LAT 2:44 (Stella)
Newsday 13:58 (pannonica) 
[4.75 avg; 2 ratings]
NYT 6:53 (Amy) 
[3.83 avg; 3 ratings]
Universal tk (Matthew)
USA Today tk (Matthew)
WSJ untimed (pannonica)
Michael Lieberman’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 5/3/25 – no. 0503
Lots of goodies in this puzzle, including some contemporary usages:
- 23A. [Frenetic bursts of energy in pets, colloquially], ZOOMIES. Zooming madly around the room or yard.
- 57A. [Was way too keyed up, in modern slang], HAD NO CHILL. Wired, tense.
- 30D. [Tries to talk smoothly, in slang], SPITS GAME. Such as when trying to pick someone up, I think.
Gotta appreciate the “colloquially,” “in modern slang,” “in slang” hedges. Solvers in their teens and 20s are rolling their eyes.
Fave fill: ANIMAL FARM, “LET’S FACE IT,” “LIKE I CARE,” BEN STILLER, “ZIP ME UP,” FACTORIAL!, SHAKSHUKA (anyone have a shakshuka recipe where the eggs are scrambled? I cannot abide fried eggs with the separate whites and yolks), and oops, “THAT’S ON ME.”
Three more things:
- 20A. [Spicy alternative to a Frito], TAKI. The singular of trade-name chips is semi-bogus as fill goes, but who among us doesn’t use the singular on occasion. Takis are (I had to look this up) rolled-up tortilla chips loaded with spicy flavors, artificial colors, and so forth. Hard pass. (I also don’t do Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.)
- 37A. [Subj. of some interpretive work], ASL. As in sign language interpreters. Please provide your own interpretive dance efforts.
- 1D. [“___ and Estes — The Bestest” (1956 campaign slogan)], ADLAI. That’s Adlai E. Stevenson II, who lost to Eisenhower. In Chicago, I-55 is called the Stevenson, after Adlai II.
Four stars from me.
Sam Koperwas and Jeff Chen’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “True Grit” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 5/3/25 • Sat • “True Grit” • Koperwas, Chen • solution • 20250503
Wordplay involving inventors and pioneers, reflecting their hard efforts.
- 24a. [George Washington Carver faced much adversity, but he stuck to his beliefs and …] WORKED FOR PEANUTS. Such an injustice that peanut butter is all that he’s remembered for, when he was so much more than that.
- 31a. [Initially ridiculed, William Hoover worried that his new machine sucked, until things …] BEGAN TO PICK UP.
- 52a. [Marie Curie recognized that discoveries were needed, so …] SHE BRAVED THE ELEMENTS. And received radiation poisoning for her trouble, as well as a couple of Nobel Prizes. 68d [Capital on a fjord] OSLO.
- 69a. [Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper knew they had to chance it in the unknown field of computer science, so they …] TOOK CALCULATED RISKS.
- 88a. [In developing her unique line of beauty products, Madam C.J. Walker had to fight through many a …] HAIR-RAISING MOMENT.
- 108a. [For years, Nikola Tesla’s electrical innovations failed to charge people up, but finally …] THE SPARKS FLEW.
- 116a. [Initially, Alexander Graham Bell’s invention failed to connect with the public, but in the end he …] MADE THE RIGHT CALL. I glossed the second half of the clue, so it’s understandable how my original answer was MADE THE FIRST CALL.
These are fine enough, if somewhat belabored. The crossword as a whole was of typical difficulty for a large 21×21 grid, where the constructor and editor want things to be neither too difficult (discouraging) nor too easy (boring).
- 3d [Boastful behavior] BRAGGADOCIO. An eponym of a character courtesy Edmund Spenser. I dislike the weird hybrid formation ‘braggadocious’. Yes, I know languages evolve and English in particular is a bastard tongue, but we’re still allowed to have opinions about its developments.
- 4d [Court concern] LAW. 9d [Court official, informally] REF.
- 11d [24/7 assistant] SIRI. No always-listening snoopware for me, thank you. At least, no obvious ones.
- 14d [Construction paper?] BLUEPRINT. Nice.
- 33d [Prize you might get for scoring] OSCAR. Also nice.
- 47d [Durable fabric] SERGE. etymology (m-w.com): Middle English sarge, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin *sarica, alteration of Latin serica, feminine of sericus silken — more at SERICEOUS. They can’t be.
