS, and my brain fogged in the NE this morning until SEXDREAMS crossed MAANDPA (eww.)
BWAHAHA instead of MWAHAHA at 2D held me up for a bit but led me down a delightful rabbit hole exploring the difference. Highly recommended.
I like the spiral effect of the grid - loaded with open space. REGGIE was a huge gimme for long. Liked SEX DREAMS, THE HEAT IS ON and CATCH IN A LIE.
Linda
Agree with Rex that for this constructor there was some clunky stuff. He highlights the obsolescent slant - the county fair double was also odd. AMOROSO was the highlight. Although not formally recognized at the time - IRENE Curie and her husband were the fist to discover the positron and neutron - thr back door connection to LOS ALAMOS is interesting.
Merle
Enjoyable enough Saturday morning solve. David P. Williams’ Stumper today presents another interesting grid layout - choppier fill but a fine puzzle.
Love & Hope & SEX & DREAMS
Too hard for me. Naticked on INNIT/ACMILAN cross. I also had "bars" instead of BANS (I think it's a better answer for "blocks"). PLASMATVS was hard to get, because VLOGGER made no sense.
Suggestion for Rex...Please keep track of the entries having to do with AI. I'm afraid it's going to replace Star Wars in the "oh, not another one?" category.
What a masterful build of a grid! Look in the middle area – that’s five longs (answers of eight letters or more) crossing five longs, including answers CATCH IN A LIE, THE HEAT IS ON, NO LIMITS, and REGGIE JACKSON.
My jaw drops. Try making one of these yourself, and yours will drop too.
This was a variety solve for me, a blend of “Whee!” and “Whoa!”, with splat-fills countered by multi-return-to’s.
Animal-lover me liked the faunal presence – CAIMAN, STAG, KITE, STEER, HORSE, EEYORE. Riddle-lover me liked the vague clues and even an actual riddle clue: [Some hits, in music and baseball] for SINGLES.
In the grid’s south, there was even a Jeopardy-style before-and-after combo that might be clued “Output of the Godfather of Punk” – IGGY POP ART.
All followed by that lovely coda, that moment of staring in awe at the exceptionally built grid. I had a grand time with this, Ryan. Thank you!
Lived in Britain - - specifically England - - for 25 years. Never once heard anyone say "Innit". I daresay it has been said by a normal citizen but I think it's mainly fictic. Also ALARM BELL, singular, is just fine. "Listen! What was that?" "It was the ALARM BELL". "Not the ALARM BELLS??" "No; there's only one bell and that was it".
I think the “downed” in the chip clue is being used as a “put down on the coutertop” done-for-the-moment kind of way.
Still rather tortured
I went through the *exact* same thought process as Rex regarding Adrien Brody, Adam Brody, and Adam Driver.
The rabbi's moment of joy is dissipated all too quickly as he is reminded of his troubles: AHOY.
Parseghian: Knock knock.
Mrs. Parseghian: Who's there?
Parseghian: It's MEARA. Open up.
Julius Caesar discussing his visit with Marie Curie's daughter: I came. I saw IRENE.
Thankfully, a few typos were able to calm the frightened horses: STAMPPAD.
Mrs. Dumpty: Any ideas on what we should get Dad for his birthday?
Humpty, Jr.: Duct tape? Gorilla Glue? SEATBELT?
Trump's concession in a rare moment of candor: AMASS
Hand up for most of your overwrites, Conrad. I felt so certain of CAyMAN that I tried to convince myself that yRENE Curie’s parents chose an unconventional spelling for her name.
Hey All !
VAPE JUICE VAPE JUICE VAPE JUICE! 😁
(For you, Rex!)
Toughie here, got all but the SW, and good ole angstiness set in. Had to look up the musical clue Lovingly. Not up on music terms. That got me the rest and a finish. One cheat on a SatPuz is PAR for the course.
(Isn't/wasn't there a reality "star" named AMOROSO?)
Randomness:
Had BWAHAHA first before the M.
In NE, MA AND PA took a minute, I ended up with that AA together, and head scratching commenced.
Spelled MEARA correctly with no crossers. Yay me!
SLUrpIES before SLUSHIES
SW had a lot of no-knows, hence the cheat. AMOROSO, as previously stated, CREEL, CALLER as clued, with BAG CLIP, POP ART, I SURE CAN and others just beyond reach.
