I liked this but anyone eating their FISH TACOS out of hard shells needs to upgrade to a better restaurant: they’re supposed to be served in soft tortillas.
4
Enjoyed doing this in the cafe of the Royal Maritime Museum in London today! Thanks!
loved, Loved, LOVED this one! Learned a lot about language.
What more could anyone ask for. ❤️
1
Thanks for a great Saturday puzzle Robyn. I started out slow but filled it bit by bit (loved fish tacos!) till I go to that J spot for our 2 ex-VPs. I didn't think they were Dr.s but laughed at the idea of jelloshots as a thing. Once I went on line to confirm the jr.s I looked up those coloured treats and found out I needed to take parties to a new level.
Lots of great clues and it was fun to get my brain to go down those long, winding lanes.
5
Beautiful puzzle! Very consistent challenging clues throughout, sets the standard for Saturday puzzles, IMHO.
4
What an excellent puzzle! The clues were clever; it was a hard puzzle that I pushed through to finish because I never was bored. Very nice!
7
Is anyone else having trouble with the solution link? I've been getting this error:
{"status":"ERROR","errors":["Not Found"],"results":[]}
for a week or so. I'm on android, using the NY Times crossword app, if that helps.
Guru,
If (when) you have trouble with the NYT key link, go here: https://www.xwordinfo.com/
Careful: if you go now, the first thing you'll see is Sunday (but you can get to Saturday without spoilage).
1
@Barry Ancona Thanks muchly.
Ah, there's Leapfinger. And Mean Old Lady. Now i know I'm on the right planet.
5
Hey there, Jim Baughman! Still tooling around W Hollywood, with medical appliances in the back?
A treat to see the old avatar re-surface!
Hey there, Jim Baughman! Still tooling around W Hollywood *on the motorsickle*, with medical appliances in the back?
A treat to see the old avatar re-surface!
@Leapfinger
You can say that again!
1
So excited to see SYD Hoff clued! He was best friends with my father & mother way back when up in the Bronx. They are all gone, but not forgotten. I knew I had that right & it gave me confidence to go on. “Mom, I’m Home.” (1946)
6
Not to nitpick Deb’s column, but I think “individual” and “one” are synonyms; not “individual” and “for one.”
4
Roberta,
You're not nitpicking Deb's column; you're nitpicking Caitlin's column. Is that a correction or a nitpick?
Regarding your nitpick, while "individual" and "one" are synonyms, so are "individual" and "for one" (this is an individual serving; this is a serving for one).
4
P.S. I think Caitlin was making a sly joke citing "for one" as the SYN in the column, since "for one" in the clue is itself wordplay.
(N.B. Deb didn't do it.)
3
@Roberta, don't let the CLOSEKNIT picking keep you from coming back. It's a sometime thing, when there's an R in AGUE.
We'll leave a light on in the comment window for you.
7
I don't want to talk about Supreme Court decisions. I'm kind of case-sensitive.
(Have pun, will gavel.)
21
For “Civil War init.” I has CaA, for Chester A. Arthur. The erroneous middle “a” gave me aYN for “Individual, for one.” Both answers seemed quite plausible, and the latter clue especially clever.
I too loved the placement of BILBO and ASLAN, and I think they were my first (probably only) gimmes. Oh, actually ELIE Wiesel was another one. Lots of guesses on first pass, some of which were correct, like MOTHER HEN. Had to work the crosses and watch for a lot of very clever misdirects, and it was a fun and satisfying solve. One commenter called it “easy” but for me it was a typically challenging Saturday. The kind that makes one feel great when it’s finished. Thanks Robyn!
6
This whole week has been a blast! (Or a bash) Most clues were in my wheelhouse — somewhere. I just had to find my wheelhouse.
All I can say is “Thank you, ladies, for a really fun and challenging week!”
