.png)
Fabulous collection / SAT 8-15-26 / Dressing group / Leftmost star of the Summer Triangle / One from "Japan's kitchen" / Challenged on X, say / Cut out the middleman, for delivery / Patient privacy law, in brief / Gamgee player in "Lord of the Rings" / French Baroque artist Nicolas / Classic 1926 novel often published with a bull and a matador on its cover / French Baroque artist Nicolas / Charybdis's man-eating opposite, in myth
Saturday, August 15, 2026
Constructor: Blake Slonecker
Relative difficulty: Medium (Easyish except for the NW corner)
Word of the Day: DROP-SHIP (1D: Cut out the middleman, for delivery) —
Drop shipping is a form of retail business in which the seller accepts customer orders without keeping stock on hand. Instead, the seller transfers the orders and their shipment details either to the manufacturer, a wholesaler, another retailer, or a fulfillment house, which then ships the goods directly to the customer.The seller is responsible for marketing and selling the product, but has limited control over product quality, storage, inventory management, or shipping. It avoids the costs of maintaining warehouses or even a storefront, purchasing and storing inventory, and employing necessary staff for such functions.
Drop shipping has become a popular business model as it requires minimal initial investment and overhead costs. A drop shipping operation can be managed from any location with an internet connection. However, drop shipping also has its drawbacks, including lower profit margins, less control over the quality of the products sold and an increased risk of shipping delays or supply chain issues.
• • •
 |
| [54A: Classical figure in an 1898 Gustav Klimt oil] |
There were other things happening in this puzzle besides the NW corner, but I kinda forget them. Oh, right, those long answers through the middle were pretty interesting. TEXAS TWO-STEP, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU," good stuff. Since I got the NE corner early (following the NW corner debacle), those long Downs fell very easily, one two three. Might've gotten THE SUN ALSO RISES with no help at all, but as it was I had THE SU- in place (7D: Classic 1926 novel often published with a bull and matador on its cover). VINAIGRETTES is a lot easier to see when you've already got the VIN- part locked down (8D: Dressing group). The whole puzzle, outside the NW, was smooth and familiar. Not exciting, but very much up my alley. I've taught Hemingway, and Mickey SPILLANE, and Homer (finally going to see The Odyssey today—I'm assuming SCYLLA will be in it somewhere) (14D: Charybdis's man-eating opposite, in myth). I just saw Christina RICCI in 200 Cigarettes, a 1999 movie about New Year's Eve of 1981 starring so many still-famous people it will make your head spin. Paul Rudd and Courtney Love!? Together!? I was like "why didn't this happen more often?" They're fun together. Also appearing: Martha Plimpton, Dave Chappelle, Ben and Casey Affleck, Janeane Garofalo, Gaby Hoffmann, Kate Hudson, and Elvis Costello, who drops in for a cameo out of nowhere, as if he just materialized out of his music (there's a lot of it). The movie got bad reviews but I really enjoyed it. RICCI and Hoffmann play friends with amazing, exaggerated, borderline comical Long Island accents. I'm telling you, it's a good time. A hangout movie. A nostalgia movie. I saw it on Criterion Channel. Maybe it's still there?
Bullets:
- 41D: French soccer superstar Kylian (MBAPPÉ) — perfect timing for this debut, as MBAPPÉ just won the Golden Boot (most goals scored) at the 2026 World Cup. That's back-to-back Golden Boots (he also won in Qatar in 2022, when France won it all) [correction: France won in 2018; Argentina won in 2022]. There is arguably a lot of proper noun trivia in this grid, including two World Cup answers (this and ENG) (29A: World Cup team nicknamed "The Three Lions": Abbr.), but none of it seemed "obscure." Maybe POUSSIN qualifies??? (26D: French Baroque artist Nicolas). But MBAPPÉ does not qualify. He's one of the most famous football players in the world and arguably one of the greatest of all time. If you call MBAPPÉ "obscure," that's a red card, goodbye.
- 45A: Oil wells? (PORES) — jeez, how oily are your PORES?