- 78d [Spare in the boot, say] TYRE. Took a while to get this one, as I’d filled in HOLED rather than HOLEY for 87a [Riddled].
- 89d [Bounces back] RECOVERS. 1d [Post-surgery program] REHAB.
- 107d [Cannabis supporter] is merely a simple plant STEM.
- 4a [Fall release?] LEAF. Um, okay.
- 19a [Alan in the Television Hall of Fame] ALDA. 125a [Clark in the Television Hall of Fame] DICK.
- “Where the Crawdads Sing” author Owens] DELIA.
That’s a picture of Blind Willie McTell on the cover. 17a [Shows humanity, in a way] ERRS. - 30a [Sends the wrong message, maybe] MISTYPES. I first had MISTEXTS and was all set to complain, but crossings set me aright.
- 36a [“Bon appétit!”] EAT UP, immediately after a themer ending with UP, which is too close for my liking.
- 51a [Preferring platonic relationships, informally] ARO. ARO means aromantic, and the term for someone who considers themself asexual is ACE (43a [Delivery that goes untouched]).
- 61a [Bounty targets] SPILLS. The branded paper towel.
- 77a [Sparkling] AGLINT. Don’t ask your waiter for AGLINT water, though.
- 115a [Clearly show] PROVE. Lot of politicians nowadays are making proclamations—and worse, laws—based on decisions with no proof supporting them.
- 126a [“Steppenwolf” author] HESSE.
Ricky J. Sirois’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 5/3/24 by Ricky J. Sirois
This puzzle started out with a little friction, and then got very easy. Unfortunately I don’t have time for more than a few highlights here:
- 17A [Gradually] isn’t a whole lot to go on to get to PIECEMEAL, contributing to the top half’s higher difficulty.
- 28A [Moving violation?] is a nice clue for FALSE START.
- 37A [Spitting image] is CARBON COPY, which I mainly found notable because hey kids, remember actual carbon copies?
- 12D [Run off] is SCARE AWAY, which would feel like a glue entry except that the clue makes it nice and hard: The clue puts you in mind of the person running away, when in fact it’s the person who is making someone else run away.
- 23A [Help for a choir that wants to sing higher] is RISER. My favorite clue in the puzzle, even if it wasn’t super deceptive. Just cute.
Anna Stiga’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 5/3/25 • Saturday Stumper • Stiga, Newman • solution • 20250503
When Stan uses the the Anna Stiga byline (‘Stan again’) it usually signals a tougher crossword, but thanks to a few inspirations especially on some longer entries, I surprisingly made short work of this offering.
In fact, I completed the entire northeast-to-southwest corridor in under seven minutes, at which point I had only 51d [Mary Cassatt mentor] DEGAS in the lower right, and a few hesitant notions for the four-letter words in the upper left.
I diligently persevered in the lower right, and for the upper left I needed some real inspiration and a few lucky guesses.
- 12d [Handshakers’ surprises] JOY BUZZERS. My first entry, very helpful. Especially with those high-point letters. The J gave me –MAJOR at 9a [User of all the black keys], and I was fortunate to know 16a [One with 99% of your DNA] is BONOBO; the resulting –B to start 9d looked a little weird, but [They’re round in rounds] was just enough to get me to see BB SHOT (and give me B MAJOR). For the Zs, I should have gotten 27a [Part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area] ALCATRAZ right away, but I didn’t and had to wait for some additional crossings. On the other hand, 33a [Flows through fissures] was clearly OOZES. The remainder of the right flank and the northeast corner were easy enough to complete, although when I finished filling in the entire grid I needed to locate at least one errant letter, which turned out to be the crossing of 39a [Turns aside] SKEWS (not SLEWS) and AOK (not AOL). I don’t really understand the clue for that last: 30d [Tom Wolfe calls it “shorthand for Shepard’s triumph”] oh wait it must be astronaut Alan Shepard wow that’s obscure.