11
I was entertained by 15A. My Ohio church quilting guild was named "The HOLEY Fingers." If you have ever foolishly attempted to quilt without a thimble, you know why the name was so apt. (Yes, I did. Once.) Now that the DHubby is really turning the corner with his healed knee and final PT, I am starting to quilt again. Yay!
I did think this was simpler than the usual Saturday fare; maybe we women are too nice! (cf. Democratic nominees list)
11
@Mean Old Lady - congratulations on the turning point...best wishes for the future.
I sure hope you watched the Ken Burns Quilting documentary on PBS! All kinds of wonderful stuff. I'm really glad to have watched it last night with a fellow needle worker.
6
@MOL - also - I recently made another foray into "smart phone" world, and taught it my thumbs and index fingers. If I've done any needlework that day, the phone refuses to recognize my fingers and insists on my entering the passcode.
The man who did all of the armor for the Lord of the Rings films famously lost all trace of his fingerprints...
1
@David Connell
LOL...I have several 'blanks ' in some fingerprints, and once I inadvertantly stitched my 'under-finger' into the quilt. ( Callouses are quite thick.)
Sadly, Ken Burns collects, rather than uses, or ....well....enjoys quilts. The special left me feeling sad, like he was missing the point. I am grateful for his efforts in preservation, but quilts are meant for more.
I am currently making a quilt for the first child of someone special to me--and though I can no longer use my hands to piece and quilt, my machine and I are creating a celebration of special affection. The dimension beyond design, workmanship, and art, is ....well, simply love.
3
I haven't posted here in donkey's year and I see only a couple of familiar names--Barry Ancona, Rich in Atlanta.
Where oh where is the lively LEAPFINGER?
2
Hi Jim,
I'm sure Leapy will be leaping in later. Meanwhile, you should recognize a few other names already here today!
1
@Jim Baughman - I agree with BA that we'll surely see Leapfinger later on. She's notoriously late to post each day, for whatever reasons...I've suspected that she doesn't want to suffer too many consequences from her puns!
2
I too was smitten with "Fit for a sweater". The AGUE is one of those diseases that seems to have passed out of daily life, like "chilblains" and "neurasthenia".
"Individual, for one", a sparkling clue for SYN.
I was glad to see unusual words such as MAGMA and MINX: perhaps the two of them should get together.
But aside from the several superb clues, this puzzle wasn't very hard. In the Saturday puzzle I want knives thrown at me. We've had a couple of crashing bombardments recently. More, please!
4
Letter Boxed
F - E (8), E - T (8)
1
Sorry second word is E - H (8)
3
@Mike
Thank You! Got the first word early - struggling with finding the second one for hours!
My first impression was that this puzzle would take all day but gradually everything fell into place. As always, I loved all the "misdirects" like AGUE, SYN, and PENN. The stack of BASH, FISH TACOS. and JELLO SHOTS did not, however, create an image of a party I would want to attend. Thanks Robyn for a solid Saturday puzzle.
5
In the spirit of enjoying the cultural references in the NYTXW, I've started a to build a playlist on Spotify of songs referenced in the daily puzzle. The Playlist is https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vxpMh06oxbZz1YCwGfiic?si=ZV1yMHw6SRawTMJGujeasw
Today, Copacabana makes it's third entry, and "I Try" by Macy Gray.
I've also set up a spreadsheet that anyone can comment to add a new song, following the template I've set up. I think it'd be fun to see what kind of list each year puts together.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13Ld8gVTHnIOMN0ePvgmPue7lyYi054TSPnkgd2e275A/edit?usp=sharing
7
@Sam T I love this idea.
Slaps forehead as CUTTO crosses AGUE for the finish.
Very satisfying Saturday puzzle, Robyn. Many thanks.
5
Another themeless puzzle that I enjoyed, loved all the long entries ( well, JELLOSHOTS not so much; I’ll have to look that up.).
Great week, looking forward to Sunday.
3
I rarely bother you all with my opinion about the puzzles. But I liked this one so much I just had post. So many misdirections. So satisfying to untangle my snarls. The pleasure spot in my brain tingled with happiness when I completed it. Thank you Robyn.