[Your PORES]
- 22A: 7/ (JUL) — that’s the month of July, frequently written “7” slash whatever day it is (e.g. 7/4 = Independence Day)
- 34A: Intermezzo and trou normand dishes, essentially (PALATE CLEANSERS) — nice answer. I don't know what "trou normand" means. I know that "trou" means "hole." Let's see what the [squints] Normandy Tourism website has to say:
Originating from the verdant countryside of Normandy, le Trou Normand (literally, “a Norman hole”) is a delightful custom that embodies the rich cultural heritage and gastronomic pleasures that France is renowned for! This french culinary tradition involves serving a small glass of Calvados, local apple brandy, or Calvados-soaked apple sorbet between courses. More than a refreshing and invigorating pause in the meal, the “trou normand” is an art of living.
Well, I do like Calvados. I had a Diamondback cocktail just last night.
- 39D: Prince of Monaco beginning in 2005 (ALBERT) — I should not be required to know princes in the 21st century, ffs. OK, William and Harry, but that's it. Monaco? Be serious. So many good ALBERTs out there and this is what you give me? Bah.
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
✏️Upcoming Crossword Tournaments✏️:
=============================
📘 My other blog 📘:
- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Save And Share :
70 comments:
Easy. Enjoyable Friday-level themeless. All the long answers went in with just a few crosses.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
Misspelled the 9D Gamgee player as ASToN, not ASTIN.
Misremembered the 27A privacy law as HIPpA instead of HIPAA. I knew there was a double letter in there, just didn't know which one.
WOEs:
Like OFL, I've heard of Aesop, of course, but not the word AESOPICA (2D).
26D artist Nicolas POUSSIN.
No idea what 7/JUL is ... got a DNF by providing the more English sounding 'ORAGEL'. Pretty much the definition of a Natick.
Low word count - uber balanced grid that is handsome to look at - I liked this one. The center intersecting spanners are top notch - also quite easy as Rex mentioned so that helped fill a lot of real estate. The 12s adjacent to the spanners are wonderful too - TREE CANOPIES, TEXAS TWO STEP etc.
Small Town Saturday Night
The big guy covers AESOPICA - needed all the crosses for that one. Haven’t thought about Mickey SPILLANE since he did those Miller Lite commercials. REPARTEE, ENTREATY, MANATEE - there’s some good stuff here. Not a lot of screen time - but yes you will see SCYLLA.
Dale Watson
Enjoyable Saturday morning solve. David William's Stumper today is a different beast altogether - highly segmented with some tough cluing.
I noticed some deniers late yesterday - but growing up in a small upstate town it was always COUNTRY HAM during the holidays.
7 is obviously July. Not a Natick.
Same one letter DNF for me. The J looks really ugly there: I've heard the name, but never seen it in print. Product names, ugh!
7/ for the month of JULy is pretty obvious in retrospect.
I’m sure I won’t be the first or last to point this out, but Argentina won the 2022 World Cup. France won in 2018.
Not so obvious. I thought it meant something math related.
Thanks, Rex, for a good laugh after the puzzle. 15:19 for me this morning, so that's easy on Saturday. Each corner had it's gimmes. I'm very familiar with the term DROPSHIP, so once I had a couple crosses, that D helped me see DAWNED. I agree that AESOPICA was an utter WOE, but was able to fill it in. ASTIN and SCYLLA in the NE, MBAPPE in the SW, SPILLANE and RECLINES in the SE.... footholds everywhere. 66 words, 12 threes, a pretty clean grid, I thought. Loved the long answers... I especially enjoyed "PALATECLEANSERS." I know I'm at a restaurant that is above my normal (both taste and $$$) when there's a palate cleanser course! That sorbet soaked in brandy sounds nice. Blake, this puzzle was a perfect Saturday and a lot of fun!!! Thanks. : )
Rex is right-on today. Most of the puzzle was medium but extremely doable for me. I put THESUNALSORISES in with no crosses, and loved the other long answers. A nice Saturday. But the NW was awful, had to cheat on DAWNED, OSAKAN, and of course AESOPICA. Had no idea how to even parse this word until I read the blog, and no idea it had anything to do with AESOP.
Hey All !
