Embiggen

For 23A, LOWTIDE is a bad time, not a "good time," to build a castle. If the castle is built below the high tide line, it will be washed away when the tide starts coming back in.

Was off to a blazing start with AZERA (remembered from a previous puzzle) and ABCISLANDS (have been to both Aruba and Curacao). The NW fell quickly, although I had some difficulty parsing 19A. Next, BENTOBOX came quickly (have had my share) as did SCOTTY and LGBT. The rest of the puzzle evolved more slowly, with total unknowns LEOMESSI, VING (I first had VIrG and had to do a look-up) and of course ONFLEEK slowing things down. Nevertheless I finished under an hour, which is good for me. My last entry was the M at the intersection of LEOMESSI and THEMOLE, which was my second guess after R. Enjoyed the clever clues for AHS, POBOY, TEE, RINGTOSS, and DECAL. "Embiggen?" "Tub-thump?" Really?

I'm just here to see how many folks got salty over ON FLEEK. :D

Quite good, but zero to hero was weak. as was beery. but good saturday puzzle overall

I remember when you could vote for which postage stamp you preferred -- the FAT ELVIS or the other one (thin? young?). What I don't remember is which WON OVER the other. That's where I had my favourite mistake: I thought 'Successfully wooed' should be WON HAND --as in 'he won her hand in marriage' -- so until that was "corrected", I had some pleasant moments thinking about the sound of WON HAND clapping. Then things got a little MESSI in the SE: I had SHOT for SWIG and EEL for AHI, and somehow got to the point of considering that every actor wants to HAVE HIS CAR. Could be true for Jay LENO'S Garage, which apparently had its share of NON-starters. A minor quibble: I thought those 3-RING BINDERS were supposed to be full of women, but the grid only has ANNE and maybe the AVON Lady. Keeping that LOO NON-specific for the LGBT[Q], I was rather hoping for a few more SHE'S. Can't help being impressed by the festive banquet STrabucco has laid out for us, with that array of GYRO, PO'BOY, EGGS, SUSHI, BENTO_BOX, crab BOIL, hearts of PALM and sea BASS. If I'm careful with the SWIGs of RIOJA and something BEERY, I think I can sample and enjoy it all, ignoRING TOSS my cookies time. Thank you, all. CLOVIS all we need.

I always forget about Idaho.

Two days in a row now that the NW corner gave me fits. I stuck with it though and came through! A few weeks ago I changed my focus from speedy solves to Streaks. My average time is suffering but I'm on a pretty hot streak! LOL

OK, the answer is 24, and "number" is clue to the last word I found. I can get on with something productive now.

Talking of EGO BOOSTERS, I achieved "GENIUS" level (I OBJECT, bar too low) on the SPELLING BEE today in record time, with just 17 words, at least 11 of which derive at least in part from the Latin root, "facere". I'm at 23 words now and wonder if anyone can tell me what the total number is [in order to reach "QUEEN BEE" status] so that I do not waste my entire day. Indeed, it might provide a boost to the national economy if that that number was provided on a daily basis.

I estimate that I filled in LEO MESSI (aging, but not FAT, KING of soccer) within a minute of his failing to convert a penalty kick (PK) for Argentina against Iceland. Final score 1:1. Iceland (population ~300,000; professional soccer players ~100) in raptures; Argentina (population ~43,000,000; professional soccer players ~43,000,000) devastated.

EGOBOOSTER puzzle of my LGBT DREAMS!! WONOVER and have to TAKETH time to comment. THEMOLE. I own the first (best) season on dvd... there is an AXE involved in a mission at the end of the season! My guess is that the NINE sleuths had many a SWIG of RIOJA while filming in Spain. Anderson is BOSS and goes from ZEROTOHERO in my book. NEED to rewatch this classic! DL

Concerning the 3D entry, my experience with recent puzzles would lead my to the conclusion that the NYT is somewhat more of an EGGO BOOSTER.

