Sowly got this one. But, not until late Sunday while watching Investigation Discovery. So, I guessed at quite a few and it all came together. 29A helped complete that tricky section.
I got sidetracked early this morning when one of the bathroom toilets kept running. Don't let anyone tell you that American Standard is standard replacement parts at Home Depot. Nada. Not even close and of course it just happened to be Sunday. What else? So, hoping for Amazon 1-day delivery.
I needed this puzzle for therapy even though it was (for me) a toughie and a great challenge. Small square I'm thinking 9 which is the square of 3?
This was the Saturday that broke my 240-ish day streak. I got stuck in the tiny Southwest corner. If I had read the column in have unstuck myself.
Lots of minimalist clues for lengthy answers.
The upside is that I no longer have to worry about maintaining a steak.
1
My "favorite" was how if you misspell TASSEL as TASSLE you're coaxed into putting LION as the statue, even though those statues are in Trafalgar not Piccadilly. The O then crosses with Oswald leading to some frustration in the lower right quadrant.
At the southeastern side of the Circus, moved after World War II from its original position in the centre, stands the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, erected in 1892–1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury, a Victorian politician, philanthropist and social reformer. The subject of the Memorial is the Greek god Anteros and was given the name The Angel of Christian Charity but is generally mistaken for his brother Eros.
Just sayin'.
6
@patricia. Thanks for the info. That statue makes so much more sense to me now!
A perfect I-can’t-believe-I-solved-it Saturday. LOVED it!
2
BUSHLEAGUE is misspelled. It’s Busch League, which is a reference to NASCAR’s defunct Busch Series. Busch racing was like a minor league of NASCAR. The term is now a pop culture inference about one not exactly being ready for prime time.
@Shane
Bush league has been used since 1906 to describe small-town baseball clubs below minor-league level.
15
Hah! That'll larn me to complain about easy puzzles. Much harder today, but doable.
1
You'd think BY NOW I'd have learned to scan all the Acrosses and Downs to winkle out any gimmes for a starting framework, but No. Without fail, I'll stubbornly stick to the NW corner till it's filled, unless I find it beyond the realm of any possibility. Started only with Little DORRITT, and it took awhile till I could CEDE STYE.. The delight in solving for great clues like 'Field of flowers' and 'Novel opinion' kept the FLOE going, as did LIT crossing BOOKREVIEW. Took 10 minutes to fill the cornerformed by EBANKS and TWOseaters. Yeah, I know.
I'm always slower solving from right to left, so it took 30 minutes to fill from EDIT to WHATALOSER. My chiefest delight was in not having to RAG on DIATwIBE.
Liked:
-the model given for Cheryl TEAEGGS
-CY PRESS instead of CY Young
-MOTTLE, who I think was a son-in-law in Fiddler on the Roof
-how many TOOs meet at 21
-the DESSERT CASE being made for exSCULPTEDory ABS
I'll be needing LESS of one if I want to have more of t'other
Firmly locked on the McCarty lambda, the bottom corners took only FIVE minutes more, but I guess UDON NOODLES if that's your STY[L]E.
Great fun to solve, and (to borrow from yesterpuzz) I give the whole endeavor my IMPRIMATUR.
FLY TWA
6
I found this one hard, hard, hard.
So many errors: E- before IBANKS. DOG before LOP-eared. HIT before LIT. SNOOKI before TOOTIE. INDIANA before INDIANS (and wondered why I'd never known INDIANA had a baseball team).
Couldn't remember whether the NOODLE was UDON or EDON or ODON. And the other two longies in SE were sports stuff, so required lotsa letters to guess.
No-knows: ARTOO DETOO (both as clued and as spelled), OSWALD, TEA EGG, LENA, ALEROS.
Really hard stuff: TORCH RELAY, TWO-TONE CAR.
Favorite clue/entry combos: BOOK REVIEW, BOTANY, DESSERT CASE.
Sooo wanted "Orient Express" instead of THE NILE.
I wonder how on earth I ever finished this!
Jessie doesn't sit on my lap when I'm at the computer, but she is now on the table next to me, head-butting or pawing my arm to demand ear-scratching. It still takes one hand off the keyboard.
This was quite a workout, although it did nothing for my ABS. Thanks all.
Few gimmes (mostly not very helpful): DORRIT, CYPRESS, NRA, EROS, TWA, FDNY.
8
@Deadline
". . . hard, hard, hard." Me too!