Puz defeated me. Had to come here to look up answers. The AESOPICA/HIPAA cross in NW, had HeLLo for HOLLA in NE, that crossing two unknowns to me SCYLLA and POUSSIN (with OEAL nowhere on my radar.)
SW had RentER for ROOMER, MBePPE, didn't know ALBERT (although now that's a head slap). SE and middle I got correct!
A return to a tough SatPuz. Good fill, neat grid design. Center section has two 12's, one 15 crossing in both Acrosses and Downs, plus nice open corners. Only 24 Blockers.
Uniclue:
Rite of retuning home from work?
RITUAL RECLINES
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
No F's -NOT! CAPISCE?
RooMonster
DarrinV
Very gettable puzzle, but time-consuming for me. I also had HIPPA for a long time, and OPENED before DAWNED, which really slowed me down. Not a soccer fan, so MBAPPE was my finisher.
First entry was THE SUN ALSO RISES, I can so visualuze that cover! Guess that proves I'm old. @Rex covered AESOPICA. Last entry was the S in OSAKAN (because it had to be, despite wtf is AESOPICA?) and surprise! Solved. Liked ENTREATY and some of the other long ones.
Although it looked challenging it turned out pretty easy, 12 min.
On to the farmers' market. Happy Saturday.
I was looking for some equivalent of 7/11 or 7/24.
For the third-place match of the FIFA World Cup this year, we were in rural Virginia and stopped in at a bar to watch. Amazing game, by the way. When it was over, we were leaving just as their TEXAS TWO-STEP evening was getting underway. It was fascinating to watch, in way. All these people were floating around in perfect unison; everybody knew where to be and what to do at every instant. For someone who still has not figured out the Electric Slide, despite it being played at every wedding during that time when all my friends were pairing, it was most impressive.
A very easy Friday followed by a super-easy Saturday. I actually had a little trouble getting started, but once I hit the gimme downs of TREE CANOPIES and THE SUN ALSO RISES, it became Tuesday-like.
It was with a bit of both delight and horror that came over me when I realized that the aliens that I referenced yesterday from “the site formerly known as Twitter” have invaded CrossWorld and have ATTED solvers in the New York Times puzzle. Wow.
I enjoyed the lack of trivia in the grid today - not a SCYLLA or an ASTIN to be found - no product placements like ORAJEL or a made up words like AESOPICA anywhere.
It’s amazing that the constructor was able to pull off a grid of this sophistication without having to resort to the likes of things like POUSSIN, ATHENA, or some prince from say, Monaco. And as the cherry on top of it all, when the constructor did have to include a foreign figure from the world of sports, he was able to ensure that he chose a name like MBAPPE which is easily gettable via the crosses if you have never heard of him.
I did have fun with the long downs and the grid spanners in the center were nice as well. But boy, that AESOPICA and ATTED were not good omens.
My favorite word in the grid was MBAPPE, so fun to say, plus because he is so well loved, it comes with heart-warming vibes.
My favorite moment was filling in the NW at the end when I felt I had no chance at it in the beginning.
I liked THE SUN ALSO RISES actually setting, falling down the center of the grid. I loved the grid design, which enabled an abundant 18 longs (answers of eight letters or more).
Most impressive was the triple stack running across the middle – I CAN’T HEAR YOU, PALATE CLEANSERS, and TEXAS TWO-STEP – bright and colorful phrases giving the grid pop, as all are NYY answer debuts.
I had serious rub and serious flow, both of which happified my brain, and I left your skillfully-made creation, Blake, exceedingly satisfied. This was a Proper Saturday. Thank you!
I thought the puzzle was really tough and well-done. The NE was too tough for me—had to cheat on AESOPICA because I could not get POT or HIPAA and ran through coiNED and opeNED before getting DAWNED. Filled in THESUN…right after I entered CAPISCE as one of my first entries…not too bad for only one cross. Cool to remember Mickey SPILLANE, even though my first effort was SPILaine. Brought back the faint smell of old paperbacks.
Tough for me, for two reasons: early commitment to rbiS as the diamond stats, and blanking on the title of the Hemingway novel. All I could think of was Death in the Afternoon, which might have such a cover but it not a novel. I got answers here and there, but was not sure of any of them until I finally figured out PALATE CLEANSERS, which opened things up more.