Still a fun SatPuz. Two days in a row sans F's. Not a good thing. SAD, INNIT?
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
No F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
“VAPE JUICE (ew, the very term—I'm not sure anyone can say it out loud and maintain anything like dignity“
I’m dead. Thanks, Bud!
i don't know much about soccer, so I thought AC stood for athletic club, which would have been a dupe with the clue, but of course it's in Italian, where soccer is called calcio, for some reason. Anyway I went with Arsenal for too long.
Horrified that anyone would put a PLASMA TV in the living room--doesn't it interefere with the conversation? But I know people do; it just took me too long to think of it. I also wanted a STeno PAD at first.
But my biggest problem was being confident that those things wer CAyMAN lizards.
I frowned when I saw VAPE JUICE, which sounds like a marketing term that would be used to romanticize nicotine and get teens to consider it anything other than harmful.
Reggie stopping by was a gift today. It’s not often on a Saturday to get a grid-spanning freebie. I’m sure there may be some younger people for whom he might not be well known, but for a slew of us Rex’s characterization of that answer as “Monday-easy” is spot on.
Aside from a couple of rap references, this one stands out for achieving Saturday level difficulty without relying on gimmicks and other esoterica (well maybe alligatorid is pushing it). Still, no Latin quotes, no foreign language math tests, no random seats to such and such a county in whatever state, etc - that counts for something in my book.
I’d like to think I’m getting smarter at solving Saturday puzzles.However, after reading the comments of the various bloggers, it seems that the NYT is making them easier. I still thought it was a terrific puzzle.🎈🎈🎊🎊
After reading @Lewis’s praise of this puzzle I feel bad I didn’t like it more…too many proper names I didn’t recognize right away and some green paint answers like BIGCLIP. INNIT was one of my first entries, along with REGGIE (I’m a Yankee fan since Joe D), but on the other hand very tentatively started with wetDREAMS because I thought the NYT might not go there. Still have a large PLASMATV—maybe outmoded tech but the color is rich and the major drawback is the reflectivity of the screen that demands a dark room.
I agree, and you articulated it well. Usually people refer to chess engines.
It mostly went easy for a Saturday. 21 minutes is good for me. But I almost died on the ACMilan/Innit/ Ma and Pa. But then I remembered the club name. No sure why I ever know it.
Psychotically easy- perhaps my fastest Friday ever despite doing the puzzle on my phone while watching the World Cup.
Well, I'm just gonna say I had never heard of REGGIE JACKSON and so that entire middle spanner did nothing for me. Luckily, it was a name I could intuit once I had enough crosses, so it didn't totally ruin my solve. But if you're reading this blog and feeling totally thrown off by everyone saying it was a Monday level gimme, you are not alone!
I tripped up with SEXDRIVES for SEXDREAMS and read ALLIGATOID as ALLEGORIST, which had me running names like Marquez, Allende, and Fuentes until I finally figured out my problem.
Working Man: Blustery day, INNIT GOV? Think it'll rain?
Blueblood: TWILL.
I had a special relationship with an early AIMODEL. She was fun but kinda glitchy. Like when I asked her about going out for dinner and a movie she'd say "I'd love to DATESUP, Egs."
Mrs. Egs: How much does it cost to get into that all-male shindig you're attending tonight?
Egs: The STAG party's a buck, dear.
Philatelist's apartment: STAMPPAD
Today's puzzle BADE fair from the outset, and it delivered. Thanks, Ryan McCarty.
Nobody Wants This is a pretty huge hit, especially if you have a number of Jewish friends (Adam Brody plays a hot rabbi).
Some was easy, some was not. So I'll split the difference and call it Medium. I probably know less about baseball than anyone else here, but even I know REGGIE JACKSON. Of course "unite" (AMASS) came to a screeching halt and I jumped ship to CAD, OXO, Mr. October, SEX DREAMS, ADRIEN... spelled CAIMAN with a Y to start and that held me back a bit -- who is that daughter of Marie and Pierre whose name begins with a Y, five letters? D'oh! Other easy spots include a STEER, a HORSEy, and a SAD donkey (mule?) named EEYORE. Things that were more challenging were HAVE (as clued), and MA AND PA (whoever is the hayseed named Opie or whatever who says MA AND PA, that's not the same kid who calls them the 'rents). I think perhaps my biggest obstacle was expecting a vowel where there's a consonant and vice versa, as in PLASMATVS, VLOGGERS, and the already mentioned CAIMAN.
