This was interestingly difficult, but I was really offended by one clue. In this day and age, the concept of a “Ms degree” as a postgraduate goal is ridiculously outdated and condescending. I’m amazed that it was even allowed.
That would be M.S. = Master of Science degree
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I hoped it was that, but myy understanding is that an M.S. would be a graduate degree, not a postgraduate degree.
In my understanding, Laurel, graduate and postgraduate are synonymous terms when talking about degrees.
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This one took me over an hour longer than usual. Much of that time was spent stubbornly defending BATATNIGHT for 30D (bug catcher)!
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One tough nut to crack this Saturday. Took nearly my entire train ride home from NYC, ~45 mins. Eventually called up things buried deep in the gray matter, like ELROPO, PELL, and SHANDY. Only major mistake was DOGLEG before DEWLAP. Most worthy challenge.
LLOYD Price, "Personality":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvPU-cvaKCM
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As a retired patent attorney, I take exception to 54D. While, an idea must be explained in detail in a patent application. If the idea is novel, it can be patented.
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No-knows: UBER POOL, ARM BAR, GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL, BILES.
Unknowns as clued (or otherwise really hard to figure out): OTTER PUP, SAMOA, LABOR PARTY, P.E. TEACHER, YEAH DUDE, MS DEGREE, SCORE PAD. Plus CHASE UTLEY, where I had all but one letter before I remembered UTLEY from yesterday or the day before.
Gimmes: TIE DYE, PELL, SHANDY, HARE, AVOCADO PIT.
Very, very hard.
Thank you.
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Enjoyable puzzle... built it up from the SE.
Being Pokémon- unaware, needed some work to get the final clues/answers to complete:
39D, thinking of ‘Perfect’ as a noun led me (tried AONE); 36D tried to squeeze in a brief form of Personal Trainer, prompted by the relationship angle; landed on the teacher, but in my school days (overseas) they were referred to as PT (phys training) teachers, getting to PE took little more time.
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For xworders who want to prepare for the noun/verb misdirects, a list of misleading words is found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial-stress-derived_noun
I've always enjoyed the ambiguity that can result from these word pairs, as shown in this road sign I saw on the highway:
"Permitted vehicles forbidden."
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Ok - I am a lifelong NY MET fan, and really hope Chase Utley is not in tomorrow's puzzle ( he broke Reuben Tejada's leg in a recent post season game ) . How about the great Robbie Alomar for second base ? Jose Altuve ?
Other than that an enjoyable puzzle - just enough challenge and loved HAHAHA !
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How about Johnny Evers?
(BYGONE DAYS)
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.... perchance....
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Don't tinker with perfection!
Turned out that spending my youth collecting cards, watching the cartoons, and churning out hours on the Game Boy paid off with 37-Across. Glad to have that Pokemon answer help me ease into everything else. Good puzzle today!
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Thanks for a great start to Saturday!! It took me a bit longer than usual (1:20), but I really enjoyed working then re-working the grid. Had TAROT and CARDS in the wrong spots for way too long, HAHAHA. The NW also had me stumped right to the end, but once I swapped OHPLEASE for PUHLEASE, everything came together.
Bring on Sunday!! :D
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80 minutes or 80 seconds?? :D
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I️ had to reveal after only 30 minutes because I’m so busy.
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so here is my comment whine of the day: When I click on the "see all replies" I don't see any more replies, just a blue box is drawn around what I was already seeing.
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RMP -- Did you choose not to whine about it -- or did you not see it -- for the past several days?
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Chose not to whine about it while other things were higher up the list. . .
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Understood.
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Aaaurrrgh. Could have sworn ByLES was correct and PARTy seemed fine...World Series opens with a party? Maybe? Really annoying mental hiccup.
Harder than usual on Saturday for me, but consistently interesting and fun. Writeovers included ohpLEASE/PUHLEASE, BetterDAYS/BYGONEDAYS, and LEGal/LEGIT. As for 37A, I don’t know what Pokemon is, and I’m ok with that. Got it on crosses. Excellent Saturday challenge!
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I liked this puzzle, except for the junction of cheap cigars and slapstick comics. I wasn't familiar with that term for a cheap cigar, and the "slapstick" answer was a bit labored. For the first time since I started doing the NYT puzzle I was reduced to running through the letters of the alphabet until the puzzle told me I'd hit the right one.
Well, at least I'll know them next time.
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Mundungus!
Agree that PIED was two steps beyond.
But I remembered EL ROPO from something like the 1940s.
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My 8 year old son gave me GOTTA CATCH EM ALL which gives him confidence that maybe one day he will solve Saturday’s too. Thanks for a fun ride and some mind bending clues.
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Yay 1) for you 8-yo actually talking to you! 2) for being helpful instead of just laughing, "Mom, you don't know THAT?
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Thanks for this ... I was wondering if youngsters today know Pokemon or if it was a fad whose time came and went, and now I know.