I love Lord of the Rings, but have never seen any of the movies, let alone known who the actors were, so ASTIN needed crosses -- and TV ACTORS for "show faces" was quite a stretch -- I was looking for something about masks or makeup.
TREE CANOPIES was easy to get, but does anyone ever say that? It's just "the canopy," usually.
It was nice to see POUSSIN hovering over the Klimt; I've never seen or heard of that particular paining, but I had the first A so it had to be ATHENA. What's going on with that reflected face on her armor? Or is she wearing a shrunken head? (I'm not up on my Athena lore, you can tell).
If you're a prince of Monaco and you want me to remember your name, you have to marry an American movie star.
When a puzzle has more unknowns than knowns, it's a DNF for sure.
Hippa Atted - no excuse 🤦🏻♀️
Like yesterday’s, another fantastic puzzle. If I didn’t know a fill, like 8 and 41 Down, I was able to back into it. Maybe my old age isn’t creeping up to me after all.🎈🎈🎊🎊
Tough to get going--NW corner gave me NIK and nothing else. Was happy to see that OFL shared my ignorance of both DROPSHIP and AESOPICA, and I am grateful for his explanation of ATTED, which had to be right but made no sense as I never connected it with !@. I blame this on never having used X for anything.
Hi everyone who had ORAGEL. I assumed the JEL in ORAJEL is short for JELLO, as it's certainly not from gelatin. Bonjour M. POUSSIN and Prince ALBERT, not in a can, I suppose, and ATHENA as clued. Nice to see MBAPPE again and I knew OFL would be happy to see Mr. SPILLANE. TREECANOPIES had me thinking about The Overstory again. Amazing book.
I liked your Saturday very much, BS. Just enough esoterica and sideways cluing to keep things interesting, which the Best Saturdays do. Thanks for all the fun.
WHATAPAL! We never had to worry about feeding him if we had some Ajax in the cupboard because my PALATECLEANSERS.
Story of my youth. Partee and REPARTEE until you can't partee no more.
Caddy: Do you want something out of your bag?
Golfer: MANATEE would be handy.
MBAPPE dribbles left! He threads a pass to the center and POUSSIN boots! Gooooooooooooal! What a fairy tale ending!
Nice puzzle. No much success until various little dams started breaking, then whoosh! Thanks, Blake Slonecker.
JUL for 7/ seemed obvious, but we thought it was OraGel; heard of, but never used the product.
Really disliked the answer AESOPICA, but loved the clue: FABULOUS=full of fables
JUL and its three crosses got me started down the right side, with PALATE CLEANSERS giving me a road over to the west. All went well until I tried to climb into the NW - SCYLLA and Charybdis had nothing on that treacherous territory! I guess my word of the day is DAWNED, for the moments when NIK, and OSAKAN came to me and allowed me to finish. I loved the workout!
Do-over: me, too, for HIPPA. Help from art history.101: POUSSIN. Help from wasted time royal watching: ALBERT. Loved: VINAIGRETTES x PALATE CLEANSERS.
@jberg, a few similar thoughts as you. ASTIN clued as a LOTR character? Ugh. TV ACTORS was a little forced; we at first thought "Show faces" dealt with playing cards.
What got us off to a flying start was the clue for 34A. Knowing intermezzo (though not the other word), counting out the letters in PALATE CLEANSERS, ("oh, two clue words cuz it's a plural"), filled it in and never looked back. By the time we transitioned to Downs, THE SUN ALSO RISES had a few crosses in place and was obvious.
AESOPICA and ATTED...both uber-cringy, for different reasons, as noted.
Overall, three stars was appropriate. It's definitely Saturday-level clues and answers, though mostly early week easy. But no comparison with yesterday's absolute gem.
@anon8:41, we entered HIPpA at first, but having dealt with the privacy law during my career, I think I would have remembered if it was just one letter off from HIPpo (and likely called it "Hippo" in practice to be a goof. So I looked up the correct spelling...HIPAA, "yup, that's it!". Retired for a few years.