16
@Reedie1965
It’s always a pleasure to see your name among the commenters. I distinctly remember (mostly) your Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome story from your (Reed) college days.
2
Excellent Saturday puzzle. Tough, but clever and rewarding. I wish they were all like this!
9
Thank you Robyn.
A glorious morning. I walked to my local CVS as I found they sell the NYT everyday. I bought one.
Returned home to sit in the sun and solve the puzzle with pen and paper. Cue Ode to Joy.
A primary benefit of a real paper is you get exposed to every part. One may read, become aware, of items missed when reading through an electronic filter and platform. Today I read of a runaway truck’s encounter with Maoi on Easter Island. Not sure I would have caught that with my electronic version. Alas, I suppose I am NOTIN or perhaps DAFT.
In case you have missed my past rants, I enjoy a real paper as much as bad Tom Swifties and a certain Monday puzzle constructor. All of whom I see far to little of. Fear not, I found a collection of 14 original Tom Swift books last summer so in a few months I will be restocked with SEAS of Swifties, bleated Tom bellicosely.
Fun puzzle.
9
Great finish to a wonderful week of puzzles. Thank you Robyn!
7
I liked some of the more difficult clues like "fit for a sweater". Took me awhile to rethink sweater. Magma was a nice alternative to lava. And I didn't know Al Gore and Joe Biden were both Jrs. until I figured out Jello Shots. Nice misdirection on that clue.
4
@Scott Roland
Put it down with shower, flower, tower, and sewer. All used as misdirects when the base + er meaning is not the same as the everyday meaning.
4
@Steve L
I think “number” got a lot of praise a couple of months back. Something about a dentist.
6
I liked some of the more difficult clues like "fit for a sweater". Took me awhile to rethink sweater. Magma was a nice alternative to lava. And I didn't know Al Gore and Joe Biden were both Jrs. until I figured out Jello Shots. Nice misdirection on that clue.
2
Very nice puzzle: 26A gave me a good chuckle, and how appropriate for Middle Earth and Narnia to be next door neighbors. Kind of the constructor to give us a crossword perennial 16A ISAO Aoki for a toehold.
2
👍🏻
2
Cat and Hen send up three cheers x 2 for Robyn's puzzle! What fun! Many, many thanks.
2
So my husband is a former Jersey boy and is not a puzzle solver. I said to him, "Here's one you'd know: What county is Newark in?" to which he replied, "Alexa, what county is Newark in?"
36
A good, challenging puzzle with some clever misdirecting clues. But, I rarely successfully solve a Saturday and this was no exception. Just got stuck in a few places and couldn't work my way out. Often after a failure, I review it and think "if only..." but not today. There's some things I don't think I was ever going to get. Never heard of JELLOSHOTS and didn't know that Biden and Gore were JRS. But there were other places.
Did something today that I've never done before. On my first pass through the across clues, a couple of times I was somehow reading the down clue for the across answer. That led me to fill in EXVPS at 54a and that slowed me down for a good while down there.
5
@Rich in Atlanta
If it makes you feel any better, I scanned “Copacabana” as “Casablanca” and was 100% confident the answer was RICKS until I realized that it wasn’t and was, in fact, nonsensical. One of those “What were you thinking?” moments that I frequently experience with late-week puzzles.
8
I’d like to applaud all the constructors this week and the editorial staff who made it happen.
21
Terrific puzzle. The clues were wonderfully misleading, but completely fair. And it was one of the 3-letter answers that gave me the most trouble: "Small cardinal". I was pretty sure it wasn't the religious guy in red, so I thought it must be the bird. I had the "T" and wrote in TIT -- though truth to tell, I had always thought they were very different birds from cardinals.
Turns out they are. Turns out the answer is TWO. What a fiendish clue! And for a long time I was loused up in the SWEPT ASHORE, SPOTLIGHTS section.