My apologies for the repeat posts; I kept getting red 'An error occurred' messages even though at least one post had gone on through....so I kept trying until I got the green letters. I was using my iPad, but maybe now I'll wait until I can be at the desk with the PC, which seems to handle the wonky NYT site better....
MOL -- Thought you were taking another shot at TAUTOLOGY.
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Very cleaver misdirection muttered Tom maliciously.
Nice Sat. Stan or is it Satan :)
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Not a complete success for me (of course), but close enough that I guess I can comment. Stiff challenge with just enough gimmes and guessables in most places to work it out. CHASEUTLEY with some crosses, BAINES from running backwards through presidents. Plenty of complete unknowns as clued. Wish the clue for SHANDY had been Tristam. Would have helped a lot up there.
On the downside - knowing that the puzzle was built around GOTTACATCHEMALL. I... don't know what to say. And then Sam feeling that he needed to explain TABULARASA. I long for BYGONEDAYS.
Long song, though most of it is just narrative. Everybody funny; now you funny too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97ECZMvbLxg
..
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One nit with your comment, RiA: It's Tristram, not Tristam.
My other thought about SHANDY. I entered the answer with no letters showing, but I think SHADies are more often made with beer and ginger ale, not lemonade. But I've had both.
Like you, I found TABULA RASA very much in my wheelhouse, while anything about Pokemon except its name and its kiddie following was a mystery.
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Pretty good challenge for a Saturday.
Agree with others that CHASE is getting into a few too many games lately.
Isn't HAHAHA the [laugh] riot itself and not the response to it?
Never of fan of the conversational clues, or whatever we call the quoted bits like YEAHDUDE.
"Isn't HAHAHA the [laugh] riot itself and not the response to it?"
Take out the bracketed word.
(If something or somebody is a riot, we laugh.)
...or leave the bracketed word in:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/laugh_riot
Took a while to get 30-down. Because BETA TESTERs are a thing of the past. Now it's all of us.
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Every morning is an Adventure! Will the Comment Box be black? Will we get the little red message 'An error occurred'? When I hit Submit, how far will the screen jump?
Oh, the puzzle. CHASE UTLEY, the New Mel Ott.
This one unfolded like an origami crane.....surprisingly simple, yet with unexpected turns. OLDEN DAYS had to give way. FORMER DAYS? No, again....and finally one crossing letter clued me in. My BYGONE DAYS are numerous, and mercifully did not include Pokémon or Pac-Man.
Annnnnnd.... red letters again.........
Every morning is an Adventure! Will the Comment Box be black? Will we get the little red message 'An error occurred'? When I hit Submit, how far will the screen jump?
Oh, the puzzle. CHASE UTLEY, the New Mel Ott.
This one unfolded like an origami crane.....surprisingly simple, yet with unexpected turns. OLDEN DAYS had to give way. FORMER DAYS? No, again....and finally one crossing letter clued me in. My BYGONE DAYS are numerous, and mercifully did not include Pokémon or Pac-Man.
My BYGONE DAYS were YESTERYEAR first.
In Real Life, glad I missed Pokeman, very glad I didn't miss Pac-Man and his Ms. They were fun.
Five gimmes, five out of my wheelhouse. Fair cluing, though brutal at times. Just enough cracks of light to keep me going. THIS is what I want -- and got today -- in my Saturday puzzle. Beautious!
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I'm wondering how CHASE UTLEY will be clued tomorrow.
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I'm afraid this was way outside my wheelhouse, or maybe I'm too distracted because of my upcoming trip to California. I'll be leaving Monday morning before the crack of dawn.
I got AVOCADO PIT with no crosses.
OTTER PUPS was cute.
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Some time we simply must coordinate our visits! We got home Nov. 5th from the Halloween wedding of our son and his long-time SO. I have a daughter-in-law :0)
Some time we simply must coordinate our visits! We got home Nov. 5th from the Halloween wedding of our son and his long-time SO. I have a daughter-in-law :0)
Error msg again! 5 tries fo my CinC......
Yes, it would be nice to meet up.
I know very little about Pokemon (I’m a Boomer) but GOTTA CATCH EM ALL was in my head anyway. The power of media. Some tough ones today for a non-US solver: SAMOA (Survivor?) and EL ROPO had me flummoxed, as did PELL, but I got there in the end and enjoyed the ride, although not via UBER POOL - I don’t think we have those in my corner of Wales.
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I tried COLLECT THEM ALL, GOTTA GET THEM ALL....No knowledge of this fad, and my offspring must have missed out, too. I *am* grateful.
Survivor is a reality competition show. In my opinion, you're not missing anything. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_(franchise)
I was on pace for a personal Saturday record and ended up with a DNF. I just could not make the NW corner work, between OTTERPUP and PUHLEASE.
Likewise. Can't remember the last time I didn't finish a puzzle, but just couldn't get any traction there.