Sure, once I cheated and looked up ALBERT and LOBE occurred to me, then the MB of 41D started ringing bells for me but I managed to watch only about 15 minutes of any of the World Cup and so MBAPPE is NOT a household name for me, sorry.
For me, the double unknowns in the SW plus the absolutely ridiculous clue on BOA and the vague ones on LOBE and HAS, well, that quadrant ruined the puzzle for me. The rest of the grid filled in relatively easily. I've never read it but THE SUN ALSO RISES went in off the A, O and R. I CAN'T HEAR YOU off the N, H and Y (and helped a lot with AESOPICA).
Okay, I did like a little bit of the SW, REPARTEE and EMPHASIS and their clues were nice.
Thanks, Blake Slonecker.
TEXASTWOSTEP: Detain, deport.
Not only was the French Baroque artist Nicolas POUSSIN an accomplished painter, he also designed elegant footwear. Frenchmen of his day enjoyed strolling the avenues in his POUSSIN boots. (Hi, egs!)
Some people CARP just for the halibut.
DROPSHIP: I know what it means to "drop anchor." Seems a little extreme to DROP the entire SHIP, no?
Have you seen the spare key to the apartment? Rumor has it the ROOMER has it.
Brutus: Julie, I'm making up a list of assassins, oops, I mean friends - forget I said that. But it's getting too long. What is that thing you add at the end that means "and others?"
Caesar: "ET AL, Brutè?"
In a Cheers episode, Diane brings a valuable first edition of THE SUN ALSO RISES to the bar and shows it off to the others. Sam glances at the title and scoffs, "Well, that's profound." He ends up convincing her to let him take it home to read. He decides to relax in a hot bath with the book. Of course, he drops it into the water, and returns it the next day all bloated and curled. (Hilarity ensues.)
TREECANOPIES: Not to be confused with "free canapès." That what we sharpen our elbows for at the buffets.
I received a gift of some cookies long ago, in the shape of little people. They were delicious, and I ate them by biting off the little heads first. I was reminded of that when watching The Odyssey last week. That's exactly the same approach SCYLLA took with O's men!
I rather enjoyed this one. HIPAA is one of those things where people constantly annoy me by referring to it as HIPpA, so I recalled that instantly. Got AESOPICA on crosses and because I'm terminally online, ATTED (even though the term is awkward) fell pretty easily, as did DROPSHIP. I did get tripped up on ORAJEL, but because gUL wasn't making sense, I finally came here for a hint.
Now I want to see "200 Cigarettes."
Guess I didn’t listen to enough World Cup commentary…no idea how to pronounce MBAPPE…
I would love to know what was “easy” about this puzzle (except a few insta-fill clues like ETAL.). I looked all around the top half and there wasn’t a single clue I could answer confidently (I missed SCYLLA which I knew, but the rest was mystifying without any crosses). I started with YAW but it didn’t help. This feeling of getting stumped on a Saturday is disappointingly rare for me in the post-Fagliano era but it used to be the norm. And I started solving Saturdays in 2023, so not very long ago at all.
On a Saturday, I’m fine with an “outer space” answer like AESOPICA if it’s crossed fairly and you can see the connection to the clue post-solve. WHAT A PAL (?), -NIK and ATTED were a lot more annoying.
“If Mike Lupica were suffering from alopecia while reading Milton's Areopagitica, I'd still never in a million years have dreamed that AESOPICA was a word.”
OFL in fine form! Strong.
Nice writeup! ;-)
I like a good themeless & this was it.
Except for not knowing how to spell CAPISCE, let alone even know AESOPICA, MBAPPE, ENG, and ASTIN
I liked it.
Thank you, Blake :)
Yes, Grace's three children were in the papers quite a lot back when they were young—Albert, Caroline, and Stephanie. Come to think of it, though, I guess it was the girls who had the compliated romantic entanglements; Albert seemed fairly boring!
I'm very impressed with the constructor for summoning a Mandela-effect catalyst, up until this morning it's always been spelled oragel. I checked Amazon to confirm it has indeed been renamed orajel.
