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Worrier's words / FRI 8-28-26 / Houdini specialty / They might raise your kids / Step in the shower / Asteroids system / Natural exfoliant / Brazilian soccer star known for his dribbling flair / Lightning conductor? / Star turns at a concert / Word with live or chicken
Friday, August 28, 2026
Constructor: Jack Hatchett
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: None
Word of the Day: SCREAMO (41D: Rock genre portmanteau) —
Screamo (also referred to as skramz[4]) is a subgenre of emo that emerged in the early 1990s and emphasizes "willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics".[5] San Diego–based bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow pioneered the genre in the early 1990s, and it was developed in the late 1990s mainly by bands from the East Coast of the United States such as Pg. 99, Orchid, Saetia, and I Hate Myself. Screamo is strongly influenced by hardcore punk and characterized by the use of screamed vocals.[6] Lyrical themes usually include emotional pain, death, romance, and human rights.[7] The term "screamo" has frequently been mistaken as referring to any music with screaming.[6][8]
• • •
Hi all! Rafa here covering for Rex, who doesn't have power because of a big thunderstorm. We don't really get thunderstorms in the Bay Area. Sometimes I miss them, but then I remember that they cause so much damage and disrupt travel and make the power go out and then I don't miss them anymore. Here's another weather rant ... we get no rain at all from May to November. Like, zero inches of rain for 6 months. And around late-August (aka now) I start to miss the rain because sometimes rain is nice and peaceful. But then in the winter it'll rain every day for 2 weeks straight and I'm sad because it's harder to be outside and do anything because it's just so cold and wet. So why can't we just have a few rainy days here and there instead of no rain and then daily downpours? Ok, sorry, I'm getting carried away. Let's talk about the puzzle!
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| I am feeling my love for cats very intensely today so we are getting three cat photos |
I really enjoyed this one! The last stretch of puzzles that I subbed on here for didn't really do it for me, so I was glad that I get to blog a puzzle that I liked! There was so much zing with in-the-language phrases like SCREW IT and IT'S A BREEZE and WELL, WELL, WELL, and WE ARE SO BACK. But it was balanced with other highlights like BOOSTER SEATS, the devious [Beamed over] clue for TELEPORTED, and stuff like HONSHU (I love geography facts and plopped this down with no crossings) and RONALDINHO (I'm Brazilian), and another great clue on MEZCAL (and ATARI, and RINSE), etc.
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| Another good boy |
I have to say I have absolutely no idea who HAROLD RAMIS is. Maybe he is super famous and I've been living under a rock. Maybe he's not. I don't know! But it didn't really bother me because his name was fairly-crossed everywhere. TICHA was new to me, too. I had ESCAPE ART / TIRHA for a really long time, and that seemed pretty plausible. Only after really going through every single cross on RAMIS and TIRHA did I figure out what was up. I imagine that the RONALDINHO / TICHA athlete name situation is why they went with PELE as the Hawaiian goddess instead of the soccer star.
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| One more cat |
What else? I'm not sure I buy "the DEEPS" as the bottom of the ocean, and AMALGAMATE felt like a pretty bland / boring word for such a prominent long slot in the puzzle, but overall this was really fun. I won't be back tomorrow (assuming Rex gets his power back...), but it's my (collab) puzzle so I hope you all enjoy it!!
Bullets:
- E-GIRLS (9D: Members of a Gen Z subculture with online origin) — To be honest, I couldn't really describe what a e-girl is, but I know it's A Thing.
- YAK (35A: ___ Polo (sport played in Pakistan)) — I didn't know people could ride yaks! Cool!
- PAW (55D: Print maker) — My cat has never left a paw print because she is clean and perfect and never leaves the house and is therefore never muddy and stinky. (I love dogs, too. But sometimes they are muddy and stinky in a way cats just are not, and we need to acknowledge this!)
- AMIGAS (29A: Compañeras) — Thank you for a clue that allows me to fill in the last vowel instead of leaving it blank because I don't know the gender.
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119 comments:
Pretty tough Friday, and HELEN was really just a guess as I have no idea what EGIRLS are and don't know sine qua non. ocean before abysS before DEEPS; Nut job before NBA FAN.
WELL, WELL, WELL, SCREW IT, WE ARE SO BACK, IT’S A BREEZE, YOU SEE. That’s five colloquial phrases. Maybe at least two too many. Rafa likes them and I don’t really hate them, I just think there were too many today. And as for the DEEPS … Really? Who has ever said that? The depths, maybe, but no to the DEEPS.
I’ll take E-GIRLS and SCREAMO on faith.
I liked the puzzle - made me work - but I also overdosed on “in the language” trifles. Sorry. Maybe it’s because I saw a really good production of Antigone the other day and I’ve fallen in love with language again.
Tough one for me.
I did not know TICHA, RONALDINHO, HONSHU, HELEN, WEN, SCREAMO, EGIRLS, SITAR…tough puzzle.
Very costly erasure - MAlt before MASH.
Costly erasure - me too (@Rafa) for ESCAPE ART before ACT
Kinda costly erasure - taiwan before HONSHU because MAlt before MASH.