CATCH IN A LIE was great, and the cluing was also good. As a phrase, THE HEAT IS ON is also good, but I hate it for giving me this godawful earworm. But now what is all this pecking order nonsense? Like BETA, the dweeb who -- it can't be otherwise -- DATES UP in the public's eye if he is seen with a pretty girl. Or the HAVE (ugh) who can afford to look down on us all and then some. He must be one of those Alpha types who says he knows NO LIMITS (a phrase I'm fine with in a vacuum, but not amidst these other associations). I'm thinking, that multi-billionaire guy is probably a CAD, especially if he is hastening on our eventual subjugation to the AI MODELS which will infiltrate every aspect of our lives.
Gah -- snap out of it! It's a beautiful day outdoors and I plan to enjoy it. Hope you do too.
Had STENO PAD instead of STAMP PAD which slowed me down..
Correctly guessed Rex would award 2-1/2 stars (day thus off to a good start), but upon reading the write-up, criticisms (all valid IMO) about it being too easy (REGGIE JACKSON? That clue for the puzzle's longest answer? On a Saturday?...sorry @Sabes), cringe-inducing answers and "?" clues (not in a good way) made me question the extra half-star.
STEER and HORSE; same clue. Kinda Sorta Monday/Tuesday level; Maybe?
Had mUahaha until seeing TWILL; had bad dreams before SEX DREAMS (maybe cuz MA AND PA were nearby). And had "for you", then "ask not" (both Kennedy) before AT LAST (King). That's a nice clue; better than just a straightforward "Finally".
La presión aumenta.
I drove to El Paso from Albuquerque and back Thursday and Friday in record setting heat -- it was much worse than whatever image you have in your mind of "hellscape" -- to help a friend clean out a dusty storage unit, so I am hot, tired, cranky, probably dying of hanta virus at the moment, and this puzzle didn't help.
Further into the NEW MEXICO content, entry of the week number two is LOS ALAMOS where I worked for the newspaper in the late 80s and learned I shouldn't be working for any newspaper. We also use the word ANGLO here as a euphemism for all white people. I kinda like it.
Ryan, you had 66 chances and kept the humor level at almost ZERO. And then you let a billionaire and an AI-anything in your work of art. Might as well take a mallet to your own Pietà. It's SAD when my first entry was SAD. Well, let me back up. MWAHAHA is pretty funny, except in crosswords every laugh syllable stops the solving process as you wonder which HAR, HEE, HEH, HAW, HOO it's gonna be. MAANDPA is pretty funny too, and SEATBELTS is trying to be funny I guess.
I don't know how I would have learned about an alligatoroid, but Wikipedia tells me they're alligatoridae (a stem-based group) and not to be confused with the alligatoroidea (a different and more inclusive stem-based group) ... thanks Wikipedia ... and isn't this all a very unfun way of discussing an animal that would be more than happy to eat you. The choice would have been to use a Y for CAYMAN island and dropped Game of Thrones character YRENE in the puzzle. Now we're having fun.
Apparently Pulitzers aren't what they used to be. If I'm ever in charge of naming a human, I'm going with IGGY AZALEA. That's gorgeous, INNIT?
I thought Lichtenstein was a country at first. Maybe they play soccer there too.
Every man on Earth in a relationship is probably DATING UP. We're kinda grody.
❤️ INNIT.
😫 VAPE JUICE. GOT MAD.
People: 10 {yup... it's Saturday... and this means you'll only love this puzzle if you know these 10 folks, otherwise you're probably on Google.}
Places: 0...well, except for Lichtenstein.
Products: 4
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 19 of 66 (29%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
Tee-Hee: SEX DREAMS. Man, the Times just won't let Freud be the historical oddity he should be. Stand him in the corner next to the four humours and leeches.
Uniclues:
OHO! Today is the fourth anniversary of my uniclues. That's 1461 days of you scrolling past uniclues. Congrats on your strong thumb.