- From there I entered the middle section, where the only misstep was trying ATV for SUV (38a [Many a rugged ride]). 22d LATVIA was fresh in my mind, as I recently watched the acclaimed animated feature Flow (2024), which I have on good authority has made Latvians very proud due to all the recognition it’s received. My solving tendrils then moved to the left flank, which was pretty easy because I’d gotten 44a [Indian Ocean archipelago] ZANZIBAR via the center workings, and the Z (plus 31a’s [“So there!”] HAH readily signalled Martin CHUZZLEWIT (26d [Dickensian architect apprentice]. Then 45d ZINGER, 32d STANDING O, 40a MAZDA, (who knew—per the clue—that they are the only remaining automaker of rotary engines?) and bang! the sections were done.
- The lower right was a bit tougher, but I’d added 50a [Strangely singular] ODD and 42d [Extra effort] TROUBLE to help things along. Was surprised that 56d [Disentangle] was simply UNDO. What really sealed the deal, however, was 55d [Ampere’s pier]; I’d wondered if it was a typo for ‘peer’ (after all, the clue for 1-across was [Picasso’s contemporary]—more on this later). With enough letters to see 54a [Bath water source of yore] AQUEDUCT, I saw QUAI, the French equivalent of quay or quey. Not thrilled with the specificity of 54d [Short helper in gas stations] ASST—why gas stations?? Oh, also I had first tried ADDING at 46d [Sum thing] ADDEND.
- So finally it was just the northwest. Was really stymied. Just a couple of desultory esses from obvious plurals, nothing else. Couldn’t think of a painter or sculptor that would fit 1a—the obvious choice of MATISSE didn’t fit, nor did CHAGALL. Then, inspiration! I’d already encountered the the two symmetrically paired longdown entries with doubled Zs… Maybe the upper left corner had a Q to go with the Q in the lower right? So I took a risk on NIQABS for 4d [Saudi women’s wear], and decided also to go with my early hunch of RAKE at 7d [Don’t leave leaves]. Suddenly I was able to make sense of 17a [Salt shaker] SEAQUAKE (nasty tough clue), then I saw 6d [Far from forward] wasn’t going to be ALOOF as I’d suspected, but MOUSY. Finally 1-across could be seen as JOAN MIRÓ, and the rest flowed from there.
Tough but ultimately fair crossword. And I definitely had a bunch of lucky breaks. Strangely, no cryptic-style clue in this one.
NYT – 20a/9d did me in. I dropped packaged salty snacks a while back and according to Wikipedia REIKI is a pseudoscientific form of energy healing
I never had a chance
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
As someone else noted, TAKI was in the Connections puzzle the other day! The only reason I knew it.
I still don’t understand SSR.
Spits Game was new to me.
I think SSR is Soviet Socialist Republic – onetime member of the Soviet “Union.”
NYT: Fun puzzle but for GLOCK. There’s only one reason I know that company’s name: https://www.vice.com/en/article/glock-pistol-omar-mateen-orlando-mass-shooting/
I hit that answer about a quarter of the way into the grid, and I seriously considered abandoning the puzzle at that point.
Hard agree.
NYT: Nice puzzle. Covered a lot of ground – ANIMAL FARM is pretty old-school, SPITS GAME and HAD NO CHILL were totally new to me. I was fine with FACTORIAL and GLUON, but those might be tough for folks with different interests.
Had to smile at ZOOMIES. For a number of years, my wife and I were owned by retired racing greyhounds. ZOOMIES can be pretty exciting when they involve 75 pounds of muscle and bone traveling at 40 mph!
Mostly an easy Saturday NYT, but the only reason I knew TAKI was because it came up in a Connections puzzle recently that I was unable to solve because I didn’t know what it was and looked it up afterwards.
The SW section, with SPITSGAME (huh?) slowed me down, but only momentarily.
There was a sequence in “Orange Is The New Black” in which the prisoners took over the prison. A couple of the younger Hispanic prisoners wanted to add “Takis in the vending machines!” to the list of the prisoners’ demands.
When we watched that (two or three years ago), I had no idea what Takis were. Now, I feel like I need to try them at least once.
I teach in a middle school and they are by far the top snack of choice for teens and tweens. They are *ahem* quite strongly flavored, so if and when you try them, start with a small bag.
Thanks.
The NW completely slowed me down… though it was largely my own fault. From the 1D clue, I didn’t know the slogan, but guessed it must start with a B to go from Estes into “Bestest”… but no. I eventually got the end of FARM, and realized it was ANIMAL FARM. Pretty good puzzle, if slow for me in the end.