Also @Rafa - Not knowing RONALDINHO and having MAlt instead of MASH consumed a tsunami of nanoseconds. That said, HAROLD RAMIS was a gimme for this Caddyshack fan…be the ball, Danny…
Cringy - MCING
Crunchy with a fair amount of sparkle, liked it, but not quite as much as Rafa did.
I heard someone posit recently that most cat-lovers also love most dogs but people who don’t love cats are mostly dog-lovers. Discuss.
Also, liked this puzzle! Very smooth experience. And I *love* the word AMALGAMATE, so there.
My brother and sister-in-law live in the Bay Area. I usually visited in the fall and saw the brown surrounding hills. Then one day I went there in the early spring and Wow! Where did these green hills come from?!?
Oh yes, the puzzle. Medium difficulty. Nice crunch. Liked it.
* * * * _
Overwrites:
My Doctor Faustus figure was sataN before it was HELEN (8A).
At 11D, ELSE before aLSo (due to the incorrect second A in 8A) before ELSE.
My 14D thing that's read at a table was a menu for far too long (TELL).
MANse before MANOR for the big house at 34A.
My first guess for the AP subj. at 56D was bio before ENG. I didn't know the latter had two exams.
WOEs:
The first letter of E GIRLS at 9D.
Actress Ming-Ha WEN at 5D. Post-solve, I had to look up whether the WEN came first or last.
Rock subgenre SCREAMO at 41D.
I understood "spirit" in the sense of "ghost" at 44D, so I needed every cross for MEZCAL at 44D.
HoF hoopster TICHA Penicheiro at 47D.
AT 48D, I didn't know it was an electric SITAR in the Stevie Wonder song but for a five-letter instrument beginning with S, that'll be my first guess every time.
Harold Ramis was (and still is) super famous, and you've been living under a rock. He played Russell Ziskey opposite Bill Murray in Stripes. (You should watch it.) He was also one of the original Ghostbusters. Harold Ramis’s directing credits include Caddyshack*, National Lampoon's Vacation, Groundhog Day*, Analyze This. He was a co-writer of Animal House, Meatballs*, Stripes*, Ghostbusters* (I and II), and Groundhog Day*.
* Films in which Bill Murray starred (or played a memorable role, like Caddyshack).
I can’t count the number of times that a crossword entry or clue has led me to explore books, films, art, recipes (the list goes on). I find the lack of intellectual curiosity — can’t be bothered to do a quick search before posting — rather disappointing. If you can take more than one sentence to explain that you don’t know who a person is, you can take that time to instead look him up and try to figure out why he is noteworthy.
I did not track with this constructor’s clues at all. I found this to be very difficult. I’m sure some of you who were familiar with the proper nouns, found it to be much easier.
I am the cat who walks by himself - nice pics Rafa. I don’t share the same love of this trivia fest of a Friday. There were some good colloquial things - WELL WELL WELL, ITS A BREEZE but in the end overshadowed by dreck.
The LlLAC Time
Nothing worse than Sex in the City trivia. Add the full proper name crossing obscure Marlowe trivia and E GIRLS among others and this grid ends up on Nancy’s wall. I liked OLD SAW, DEEPS and ASH.
SAMANTHA
Thanks for taking one for the team today Rafa - too bad you had to review this one.
WIRE
Very enjoyable. Crunchy but fair (except possibly HELEN). That reminded me of the unit used to measure beauty. A millihelen. The amount of beauty it takes to launch one ship.
Tough for me, as well. I was stumped at the TISHA/MII cross and plugged in vowels until the “I” surprised me with the music.
I knew HAROLD RAMIS with only one or two letters but had no idea about the soccer star, the WNBA player, or most of the other proper nouns (HELEN aside) . I found this one difficult and really struggled to get a toehold.
Oops! TICHA.
I think this is quite unfair to Rafa. If I’m doing the math right, he was born in the late 1990s. All six of the Bill Murray/Harold Ramis collaborations came out before Rafa was born.
I’m about a decade older than Rafa, and I also have never heard of Harold Ramis. Sure, I’d recognize him a picture of him as “the guy from Ghostbusters”, but like, sorry, your cultural touchstones are not every generation’s cultural touchstones.
I think it’s fair that Rafa, as an emergency sub on the blog, is just giving his honest reaction on this. We have seen plenty of evidence of his intellectual curiousity in his puzzle construction.
I resisted DEEPS for a longtime but eventually it became inevitable. Biggest mistake that lasted a long time was MAlt for “Brewing stuff.”
Seemed tough at first look, but got a toehold with AMIGoS, and MAlt. Both wrong, but enough letters were right that I could guess RONALDINHO and MANOR and LEGO and WE ARE SO... and from there it's off to the races.
Totally divorced from this particular puzzle, but I was wondering, if the orange stain in the White House gets his way and the Great Lake is renamed, that frequent crossword answer HOMES will have to be changed to SHAME. How appropriate.