1 Keep a collection of crocodile wannabes.
2 You didn't want to bring your cousin?
3 When it's 100 degrees in El Paso at bedtime and you're not surprised.
4 My first acts as supreme leader of the universe will include...
5 The big one at the gates of Troy.
1 AMASS CAIMAN
2 SAD STAG NEEDLE
3 THE HEAT IS ON PAR
4 ALARM BELL BANS
5 POP ART HORSE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Plan to avoid arias. OPERA GHOSTING.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My fastest Saturday ever so no complaints. Only a question - NYT -
MWAHAHA? Really? Didn't know
AC MILAN, STENO PAD for STAMP PAD & no idea about HAVE for 24D MULTI BILLIONAIRE - we all know that they 'have' but what aren't I getting here?
INNIT was a WOE - people who say "RIGHT?" after every sentence annoy me. Otherwise I liked it :)
Things I liked: a sportsballer I knew; although it took me a bit, Plasma TV (I still have one!) ; stamp pad (I’m obsolete, too.) but, also, AI? Ugh. It’s eating the world and you can’t get away from it.
I howled out loud at "That's 1461 days of you scrolling past uniclues." Gary, you big lug, love ya and all, but those uniclues just look too danged hard for me. If I listed all the entries in some suitable format, like a rectangular array so that I could take them in all at once, I feel that maybe I'd have a shot, but it would require my intuiting the elephantine workings of your brain on top of that, and... that's some major loin-girding you require of me. I want to feel up to doing them, I really do!
Thought the same thing. AI is such a vague term but has taken on the meaning almost exclusively of "chatbot". Chess programs were used to teach the concepts of machine learning back in the 80s (if not earlier), long before the current AI hype bubble around chatbots and image generators.
I liked the puzzle, but am very disappointed that we have THE HEAT IS ON and Rex did not include a Glen Frye video or any reference to Beverly Hills Cop. His Gen-X card may be revoked.
Both of those spellings for the creature are attested. M-W says CAIMAN is more prevalent, but certainly I've seen both.
Psychotically! I think that's a new one.
But no one else is Mr October, right? Even I, non-sport-woman though I am, knew this one.
"The Grid" reports two foreignisms. I saw AMOROSO; I'm not seeing the other unless it's BETA.
This was one of those occasional visits to Wavelength City that are fun but make a Saturday too easy. I always start with AMASS before UNITE and this was quickly confirmed by SLAY and SLR and off to the races. NE same, knew how to spell CAIMAN (same word in Spanish), wanted ARSENAL but ROADRACE fixed that. REGGIEJACKSON a gimme and many toeholds, especially helpful for the J in VAPEJUICE (eww). And so it went.
Momentarily slowed by ADRIEN (?), the BETA.BAN cross, and BADE as clued. Last thing in was POPART as I was thinking of the country (Hi @Gary J.)
So OK for a Saturday, RMC, but not Really Much Challenge. Thanks for some speedy fun.
On to the Stumper.
A happy Saturday morning for me, with a Ryan McCarty puzzle and @Rex's treat of a write-up. Medium here, with some mistakes and misspellings slowing me down. My only long right-away write-in was THE HEAT IS ON; for its delightful gridmate CATCH IN A LIE I had to wait for almost all crosses, stuck as I was on the idea of wATCHINg...something. I enjoyed the MWAHAHA over AMOROSO stack.
Do-overs: ALeRt BELL, SEAT Back, ADRIaN, SaGO, SLUSHeES.
Perhaps OFL would have preferred it clued as "It comes in handy when the chips are down."
?????????????? you might want to look at the post again
Had the same thought on the BAG CLIP clue. I thought it was BEAN DIP at first (or some other kind of DIP) because the clue suggests it’s about eating chips, not storing them after eating.
Reggie Jackson is not Monday-level easy. He hasn’t played for what, 40 years? And a lot of crossword lovers aren’t big sports buffs in the first place. I come from a big baseball family but as a 30-something millennial I needed to have the C_SON filled in before I could call up the name that went with that nickname.
Naturally I confidently threw in ‘unite’ at 1A, congratulating myself that I would sail through the puzzle. So then of course that was wrong and I did not sail. I couldn’t remember the lizard’s name, didn’t know IGGY at all, spelled ADRIEN’s name with two A’s, and had a terrible time in the middle of things, so it seemed pretty Saturday-ish to me. I really wanted the obsolete living room item to be a turntable.
