So-called "Island of a Thousand Temples" / SAT 8-1-26 / Field whose prospects are looking up? / Menopause treatment option, in brief / Upset tummy, medically speaking / Source of some classic rock bands / Dials down / Sewerage, for example / A little of this and that

Constructor: Zachary David Levy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Hard

THEME: None

Word of the Day: TILSIT (6D: Cheese names after a Prussian town near the Baltic coast) —

Tilsit cheese or Tilsiter cheese is a pale yellow semihard smear-ripened^[2] cheese, created in the mid-19th century by Prussian-Swiss settlers, the Westphal family, from the Emmental valley. The original buildings from the cheese plant still exist in Sovetsk, Russia, formerly Tilsit, on the Neman River, in the former German province of East Prussia.^[3]

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Hi friends! It's Rafa here back as a Rexplacement. I hope you enjoyed my puzzle yesterday! And if you didn't and you were relieved you were done with me, then ... I have bad news for you because here I am again. You can't quite get away from me just yet. But we are here to about the Saturday puzzle, so let's get into it.

Unfortunately I did not think that this puzzle was AMAZEBALLS ... it felt like more of a big flop, to stick with the modern parlance. For starters, I had KAMA SUTRA in my puzzle *checks notes* yesterday! It felt weird to have the same memorable long entry in back-to-back days, though of course that's more of an editorial concern than a construction concern. I wonder if it was intentional to run these puzzles back-to-back. Some people will appreciate the callback, others will be annoyed. Let me know what you think!

This is what an obelus (pl. OBELI) looks like

My issues are mostly with the rest of the fill. ABRUPTNESS and ANTEDATED in a 70-word themeless in the year 2026?! Not to mention the MET PAYROLL (fine, but I've only ever seen "made payroll") / DYSPEPSIA stack. And so much missed opportunity for more fun entries in the mid-length slots: LESSENS, UTILITY, RIVERAS. A plural name! Sure, it's a bit better when it's an artist but still ... not my favorite. GARGANTUA has big Saturday energy. Not the kind of entry I gravitate toward, but kinda cool to learn the origin of the word "gargantuan." I also have no idea who SUSAN LUCCI is, but that may be a me issue!

This is me providing evidence for my claims!

At least, the shorter entries were mostly clean. OBELI feels kinda clunky, something you would see in a crossword 20 years ago. Though my apologies to the writers / editors who felt seen by it. APBS is a pet peeve of mine, as I've never seen it outside of a crossword in my life. (I know it's a thing, just feels weird how much I see it in crosswords. I'm sure I've put it in a puzzle, too. Actually, yes, February 6th 2026 -- a NYT puzzle I made with APB. Look, I never said I was perfect.)

And all that meh ... for what? The 15s don't feel that special. DIA DE LOS MUERTOS is great and fun and worthy of crossword representation but I feel like I've seen it several times in crosswords already, so it didn't feel fresh. And CORONATION ROBES gets a big shrug from me. AMAZEBALLS is the kind of thing that was super in-the-language a while ago but nobody really says anymore. The puzzle just felt like a was waiting for some payoff that never came.

The APSE referenced in the clue

Okay, I'll say nice things now!!! The [Dis/cuss?] clue at 1-Across for TRASH TALK was a banger. I also liked [Red light district?] for DANGER ZONE. [Base unit] is a sneaky good clue for the pedestrian entry COT. [Wear the same clothes, in slang] is a lovely modern verb angle for TWIN. That's about all I have! I hope you all enjoyed this way more than I did ... I think I'm just in a grumpy mood today!

Oh, one more thing. (I guess this is a reverse feedback sandwich where I say the nice thing in the middle in between the critical things! Sorry!) SUSAN LUCCI felt like a Natick minefield. I had SUB instead on SUN for a while (admittedly not a basketball connoisseur over here), and TILSIT has impossible-to-infer letters. Plus the choice of cluing DOT as [Hwy. overseer, for short] meant that crossing was tricky, too.

 

Bullets:

• 46A: DISHY [Full of hot gossip] — I've never heard "dishy" as a word, but I guess it works!
• 48D: CABOS [Los ___ (Mexican tourist destination)] — I've been to Los Cabos once. It was really nice!
• 35A: IRANIAN [Like the 2003 Peace Nobelist Shirin Ebadi] — Was nice to see IRANIAN in the puzzle since it feels like the way less-common variant IRANI should up a lot more in crosswords
• 18D: ELK [Bugling game] — Took me a long while to figure out that game here meant animal.

Signed, Rafa

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