1
@Deadline, if you lie on your back to read the clue, then do a sit-up to type it in, it'll work your ABS
ABSolut & tonic, with a twist = optional
2
@Leapfinger
My desk chair doesn't recline that much.
1
Delightfully difficult, but decidedly doable.
6
This was my toughest in quite a while. I did manage to finish it without asking for any Reveals, but only after taking a long break.
Congrats, Mr. McCarty!
2
In ink:
ROCK HARD ABS (& OCTAVE) ...,no,
STRIATED ABS! (& MIATA)!! nooo!, ...
SHREDDED ABS! Yes!!!
(No)
SCULPTED ABS!!!!!!!!
:-c)€
2
Orange ball had me stumped, too. I wondered if it was about basketball, with its orange ball and five to a side.
My favorite clue was "Small square."
4
The one that had me scratching my head, even after I'd completed the whole puzzle, was "NINE" (at one point I had "DICE " there, even though I knew it couldn't be right). I just don't think mathematically.
1
I was cruising through this one until I hit the SE. Had the two bottom entries but nothing else made sense, and the DR ending on RATEDR had me second guessing UDONNOODLE and ESPYAWARDS. wasted half an hour being frustrated. Suddenly I looked at TASSle and realized it was TASSEL. Finished in a minute after the correction. The kicker? I originally had TASSEL, took a look at, thought "that's not right" and changed it. I plead vacation stupidity, although Nantucket is quiet and restful this time of year!
P.S. Drove by Natick on the way up and chuckled...
5
Are the ferries running reliably now?
@David Meyers Ours did! Didn't hear anything to the contrary at any rate...then again it is off season... :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bear#/media/File:Golden_Bear_size_1.jpg
Taking bets on who/what was model for this statue:
1) a real golden bear cub, pre-extinction
2) mascot to any of NINE sports teams
3) Jack Nicklaus
4) ARTOODETOO's pet mutant Ewok baby
Evinces a certain non-specific charm in spite of mildly surreal anatomy.
1
@Leapfinger,
None of the above actually, but I like option 4.
https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/index.php/Berlin
2
Thanks, @HenrySu. They seemed to do better with representative ursine anatomy in medieval times. The little film bear KINDA looks as if he's about to ease into the electric slide.
Due to the recent dust-up on P, the municipality of Schmockwitz caught my eye, and it was interesting to find Marienfelde and Mariendorp, while Marienbad is in the Czech Republic.
Nim
1
@Leapfinger - back in 1993 I bought a t-shirt in Berlin that was part of the city's bid for hosting the 2000 Olympics. They were pushing hard to publicize it, so the t-shirts were all over town. Golden yellow shirt, with just a big teddy bear's smiling face on the front. It looked happy on the racks at the store.
But when the shirt was worn, the two black dots that were the bear's eyes - and the generally yellow color of the shirt - aligned to create a strange impression.
I never wore the shirt - but I do remember Golden Bear for Berlin!
2
That was tough! My first pass gimmes: TOOTIE (fortunately, the only Facts of Life character I remember) RAG, STYE, TWA, DORRIT, CYPRESS, LENA, ODS, BOA.
Not much to go on.
Had to backtrack on AMEN for EDIT, GOP for NRA, SORTA for KINDA which led me to BABKA, ATTEMPTING except I was pretty sure CYPRESS nixed that. BAKERYTRUCK could take the cake. LORD, SCALES, DOG-eared and -- apologies from this West Coaster, NYFD.
I am not introspective enough to figure out why some hard puzzles leave me feeling peevish and duped, and others flushed with accomplishment. This was one of the good hard ones. Very satisfying to get to the finish line.
3
@Hildy Johnson For me, peevish or happily flushed depends on whether I finish or not... :)
2
N.B.: New York's...
Finest = NYPD
Bravest = FDNY
Strongest* = Department of Sanitation
*presumably a reference to SCULPTED ABS, not AROMA
6
@Barry Ancona,
Thanks. Deb should link this article as something solvers should know, https://nyti.ms/2BuwoV1.
1
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/crosswords/mac-knight-1952-2018.html
Gone but not forgotten, eh?
4
This was a tough one to begin until I got to the SE corner where I got my foot in the door. With my trusty eraser I corrected a few false starts (sire for serf, NYPD for FDNY, and "stop" for "c'mon.")
Botany as the answer for "Field of flowers" (no question mark?) induced a bit of a groan. Good Saturday puzzle overall.
2
Is the field of study that includes the study of flowers. I think that qualifies as a straight, if devious, definition.