Well, my sister taught in an all-girls school for many years and explained, "If you want to know what's in style, or what's going to be in style next year, seventh-grade girls set all of the standards." Happily, during the two-and-a-half weeks in 2014 when ONFLEEK was oh-currahnt, I had a niece in seventh grade, so this was not new to me.

ONFLEEK. Really, Sam and Will? Really?

Something is wrong when you find the Mini harder than the main Saturday puzzle... Still quite an EGO BOOSTER for me. NETFLIX TV SERIES was my ORIGINAL answer. Never heard of ON FLEEK. Surprised to see BOSS defined as cool. (I agree that it was one for the older generation.) I had MNOP before LGBT. I thought that balanced well the ABC of 1D. Never used the term BEERY in my life and I have patronized quite a few pubs. Am I just being whiney?

Loved ZEROTOHERO right next to EGOBOOSTER. In fact, I loved just about every entry in this puzzle. All of the unknowns to me were fairly crossed bringing true feelings of triumph and real aha moments. I actually laughed at the clue for RINGTOSS. Thank you, Sam Trabucco, for this perfect Saturday solve! I'd say you're ONFLEEK but that sounds more like something I'd give my dog to kill fleas and ticks.

My first entry for 35a was POLITICAL SATIRE; BENTO BOX sent me to NETFLIX but it took awhile to tease out the ORIGINAL. I had Apollo playing with the Muses before LYRES. THE MOLE and LEO MESSI letter M crossing had to wait for Caitlin's comment to clue me in. Loved VIA VENUTO; it just flows off the tongue as well as my typing fingers.

Perfect Saturday -- lots of work but finally completion. To get there, I had to give up a few things I held on to for too long, such as, 'acura' before AZERA, 'chug' before SWIG (which gave me 'utah' before IDAGO), GEL 'inserts' before INSOLES. I also started with NETFLIX 'offering' before EGGS proved to be ORIGINAL. Am I missing something, or are we being a bit unkind to the King?! And by that I mean the royal "we".

So, an obscure TV show crossing an Argentine futbol star--I cry Natick! I did my best guess and put in an R. At least with the tacky ON FLEEK the crossing gave me a fighting chance. Spelling Bee says I'm a Genius, but now that I know there is a higher calling, (sigh) I'll have to accept being a Second Tier Solver. Can only spend just so much time on these things! Weeds to pull, beds to water, laundry to deal with, produce to process--the latter being a huge plus: fresh beets, rattlesnake beans, and pickled cucumber salad for tonight's side dishes.

For those who didn't know ONFLEEK: meet the new BOSS. Good puzzle.

"The world’s tallest sand castle, in Dulsberg, Germany." Interesting photo, Caitlin, but not quite on point for the 23A entry. Dulsberg is about 60 miles from the North Sea (and not even on the Elbe), so the sand castle sees neither high nor LOW TIDE.

Two Sams in a row! Lots of spark in this one in the answers (i.e. EXCUSE YOU, ZERO TO HERO, BENTO BOX) and clues (DECAL, ZERO TO HERO, RING TOSS). VING, in case you're wondering, as I was, is short for Irving. It took the longest time for me to get PALM, even when I had the PA, and to get SUSHI because I kept seeing rolls as the kind that come in breadbaskets. There is a Kevin Spacey mini-theme, with "House of Cards" crossing WIN AN OSCAR (of which he's won two), as well as crossing ZERO TO HERO, of which he's the opposite. What a splendid zingy jump-start to my day, better than an alarm clock. Thank you for this, Sam!

The clue for RIOJA is fine as it is indeed a Red Spanish wine, just not always as Martin pointed out. Naturally my first thought for clue 58A was LEES, but I was surprised that it turned out to be correct. Sometimes just getting one sort of obscure answer quickly is enough to cheer me up, and today it was CLOVIS. However it was a typical Saturday for me, with several unknowns, not just ONFLEEK. I didn't know the shoes or the ointment, and was trying to stretch out Antilles for the islands off the coast of Venezuela. Luckily, I still don't mind using what help is available and found a lot to like today.