I don't know what a CASE SENSITIVE password is. Does it simply mean specific to a specific website? (I write down all my passwords in my analog address book: under "Y" for Yahoo; under "G" for Google, and so forth. (Is my NYT password under "N" or "T"? If I can't remember that -- and I can't -- I certainly can't remember my password.)
CASE SENSITIVE is very 21st century. On the other hand, PAPER AIRPLANE seems extremely 20th-century. Are kids still doing that? Aren't they too busy playing with their gadgets under the desk?
I loved this puzzle, Robyn! And that makes two terrific themelesses in a row.
16
@Nancy
In this instance “case” means upper or lower case. Passwords recognize that difference.
1
Nancy,
Very 21st Century? You selected and edited books, but their typesetters have been case sensitive for centuries.
4
@Nancy
Wow, I talked around that three-letter word last night, and you just plowed it right through. Interesting to note, also, is that a booby is another kind of bird.
Which also isn't a cardinal.
1
Watch out for that PAPER AIRPLANE!
And better eat some FISH TACOS before doing those JELLO SHOTS.
Thank you, Robyn, for a wonderfully witty Friday solve. But what else would we expect from you? ASK ANYONE.
I look forward to your next 25 and next 25 after that. Brava!
9
SW was the slow spot for me, after my first entry for "Obsolescent means of communication" was PAmPhlet. Seems like using a PAYPHONE could be a way to spread the coronavirus?
1
@archaeoprof no, you can't catch it off of a surface. You have to breathe in air with virus droplets from an infected person. The virus doesn't live on surfaces. All the surface disinfection going on isn't helping the spread of this.
Santi Bailor,
If you have evidence that this Coronavirus does not live *at all* on surfaces, please let The New York Times know.
Coronaviruses can travel only about six feet from the infected person. It’s unknown how long they live on surfaces.
9
@Santi Bailor
* The virus doesn't live on surfaces. All the surface disinfection going on isn't helping the spread of this.*
Is that a hunch?
3
I particularly loved Bilbo next to Aslan....two of my favorite childhood characters altho nowadays Aslan strikes me as a more heavy handed metaphor than it did way back when.
4
I’m with Jeff Chen. Nice puzzle but not very exciting. Like having meatloaf Sunday night.
1
Top time for me today. Smooth solve on a day when the clues melted on the windshield of my mind. Nice job, and nothing controversial. ;-)
2
Wow. Two best times in a row for me. 12:11 yesterday and 15:03 today. On the same wavelength as the women constructors, I suppose. Nice feeling, and an early start on the day.
3
@Kris
Nice job. You one-up’d me by only an hour....
Of course, one-up meaning topped me, not tied me...
I usually can’t do a Monday in 15 minutes
5
Great puzzle! Got slowed down for a bit because I wanted bELLy SHOTS instead of JELLO SHOTS. Actually, I still do.
3
@ad absurdum, good grief! wouldn't there be a lot of bleeding??
Basically I HAD NO IDEA until: SESAME SEED, a bun component nostalgically emblazoned on my memory from a time quite a while ago on a road trip when I painstakingly removed every single one from a hamburger so that my toddler son would eat his fast-food lunch!
After that, things fell into place nicely. Great Saturday puzzle!
5
Perhaps the APOGEE of my solving today was my home county ESSEX -- YEAH!
6
I’ve been looking for Robyn ever since Women’s Puzzle Week began. Was excited to see her today. I always love solving a Robyn puzzle. Her way of meshing words from so many different wheelhouses with little to no glue in sight makes the experience a joy. Today’s grid was impressive too - that triple stack in the middle, the doubles in the NW and SE, and the three double verticals intersecting all of them ... well, Robyn, I would say this makes you the Simone Biles of crossword constructors! And, as always, the clever misdirecting clues that make first entries in particular so challenging.
I’ve enjoyed all the women’s week puzzles, and this one was the crown jewel. Thanks Robyn!