I'm not sure though...is leaving out question marks something done on Saturdays, where the same clue might have one earlier in the week?
2
Dan,
Yes.
3
nice mental workout, thanks McCarty. The grid design was elegant. I ran through all of the Across clues with precious little results other than The Entertainer until the SE stack. Luckily that came immediately and led to a 31 minute solve. Very satisfying!
2
Re grid design: the NW and SE are effectively completely separate from the rest of the puzzle. As I noted elsewhere, I finished those two sections and had little else to go on. Resulted in a time about 1/3 longer than my average Saturday. I think WHIFFS and RAG were my only gimmes in the vast DESERT comprising the main body of the puzzle, though finishing the NW also gave me DESERT itself. Not much to go on.
1
@David Meyers, you really had to have some key Downs, DESERT and TWOTONECAR out of the NW, or BUSHLEAGUE and TASSEL out of the SE to help crack that wicked center. I could visualize every the characters from Facts of Life, but blocked on all their names till a couple of crosses clicked (uncertainly) on TOOTIE. That helped ONE DAY open the right end, as did realizing I needed the INDIANS, not INDIANA.
Odd how much difference a single letter somewhere in a blank entry can make in 'seeing' what could go there
Took me a long time to fill in THENILE! I love how the puzzles expose the gaps in my knowledge. And there are many.
I had to text my son the Star Wars clue, and he responded "ARTWO?" That gave me the right answer but screwed up my spelling for the longest time.
I asked my husband for another name for six-pack abs, and of course his reply was "I'm not sure. Maybe you should do some chair boga and try to figure it out." Oh, Mike.
16
@FrankieHeck
Mike and Frankie Heck, huh? How are Brick, Sue and Axel?
Good show.
3
@Hildy Johnson
In my parallel universe, I have only an Axel and a Brick (with some Sue-like tendencies.) Both are doing well, thanks ;-) Axel is rarely any help on the crosswords, but Brick is a great puzzle partner!
1
@FrankieHeck - since he's named for Axl Rose, Axl Heck is a three-letter Axl, played by young Charlie McDermott from my home town.
Could make a devious clue:
Heck of a Rose? AXL
5
I join the chorus of those who found this to be tough but eventually do-able.
I started by filling in the NW corner almost immediately. Getting a section of a Saturday puzzle to fall so quickly is usually a sign to me that the rest of it will be impossible, and this one nearly was. Very little came easily after that, but I managed to do the NE and SE corners with only looking up one or two things. But that vast open center and the SW were basically empty (except for HEF, and CYPRESS, of which I was quite unsure). TWO-TONE CAR was the only thing I could think of there, but I didn't know it was a thing and was sure it was going to be something else. SCALES fit at 33D but didn't lead to anything. So I slept on it overnight and came back to it late this morning.
WHIFFS and FLOE got me into the SW, and gradually I was able to creep up on the center area. But it was a slow grinding process. I wouldn't call it fun, but I finished with a sense of accomplishment.
2
I liked the DESERT crossing DESSERT since I frequently have to pause when deciding S v. SS. Especially in the pronunciation change in the S between Gobi Desert (hard S) and Just Deserts (both soft S).
And TOO crossing TWO, since I never remember which one goes with the droid. Nice uses: non-smelling WHIFFS in a puzzle that had AROMA; NINE, TWO, ONE, FIVE; and having INDIANS next to TRIBE; and FLY TWA as a subliminal ad.
2
@Robert Michael Panoff Interesting—I pronounce the S portion of DESERT and DESSERT identically. The only thing that changes is whether the accent’s on the first syllable or the last.
4
@Rory
I'm not sure what hard and soft s'es are. I pronounce both words with a z sound.
@Hildy Johnson, soft's S is a hard S, while is's S is a soft S
Hiss vs His
1
Tough puzzle that took me longer than my usual long time on Saturday. Unlike a lot of people, I found the NW really hard. Got the first foothold in the SE, then moved to the NE, SW and then was able to tackle the middle. Some great clueing. Wanted to pick up a LATTE at the coffee shop for the longest time. Wanted RICH for flush. And so it went.
6
Ditto for RICH.
Me too.
PUZZLE! That starts with P, that rhymes with T, that stands for TROUBLE! If we had all spent our time on pool or billiards instead of crosswords, we'd have gotten 49A sooner, eh?
If you are A Certain Age, you will get not only an ID BRACELET, but also a yellow one that says FALL! Even if you haven't.