Hard disagree. Thought this puzzle was great, if a little easier than a normal Saturday. AESOPICA was completely unknown to me, as it appears it was to everyone else, but the crosses made it gettable which means I didn't get stuck and learned something new. My favorite combination.
Wondering if anyone else got SCYLLA because they know the lyrics to "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police. Anyone?
I think you should start a countdown of days between Mario Kart references. I'm pretty tuned in to pop culture and I'm always shocked to find that those clues are so prevalent in NYT puzzles. Luckily not today.
21:47
The crosswordese was worth it. Great long answers and probably debuts. Aesopica is an outlier but I don’t mind an esoteric word once in a while. 4 stars
I guess it’s my turn to think a puzzle was hard when everyone else seemed to find it easy. I really loved this puzzle, to be clear. I like a challenge and haven’t felt truly challenged by the NYTXW in a long time. I almost had a DNF with the NE corner and felt so satisfied when I filled out that final OSAKAN/DENEB cross and got the happy music. I was expecting a “horsefeathers” because there were several squares throughout the puzzle I wasn’t sure about. I kept deleting and then rewriting RITUAL (probably did this four times) because I couldn’t make since of “-UL.” I knew the toothache answer had something to do with ORAL but I had to take a break from the puzzle and come back before the ORAJEL brand name finally popped into my brain. Even then I wasn’t sure on the spelling and neither GUL nor JUL meant anything to me. I left it to return to later and finally realized that JUL was supposed to mean July. Wow. I could not make heads or tails of the 7/ clue. I’ve seen many commenters say this was obvious to them but I thought the / was a division sign or some other unknown-to-me notation. And POUSSIN required every cross for me.
Moving on…I agree the bottom half of the puzzle was a smooth ride, though I had RentER before ROOMER for awhile. Absolutely loved all the long downs in this one. Really fun and impressive puzzle! Hope to solve more like this.
From doing this puzzle I learned about a blue supergiant star, a man-eating monster, and exotic palate cleansers . . . and I got to ponder a great novel and beautiful art. Nothing to CARP about at all with this puzzle; it was fun and sharp. Thanks, Blake Slonecker!
Ya captas la idea.
This is the Snoozerama foretold in the Aesopica as read by Mbappé on the fourth planet of Deneb called Poussin.
Add in 39% gunk and ya got yerself a dud.
The long answers all dropped so quickly the puzzle zipped by except for the clanking sounds coming from the worst word list ever.
We're supposed to know a star in the mind-numbingly boring and niche activity of soccer, but we can weep a river over an "obscure" Harry Potter reference. Our math doesn't add up. And in case anybody forgot, soccer sucks.
I too thought it was Ora-gel and figured a GUL was some scientific thing.
Spent yesterday with family at the celebration of life here for my mother-in-law after a decade-long battle with Alzheimers. A horrible disease. She's why we moved to New Mexico and now we don't know what we'll do next. Was hoping this puzzle would define a pathway forward for me. Maybe I'm meant to read some Aesop? Or watch the stars tonight? Or buy a soccer ball?
❤️ HOLLA. HEX.
Gunkometer--
People: 8
Places: 2
Products: 8
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26 of 66 (39%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
🔥 Ooh-la-la! 🔥 Go in the wrong way?
Uniclues:
1 Why the United States is the laughing stock for the entire rest of the Earth.
2 What I could've sworn the sign said before I got the restraining order.
3 My holy ceremony performed with my La-Z-Boy.
1 HISTORIC REHIRE
2 TRESPASS PLEASE
3 RITUAL RECLINES
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Kindergartener's complaint after eschewing eating paste. I'M FULL ON TAPE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm not horribly bothered by it, but I'm surprised no 'duplicate police' have called out the two "ET"s (et cetera, 35D; et al., 50D).
While I have "et al." on the brain, it is my least favorite abbreviation; it literally saves one letter of typing. I can understand abbreviations when they save multiple letters (e.g., "e.g." instead of "exempli gratia" saves 10 keystrokes [including the space], that's a good savings!), but why bother saving a single keystroke?
When I dropped in the terminal A in HIPAA and the "Congratulations!" flashed upon my screen, I was shocked and delighted. Lots of faith solving in this one! Loved it.