Same experience here….well except for nut job. 🤣
Tough one for me! Had to abandon it last night and finish this morning. Probably took me over an hour altogether (timer says 2:14:12.... but I crashed during it). NOcomment before NONANSWER, confirmed by CHORE and SINEW.... that meant it took forever to get traction in the NW. Wanted Houdini's thing to be ___ESCAPE, confirmed by the A in AMALGAMATE. WIRE and DIY helped me get OLDSAW and that helped me fill in the middle. NE was the last corner for me... @Conrad sataN before HELEN, then gnaT before LINT for a while, arnOLD before HAROLD.... finally RINSE came to mind and got me going. I think of sine qua non meaning the essence, the gist, the thing that, when you take it away, you no longer have the thing you started with. Need is more like food, water, shelter. Even without food, I'm still me. But you take away my soul, my brain, my essence, then even with food I'm not me. So I quibble with that one. But overall, terrific challenge, feel like I reeled in some big fighting fish and I'm a bit exhausted!!! Thanks, Jack, for that!!!
Ramis = Igor in Ghostbusters
Oh, man, the spark in the box today!
Not just in the fresh answers (10 NYT debuts), but in the profusion of riddles in the clues, riddles that make you think, laugh, and maybe even exult. Those riddles draw you in, get you involved, so much more than direct either-you-know-it-or-don’t clues.
The debut answers included BOOSTER SEATS, NON-ANSWER, WE’RE SO BACK, and WELL WELL WELL, which I can’t believe has never been in a Times puzzles before.
And those misdirecting wordplay riddles! They lit up the solve, bringing me brain-ercize and sweet surprise. Those that weren’t original were well chosen, and those that were, such as [Something read at a table] for TELL, [Screen capture?] for LINT, and [Organization that might do some spring cleaning?] for EPA – showed Jack’s clue-making prowess.
Jack, you’ve got the knack; please fast-track your way back. Thank you for a stellar outing today!
He was also an accomplished director. He directed Groundhog Day, for example, as well as National Lampoon's Vacation, Analyze This, and many others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Ramis
Boy howdy was this a tough one for me to solve. Worst time in a long time, by far. The fill is pretty good though, with very few clunkers (I'm looking at you, DEEPS). Definitely not MID.
Hey All !
Surprised myself with a time of 21:40, as I was stuck pretty much everywhere, and had only a smattering of words after first (and second) run-through. Kept getting answers with W's in them, thinking why does this puz have so many? Finished NW section first, a plethora of W's there!
Some very nice cluing about, Screen capture (LINT), Asteroids system (ATARI), Jazz aficionado (NBA FAN), Spirit seen on El Dia de los Muertos (MEZCAL), They may raise your kids (BOOSTER SEATS), Flame proof (ASH), Beamed over (TELEPORTED), and a few others. Tres cool.
Nice FriPuz. Kept the ole brain active, having to shift into a different way of thinking. Good to change lanes once in a while.
Uniclues:
When a famous soccer player gets shinned?
PELE SCREAMO
"They're terry and dry you", e.g.
TOWELS, YOU SEE
Hope y'all have a great Friday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@frank, you beat me to an answer, and your list is longer. Mine were Ghostbusters and the hilarious Stripes, from which came the (Bill Murray) line, "We're Americans...we're 10-and-1". Of course, maybe we're now 10-and-3?
Thought this was a very tough but fair Friday tho had a degree of trivia that made guessing and developing crosses a sine qua non. HAROLDRAMIS is justifiably famous but not exactly a household name. Unlike Rafa and many here, DEEPS was my first choice, so must be an age or geographical leaning. I started out by entering SCREWIT almost immediately, then took an eternity to fill in the top half of the puzzle, then two eternities to complete the bottom half.
Tore up half my progress to insert WES ANDERSON… I was so sure!!
Appropriately tough and enjoyable Friday, except for five "xxx" equivalency clues. In my world, I'd allow two per puzzle, although SCREW IT would definitely make the cut.
Was hoping YAK Polo would be the WOTD; going to Google it and hope there are pics.
A few answers really helped overcome the many misdirections and ? clues, including AGILE and SAMANTHA (my wife) and RONALDINHO (spelled correctly) and HAROLD RAMIS (me).
Like Rafa, we questioned DEEPS. And like Rafa (and Rex), we like cats. Thanks for the cute pictures.
Well, we all have our own approaches to commenting/blogging. For some of us, it's about our experience solving the puzzle. Part of that experience is whether you knew a name or a fact as you were solving. Of course, you can look things up during the solve (which is how I got HAROLD RAMIS), but the fact that you could look him up afterward is not part of your solving experience. Also, not everyone is a movie fan.
Really hard for me. The music sounded only after my 8th or 9th look-up.
Tough for me. I had to look up WEN, TICHA, and the Portuguese spelling of RONALDINHO. It was an enjoyable struggle, however.
I thought of HELEN right away, but waited until she was confirmed by NEED. My reasoning was that the whole work exists in the context of Christianity, in which "mythological" is used to describe beings from other religions.
Did anyone else think Jazz aficionado was some sort of cat, such as hep cat? This held me up a long time.
When I saw all those names and misdirects, I thought the puzzle would be hard to do. It wasn’t a breeze but it was very enjoyable. I especially liked booster seats for They might raise your kids.🎈🎈🎊🎊
I go back to the shoe store three times before buying because I like to get my shoes fitted INSTEPS.