Usually it's a DESSERT tray...plus I am more of a pie person.
Also a Speller, so AR TWO DE TWO gave me trouble. And I'd have doubled the T when 'BAYONETING.'
Babies start with MaMa, and then they think every man is DADA, which can be awkward.
Also, Ryan McCarty (and Will and Joel) that was not a KIND(a) swipe at Cleveland's team, even if they did break our hearts for all of the 14 years we were there. I wonder if PhysicsDaughter still has her poster of Omar Vizquel...
I would write more, but New Kitty Charlotte has one hand occupied, so.... (The Saturday Stumper is a really tough one, too!)
6
@Mean Old Lady
Lots of cats on laps today.
1
@Mean Old Lady and @Dag Ryen,
Yes, KBarrett apparently had a similar problem typing.
2
@Mean Old Lady - is her name actually New Kitty Charlotte? Hmmmm. She shares initials with the National Kennel Club...and Nat King Cole. What a web we weave.
1
You can meet Oswald the Lucky Rabbit at Disney’s California Aadventure in Anaheim. Oswald-eat hats are quite popular as well.
I did it, but a bit slower than my average. As usual, my spouse helped me with celebrity names (LENA—we don’t get HBO). Like everyone else, ORANGE BALL baffled me. Technically, the clue should have read “THE orange ball.” Loved the baseball answers (WHIFFS, BUSHLEAGUE), in anticipation of Pitchers/Catchers day.
Excellent Saturday! Did not think I could finish this one--it required not only several return visits but an actual NAP before I could come back and finally crack the SW corner. I am now going to expend my temporarily elevated self-confidence on the Cryptic Xword.
4
@Audreylm
I consider myself a pretty good and fast NYT crossword solver until I try the cryptic. I soused out this week's with more time invested than a full week of NYT crosswords for me and still resorted to autocheck. I have miles to go on these . . . if I persist. Sometimes I don't even consciously understand the answers that I do get on my own.
2
@Liane Was "soused" a Freudian slip? Perhaps some performance-enhancing libations?
3
@Al in Pittsburgh
Well, there was some sousing when I started it last night, but today, it was just sussing! LOL. Not my best typing day (see Bee grid). Hands too tired from outside work to function properly.
I too solved 49A with crosses, and had no idea what the clue and the answer had to do with each other. Opening the crossword column today and seeing the header “ORANGE BALL” in big bold type felt a bit like entering a B&B on an icy day, and being greeted with a hot tea. Thanks much, Ms. Lovinger.
2
An (shocking) article in the Times describes dams of partially solidified mud that can, under the right conditions, go through rapid “liquification,” in which a structure that was in an unstable stasis suddenly turns to mud flow.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/09/world/americas/brazil-dam-collapse.html
I don’t meant to sound flippant, because a dam collapse is a tragedy. But I felt doing today’s crossword that such liquification is a good metaphor for how I (& apparently others here) experience solving a crossword. (See yesterday’s discussion of the 50% complete mark, for example.)
Today I was stuck on the SE corner for the longest time, but it felt like I was very close to having a lot of entries. They just wouldn’t quite mesh. (I kept wanting 46D to be NYPD, for example. And TONY AWARDS, although I wasn’t so sure about Best Moment.). Finally I came near the end of the clue list & had two gimmes side-by-side: ODS & LOP. Glue it may be, but it felt more like a small tremor that liquified the entire SE corner in a rush.
& as always, I love BEARS whenever they make a crossword appearance. (Likewise otters.)
Happy Saturday, everyone!
:-c)€
2
@Floyd - Your interesting analogy recalled this video for me - it's almost 15 minutes long so it's not for everyone, but it you watch it right to the end, you'll see the connection, and an explanation of solid(ish) structures going fluid.
Physics popularizer Steve Mould and Mathematics popularizer Matt Parker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3RsDIWB7s0
@David Connell
Thanks for that.
I was so deathly afraid that the "hospital attachment" (1A) was going to be some sort of ghastly TUBE. I was so relieved when it turned out merely to be an ID BRACELET.
Didn't realize that TWO TONE CARs were back. Are they as pretty as the ones from back in the '50s? Our family had a really cool yellow-and-black Buick. (Well, we thought so, at least). We dubbed it "The Bumblebee".
Re 50A: I assume there's a German phrase for GOLDEN BEAR if it's a German award? The only GOLDEN BEAR I know is Jack Nicklaus.