I’ll go you one better. You know an obsolete living room fixture with as many letters as plasma tvs? Spittoons.
I enjoyed this puzzle though it has to be the easiest Ryan McCarty Saturday puzzle yet. I had a few write-overs but it filled in pretty smoothly anyway.
I thought a STeno PAD was more obsolete than a STAMP PAD. I retired just last year and until then, I was using a STAMP PAD and STAMP to sign checks. I suppose checks are considered obsolete also. At least the checks were printed on a laser print and not written by hand.
I started this puzzle down in the SW. When I had LIP in the end of 31D, I thought the answer would be an iou sLIP in the pot because the chips were down.
Isn't the phrase for 22D "NO bounds"? Nothing worked with that, though, and that set off an ALARM BELL and I crossed out "bounds" in favor of LIMITS.
Are there a lot of KITE festivals?
Ryan, thanks for the Saturday romp!
I'm a bit with @tht re the Uniclues, but I do read them (happy anniversary!) and enjoy it when I get a "Sad Stag Needle...hmm...I don't get it...AHA!... Har-Hee-Heh-Haw-Hoo" moment.
Appreciate the daily effort and (sometimes warped) creativity, @Gary!
Congrats on the 4th! I believe that is the molybdenum anniversary. I read the Uniclues religiously (i.e. with a skeptical smirk). May you have another 4 years of intense and often comprehensible humor.
The way OFL talks about retired rappers reminds me of how Spy magazine (kids, ask your parents) used to refer to someone as a “former comedian” as a polite-but-not-really way of saying they’re not funny anymore.
I've heard twenty-somethings use it many times as a sort of ironic Britishism. Don't know if that counts. They're reclaiming it.
Femlales can be Alpha and BETA just as much as males can.
@ jb129 9:36 AM: I think it's 'have' as in 'the haves and the have-nots' [if you search, make sure to include 'phrase' at the end, otherwise all the hits will be for a TV show that I didn't know existed]
Ditto. EGGI gave me REGGIE, SON let me hazard JohnSON or JACKSON. Only a gimme if you know old USA sports trivia it seems.
I had ARSENAL before AC MILAN.
I'm in the club that thinks the 6A/8D was a bit of a Natick. As someone pointed out earlier, Mirriam-Webster says CAYMAN is an acceptable (although less-used) version of CAIMAN. Marie Curie is well known; the daughter (although a Nobelist) not so much. French has names like Yvette, Yves, and Yvonne for people, and there is the famous city of Ypres (I know it's in Belgium, but Ypres is the French name). So CAYMAN/YRENE seemed fine.
Easy but still a tad tougher than yesterday’s for me.
I did not know LAMAR (as clued).
Costly erasure - AI cODEd before MODEL
Knowing REGGIE was very helpful.
Smooth grid, a bit more sparkle than yesterday’s, liked it more than @Rex did.
CREEL is a basket to store the fish you just caught.
In theory maybe. In widespread practice, absolutely not.
I had steno pad instead of stamp pad which muddied things up a bit for me. 28 minutes for me with a couple of cheats.
A CREEL is a basket in which you keep the fish you caught
Surprised to see "anglos" and no comments, given let's say news.
A creel is a basket usually worn around the waist to put fish in. Used mostly when fly fishing
I miss Spy. They were the ones who invented "short-fingered vulgarian". One piece I remember enjoying was a guy who went out and field-tested the pickup lines used by male celebrities.
A 66-worder SatPuz that for some reason didn't put up much of a fight, at our house. No SEATBELT required. Nice, wide-open spaces puzgrid, btw.
staff weeject pick of 10 choices: SLR. M&A has always wondered what by-now-gimme SLR stood for. yep. yep.
some fave stuff: The Jaws of Themelessness, with a plus one. Of the debut entries, gotta go with SEXDREAMS. Also liked: MAANDPA [the main squeeze pair]. NEEDLE clue. MWAHAHA. ISURECAN. and definitely REGGIEJACKSON, for his save-the-nanoseconds gimme clue.
Schlock flick report: Attended the debutin Spielberg flick "Disclosure Day" yesterday. Liked. They had it in a really big theater, with a giant screen. Thought there'd be like a million folks in the seats, but there were more like 20-30. Coulda been a few more. It was kinda dark in there. Anyhoo ...