I once met a British girl named Alga. I said, "Hello I am Egs." She replied, "I AMALGAMATE."
You can sometimes reach the DEEPS backward if you speed.
This one left me with a SMILEY face. Thanks, Jack Hatchett.
Luckily I had some crosses in place already because WES ANDERSON was my first thought to match that clue also.
Seriously. Spend 10 seconds googling HAROLD RAMIS. That’s one thing that Rex does that I really appreciate: he looks up things he didn’t know and shares in case others also didn’t know.
Hmmmm....of all the people jumping in to list off Harold Ramis credits, not a single one has mentioned that he was both an actor on and head writer of SCTV, one of the funniest TV shows ever. (I think it is now available on Netflix!; if you've never heard of it, it's great sketch show from Canada that ran in the late 1970s; in addition to Ramis, the cast included John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, and Martin Short).
I had HEPCAT in at first until I saw that the crosses weren't going to work. But then figured the misdirect. And of course its a good idea to move your team from New Orleans to Utah, and keep the name that makes no sense in Salt Lake City.
Rafa in a way I envy you because you have the rare opportunity to watch Harold Ramis' films for the first time. Just wonderful stuff spanning 3 decades.
First, more cat pictures are always welcome.
Second, HAROLD RAMIS is most famous for playing Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters. Also co-starred in Stripes. Was more of a writer/director though. Stripes, Ghostbusters, Groundhogs Day were all him. Other stuff I can’t remember off the top of my head.
Finally, this not only had several names/terms I had no way of knowing, it also relied on a type of clue I can rarely get. The quoted phrase is kind of similar to some other group of words. I recognize it as a valid clue that some people like, but I can normally only understand them in retrospect. If your clue is “I’m having so much fun!” I have no way of knowing the answer is THIS IS AWESOME. But once the answer is filled in mostly from crosses I can see how it works. Again, not a bad clue type, just one I find incredibly difficult. And this had several, each building a wall I couldn’t get through.
I loved Harold Ramis. I was born in 74 and was the exact right age for his most famous films. I cried when he died. Rafa is probably a quarter century younger than me. I don’t fault him for not knowing the name.
ESCAPEACT??? Please.
Egon
Found this a lot easier than Jack’s first sortie. For those unaware, Jack is a very fine athlete, and a 2x USA national champion in ultimate (frisbee). If he’s better than me at one more shared hobby idk what I’ll do.
I wanted Friday puzzles to be more challenging. Did I want them hard because of names? No. RONALD INHO, WEN, TICHA, all out of my ken. I did know HAROLD RAMIS and SAMANTHA, but not HELEN. I thought "Doctor Faustus" was about the devil so I considered devil and Satan there.
But the NW is where I was sure I would DNF. I thought 16A would be "pat ANSWER" which boded ill for my ever getting SINEW or RONALD. NON occurred to me and that was the key to the rest of that quadrant.
Tough one for me today.
Big agree here. Nice mix of phrases, fresh answers and facts , along with mix of easy and tough, clever clues. Puzzle got my brain accelerated from 0-60 this AM, and now I'm moving! Thanks Jack
HOMES to SHAME.... priceless!
45A (BOOSTERSEATS) was BOOSTERSHOTS before RFK Jr. got his creepy hands on it.
After some tough YAK polo, I like to relax with a session of goat yoga.
Now that you've developed a lisp, do you want to change your response at 55A? No. SAMANTHA.
Very tough puzzle. No toeholds for a long while. Don't believe 49A -- it's not a breeze. But that made it more satisfying to finish.
Glad y'all had fun.
Anonymous @7:10am. I never understood the argument that "X was famous before you were born so you wouldn't know about them." I was born after the heyday of Frank Sinatra and Ed Sullivan - some things are just in the ether.
This goes the other way, too. We get one particular commenter in here all the time saying he's never heard of something "new" that has been famous for 30 years.
Now if you grew up in another country or culture where those people weren't famous, I get it. There are plenty of famous entertainers that for whatever reason don't cross cultural boundaries.
@Anonymous, thank you for reminding me of WESANDERSON that was my first guess too only I couldn't come up with it.
I was very sure of Wes Anderson and it took me a long time to erase it and start with the crosses. I do know Harold Ramis, but he has been gone for a long time.
Harold Ramis was the best thing about this puzzle!
Don’t miss Harold Ramis’ lovely supporting role as the doctor in As Good as it Gets.
Yeah me too re: mash. I associate mash more with distilling, not brewing, but it looks like it's applicable to both. Also never heard of Ronaldinho either
I very much doubt Rafa hasn’t seen Groundhog Day, or Ghostbusters. He may not know the name, but he surely knows the films.
SataN before HELEN here too, leading to a confident and costly stevemartin before HAROLDRAMIS. But at least I know SCREAMO: Thank you Millenial daughter!
Eu não sabia que você era brasileiro! Ótimo!
Does anyone really think of themselves as an NBA FAN?