I enjoyed this one. I had a lot of emptiness in the SE for quite awhile, but I “hoped with some effort” to succeed. And then I did. Odd that the author’s notes misquote the clue for 10A as “Letters following Q” instead of “before”.

Well made puzzle ... enjoyed it after cracking the NW where the Hyundai held up progress. Also, worth noting that ‘House of Cards’ was ORIGINALly on BBC... so where does Netflix get away with calling it an Original, I never fathomed (and blogged it when they launched the first season). Overall, faster solve than yesterday and last few Saturdays.

This was perfect for me--the words I did not know, such as AZERA and ONFLEEK could be worked out by piecing together the down clues. BASS for villain seems questionable, for reasons others have mentioned. I felt bad that I had to confirm ONFLEEK with urban dictionary before leaving the quadrant--somehow it didn't "feel like a word." Unknown words, even slangy ones, usually feel like words to me, but this phrase is an extremely ugly sounding, counterintuitive and unsightly locution. The urban dictionary posters took more umbrage at this phrase than even the NYT crossword puzzle crew--and with much less delicacy. The lightbulb that went off when I got ZEROTOHERO counterbalanced my sadness about ONFLEEK, however--great puzzle.

Fact Boy is reliable as clockwork on both the "villainous bass" clue and the "rioja isn't necessarily red" clue - it's equally amusing that the Times continues using both regularly, perhaps just to maintain equilibrium in the universe. Here's a wonderful example of the quality operatic basses do share - "seriousness". The Grand Inquisitor's scene from Verdi's Don Carlos, where the lowest bass instruments of the orchestra are employed to signify his gravitas when he enters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pNxU4ck8BI I made quite a stir, almost exactly four years ago, when I used the expression "on fleek" during one faculty meeting - most of the faculty is about half my age and they didn't credit me with such currency. For the doubters, yes it is an expression, and, yes, it has peaked. I'm surprised no one seems to have objected to "boss" - since that meant "cool" in real-life speech only for people within about four years of my age. Peak for "boss" was about 1972, I'd guess. When I got a boss new bike with a banana seat and everything.

A wonderful puzzle was this. EMBIGGEN is now my favorite word. VIA VENETO starts at Piazza Barberini and snakes its way up the hill past the US Embassy to Porta Pinciana, one of the gates through the Aurelian wall. It is only the last three blocks, with all its outdoor cafes, where La Dolce Vita was filmed, and now a small area area below the wall, where the street splits, is named for Federico Fellini.

Well, that was quite the EGO BOOSTER. I went from ZERO TO HERO by completing this fantastic puzzle in near-my-Saturday record time - at nearly 1/4 my average Saturday time. Speaking of HERO - there are lots of food references. There is the other GYRO and then the BEERY batter fried PO BOY. The AHI (Jiro DREAMS of) SUSHI in the BENTO BOX. Or maybe a BOILed EGG and wash it down with a SWIG of RIOJA. No wonder the the King became FAT ELVIS in his later years. But he was still able to CROON though maybe less of a teen IDOL by then. I got NETFLIX ORIGINAL right away, and then WIN AN OSCAR from the N in ORIGINAL. These are probably why I SPED through the puzzle today. Also noticed that there is a RING BESIDE the BINDER. Need a couple more RINGs.

I just set my best time for a Saturday, and it registered correctly as today's time on the Statistics display, but it's still showing my previous best (37 seconds slower) as the best time. Any ideas if this will work itself out? Don't want to lose such a good round.

6A. Villain's part, often. But maybe not in the case of NSYNC, since it was Justin Timberlake's departure, not Lance 6A's, that caused the break-up of the band. Anyway, didn't we just have Lance 6A yesterday?