Tale of Two Puzzles - took 3-4 minutes to get out of the NW (including ATTED), then 3-4 minutes to finish the rest of the puzzle. Played like a Friday with whooshing everywhere. Will have to look up AESOPICA to learn its origin, and hoping someone will explain ATTED so I don't have to figure it out.
Looked forward to a classic Mickey Spillane cover and was not disappointed. But what is up with that dame? I’m going to shoot you but first let me show you the goods?!
@SouthsideJohnny 7:43 AM
I believe you may have mixed up your Vitamin C with a dose sarcasm this morning.
Easy-medium except for the NW (hi @Rex et. al.) DROP SHIP and OSAKAN, SPAM, were WOEs, AESOPICA was nonsense until I stared at it for a bit (I’m still not completely convinced it isn’t nonsense), me too for HIPAA with 2 Ps instead of 2 As…tough corner for me too.
I also did not know POUSSIN and SCYLLA.
No crosses gimme - THE SUN ALSO…
Mostly liked it except…
Sorry to hear about your MIL. OTOH, I liked all of today's uniclues. Perhaps the puzzle is telling you to move in the direction where THESUNALSORISES. Unfortunately for you, that would be TEXAS (TWOSTEPS from New Mexico). Frankly, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico seems more like what is calling you. Let me know if I can help with the move. I own a pickup.
Glad someone else referred to the Prince Albert in a can gag.
Sorry to hear of your loss. Treatment is developing way too slowly.
Wherever your path leads I'm sure it will be annoying and we'll hear about it. Hope so.
Prince Albert is the current ruler of Monaco. He's been a prince since 1958. He's been in the news but not lately.
ERAS, RBIS, HITS, RUNS, UMPS, OUTS
It is interesting that this one seems all over the place on solver's opinions on difficulty. I jetted through it only a minute off my fastest Saturday ever (in ten years of solving), yet it never felt easy ... things just kept dropping in for me though, more like a whooshy Friday.
Apparently I'm part of whatever percentage of the population there is that doesn't know that ORAJEL is spelled with a J. I was able to smoke out MBAPPE and AESOPICA only to completely whiff on that ""7/" clue. Sure looks like it could have something to do with a date but what's missing is to the right of that virgule. The 7 is already there and the most basic "rule" of crossword cluing is that you don't see the answer in the clue. Most disappointing of all is when I go to xwordinfo to see what's wrong a d I find out this new clue for JUL is the editors ' latest favorite. He used it twice on recent Sundays and they were probably ones that I didn't do.. I'm much too literal for this cluing game. "Tricks" are HAS? What planet does that come from? I had to hold my nose to type that in.
I really have to wonder where AESOPICA comes from even the Scrabble dictionary doesn't include it and they cast a very wide net.
As always it galls me to put HOLLA in a grid when it's one of the words the SB omits.
I do not read your blog everyday, but sometimes I will check your comments when there is something that I think is WTF. AESOPICA??? BTW, my pores are extremely oily
That Al King clip made my day. I can listen to that all day long.
Cannot believe I finished without cheats. This was a name-heavy slog. Apparently some of my struggle was due to older crosswordese that I wasn't familiar with (looking at you, DENEB).
Too much trivia. And then too much soccer trivia on top of it. Ok so YOU and all of your friends watched the World Cup. I and literally everyone I know was oblivious to it.
So you throw in MBAPPE like that’s a household name. Or even inferable. C’mon. Pele’s name escaped the clutches of soccerphantism and maybe one day so will MBAPPE. But for now, MBAPPE and his ENG teammates might as well go to the rose bowl and play the BRUINS (really thought they were hockey). Oh and while they’re at it, they can read up on some Mickey SPILLANE and look up the definition of SCYLLA.
When I was in high school, around 1950, everybody at the playground had read Spillane's "I, the Jury." We would recite the last lines, when Mike Hammer shot and killed his murderous lover. With her last breaths, she said, "How could you, Mike?" Mike said, "It was easy."
Exact same experience. Bad crosses, clue, and answer.