At first I thought the character from Doctor Faustus might be SATAN or DEMON (since obviously MEPHISTOPHELES wouldn’t fit), with the final N seeming correct, so I thought the clue’s terminology of “mythological” might be a bit problematic for people of Abrahamic religions. Took me a while to remember HELEN, and then of course that was clear with no natick after all.
Rough start in the NW until SCREWIT dawned, then had to remember that the Portuguese use an NH instead of an N with a tilde. RISER before RINSE as a step up in the NE, where I didn't know HELEN. The real faith solve part came in the SE where a total guess on SCREAMO gave me an M which led to another total guess on SAMANTHA, . Had to change ESCAPEISM to ESCAPEACT to accommodate SITAR, which was the only possible answer but produced MII, another complete unknown. SW was going nowhere until I read the clue for LILAC which unlocked the rest of it. Phew.
Tough but fair, JH. Some stuff Just Had to be right, but only because of crosses. Thanks for some hard-earned fun.
Timely for me to see cat photos today, Rafa. Bittersweet experience. Thanks to those of you who offered condolences yesterday. That helps.
That is, no kealoa after all, of course.
Did Rafa say he *didn't* look him up later? No. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. It is not the blogger's responsibility to look up everything and put it in the blog. They get to choose what they want to talk about, and Rafa clearly looked up plenty of things, just not the one thing you happened to know a lot about. What about saying it this way instead: "Wow! You hadn't heard of Harold Ramis? Not surprising since his heyday was the 80s and 90s. I'm a big fan, so let me share some fun facts with you!"
So much I love about the crossword community on this blog. The tendency to mock people who admit to not knowing things is not one of them, especially in this case when the person who doesn’t know a particular proper noun is a last-minute sub who doesn’t get an annual income from the blog like Rex does (thanks for stepping in, Rafa!). Also appreciated that Rafa acknowledged some of us would not know the Brazilian soccer star, which I didn’t (though I’d have known PELE if the puzzle clued him with soccer).
Not as many unknown names as last Friday's solve but the uninferableness of RONALDINHO and TICHA made up for it. SAMANTHA is a common name but it's clue was of no use so I had to smoke that one out too.
Like others I really gave the side eye to DEEPS. I checked the xwordinfo clue list on it after solving and apparently there's some poet named Longfellow who would disagree with me.
NBAFAN really made me hesitate on HONSHU. I fell hard for that clue. I think the only real NBAFANs are constructors who never met an initialism they didn't like. Luckily ETON and THOR came to the rescue and HONSHU it was.
Speaking of clues that went over my head "Beamed over" was stratosheric. If it weren't for the crosses I never would have gotten it. Biggest doh moment in the whole solve.
As a boomer I'm embarrassed to admit that I had a RAMUS/RAMIS write over. Maybe I was thinking of CAMUS. I still want to pronounce it the same way. That one helped slow down (the in puzzles only) MCING.
My final letter was the I of MII crossed with TICHA. I went with the I for the same reason as the last time I saw a clue like this for it. It looks like WII and its in the gaming category. It This solve was a 54 minute struggle and I was just happy to get a clean finish. Top notch themeless!
Had WESANDERSON before HAROLDRAMIS.
Can we finally nix the women’s basketball wordlist slop from these NYT puzzles? No offense to Ms. Penicheiro, who is probably a lovely as she is tall.
Old saw? It’s a quotation from
Thomas Gray, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” published in 1742: “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘‘tis folly to be wise.”
Challenging for me throughout the grid and a DNF at TorHA x MoI and ArT. I appreciated the tough cluing, which yielded plenty of rewarding moments when the Aha switched on (favorites: Screen capture; Spirit seen....). A worthy Friday!
If you think E-GIRLS are obscure, just wait until you hear about i-ladies!
OMG that's so clever...
OMG so clever- and apropos
Yes to Antigone, No to cheese analogues!
We call those California hills golden, not brown!
My initial answer for "Flame proof?" was better: ARO
EasyEd. I mentioned earlier that the DEEPS annoyed me. I should clarify a bit. The term "the deep" seems okay to my ear but when you add that terminal S it just sounds odd. But, egged on by another commenter who said that too many of us are too lazy to take ten seconds to research a point, I looked it up. Apparently "the deep" refers to the whole (offshore) ocean while "the DEEPS" is applied to specific areas, like the Marianas Trench, etc. Will I ever use the term "the DEEPS"? Probably not. But now I know.
One vote for loving both!
Also surprised at an avid XWord solver never having heard of HAROLD RAMIS but don't think it was necessary to get so cranky about it. If I had one note for Rafa and every guest blogger it would be to bold the answers in the blog like Rex. Makes it easier to skim for the commentary we care about.
Finished in 23:45 today by running the alphabet on the TICHA/MII crossing. Never heard of either, and neither are inferable. Always a ding on a puzzle for me.
Soli is a musical term that does not mean multiple solos
I also came up with DEEPS easily - for me it evokes a poetic feeling of the mystery of the ocean depths in the early days of exploration and suits the idea of bathyspheres more than if the clue had referred to remote controlled submersibles.
I thought the cluing was a stand-out too. But I created my own stumbling block at 38 A. Flame proof? I confidently entered ARO.