I had S-------ABS, and spent the whole puzzle wondering what kind of ABS they would be? SOLID ABS? SUPER-DUPER ABS? SHINY ABS (from all that oil)? Oh, yes, SCULPTED ABS! The proud possession of those who will never be found hitting the DESSERT CASE.
Terrific puzzle. I worked hard to solve it, and was relieved when I didn't need to cheat on TOOTIE. Thanks to TWO TONE CAR, I didn't have to.
7
I had CHISELEDABS right away. This slowed me down as it took me quite a while to admit it wasn’t right. I knew ABS was right, but I needed a couple of tough crosses before I realized these abs were sculpted and not chiseled.
In the end the puzzle took about a minute longer than average. I liked it because for quite some time I thought this might be the one that broke my streak, but then it revealed itself.
For me, the Southwest and the center were the last to fall.
3
Perfectly pitched tough Saturday that seemed impossible but wasn't.
Anybody else consider fireBALL? That would be orange, no?
DESSERTtray/CArt ... CASE!
I thought TASSEL might be TeaSEL at one point.
When I see GOLDENBEAR I think of Cal or Jack Nicklaus.
Hmm, I wonder why the gossipy schoolmate was nicknamed TOOTIE?
Thank you, Ryan McCarty! This one had a lot to ponder and delivered a most satisfying solve.
3
@Johanna
I had a lot of TEASELs in our back acreage when we lived in Chagrin Falls, which plants I carefully spared. The butterflies loved them when they bloomed; the dense heads blossomed from the bottom up, so they lasted for weeks....
1
@Johanna
With you on FIRE before FIVE. Got FIVE from the crosses, and at least proud that I figured out it was the billiard ball before coming to Wordplay. Stuck for some time believing in NYPD for the bravest, ATTEMPTING for taking a stab, and BOOKREPORT for novel opinion.
We were just in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence this fall, walking the Van Gogh trail where Vincent did that painting. I was embarrassed that all I could remember were the plane trees that line the roads in town. Didn’t look up the word, but did look up the painting to enter CYPRESS.
Vincent painted many of his greatest paintings while in the sanitarium there hoping to rest and recover from his mental illness. A reminder of the fine line between what we call “mental illness” and what we call “genius” - brains that operate differently than the norm....
4
@JoHarp wrote: "Stuck for some time believing in NYPD for the bravest"
Just think 911 and this one won't stump you again.
SPELLING BEE THREAD
47 word, 152 points, 1 pangram
Tot 4 5 6 7 8 9
A 3 1 2
B 13 9 2 1 1
C 14 5 5 2 2
G 6 4 2
K 2 1 1
L 9 7 1 1
3
@Liane
SPELLING BEE THREAD -- FORMATTING GOT WEIRD ON POSTING -- FIXED, I HOPE
47 word, 152 points, 1 pangram
SPELLING BEE THREAD
47 word, 152 points, 1 pangram
Tot 4 5 6 7 8 9
A 3 1 2
B 13 9 2 1 1
C 14 5 5 2 2
G 6 4 2
K 2 1 1
L 9 7 1 1
8
Dear Beekeeper, on behalf of the chicken and the egg, I thank you for revising your accepted word list at last!
10
Thanks for the grid, @Liane! And agreed on the chicken and egg - I was so surprised it was accepted today. There were three other times when it came up and wasn't accepted. Seems like more, doesn't it?
2018-06-29 ACFKLR-O No
2018-12-26 ABCKLR-O No
2018-12-31 AHLONY-C No
5
Super crunchy. Challenging. Fresh fill. Humor. That feeling that you won't finish, but then you do.
All one could ask for in a Saturday puzzle! Well done, Mr. McCarty!
17
Tough but enjoyable solve. One reveal (the 'I' IBANKS) and two failed checks - about as close as I ever come on a Saturday. This was one of those where there was always a tipping point in each section, though it took me a while to get to that point in every case.
Deb's story about seeing old cars in Havana reminded me of one of my favorite novels: "Havana Bay" by Martin Cruz Smith. The preponderance of 1950's cars is frequently noted in the book, and a car once owned by Hemingway even makes an appearance, though I no longer recall the exact circumstance.
3
@Rich in Atlanta
Reco for MC Smith books -- I think there isn't one I've not liked -- and no demerit for calling Caitlin Deb today.
(My brain is losing sulci also)
2
@Rich in Atlanta
A good friend of mine took a trip to Havana recently. Before he left, he spoke about how he was especially looking forward to seeing all the old 1950s cars. (He was young enough not to remember them from when they were current.)