9
This puzzle fought me so hard I felt like I needed armor, but I fought right back, determined and steadfast, and it was clash and bash and feint and smash, with my persistence finally winning out, but my swole pride at the end was equalled if not eclipsed by my respect for this superbly worthy opponent.
OMG I loved this puzzle, in which the solve was punctuated by laughs and exclamations of discovery. What I loved most was the wicked cluing, the play and wit in the clues for FEET, AGUE, PAW, SESAME SEED, SYN, and TWO.
This was fulfillment and entertainment by a remarkable talent. Thank you so much for this, Robyn!
15
@Lewis you likely have swole talent too
2
(This comment will be my version of FactBoy's inevitable "Ararat" posts...)
A centennial is related only to the count of a hundred years (the -ennia- in there marks years). A centenary refers to any count of a hundred things, including years.
A 25th anniversary year would be a quadranscentennial, and could be called quadranscentenary as well.
But a 25th published puzzle is quadranscentenary.
9
Another highlight this week! I “recommended” a plethora of comments today as many of my fellow solvers perfectly captured the many enjoyable of aspects of this puzzle, but I wanted to give a special shout out to the adjacency of BILBO and ASLAN - references to two of my favorite books/series - which gave me an added lift today. Many thanks, Robyn!
10
I was tickled by having BILBO right next to ASLAN. Bilbo appears in books by J.R.R. Tolkien and Aslan in books by C.S. Lewis. The two authors were great friends.
26
Congrats on the Quad, Robyn, and marking the day with such a delightful puzzle. A perfect Saturday--I had the (for me) requisite mid-solve despair only to return a little later, refreshed, to a series of ahas and giggles. The clue for SYN was brilliant.
6
This one was somehow cosy. A 25m solve for me with no real stumpers, but with plenty of times I had to turn my thinking around.
SPELLING BEE GRID
M A D F L P U
WORDS: 24, POINTS: 72, PANGRAMS: 1 (1 Perfect)
First character frequency:
A x 1
D x 3
L x 4
M x 10
P x 6
Word length frequency:
4L: 15
5L: 5
6L: 3
7L: 1
Grid:
4 5 6 7 TOT
A: 1 - - - 1
D: 2 - 1 - 3
L: 3 1 - - 4
M: 5 2 2 1 10
P: 4 2 - - 6
TOT:15 5 3 1 24
Two letter list:
AL-1
DA-1 DU-2
LA-2 LL-1 LU-1
MA-6 MU-4
PA-2 PL-2 PU-2
62
@Doug Thank you! Today I needed the grid and the two letter list to even get to ABB (Amazing Before Breakfast). Also needed the fact that the pangram was 7 letters (i.e. perfect)--I kept coming up with Jabberwocky-level guesses.
5
@Doug Need to celebrate -- first time ever -- QBABM
But I'm still going to check out Kevin's hints since I love them.
13
@AGS Congratulations AGS! It is definitely a great feeling.
2
**S P E L L I N G B E E H I N T S**
24 words, 72 points, 1 perfect pangram.
19
I submitted hints 40 minutes ago. They'll show up eventually I hope (I didn't save them). I was missing the cat & the pangram until I checked the letter grid.
5
In the meantime, the only tricky words that we haven't had recently are a hollow-point bullet or slang for a idiot, & the perfect pangram that's a truck tire splatter guard.
8
Maybe my clues are lost in the ether. The only other new word was a substance you use for pickling or tanning, and that I've only encountered in 1940s Loony Tunes shorts. It is also an abbreviation for the Latin word for (former) student.
14
Mostly enjoyed, but “Source of Roquefort cheese” for EWE? If so, I’ll be ready for “Source of ice cubes” as a clue for FAUCET, or “Source of minced beef” for COW.
1
@Peter Biddlecombe
Well, it don't come from a ram.
30
In the 1950s, my aunt's phone service was a PAYPHONE in the home. The telephone company had service reps who came and collected the coins from the phone monthly. This was in Chicago. Anyone else know of this in other parts of the country?