Winter is the Bay Area’s rainy season that’s why they’re so green in the spring. Also, we don’t get them frequently, but I’ve seen some rip roaring thunderstorms in San Francisco.
Wow, this had true Friday difficulty written all over it and I loved every minute. I had virtually nothing accept CHORE on my first pass and then dropped in *Icantry* instead of the correct SCREWIT for 1A (wonderful fill, btw) and that held me up for quite a while in the NW.
Of all things, it was grocking LEGO that got me a bit of a toe hold in the West. That got me AMIGAS, which led me to slowly (very slowly) get some other things that got me going little by little.
So much to like about this one, a wild party of wonderful in-the-language fill and great cluing. The details have already been pointed out, but shouts out to SCREWIT, WELLWELLWELL and ITSABREEZE. For me, these three are crossword art at it's finest. The other long fill gets honorable mentions as well.
SE corner was crunchy for me as I have almost zero insight into Sex and the City. If I would have known SAMANTHA, that neighborhood would have come together much quicker. I only was able to figure the name ended in A. I had ESCAPE, and like others, I couldn't figure out what we needed: ART? IST? ISM? I had to run letters for that as TICHA was unknown to me but it was satisfying to finally tie that all up.
All in all, an extremely fun and satisfying solving experience. With all the proper Friday difficulty and all the fun and brainwork that I look for in a late week puzzle.
Thank you for this Jack, this one rocked!
I liked this puzzle for the handful of clever clues and for making me work.
TELEPORTED and BOOSTERSEATS were standouts.
I'm not shy to say I don’t know some names, such as SAMANTHA, TICHA, EGIRLS, ATARI as clued, or HELEN as clued. I recognized RONALDINHO and HAROLD RAMIS once I had some crosses, but my first thought was Wes A.
One problem with getting HELEN was that my understanding of sine qua non was no more accurate than my memory of Faust. After Satan and devil I tried Heles/seed, thinking maybe a variant of Helios? No.
I don't look things up while I’m solving, because the internet can easily turn the puzzle into a fill-in-the-blank exercise. This doesn’t mean I lack curiosity and don’t look things up later.
As far as the “in the language” phrases, I liked these much better than the fill we often see, full of arbitrary Ahs and ohs.
Marlowe (the author?, the playwright?, someone else?) trivia in this puzzle is a mystery to me
Jnlzbth. Re: Antigone. The production I saw was a good example of how to NOT overload things. I’ve seen the play before and am aware that it has some pretty boring spots. The company that produced this version opted for a pretty simple, almost classic staging, including costumes and props. (Chorus wore masks, a large painter’s canvas drop cloth could be folded in various ways to depict various items, including Polynices’ body). But they veered off Sophocles’ script occasionally to wake the audience up with some modern speech.
My favourite example: Antigone is at the front of the small stage, facing the audience and explaining why she needs to bury her brother. So his soul can pass into the afterlife but, more importantly, so as not to offend the gods at the whim of a mere mortal king. Creon is at the back of the stage, his back to the audience, his arms folded across his chest, when he suddenly turns and utters this fine “Sophoclean” line: “Are you f***ing kidding me?”
Just one, but the most jarring, example of the company’s attempt to bring Sophocles up to date. There were about four (maybe five) attempts to interject modern speech into an ancient play that ran just past 90 minutes. They spiked, but didn’t overwhelm, the experience.
The same company staged a totally updated version of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor and it was awful. Granted, it’s probably his shittiest play but it didn’t deserve what they did to it. They replaced at least 80% of his words with modern, “in the language” colloquialisms and it stunk like a cheesy MWoW analogue.
Be careful @Rex and @Rafa. There can be too much of a good thing.
Potent FriPuz. Lotsa no-know names and sneaky clues. Precious nanoseconds were sacrificed, before eventually finishin the solvequest.
staff weeject pick: WEN. One of the no-know names. At least it was a shorty. Them looong no-know names can really make things tough [yo, @RONALDINHO].
fave things: BOOSTERSEATS clue. SCREWIT. WEARESOBACK. HAROLDRAMIS [name I knew immediately].
@mg: yep. Reached the same Great Lakes conclusion, and cranked out the attached runtpuz about that, yesterday.
Thanx for the challenge, Mr. Hatchett dude.
Masked & Anonymo1U [s]
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Not me, I thought it was a car thing went with kia fan & a misspelled hokido!!
And no, I've never heard of harold ramis either!
Yes
I often complain about too many names, and here I go again. Several Total Unknowns: WEN, PELE (as clued), TICHA, SAMANTHA. And even for the Known Names the clues were no help: HAROLD RAMIS, RONALDINHO (had to Google to get that H). TESS and SAMANTHA are long ago forgotten.
The timer only says 27 minutes but it felt like an hour. Definitely challenging for me; if there were fewer names I guess I would have enjoyed it. Also a few tricky dead ends, like for 30 down "Brewing stuff" having OAST which by chance has 2 correct letters, and led me to think TAIWAN is the world's second most populous island.
Canadian here. Loved SCTV!
👍 great answer!
Or from Minnesota, land of a thousand lakes, to LA. Hello Lakers!