It took me a bit to remember that Estes Kefauver had been Adlai Stevenson’s running mate at least once. That was before my time.
It’s almost a Stumper level clue, since you need to know both names.
Stumper: not sure if this was clear from the review but 54D is a cryptic – containergrind from gASSTation. I had a similar solving experience but found it quite hard and took much longer to complete. Good one though.
WSJ: Could have done without the Tesla “quote” crossing SPACEX. UGH.
And regarding UFO occupants, the correct answer is NO ONE.
Stumper: there is a cryptic style clue! “Short helper in gas stations” for ASST.
Yep! I delayed in putting that in for a while, but “in” here MEANS “in”! (G-asst-ations)
oooohhhhhh. That takes care of my criticism, then.
:)
I don’t know why, but I didn’t see aBigWillyDee’s similar comment at the time I responded to Seth’s.
I missed it too. Might have been stuck in pending limbo and then approved.
Ah!
NYT: Very enjoyable Saturday puzzle! It seemed hard, and I was stuck in few places during the solve, so was surprised that my time wasn’t so bad at all for me.
PS For some reason there don’t seem to be any rating buttons up top today. Have they been removed?
I was fooled by putting BeER before BIER, and SAint nICk before SALE PRICE, and I bet these traps were intentional. IT’S ME had a very clever clue about self-identification. And I’d never known the word PREHAB or the phrases HAD NO CHILL and SPITS GAME before. The solve might’ve been a bit faster had I read the clue for ADLAI more carefully, since I recall as a kid being fairly emotionally invested in the Stevenson-Kefauver campaign of 1956. (I remembered Renata ADLER more from her brief stint at the NY Times than from the New Yorker, which I rarely read.)
All in all, a lovely profusion of interesting words and tricky clues!
For some reason there don’t seem to be any rating buttons up top today. Have they been removed?
yes they have been removed starting beginning of month. Too many trolls just coming in and putting a 1. But i did just notice something at the bottom of the comment section that looks like it allows one to rate a puzzle if they are commenting.
Yeah, we’re playing around with a way to associate a rating with an approved commenter. Stay tuned!
My preference might be for approved commenters to be permitted one rating per puzzle, but without having the rating attributed to the commenter.
That would be great. Glad to hear it.
Stumper: Like usual, pannonica nailed it. My husband begins our joint effort and he was able to do the same as her beginning efforts — the southwest to northeast part. Usually, he just gets a scattered few. After that, he had done 7D “rake,” so Miro came to my mind immediately — I think I’ve seen similar clueing recently — and the northwest came together. After that, the thing that stymied me briefly was that I’d never heard of 62A “Salander.” For those also not familiar — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbeth_Salander
I was briefly tripped up by the typo in the clue: “Long stocking.”
(I don’t think I rated anything.)
Sorry, still a work in progress.
Thanks! I figured out the hacker part easily enough (I can’t off-hand recall any other well-known ones), but couldn’t see any connection to Long stocking.
Strangely, my mind went immediately to Pippi Longstocking, but could not connect Pippi to a hacker (not knowing Larssen’s character — heard of the book, but never read it, etc.).
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4.5 stars
Solving in print, luckily I didn’t see Long stocking as a typo so much as the type of awkward line break that sometimes occurs with PDFs.
I found this one to have all the elements of a classic Stumper, just the right mix of trivia, obfuscation and wordplay.
The errant space is in the clue as displayed by the app.
I was working with the print version, too, but the newspaper print version and there was a space between Long and stocking.
I moved through the Stumper pretty smoothly until I got to the NE section. I had [something]BUZZER but not much else. I began to wonder if 13D was OBOES, a crossword favorite, and that led to BONOBO and a fairly rapid finish.
It wouldn’t be a Stumper without a couple of headscratchers. I hadn’t heard of a HOTBED, and the internets inform me that it’s a cold frame with a heater — therefore something that would be outside a greenhouse, not within.
And I don’t know what LOC refers to at 22A. Google comes up with many many companies branding themselves ‘tightseal.’ Similarly, searching for companies called LOC brings up a software outfit, a military equipment supplier, a marine engineering business, and several more.
Is the clue referring to Loctite products? I don’t see a ‘tight seal’ logo for them anywhere.