One fave scene was the railroad crossin segment. Also a nice car chase scene thru a safe house. Plus the way Emily Blunt can get inside folks' heads so smoothly. And cute aliens, too boot. Endin was a bit sudden, but, hey ... gotta leave room for sequels, like the "Close Encounters" flick did...
... but, I digress. Overall, thUmbsUp.
VLOGGER was an intriguin no-know. Sounds like the winner in a tree choppin festival [yo, @KITE]. Speakin of choppin ...
Did they ever get that certain dayam name off the Kennedy Center facade? Didn't watch much news, yesterday night. Must investigate that, next ...
@RP: yep, on AI. But then again, I imagine most puzgrids are filled nowadays with the aid of some sorta AI crossword program. [Not runtpuzs, tho. That's all M&AI.]
Thanx for the smoooth workout, Mr. McCarty dude. And OXO, SEXDREAMS.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Agree with OFL that REGGIE JACKSON is super easy if you’re of a certain age and I guess nationality. A better clue would have been something like “NYY straw that stirred the drink” or something to that effect.
Definitely easier than harder Saturday puzzles, and harder than easier Saturday puzzles, but pretty much the same level of difficulty as all the rest.
@anonymous 7:11 AM: The Cambridge English Dictionary says:
short form of isn't it. Used at the end of a statement for emphasis:
"It's wrong, innit?"
"They're such a wicked band, innit."
Adam Brody is NOT tall. 🤣
No.
Congrats on your anniversary @Gary!!! I read every uniclue!
HAVE as a noun only makes sense to me when it's part of the full phrase, but the cluing angle we got today is not exactly uncommon for a Saturday, and it always annoys me. I doubted THE HEAT IS ON because I couldn't see anything starting with HA- for that clue.
I also didn't like bag clip, and when I read the clue I immediately wanted salsa. I saw it wasn't the right number of letters, but couldn't get salsa out of my head.
Same for the clue on show to be fabricating? I really wanted that to be Project Runway, a show where contestants fabricate clothes out of fabric. I saw that wouldn't fit either, but Project Runway is such a better answer for that clue than catch in a lie.
The problem with the pun ? clues is that it's no fun when the answer I come up with is better than the one in the puzzle.
This was interesting. My initial Across journey yielded almost nothing. Sadly, I think all I had was SAD. Then the downs trek offered up the very long gimme of REGGIEJACKSON, that along with ADRIEN started to get things going a bit and the NE fell. Had to guess some letters to get CAIMAN and ACMILAN but it all came together. I liked how the EGO from SEGO fell right under SEXDREAMS adding a subtle aside to the Freudian vibe.
I also have fun when some long answers with unexpected letter patterns finally hit me. That happened twice today with MAANDPA and STAMPPAD - well for me anyway, the double A's and double Ps are unexpected here... those were two nice moments.
Agree that VAPEJUICE is kinda cringy but I got over that pretty quickly.
Some cluing that is worthy of note: I happened to like the clues for BAGCLIP and SEATBELT, both gave me a little chuckle.
I'll also take EEYORE in any puzzle, a character I find way more interesting than Roo, Kanga or Pooh.
Much of the rest put up a mildly Saturday level fight for me which I appreciated. Very clean fill and a nice looking grid.
Thanks for this Ryan, I enjoyed the workout!
A perfectly average Saturday. I started in the SW and backfilled the NW to finish. Slow start but once things got moving it became easier. I had the STENI/STAMP write over.
Anon 10:46 identifying here. First technical glitch in a while.
Haves and Have-nots.
@Anonymous 5:26 AM
I think the most famous cinematic creel scene is in Brokeback Mountain when his wife realizes the price tag is still on the fishing gear five years later.
@Anonymous 7:11 AM
I follow @LaurenJumps on YouTube and she's probably in her 30s and her signature tag line at the end of a short choreography video is always, "That's a wrap, innit?" I think it's fun.
Glad you’re around to judge your work. Well done.
Well it seemed pretty average for me at 25 minutes, but I finished with a big mess of an error in the upper left. I had MOOHAHAA at 2 down (seemed fine), so for 12 across "Fabric with blah blah", looking at TOIL- of course I put in TOILE. And for the totally Unknown Name at 15 across, LOMA- could have ended in almost any letter. (Actually I can't remember what letter I put there, but it was wrong.) I had to click Reveal Incorrect Letters yet again!