6
@coloradoz
Never heard of that! My great grandparents (the country ones) had a party line. It was entertaining to pick up the phone & listen in.
2
@Ann We also had a party line in deepest Arkansas, but it was no fun to listen in on--we shared with two elderly sisters who lived next door to each other but, instead of talking in person, used the phone to discuss their health complaints.
2
Pacific Bell offered party lines as a cost saving option in San Francisco in the fifties.
I do love a puzzle with almost no plug-them-right-in gimmes, where you have to juggle possible crosses, keeping them all in the air before satisfying yourself you have enough pieces fitting together to commit to an answer.
Way to bring your quadranscentennial milestone HOME SWEET HOME, Robyn.
Loved the clueing for AGUE.
10
I took a flyer on ASLAN next to BILBO, was delighted to see it pan out!
2
This gave me over an hour of utter delight!
3
Very fun puzzle that fell in at a fast clip for me. How nice to be on the same wavelength as such an able constructor. Thank you, Robin W!
Best last day of school activity of my classroom career: teaching how to make PAPER AIRPLANES. Just don't try it on any other day of the year!
8
Ann,
Did your colleagues in the grade above ever find out where their new students in the fall learned that skill?
2
@Barry Ancona
Just paying it forward 😉
2
Started slow, and on the wrong foot with YOUGOTASEC rather than GOTASECOND. also had CCM and MESS before CCS and SEAS. The long entries filled more quickly than the short ones, as someone noted above. Challenging puzzle, with some sections filling quickly and some taking some head-scratching. One of the shining stars of the last month.
3
Funny, but I had an easier time with the longer clues than the short ones today. Some good, tricky cluing. I particularly liked “individual, for one”. Of course they are SYNonyms. Once thurs, fri and sat come around, it’s come to the point where I usually think of alternative meanings for clues first. Nevertheless, I still got tricked by “sweater” at least for a while. The only clue I did not like was “chemical suffix”. There are so many 3 letter suffixes in chemistry: ane, ene, yne, ate, ite, ide, one, ose, ous, oic, ase come to mind. So I left it blank on the first pass. Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, and my congrats to Ms. Weintraub.
3
"So I left it blank on the first pass."
Robert,
I doubt many, if any, solvers enter an answer for the clue "Chemical suffix" without first having at least one cross letter. It's a light touch of crossword glue, and, for me, was not an "otherwise" as I, too, "thoroughly enjoyed the challenge" today.
True enough, but in crosswords -ene and -ane are the leaders by far, with -ose a distant third.
1
Don’t forget YNE. Haven’t seen it lately.
Cardinal is one of the really lovely studies in the history of words. From uncertain origins, it came to denote the principal hinge that things were arranged by: the main north-south street in a Roman encampment, the north pole and the south pole and the imaginary line connecting them as the sky and earth danced around in a circle. The cardinal directions then became the compass points that organized north-south-east-west into a sensible grid. From there, cardinal came to imply importance in general: the important people who ran things, who were marked by the bright red color of their robes as a sign of that importance. The bright red color conferred the name cardinal on the bird.
33
@David Connell
We are so fond of having morning coffee by a window, where we can watch the cardinals caring for each other as they make their families. It's just now starting for this year! I enjoyed your etymology lesson & will share with my bird-partner tomorrow.
8
@Ann - I spent the morning watching the birds at my friend's feeder. She only lives a few miles from me, yet her birds behave very differently from mine. I hardly ever see a female cardinal at the feeder itself, but rather always on the ground below, while the male waits in the hedges nearby. Likewise, the juncos stay on the ground at my house. But at my friend's house, the female cardinals, the juncos, even the flickers are all to be seen on the perches of her feeder. I don't know why it should be so different - but it really is! Microsystems.
4
@David Connell, there are many Cardinals around our house all year round. I will never forget when years ago there were at least five, seemed like eight, bright red males sitting on the cottonwood tree outside our front window right after we'd had a big snow. Amazingly beautiful.