Oh, and I had a Mazda RX-7 with the rotary engine years ago. It was a great little car, but I didn’t know they still made rotary-engine models.
When I was a kid in the early 1970s, our family car was a lime green Mazda RX-7 wagon. It was eye-catching for sure.
LOC is adspeak for “lock.”
I owned a Mazda for about two weeks. I loved the feeling of unending acceleration, but it broke down and it cost more to repair than the thousand dollars I paid for it. I sold it to a grease monkey who was a Mazda fan for ten bucks.
I still own a Mazda Miata (my second), but have NO idea if there’s a rotary engine in there or not. My husband got that one. Luckily, my Mazdas seem to last a long time — my current one is a 2008 model.
I used to have a Miata too. Great little car.
That’d be the Mazda GLC
:) That’s what the first U.S. Mazda was called!
I love mine!
“Anna Stiga” means an easier Stumper, maybe not as easy as “Lester Ruff,” but easier than S.N.:
https://stanxwords.com/stan-secret-pseudonyms.html
I liked thus one a lot. Two poets!
Thanks! Did not know that.
Please bring back the ratings!
Wait…what’s that at the bottom of this message? A new system?
The comments about GLOCK in a puzzle seems weird to me. How does that old saying go? “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Still, weapons like Glocks are manufactured for the killing of people.
LAT – A clue for BEDE that doesn’t include “venerable” – is that allowed?
Haha thank you, this was my first thought as well! Old school crosswordese.
I think I’m going to like the little thing on the bottom that says which puzzle and how you rate it.
The NYT was ok for me and I’m not too anal about dupes, but the crossing of zip me UP and ties UP, same word same meaning, bothered me.
ok, I don’t see what happens when you fill in the “which puzzle” and ratings before posting your comment.
+1
Nothing yet, but soon your rating will be displayed with your comment and after that I may be able to summarize them at the top of the post.
Thanks for noticing!
Thx! good to know its a work in progress :)
NYT: Positives – new (to me) interesting slang. Negatives – TAKI REIKI brutal crossing, heavy on arcane trivia.
Amy, great idea attaching the stars to the comments. Thank you.
All credit goes to Dave Sullivan! Jim Peredo has been brainstorming with Dave, too.
Then kudos to Dave, Jim, and Amy. Team fiend rules! 8^)
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
And it here it goes with a rating…
I’m guessing this new star ratings format is designed to prevent users from seeing the ratings until they submit a rating themselves …? If so, perhaps that might prevent the ratings from deterring people from solving a puzzle first — you may just have to try that puzzle and see how you like it without the ratings making that decision for you, which is good! On the other hand, I can imagine it still gives trolls a chance to troll, and they can always dive-bomb the ratings without solving the puzzle anyway.
Either way, I’m happy to continue ignoring the star ratings altogether. Carry on.
They have to comment in order to rate, though, and commenters can be redirected to spam for trolling behavior. Someone who wants to throw a 1-star rating at every puzzle would need to make separate comments on each puzzle, and open themselves up to banning.
The star ratings needed more people rating puzzles. There will always be noise but what was needed was more signal.
It seems we’ve spent the past few years discouraging people from using them, though
Who’s this “we,” other than one or two people who are vociferously against the star ratings?
Well I’ve seen the few, high profile posters arguing against but not many arguing for.
I figured that Team Fiend retaining the star ratings widget was a sturdy argument in favor.
Also, people who are dissatisfied are far more likely to let you know about it.
The Wood Brothers just started. I’ll follow up later. Thanks for trying to accommodate voting
As I mentioned earlier, the only thing the ratings needed were more people honestly participating.
Given that, I would have hoped for some to call for more participation. I think retaining the widget wasn’t enough of a statement. This is not meant to call you out. It’s your site, you can do what you please with it.
In that vein, I do think it was uncool for people to come to your site and discourage people from using a feature you clearly wanted.
I dunno, man, I think it’s worse for a website that celebrates what it calls the best crosswords in print and on the web to have a feature that actively discourages people from solving those crosswords if enough cranks click on the 1-star or 1.5-star ratings, but you do you.
Your actions showed disrespect to Amy. I didn’t say so at any point because Amy doesn’t need me to speak out for her but since we’ve gotten to this point I decided to voice my feelings.