1
@Leapy My apologies to Caitlin; I know better and usually remember. Smith is one of my favorite authors too. I recently started re-reading 'Wolves Eat Dogs.' I think it would be a toss-up between that and 'Havana Bay' as my favorite of his, but I enjoy them all.
Deadline, I would love to visit Havana some day; I've read so much about the history of Cuba. I sometimes forget that that's possible now. Don't know what my chances are.
30D: I'd appreciate hearing from a "car person" on this, because in my vague recollection ALEROS were briefly cousins of Grand Ams but were never considered competitors.
5
@Barry Ancona [gasp] wikipedia says the alero shared the same chassis and some models the same engine as the grand am, which was a shocker to me because i thought of it as a family sedan. it says there were a few pace cars too.
sorry about the lack of caps, i have a cat on my lap.
5
Yeah, I thought “competitor” was dubious. But I’m no expert.
@K Barrett....
um...I'm trying to connect the lap-cat to the caps-lack....
2
From the constructor notes: '“Public display of confection” for DESSERT CASE.' That amused me. As did the puzzle.
17
Yes, Sweet!
1
@ad absurdum
Agree. That's a super clue.
Also, I spent a long time trying to fit DESSERT CourSE into the allotted space.
@Deadline I had dessert case first.
Hi Caitlin,
The short stack in the middle of the grid has five entries, not four, but I, too, skipped BAYONETING (at least after Basic).
19A: The Political Victory Fund does not raise money *for* the NRA; it is one of the ways the *NRA* raises money (to gain political victories).
10D: It took me decades to get the entry: my first car was a second-hand two-tone green '57 Chevy.
2
My family had a lime-green and white ‘56 Buick Special as the second car I remember us owning. The first was a green early 50s Pontiac.
David Meyers,
My parents never owned a car.
Tough one for me but I finally got it. Got SE corner first thanks to ESPYAWARDS and TWA getting me started.
Then NW. Started with SORTA for 23A,but 1D had to be BANKS so changed to KINDA. Chile has a lot of coastline and the Andes but also has the Atacama DESERT.
Struggled for a while with the center stack but finally pieced it together.
For a while I wasn't sure I'd get through it without word check but finally made it. Felt like I'd earned a sinful cake from the DESSERTCASE.
4
Pretty much my experience exactly. Thought this might end my streak for awhile and had to finish a Saturday on Saturday! Horrors! Almost looked up Starry Night (That’s how desperate I was.) but refrained in the end.
1
Back from NOLA where it was 70 something to Western WI where it is minus 27 this morning.
Failed at BAYONETING, lamented TOM lethally.
When I first began actively solving, without the aide of 18A, I was happy to get 3-5 correct fills. Now I smile at missed clues (e.g., 29A) with the knowledge that I will get that one the next time.
Off to the gym as my time at 34A has eroded my ability to maintain 32A (perhaps this should read try to obtain 32A).
Nice one Ryan, got me this time. Thank you
3
Letter Box
There must be shorter answers, but I'm sticking with my first:
A-M(8), M-E(10)
2
@Phil P I found A-E (7) and E-M (9). Only slightly more efficient, and it didn’t hurt that my youngest used to tore one of them home from school.
@caitlin -- I'm ashamed to admit the contemporary image who first entered my mind at [Orange ball].
This puzzle has 13 answers not used in the NYT before, my favorite being SCULPTED ABS, TEA EGG, and TWO TONE CAR, and I'm amazed that the common DO A FAVOR and ESPY AWARDS are on this list. From BAYONETING down to WHAT A LOSER is essentially a quintuple stack, and I bet Ryan spent eons finding interlocking answers answers for that. At a spare 66 words, the grid is remarkably clean. Lovely clues for BOTANY, NINE, REEF, FIVE, and MEN.
But most importantly, how was the solve? I love puzzles that make me guess answers and check crosses, sometimes checking crosses of those crosses, all without writing anything down. That's the kind of crossword grunt work -- where my brain breaks into a sprint -- that makes it come alive. This puzzle gave me several of these rushes, so oh yes, this was an excellent solve, one that left me in a state of contentment. Thank you for that, Ryan!
11
I forgot to say that I loved seeing my favorite picture ( so a gimme) at 25D. I loved going to the MOMA when I lived in NYC just to see that sometimes.
1
suejean,
Long-time admirer of "The Starry Night" here!