1
"Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl....yada, yada, yada....now it's a DISCO!!!!!" What can one say about a puzzle that asks its solvers to sing all the way through "Copacabana" on the way to victory? Truly...I fell in love.
34
@Larry Haha yes! How many of us in our favorite puzzling nooks across the globe humming Copacabana this morning?
7
I had a few gimmes and/or correct guesses on my first pass, along with a few misses. GOT A minute before moment before SECOND threw things askew for a bit. Had a hard time remembering ROCHE, (I've seen too many generics) but it finally came to mind. Was surprised at remembering ESSEX County since it's been 53 years since I lived (all in counties other than Essex) in NJ. The rest filled in gradually but smoothly and ended up being a fairly quick Saturday
Did not get fooled by PAW or SCAR or CODA, but did like all of those clues; also liked the clue for FISH TACOS.
4
JayTee,
ROCHE U.S. HQ used to be in ESSEX County, NJ.
@Barry Ancona
Lots of pharmaceutical companies in NJ in the 50s and 60s (Sandoz was a half-mile from my high school).
In the hospitals where I worked, we used Valium™ until it went generic; after that it was always called diazepam and came from whoever made it and sold it the cheapest, so no attention was paid to brand names or original manufacturers.
JayTee,
Sandoz still has a presence in NJ; which former location was near your high school?
(Roche US HQ was in Nutley until 2009.)
Can anyone explain why AGUE is “fit” for a sweater! I get the illness/sweating part, but why “fit”? Thanks!
@William Lasser - a "fit" like "having fits" - an onset of fevers and chills.
1
@William Lasser Someone who is ill and feverish will be SWEATing heavily and having shiving FITs (aka agues)
ague fit
An obsolete term for a chill following a fever, which is said to be typical of malaria. This term is not used to working medical parlance, though it continues to be used by laypersons.
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ague+fit
2
It took a while to get started but fell relatively fast. Here’s to Algebraic Topologists!! (from the mini)
4
Brings back memories of Jack (Mad Dog) Morava, an algebraic topologist.
Boundary value problem class, open book test solving Schroedinger wave equation. Eek.
2
Mini puzzle - predecessor of outlook is not a great clue in my opinion. We do have a modern day Outlook.Com with a certain predecessor website. "Outlook" refers to an application in the MS Office suite. It has no direct predecessor to my recollection. As a productivity tool there may be competing products that precede it historically. Lotus Notes may be one example. Novell also had their Groupware products. This is going back twenty years so my memory is hazy. Anyway my 2 cents. Spoiler alert, I still use my Hotmail account.
2
@Digicate
You're overthinking.
Outlook is email. Hotmail is email. Hotmail came first. That's all there is.
For Hotmail to be a predecessor of Outlook, it didn't have to be what Outlook replaced. And the fact that one is part of an app or program and one is a website is immaterial.
3
@Steve L
Outlook, the program, is more than just email... it's also a calendar/scheduler/directory. Hotmail.com is the precursor to Outlook.com, so ideally the clue should have included the ".com"; but it wasn't totally out of line.
@Digicate I completely agree. Outlook is a whole suite. Beyond that, the email application in Outlook does not replace Hotmail or any other email provider, but can be used as to manage all of them. "Predecessor" in this case is an odd clue; it's kind of like cluing "music" as a predecessor to "Spotify." Technically correct I GUESS.
2
One of the best puzzles in many a month. Thank you Robyn.
23
@Wags
I agree. It seemed quite hopeless at first, so finishing it was very satisfying.
5
Wow, this week was phenomenal and just kept getting better as the week went on.
Those long crossings with those phrases were soooo satisfying to get - impossible at first but with enough crossings, were ultimately gettable. Really liked the clues for AGUE, PAW, FISH TACO. Even TWO was pretty good. (I was picturing a small old dude in red vestment - maybe like Demond Tutu)
Had SRS before JRS (because well, they are now, but didn't think about when they were born), COAL before FEET (Bah! Humbug!), every time I see something disease related with E__L_ I want to put EBOLA and turned out to be ECOLI - this has happened a couple of times recently. HIGHLIGHTS before SPOTLIGHTS. Thought of SAT PHONE before CAR PHONE before PAY PHONE.