Danny
I do not have a cat or dog. I like both, but I think it is easier to connect with dogs
I think there are some cat lovers who don’t like dogs but I would agree that a lot of dog lovers do not like cats at all.
From under my rock: I couldn't begin to get a grip on this puzzle. Major Woe!
Brilliant!!
Quite tough for me, but fun. And who knew HAROLD RAMIS and Wes Anderson had the same number of letters? Probably giving myself away as a millennial that I thought of Wes Anderson before Ramis in the first place. Luckily I quickly realized I had it wrong with some of the crosses and cleaned up that mess.
Speaking of messes, I had HadEs for way too long in the NE, which coincidentally created a lot of real words going down, just words that didn’t make sense with the clues, eg dINT for screen capture? and sEED for sine qua non. Yet I still waited for the end of the puzzle to try to figure out what the hell was going on up there. Almost got a DNF until I figured out LINT and correctly guessed HELEN from there. The “d” in RONALDINHO and DEEPS was also almost a natick for me. DEEPS was a sheer guess and I don’t know soccer (or the word bathysphere).
The clues for BOOSTER SEATS and NBA FAN were cute and clever. Overall a nicely challenging Friday!
mIi-tIcha crossing. Pick any vowel.
If this was a Friday, I quake at the thought of Saturday. I usually get a solving boost from the celebrated names in the puzzle, but not today. TICHA as a first name and INHO as a last defy my ability to guess. I know who HAROLDRAMIS is, but he doesn’t come first to mind with Murray. SAMANTHA was a relief. People play polo on YAKS? That was my favorite tidbit of the day. EGIRLS was a duh? Once I was through, the grid seemed manageable, but mid-solve it was a bear. Great cluing!!
Love that definition! Thanks
Hard for me but a great Friday puzzle with clever clues. Names I had to look up: RONALDINHO WEN TICHA SAMANTHA and HAROLDRAMIS
TIL MEZCAL SCREAMO and that HONSHU is the second most populous island. Also SMILEY is an ideogram?!
And that JAZZ has something to do with NBA ( I’m not into sports or movies as you might guess!)
floatingboy
I did put ESCAPEACT in Google
Up popped the Wikipedia entry for Harry Houdini (check) and in first paragraph of tht entry was ESCAPEACT (check).
Escape acts were once more popular than they are today, but the term is most definitely a thing
Hence, the Golden State
I guess no one answered “Hepcat” for 43 down. I’m really showing my age, but I did enjoy Nirvana. Are they considered Screamos ?
Sam
There was a frequent commenter on this blog named Z who loves Ultimate Frisbee and mentioned it fairly often ( (that’s how I learned it existed. You and this constructor are not the only ones with those 2 passions
No reason the puzzle should fit the
knowledge banks of 80 year olds. Apparently, younger folks generally like it. But never played video games, which pretty much finished mii off. (Tacha, Ticha??) The only Mulan I know is Mulan Rouge..Screamo?? Yes, often.
I am SO far back. Disliked this puzzle very much.
Anonymous 10:21 AM
I think he mentioned it the last time he covered for Rex. My knowledge of Portuguese is poor so I had to look up vocẽ
If anyone is interested
I didn’t know you (Rafa) were Brazilian
puzzlehoarder
My time was almost exactly the same as yours abd my last word as MII But I forgot about wII and had to run the alphabet. Dumb of me.
I don’t LOVE almagamate but do love amalgam. Very tasty that!
A bit of trivia - Ultimate was invented here in my town of Maplewood, NJ...
@beverly -- I was thinking along those lines as well!
Bravo!
I "knew" it was Wes Anderson! Man, did that screw things up for awhile!
This was a tough one for me, I liked it though!
I could not come up with HONSHU, I wanted it to be Taiwan with MAlt, but I figured the soccer star was RONALDINHO
I laughed out loud at WE ARE SO BACK, amazing in-vogue phrase.
Was sitting on _AROL__R___S for a loooong time. Carol something perhaps? I’d never heard of the eventual answer HAROLD RAMIS, nor the phrase OLD SAW, which made that cross a bear. Thankfully got chicken/live WIRE after far too long which sent me on my way.
Overwrites:
I was sure “lightning conductor?” would be USBC
and “Unprofessional letters?” was
AAA
Easy-Medium by time but felt a lot harder. Mostly a wheelhouse puzzle (no idea about WEN or TICHA) with a few hang-ups along the way. Perfect Friday for me.
[NYT Feb 2, 2026] 56-Across : Film about which HAROLD RAMIS said "He goes from being a prisoner of that time and place to being master of that time and place"
Loved that movie. What is Mexico? The Finger Lakes? Lake Titicaca? The Rhone? The way Murray says "Mehico" like the Spanish teacher on the actual Jeopardy! episode ... *chef's kiss*.
I wouldn't expect anyone to know/remember who Ramis or RONALDINHO is. I'm guessing Rafa posted his immediate reactions to the puzzle before doing any Googling.
Anyway... thanks, Rafa! Glad you participated in this week's impromptu pet pic week.
Nuestra suerte ha cambiado.