I just watched a quiz show in which one of the questions concerned what museum Starry Night was in. The contestant got it wrong with Amsterdam
@suejean
I was reminded of this humorous piece in the New Yorker a while back. Bet you’d like it.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/05/honest-museum-audio-tour/amp
Surely the manor inhabitant was the lord. no? The serf would have been working the fields..
2
I thought that initially as well. The lord loves in the manor house, but the serfs live in smaller dwellings on the manor.
5
The statue in Picadilly Circus is not Eros, but his brother, Anteros.
3
I endorse this comment with a "Fact Boy nod" that while the poster is correct, the 37A entry is too.
1
Apparently, you can put a melon ball in your fruit salad, but you can't put an orange ball.
3
This has been one of my favorite weeks of puzzles and today continued the trend. I enjoyed gradually getting the long answers, although I had to look up 17A, not a Star Wars fan.
My favorite clue was Novel opinion for BOOK REVIEW.
Thanks, Caitlin for answering my only question; I had no idea why Orange ball was FIVE. I was chuffed with understanding NINE just before I was going to ask about that. Lots of excellent misdirection today. Yes, Ryan, I did enjoy.
6
@suejean
I have no idea why this appeared twice.
@suejean
And no idea why the repeat disappeared.
It wasn't until after I finished (19:22) that I realized 'Orange ball' has to do with Pool. I couldn't get 'Nerf' out of my head..
6
@Mike
I went with nerf initially. Clearly, they were playing hardball today.
11
@Paul
I kept thinking of these orange styrofoam balls that had 76 on them, a gas station brand once. They were freebies & you’d put one on your car’s antenna to help you locate it in a parking lot. (& advertise their brand, natch!)
Years working in IT: 17+ number if times I've heard the term "ibank":0
5
@Jon
Am I missing something? IT generally means information technology, i.e. dealing with computers, especially when they're causing problems.
Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are investment banks, or (according to the puzzle, IBANKS.
What does one have to do with the other?
7
@Steve L
I think it refers to the designation of investment banks.
1
@Noel
Still not seeing what that means in relation to information technology.
1
Lots of doubled letters in the solutions.
Is that a sub-theme to notice and appreciate?
1
@jnathanj, I'll refer you to @Lewis and his possibly quondam appfeldoppelgangering pastime.
[There may be some random mis-spelling in that long'un]
1
Caitlin-- Interesting thing about corn plants, they have separate male and female flowers on each stalk. The male tassels produce pollen, while the female ears get pollinated, yielding the delicious corn kernels.
(I always remember my first week at college in 1980, when the one classmate from Iowa said she'd spent the summer "detasseling," and was surprised that no one in our class at a Northeastern school had heard of this activity!)
Check out "Detasseling" on Wikipedia for more than you ever wanted to know about farming corn...
3
Suzan,
Mystification works both ways. My sister stayed in Iowa one summer between college years and detasseled, and the high schoolers, seeing that she was not as fair-skinned as they, asked her if she was a foreigner. She said "Yes, I'm from New York."
3
@Suzan This new learning amazes me. Explain to me again how corn tassels may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
C'MON a great puzzle! needed my ONE a DAY vitamin for this.
1
Alternative (and more Saturday-appropriate) entry and cluing for 44A:
How plots can be measured?
IN ACTS
12
Well, this was quite a challenging puzzle for me. The clues were a bit sparse. I thought for sure the FIVE orange ball had to do with the Medici coat of arms, but after reading Caitlin's column (thank you, Caitlin!), I was way off. And I should have realized the clue was singular. It is amazing the associations one's mind makes when it is desperately trying to find the answer!
Did anyone else notice DESERT crossing DESSERT?
13
@Steve L,
So that's why the cake tasted a little dry.
33
@Steve
Yes indeed! On account of the sandwich cookies there, bien sur.
oreo
2
Count me as another one who was wondering if I would be able to complete this puzzle.
I did have to do some lookups, as my film/TV knowledge is sparse. Although I had a few fills in the NW (most of them wrong), I did have some success in the NE and SW, then got the SE, center, and finished where I started—in the NW.
Liked the clues for EDIT and AROMA (and grudgingly for BOTANY); my gimmes were STYE, ENDO, EROS, and WHIFFS
2
According to Yelp, the bakery shown in the photo at the top of the column is now permanently closed.
Too bad if you want to sample any of those goodies.
2
Steve,
I guess Wordplay photos follow crossword clue rules and don't have to so identify "former?"
The caption, though, while possibly acceptable in NYT style, is not acceptable in NYC style: here, something "near" Bryant Park is not said to be "by" it.