Arch-villains Don Giovanni, Scarpia, Iago, Alberich, Macbeth, Rigoletto, and Tonio are all baritones, and Pinkerton, Sportin’ Life, Otello, Robespierre, Monostatos, and Canio are tenors. If voice were an attribute of character, you would think that two composers would write the same voice for the same role. But the villainous emperor Nero is a bass in Boito, a tenor in Mascagni; Mephistopheles is a bass in Gounod, a tenor in Busoni. Canio and Otello are tenors who commit murders after being egged on by baritones (Tonio, Iago). Basses are just as likely as not to be the victims of villains (Banquo, Angelotti, Il Commendatore). If you peruse the parts table in Crowell’s Handbook of World Opera, it leaps out at you that villainous roles are pretty evenly distributed amongst tenors, baritones, and basses. Classes of which a bass voice is typical: emperors, kings, czars, high priests, top bureaucrats, politicians, mayors, cardinals, popes, religious leaders, and gods (Neptune, Mars, Mercury). And a note on La Rioja: it’s a wine-growing region which produces all kinds of wine, red (tinto), white (blanco), and rosé (rosado). “Rioja” is not synonymous with “red.” I believe the persistence of variants on this clue arises from confusion of “Rioja” with “rojo” (red); cf. “Red, as a Spanish wine” = ROJA (5/22/08; if this adjective were actually used to modify “vino,” — it isn’t [see above] — it would have to be “rojo,” since “vino” is masculine).

My first pass through the clues yielded only five answer and I think two of them were wrong. Usually on a Saturday that's a bad omen and I won't finish, but today I managed to solve in 57.44% of my Saturday average!

Spelling Bee update (Spoiler alert--if you're still solving, do not look below the paragraph break.) I just got to (ugh) Queen Bee status for the second time after being away from the puzzle all night. It took me about seven seconds to see the last missing word. Yesterday I complained that on the previous Bee, there were many real words that weren't accepted; one of them was LORAN, which started out life as an acronym, but is now in the dictionary as a common noun. The word I needed--and found just now--was a similar word. Wikipedia said: The term RADAR was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging or RAdio Direction And Ranging. The term radar has since entered English and other languages as a common noun, losing all capitalization. This word was--rightly so, in my opinion--acceptable to the powers that Bee.

ON FLEEK is almost esoteric at this point! By the time YASQUEEN makes it in, it will be too. ( /s ) In all seriousness, fun and “fleeky” Saturday. Very sleek solve for me. You could say Herc was on a roll...yes, broke out into song at ZEROTOHERO. Lots of fun food fill to go with the fair games. Loved the LGBT-Q clue. Would it be a mistake if I tried to revisit THEMOLE? Mr. Trabucco’s puzzle is BOSS in my book.

Great puzzle! Playful and fun!

Hi Caitlin, You've noted that classicists would know 38A, and the constructor takes us to ancient Greece for 22A, so let me add that you will find both 58A and 10A in Mary Renault's classical fiction classic "The Last of the Wine."

ON FLEEK has been around since 2014. Imagine, Barack Obama was still president. The Astros had never won a World Series. The Cubs hadn't won one in 100 years. Ah, 2014, the good old days. Yeah, that makes it a real expression. Let's see if it's still around in 2024.

I don't get 6A -- is it a reference to the music played when a baddie is on screen? And ON FLEEK -- what the what? Where do puzzle writers learn this stuff? [And for those of you keeping score, <2 minutes off my best time, faster than a Thursday. It's confirmed: I definitely need a new job.]

Tough but good puzzle. especially liked to indulge in DREAMS of the VIA VENETO!

Tripped over myself a few times rushing through this ON FLEEK puzzle, wanting BRIAR before DECAL, SLUG before SWIG, and GEL INSERTS before INSOLES. Is Luxury Hyundai an oxymoron? This one was "Fair game," if not BOSS.

Agree with Brian, just a fun puzzle. Not too hard, made you think, only cringed at ONFLEEK (haha).

Nice one, Sam. Great fun.