A few annoying Unknown Names: LAMAR IRENE MEARA IGGY. Fortunately several Knowns: OXO ACMILAN REGGIE ADRIEN EEYORE LOSALAMOS UMA, and then good ol' Lichtenstein in the POPART clue.
I got a kick out of 38 down CALLER. It takes me back to grade 5 when I was in a touring square dance troupe. I didn't volunteer... in fact no one volunteered, so the teacher picked 4 boys and 4 girls at random. "You, you, you..." I hate dancing, but it actually wasn't bad. Our CALLER was a vinyl record, and he was actually quite melodic.
Hahaha. How did I miss that?
INNIT (or "init") is also common in Native American vernacular. It shows up frequently in dialogue in Sherman Alexie's novels, for example.
@Sabes and @Jacke apparently know even less about baseball than you. Reggie played in an era when there were fewer teams and baseball was still nominally "America's pastime". At the height of his career it was hard not to know who Mr. October was. But those days, I'm afraid, are long gone, and folks born since then are much less likely to recognize his name.
I'm a huge uniclue fan! Happy anniversary to you, and keep 'em coming!
Not easy but good Saturday fun. I solved NW to SE first then NW. BAGCLIP crossing CREEL got me and so did ADRIEN. But I did get AIMODEl right away, and enjoyed CATCHINALIE.
BADE is tricky, INNIT?
I've only seen Cayman as a Porsche model and caiman as the alligatorish animal
Fontaines DC a newer band from Ireland (Brirtish-ish) uses innit in a lyric to the song Starburtser.
I wanna head to a mass and get cast in it
That *#$& funnier than any A-class, innit?
Calico (meaning kick) is derived from Calcio storico fiorentino which was game originating in the 15th century. So that game died down and modern football moved in on the late 1800’s and was named after the older sport
I approached this gingerly. Ryan McCarty’s puzzles have defeated me in the past. But it was just fine. I had the same problems as a lot of you: CAyMAN before CAIMAN, TWILL before tOILe and back to TWILL over LAMAR. I can never remember his name. Another name I can never remember is IGGY Azalea.
Nobody’s mentioned it so let me admit to putting in Mom ’n’ pop at 9D. Quick fix. No long-lasting injuries.
Mr. October was a giant gimme. I had bLOGGER before VLOGGER. Is that term still used? I don’t think I’ve heard it in a long time but I don’t really have much time for TikTok. No problem with VAPE JUICE. I’ve spent some time with vapers and it’s a thing, though they’re more likely to just call it JUICE.
The long entries weren’t exactly exciting but they were certainly serviceable.
Interesting to see how many of you knew what a CREEL is. I was gifted one once, in the late 80s or maybe the early 90s, from the estate of a friend’s late father. It wasn’t one of those woven wicker things. It was made of canvas sometime just after the Second World War. I tried it out for a while but, as I am a “catch and release” guy who has caught thousands of trout and, in my 50+ years of angling, has only killed and eaten maybe 50, I didn’t find it all that useful. Instead, I just tuck a light mesh bag in my pocket. Works just fine. I haven’t seen anybody carrying a CREEL on stream for many years.
@JJK, Jackson retired years before I was born and no one in my house growing up watched baseball. I know Mr. Jackson's name in association with the sport, but "Mr. October" means nothing to me, and I'm not sure how I would have encountered it other than through crosswords.
okanaganer. I wonder if that wasn't a BC school system mandate: teach the kids to dance so they will learn to socialize. We did it in PE class, maybe grade 5 or 6, and it was terrifying. I would have rather been playing murder ball. Dancing? With girls? And why were they so much better than us? We didn't tour but we did have to perform for the rest of the students in our school. Terrifying. But I did grow to like dancing (and performing for an audience; i went on to a performing arts school), so maybe their plan worked. Or maybe they just screwed my whole life up. I coulda been an accountant!
@M&A
Glad you and the Mrs had a fun YesterVersary. Tried to wish you a Happy 50th and a Congratulations YesterBlog, but apparently was too late, as it didn't post. So imma doin' it today!