2
Just as he's helped many a hero or heroine in the Star Wars franchise, ARTOO DETOO was my gimme and lifeline in the NW. With the little astromech droid and little Amy DORRIT, I was able to complete the NW quadrant first. BOTANY stands out in its field as the best clued.
In the SE quadrant, ODS gave me UDON NOODLE, a sufficient morsel to alert me to the fact that 40D was not a MIRAGE. In that section RATED R, not ESPY AWARDS, deserves the accolades for best clued.
In the SW, HEF DO -- no, did -- me A FAVOR, and I was able to work out the rest. Fortunately, a pool ball was what my mind took as the first cue for 49A; I just had to recall the right number. Clever cluing for REEF (remember they can be artificial, https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/71702.html).
The center stack then started to fall when WHAT A LOSER gave me BUSH LEAGUE (which this puzzle is decidedly not). I finished in the NE, at the crossing of TWO TONE CAR and TOOTIE. And I grokked the cluing for NINE (3x3) only after the puzzle was done.
Your puzzle takes the cake, Mr. McCarty!
6
@Henry Su
I saw what you did, placing "cue" in that sentence with "pool ball".
5
@Henry Su
I concur regarding “Field of flowers”!
Truly outstanding!
:-c)€
This puzzle had an exceptional number of fine clues. Kudos to McCarty & editors!
I respect Shortz’s decisions, but I’d love to see the original clues.
This was, for me, the most challenging crossword for at least a year. Loved it. Got very hung up on several tenacious errors. Had a quadruple scar at SCULPTED ABS. Ugh!
Needs plastic surgery.
:-c)€
I don’t get NINE for small square? Oh! Never mind. . . Math! Just dawned on me as I was typing. Thank you fellow solvers. I’m sure your vibes were in the air somewhere.
13
@dsgarcia. Even though I got the answer, I didn’t “get” the answer until I read your comment. Now it is one of my favorite clues in the puzzle.
8
@dsgarcia
Very tricky clue that went over my head.
And I taught math for many years.. :-)
6
@dsgarcia
My first thought was ONE which didn’t fit of course. NINE came to me much later.
What’s that word for a puzzle where early on and for quite a while thereafter you think to yourself that there is no way you will be able to finish this, yet you keep mucking away and after awhile surprise yourself by getting two sections filled and then a third, and finally you face that last mostly blank section with the opaque clues and each successful entry feels like a major accomplishment, and then finally you find the last blank squares filling in . . . to your near disbelief?
Oh yeah, Saturday.
49
@Puzzlemucker Exactly my experience today. First pass looked like I was doomed to failure, but sections kept falling after that until suddenly it was solved!
7
@Puzzlemucker
Well put. We've all been there.
4
@gTyler D.
Thanks for the validation. For me, it was the bottom right (SE) and part of the middle that fell last. That Berlin Film Festival clue scared the heck out of me (my German crosswordwese begins with EIN and on a good day ends with DER); my stomach sank every time I looked at it. Since I was a Golden Bear for a while (go Cal!), I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes the scariest looking clues will have answers that are close to home.
7
I'm writing about the Feb. 3 Sunday Acrostic, which I have tried to solve online three times in a row: last Thursday Jan. 31, Mon. Feb. 4, and today, Feb. 8. Each time I was able to fill in EVERY square except one...and it was a DIFFERENT letter each time! This is not the first acrostic on which this glitch occurred--and it really fries me that I am denied a "solve" (and thus a "streak") because of one stupid letter, which I KNOW and try to type, but doesn't register (whether in the clue, the grid or the quote). This happens on my MacBook and my iPad Pro. What on earth is going on???
1
@Sandy
This happened to me too, when using the NYT newspaper app. I’ve since switched to doing the puzzles in a browser (Safari works fine), and that has taken care of the problem. The apps are glitchy; the comments section was troublesome also.
2
@Wanda
I recommend solving through xwordinfo. Much superior to the NYT version.
I found it interesting that Ryan - wasn't he a Nassoon? - managed to find room for the Whiffs in the corner. At least he crossed it with some Orange...
3
Lots of fresh fill. Nice.
1
Hi Brian,
I'm guessing (from absence of mention) that unlike yesterday's puzzle, this one was *not* "Two standard deviations below average solution time."
2
Not quite one standard deviation below average solution time. As somebody posted on the Thursday puzzle, if I met the constructor in person, I could finish their sentences.