AHEM, WHERE WERE WE, oh right, the puzzle. Fantastic, like FISH TACOS - ASK ANYONE.
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So today we had "one-up", so I wondered if TIE was going to be the answer. No, the obvious answer, TOP, was.
1
@Steve L - don't forget there was also the "Outdo..." entry on Wednesday and the theme entries that were basically ONES-UP. There was also TWOS in that one to match the cardinal in this one.
3
Themey themeless with many of the long entries featuring alliterative phrases: ASK ANYONE, HOME SWEET HOME, WHERE WERE WE, PAPER (AIR)PLANE, SESAME SEED, SWEPT (A)SHORE, PAY PHONE.
SMOOTH AS SILK SATURDAY. While I enjoy a Saturday tussle, perhaps there’s enough uncertainty and rough edges to go around at the moment, that a smooth Saturday feels nicely reassuring. Always enjoy Robyn’s puzzles and her down-to-earth and playful cluing and entries.
10
Just in case there is anyone who might think Marianne MOORE (of yesterday’s puzzle) only wrote willfully obtuse, inaccessible poetry, she wrote some beautiful poems, especially about animals, as this fragment about an ostrich from “He ‘Digesteth Harde Yron’” reflects (the larger theme of the poem itself was very much a Big Subject, namely human folly in believing that we are superior to other beings and the destruction of the natural world that we have wrought as a result):
Yes, this is he
whose plume was anciently
the plume of justice; he
whose comic duckling head on its
great neck revolves with compass-needle nervousness
when he stands guard,
in S-like foragings as he is
preening the down on his leaden-skinned back.
The egg piously shown
as Leda's very own
from which Castor and Pollux hatched,
was an ostrich-egg. And what could have been more fit
for the Chinese lawn it
grazed on as a gift to an
emperor who admired strange birds, than this
one, who builds his mud-made
nest in dust yet will wade
in lake or sea till only the head shows.
8
Slow start followed by steady acceleration. That's the way a Saturday puzzle should go. BAG PHONE for a while until crossings forced PAY PHONE. I should have realized the difference between obsolete and obsolescent earlier.
2
I liked seeing BILBO next to ASLAN. Also FISH TACOS. Like Steve said, not much there after the first couple of passes, then things started to make sense. I was able to get enough toeholds throughout the grid to make things work. Nice job, Robyn!
8
@Liz B
Quite appropriate to have them in close proximity, both authors were friends, contemporaries, Oxford faculty, and both one of a kind Christian mythologists.
C. S Lewis (of Mere Christianity fame) is recognized more as a Christian writer, but Tolkien was the one to lead him to Christ.
4
I walk past a pay phone a few times a week. I'm sure it gets almost no use, but I hope it hangs around. I don't always carry my cell so it's not inconceivable I could need it someday. in a piquant mood one day, I reverted to childhood and went to see if anybody had left any change in the coin return slot.
8
You just reminded me of the small but funny bit in one of the modern (70’s-80’s) Superman movies where Clark Kent is looking for a phone booth to change in and is flummoxed by the kind with just a small shell around the phone instead of a full booth. I haven’t seen any of either type in a looooong time.
1
I'm a bit lost on how Small Cardinal is TWO?
3
@Leigh One, two, three, .... are cardinal numbers. As opposed toordinal first, second, third...
6
@Leigh
A small cardinal number
1
@Leigh
With the T already in place, I wondered if a word that is actually a bird, but might get this comment embargoed if I actually wrote it, was the answer.
I guess it's not a small cardinal, anyway.
9
Another nice Saturday where you look at it after the first two passes and wonder if this is a streak breaker, then things start to fall.Just the right of misdirection to make it very enjoyable.
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