I will continue to do me since that means being a courteous guest in someone’s space
Lol, dude, that’s hilarious. You think it’s disrespectful to Amy to share the opinion that the ratings are junk and the site would be better off without them? It’s the opposite of disrespectful. I think Amy’s and other Fiend bloggers’ actual commentary on crosswords — the real point of the site — is on the whole very good, and would much rather people focus on that instead of trying to figure out a star rating system that I don’t think is worth it if it’s going to deter users from solving the puzzles reviewed on Fiend.
On the other hand, you trying to act like a white knight for her and saying no one should ever dare say anything negative about the star ratings, as though she were incapable of handling any criticism of them … THAT is disrespectful. It’s infantilizing, is what it is.
Go ahead and sing the praises of the star ratings all you want, but stop trying to equate distaste for the star ratings with disrespect for Amy. It’s horseshit.
Evan, we (by which I mean our tech wizard Dave) are working on implementing a ratings method that disallows random cranks from one-starring puzzles.
Amy, that’s great, I’m all for making it harder for trolls to troll. I still don’t like the idea of a star rating system for crosswords at its core, but that’s obviously not my decision for this site. Like I said yesterday, if Dave’s new system were to prevent people from seeing the ratings for a puzzle before submitting a rating for that puzzle themselves, I could see that being preferable to what the star ratings were doing before.
But anyhow, I’ve been blocking the star ratings from my browser using a web blocker for over a year now, so as long as I can still do that if necessary, then that’s fine.
Re: “Also, people who are dissatisfied are far more likely to let you know about it.”
Yep! That’s the only time I rated a puzzle — when I hated it. I don’t get into rating them usually at all.
I believe you got it wrong on the WSJ
5/3/25 43A. An “ace” is a serve that is not
able to be returned, therefore, “untouched.”
Oh yes, I felt that was obvious. I was just providing additional info regarding another clue and linking them alternatively.
“Thank You” to Amy Reynaldo, Dave Sullivan, Jim Peredo and Team Fiend for restoring the ratings, and for making the rater/commenter identify themselves when posting remarks.
This brings some sense of responsibility to us fans of this great website!
Ratings: I’m with Evan. I could give a rat’s rear what a critic says about my puzzle selections.
“Solvers in their teens & 20’s are rolling their eyes.” My 76 yr. eyes roll as I see the NYT devolving by luring young solvers with an abundance of ephemeral slang phrases/words & forgetting to edify with phrases/words that have endured & were once the hallmark of this paper. I don’t mind a few (all of which I’ve learned through indie puzzles) but sheesh, give slang a few months & it WILL make the youth roll their eyes.
Re Stumper: I got stuck in the NW corner. While I guessed “JOSE” for 1D and “RAKE” for 7D, I refused to believe JOAN MIRO would be correct for 1A — after all, the clue was “Picasso contemporary,” not “Pablo” Picasso contemporary. Then I had ABAYAS for the Saudi women’s dress, and ACE for Noncompete cause, so I got stuck.
It was only when I erased everything and started again that it came together.
Some pretty tough/ambiguous crossings for Shakshuka, which itself is fairly rough (completely unknown to me). Didn’t love that.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
NYT: I’ve noticed that since Will Shortz returned, the Saturday puzzles are getting as hard as the Stumpers. Seeing as how I don’t have enough spare time to spend staring at a puzzle for over 30 minutes, I’ve decided to quit doing them.
(And mostly I’m posting this comment just to see if the star-ratings will appear up top.)
I forget when Will Shortz came back full-time, but most of my Saturday times since the beginning of the year are in the 10–18 minute range. That’s about what they were when Joel Fagliano was in charge.
I do have one 45 minute time (which is Stumper territory for me), but I’m 99% sure that I was falling asleep when I tried to solve it and typed a lot of gibberish that I had to delete the next morning.
I agree with Eric. I have commented that I think Will’s recent Saturdays show more variation: some seem pretty easy, some are harder, but none have the attributes that I find unique to Stumpers. Clues that are correct but of no help, “name related to …,” cryptic clues, clues that seem on the wrong side of the fair-unfair line, and the occasional flat-out error or typo all make for the special, slightly chaotic, Stumper experience. I enjoy them immensely, but no NYT Saturday would make me think “Newman!.”
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 5 stars
Outstanding puzzle, one of my favorite Stumpers ever!