Yikes, that upper left corner was indeed brutal. I'd never heard of DROPSHIP, AESOPICA or HIPAA. After a long struggle I had everything except the square where the last two cross, but none of the vowels gave me the Happy Pencil. And then none of the consonants worked! Turns out I also had ORAGEL and just never dreamt that it would be spelt with a J. A very tough solve for me.
And the Unknown Names: HIPAA ASTIN ORAJEL BRUIN POUSSIN MBAPPE. (Yes I don't follow soccer so that last guy was obscure to me!) And yet I got SCYLLA and SPILLANE instantly.
Oh, and @Les, I replied to your question quite late yesterday so you probably didn't see it. I said:
...we got about 20 drops of rain last night. I know because I stood on my deck and counted them until it stopped! This is what "Chance of showers" means around here these days... usually absolutely nothing, but the "chance" of about a minute of very light rain.
In colloquial Hebrew the Yiddish suffix "nik" does not carry a negative connotarion, e.g., "kibbutznik."
Yes, only the "no-good" here is pejorative.
HeLLo not HOLLA,... because SCYLLo and PeUSSIN are just as breathtaking as SCYLLA and POUSSIN. And ORAgEL made gU? for 7/ impossible.
Epic stuff today @Liveprof!
Roo
Got stuffed by the NE corner because I was 100% certain the product was spelled ORAGEL, so I kept shuffling all the wrong words. Otherwise it was pretty forgettable.
I liked this one a lot. Many interesting longs and a few difficult shorts and only one really egregious piece of crap. I’m looking at you HIPAA. (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).
If you’ve read any of my past posts you might know that I don’t live among you. I live in a northern wasteland where we spell colour with a U. Yet I know a sh*t ton of stuff about you. You’re our closest neighbour (oops, there’s that U again), you’re a huuuuge presence in international trade, wars, and trade wars. I’m sure I can name at least 48 of your 50 states and most of their capitals. I can even drag up some of your bureaucratic initialisms. But not HIPAA. I’ll bet that less than half of you knew that, even with 1 or 2 of the letters filled in from crosses. Fortunately, the crosses helped me out but I still wasn’t sure it was a thing.
Two other things that tripped me up were the shorts HAS and TIL. I had to start imagining scenarios where these things could work before I could rest easy. (“he tricks/HAS him every time” and “coupon good thru/TIL August 30”.) Good clueing there for small results.
DROP SHIP was new to me, as was AESOPICA. I dropped in AESOP from “fabulous” in the clue and just waited.
As for TREE CANOPIES … I used to always associate this term with Amazon rain forests (way up there where the macaws and monkeys are) and boreal forests. But about 5 years ago I bought a small farm (2.2 hectares or about 5 acres) in southwestern BC, about a third of which is forested. This is when I began to learn about canopy management. There is a perimeter road around the property and, not surprisingly, it runs under some rather large trees on the edge of the forested areas. In order to ensure passage of trucks and tractors along that simple but vital gravel path, I need to “raise the canopy”.
This process can be fun; you get to use lots of interesting tools, including pole saws - essentially a small chainsaw on the end of a 15 foot pole, powered by a gas engine. It’s kind of fun but It’s work , nonetheless. But, enter the joker. A high percentage of the trees I “limb up” are Western Red Cedars (Thuja plicata, not really a cedar at all) and they are quite disobedient. If you remove their lower limbs you create space and they, defying basic heliotropism, will generate new branches that grow down into that convenient, airy space.
Sorry for the long-winded essay. Just my way of saying TREE CANOPIES are a normal and troublesome part of my life.
Great puzzle,Blake Stonecker. Thanks.
While yesterday's GINSU, SAMURAI and CALORIE got my solve off to a happy start, today's AESOPICA, HIPAA and ATTED had the opposite effect. That fusty feeling was briefly lifted by SCYLLA, CAPISCE and my favorite Greek goddess ATHENA but they weren't enough to completely flip the script.
I gave the side eye to several long entries including a grid spanning pretender that needed help to do their jobs. TV ACTOR, VINAIGRETTE, PALATE CLEANSER, TREE CANOPY, and RECLINE all came up short of filling their slots. POC (plural of convenience) to the rescue!
Post a Comment