This puzzle came together at the pace of stalagmite formation - one drip at a time. I really don’t know how my brain digs up so many of these answers. Seems like the cerebral cortex is not even involved - the Xword bots just wander around in there and occasionally report tidbits like “Hey Mike, try CHASE UTLEY!” I don’t know anything about CHASE UTLEY.
It was fun to watch Dog tAg evolve into DEWLAP.
A worthy Saturday challenge, thanks Mr. Trabucco.
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'puzzle came together at the pace of a stalagmite formation - one drip at a time'
It's like "ants in the pants": the 'mites' go up and the 'tites' go down. Thus the drips would be forming stalagtites.
With you on the Dogtag / DEWLAP conversion, though the 'hound' part should have been a pretty clear signal.
[headbonk]
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Well, my nitpersnickety correction hasn't shown up yet, but in case it surfaces, let me apologize now in case I'm not around later.
Of course, the drips will be forming both stalagMites and stalagTites.
[17 ways to embarrass myself]
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you slay me, leapy. now I have to deal with the tautological ear worm, ‘the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out’ for the rest of the day. hey barry, pass that bottle to me!
You're right about the different voices. Kind of an elusive quality that combines word choice genres, how far into made-up sounds a constructor will go, how far away from accustomed grammatical usages, etc. I think it's why puzzles go faster after you're part way through: the voice starts to be more familiar, and so, for example, you might (like today) no longer grab the obvious word, ? or no ?.
Incidentally, is the running of puzzles containing a notable answer within a day or two or each other a deliberate practice? CHASE UTLEY twice in, what, two-three days? Interesting way to create an entry point in a moderately difficult puzzle. Or is this a known Shortzian technique I'm just now noticing?
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Question for the music masters: Aren't "opus" designations given to whole pieces of music and therefore an overture, being just a part of a larger work would not be an "opus?"
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There are overtures that stand alone, for a variety of reasons - The 1812 Overture comes immediately to mind - primarily because they were written to open a festivity, a special concert, or even a non-musical event. In which case they get their own opus number. Beethoven famously abandoned several overtures to his opera "Fidelio" / "Leonore", and those abandoned pieces have led independent lives on concert programs.
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Also, opus numbers are often indications of publication grouping and order. Hence, the "Moonlight" sonata is Opus 27, No. 2. (Talk about getting your money's worth from a subscription -- the Moonlight wasn't enough for the price!)
So multiple works can be an opus as well as a single movement -- if the composer's publisher thought it should be so. Once again, it's all about marketing.
Pet Eacher? Pete Acher? (multiple head bangs) --> PE TEACHER. Favorite clue: Response to a riot. HAHAHA! For sure! :)
turning in, teach all day tomorrow.
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36D didn't take me quite as long to parse, RMP, since I still have a relationship working out with a PE TEACHER -- my wife (please).
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My wife was a PE TEACHER, too, yet I was never the PE TEACHER's PET.
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puhlease! :)
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made my through it. had to change AVOCADO dIp to AVOCADO PIT! clever. finally got DATA TYPE for Boolean. didn't do Pokemon in the BYGONE DAYS but cottoned onto the goal somehow -- GOTTA CATCH THEM ALL.
Went through all the accrosses before finally getting STRADS, and I really thought I was in trouble. But then I just started chipping away, as Deb has told us we should do when it's a stumper. And I finished, thanks in part to seeing UTLEY in a recent puzzle. A fun test, Sam T, many thanks.
You came through with the OTTER PUP photo, Sam E. If you hadn't, you would have heard many howls from the otter faithful.
OT: How about that Buzzy? Great final. Best TOC ever.
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It was a great TOC. I had predicted all three finishing in different positions.
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That Final J question was a killer
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That it was. I'm not sure how long I would have needed to run through all the states and capitals,
"26A: Ooh, clues with masked capital letters can be so tough sometimes. [Shakes fist] If you’re confused, think about how People magazine might turn a profit from an AD SALE."
It's actually a more accurate clue *without* the masked cap. For People magazine (or The New York Times), an AD SALE is revenue, not profit. For lower case people on commission, like the XWP regular AD REP, an AD SALE really is profitable.
YEAH DUDE
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Finished the puzzle--couldn't get the comments box to come up--got the little boxes for "Full name" and "Location" instead--sent an email with screenshots to the customer support folks--and now it looks like it's working. Of course.
This one was more on my wavelength than Friday's puzzle, but I did feel like I was making up answers. ARM BAR? UBER POOL? But they turned out to be right. Then again, there were OTTER PUPs, so that was sweet.
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Never heard of UBER POOL. UBER EATS is a new rip off food delivery service, way over priced. Convenient, but not saving money. The ONE time I planned to take UBER, they didnt show up and I missed my flight. NOT a money saving experience.
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In UBER POOL, riding with strangers, sometimes to parts of town you've never seen, one saves money over an Uber in which one is the only passenger. The only variety of Uber which a reasonable cluer could claim is a money saver.
My nephew often uses an UBER POOL to commute in DC; says it's less expensive and more reliable than the Metro.
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