Roo
Whenever a puzzle feels easier or more engaging than average, it's almost always accompanied by a Rex write-up describing the proper nouns or pop culture clues as "out of his wheelhouse" or "alienating" (e.g., as someone born a decade *after* REGGIEJACKSON retired, IGGY was much more of a gimme).
Doubly loved that the "fine fodder for a freudian analyst" clued SEXDREAMS that crossed MAANDPA - it's giving oedipus/electra in a way that made me chuckle.
I thought the downed chips and bag clip were saying— if the chips are downed aka if they fall, then it’s handy that you clipped it, to keep it from spilling
STAMPPAD pun downright hilarious!
It was so easy that I wrote "Friday" instead of "Saturday". 😄
Anonymous 4:15 AM
I do agree with Rex on Mr October. Anonymous 3::33pm admin the answer is crosswordese meaning it frequently appears in crosswords. Monday has crosswordese Nothing out of the ordinary on Monday That’s without mentioning how well known the answer is to most solvers , even early week.
ChrisS
I just saw an article in the Times. about an invasive species of caimans from South and Central America in South Florida So a gimme for me. Cayman sounds like a variant that is not as popular as it used be.but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is still used. The fact that one individual, me, hasn’t seen it, doesn’t mean much.
jb128
mwahaha is the official Times spelling of an evil cackle I saw it first in the Times and it was tough for me.Never seen it written elsewhere but I think the term started online. But, it is a thing and will show up again. Don’t like it.
David Grenier
Well I am a Boomer and never watched Miami Vice. I really didn’t know that was the theme song The son I knew. Learn something new every day.
This is for y'all but mostly Rex, there was a daily cartoon "Get Fuzzy", the main character, Bucky, was a real "sour puss" siamese. There was a hapless dog, Satchel, a put-upon human and a cast of neighborhood cats, one named Mac Manc McManx. Spoke convoluted Brit, ended everything with "innit". We live in a remote area and every now and then it'll "cat" i.e. a cat "shows up". We lured A poorly cared for diameter
Oof. This puzzle was a big swing and a miss. The clue for sera was terrible, (as if anyone has ever used the plural of “serum”)! And the clue for DATES UP should have been “courts out of one’s league” not “is courting”! Does Ryan McCarty even know how to conjugate verbs? Mwahaha was good though…
If you happen to know nothing about Reggie Jackson.and the clue is on a Monday, the crosses would be easy and the name itself is easy to get After a while it starts to spell itself. Not a gimme for most younger people I gather but fine for a Monday all the same
Liked the puzzle more than Rex. Subject matter affects Rex much more than me so AIMODEL and HAVE etc turned him against the puzzle A lot of his criticism didn’t make sense to me. I thought we were talking about a puzzle? Bag clipis very boring, yes but I thought it was good attempt to liven things up. Anyway, The clue doesn’t say ALL the chips were eaten. So the answer is fine.
I actually found the NW hard so it ended up medium for me.
I had DREAMS and I was praying “please don’t let the answer be wet dreams” 🤮
@Les: Yes we also had a regular dance class which was terrifying. Our square dance troupe was an extra thing. All these years later, I remember one dance where the caller sang this: "Allemande left yer corner, allemande right yer partner. Go back and swing that sweet corner girl. 'N when yer partner comes around, do that ol' left allemande. Because, just because!"
I understand that older people don't like vapes due to a disdain for youth culture which older generations always have, but it has saved millions of lives by being a proper alternative to smoking.
I was stuck on MUAHAHA/TUILE forever. Sigh.
(This is the end of the above FWIW, I hit publish accidently). A poorly cared for siamese appeared, we coaxed it in, "vetted" him, named him Bucky, and searched to learn where he might have come from. We also found a siamese rescue group and reached out because we had a number of strays already. A woman named Huron and her bff drove TWO HOURS to visit Bucky, took pix, copied our vet docs and left. Several days later, Huron called, they'd found a home and would come back to fetch him. Instead, we offered to drive TWO HOURS, i.e. FOUR HOURS, to deliver Bucky. Short story long, he lived another 4 years, another several hours from Huron's, we got periodic updates, amazing what peeps will do for critters,heart warming, eh Rex?
Would have been pretty tough by modern Friday standards, but still a little easy for a Saturday.
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