Gawd. Way too difficult. A nice time Go-ogle-ing people I will forget about in a few hours.
YAK POLO sounds fun. E-GIRLS are definitely fun.
Gunkometer--
People: 9 (knew none of them... sigh)
Places: 1
Products: 5
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 24 of 68 (35%)
Funny Factor: 5 😄
🔥 Ooh-la-la! 🔥 SCREW IT.
Uniclues:
1 Nickname for the most beautiful woman in the world who enjoys changing light bulbs.
2 Castle with Himalayan cows playing Pong.
3 What happens when the linen closet door is open.
4 Purpose of my bellybutton.
5 When you're missing your homemade twanger and you need to twang.
1 SCREW IT HELEN
2 YAK ATARI MANOR (~)
3 YOU SEE TOWELS (~)
4 AMALGAMATE LINT (~)
5 NEED DIY SITAR
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: What 🦖 has done for 18+ years in public. FILL FREAK OUT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Great challenge! Great puzzle!
Not to be confused with the golden Oval Office
Disliked the puzzle. Hardest Friday in a while but because of what felt like deliberately misleading cluing. An example that really annoyed me was “beamed over” for TELEPORTED. The wording heavily implies smiling in some way and no one “beams” something “over”. They beam people UP. “Beamed over” makes it sound like a thing people regularly do. Idk it just annoyed me a LOT lol
The phrase “spirit fingers” meant nothing specific to me. My daughter, a lifelong dancer who continues her studies to this day focused on ballet and modern, but worked diligently on jazz and musical theatre styles during her years in NYC. She introduced me to the phrase JAZZ HANDS so that spot was mercifully easy.
The film clip, while certainly of the genre, explained why the clip was popular, but it did not induce me to want to watch a couple hours of hideous body shaming.
While I recognize that these days cheer has become a very competitive sport that is a pathway to NiCAA scholarships, in my youth cheerleaders were simply one of many rungs on the popularity ladder and not my cup of tea.
A childhood best friend from our first day of kindergarten suffered with binge/purge anorexia as long as I knew her. She took her life our senior year in high school (1969) a couple weeks before graduation. I think of her any time the subject of eating disorders comes to mind and wish open discussion and treatment options had been available to her. Alas, it took another decade before eating disorders were recognized, discussed openly, and successful treatment became fairly widely available.
But the spirit fingers reference aside, the puzzle was excellent. Standout clues for me include: step in the shower for RINSE; sticking point for TINE; unprofessional initials for DIY, and I have to mention how proud I was of my brain to recognize the feminine clue campañeras leading to AMIGAS.
As for the theme, at the second entry, I was already growling about gibberish answers and thought to myself, “why the gibberish? Surely the theme isn’t ZZ TOP.” Surely indeed. Well done Jake Hatchett.
This was by far the most difficult Friday in a long while. But the construction was elegant. The hardest parts (for me the names) tested my mettle but every time I thought I was on the verge of having to look for help, something opened up and I got just enough to be able to guess. I was truly stuck at RONALDINHO and embarrassed about it. I was glued to the World Cup this summer after all. Besides the —INHO at the end, I also struggled with the clues for ASH and it took way too long to pull HONSHU out from the depths when my brain was screaming at me, “It is NOT Hawaii. Do NOT go there and you do too know the answer!” Hate it when my brain nags me like that.
This was a gorgeous puzzle. Editors, I hope you read Rex, because the tenor here feels consistent, we want more like this one.
Anon at 9:58, I think that’s actually my point—Harold Ramis isn’t in the ether in the same way that Frank Sinatra or Ed Sullivan are.
And I’ll totally acknowledge that it’s wild when someone is like, “this thing that is very familiar and important to you is unknown to me”. It’s strange how it happens with tv/film, where “oh it’s that guy!” can be totally divorced from someone’s name.
I think the webcomic XKCD put this well, the phenomenon of learning something well known but unfamiliar: https://xkcd.com/1053
What could this mean? DEALTIN = Stocked and Sold, as goods.
I refuse to accept AI DOCTOR as a legitimate “thing.” Period. As someone who spent time working with and training human physicians and personnel operating or employed by medical businesses and hospitals how best to protect against liability, I cannot imagine anyone trusting AI to provide medical treatment. Ever. Whom does one sue for injury proximately caused by Dr. AI? Not only that, I’ll eat my BOTTLE CAP if the AMA allows the use of the term AI DOCTOR to be used as a term that means its referent possesses proper education, experience and credentials authorizing it to provide medical treatment. No. Not a thing. Ever. Go ahead and call me old and set in my ways or worse. This one is just too far beyond the pale for me.
Otherwise, I enjoyed the toughish Saturday. Not too many impossible names and some clues that were almost impossible to PARSE. The killer clue for me was “stocked and sold, as goods” for DEALT IN. Once I sussed out the answer, I realized that it was the wording of the clue that was off. Perhaps “engaged in the selling of stocked goods” better conveys the action - or maybe not. Different strokes.
I’m still not over the AI DOCTOR. Is nothing going to be respected in perpetuity? If so, I’m thrilled that I will not be around to experience our sci-fi world, particularly the AI government.
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