Friday, December 27, 2019

Sam Trabucco’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 12 27 19, no. 1227

Lots of goodies in this 68-worder. I think I have a STYE in my eye, so lemme be brief and go get another hot compress.

Did not know: 58a. [Golfer Carol who won the 1965 U.S. Women’s Open], MANN. Not sure I know the names of any women who won golf tournaments before I was born, while SNEAD has been in crosswords for decades. I blame the patriarchy.

Fave fill: ALAN MOORE (my husband was among the many who marveled at how good the recent HBO adaptation of Watchmen is); RED CARPET; FROZEN MARGARITA (make mine on the rocks, with triple sec, no salt); “OH, LORDY”; TEEN MOM; BLOW A KISS; SPANISH FLU (my grandma lost her little sister to it); FELT AT HOME; RARE FORM; BATES MOTEL; START SMALL (advice to budding constructors: Start small with your theme! Don’t try to wrangle five or more theme entries when you’ve never even filled a grid before).

4.25 stars from me.

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s New Yorker crossword – Rachel’s writeup

The New Yorker crossword solution • Elizabeth C. Gorski • December 27, 2019

Well, it appears I have been remiss in my reviewing duties, as the New Yorker has been publishing daily all week and I’m only just now noticing (but I have the flu, so I think that counts as an excuse). Every day this week they’ve released a “Year in Review” puzzle, and today’s is “2019 in Music,” featuring entries and clues that highlight music and artists from the past year.

“Theme” entries:

• ARIANA GRANDE and her hits THANK U NEXT and “7 Rings”
• IGGY POP‘s album “Free”
• HOT GIRL SUMMER from Megan Thee Stallion

• LIONEL Richie’s album “Hello from Vegas”
• Madonna’s album MADAME X
• Youngest-ever Billboard Hot 100 #1 artist BILLIE EILISH

• Late soprano Jessye NORMAN
• “The Masked Singer” judge KEN Jeong (is this theme?)
• The LUMINEERS with a track on the Game of Thrones soundtrack

• 2019 film “Rocketman” about ELTON John

That’s a lot of theme material! Of course, there is so much to draw from when your theme is an entire year’s worth of music, which makes doubling down on ARIANA GRANDE a somewhat odd choice (not unlike her “7 Rings” tattoo, but I’m not here to make fun of popstars).

The fill is definitely not a clean as we’ve come to expect from New Yorker puzzles, but that is of course what happens when you introduce one of those pesky themes into a grid. That said, I’m not convinced that the fill we get here is truly the best it could have been, even given the themedness of the puzzle (UTIL at 1-A being the worst, but also LLS, ANE, ITAL, REBID, OFID, etc). I did lol @ the clue on LLS (“Cool J, et al.”) for its utter absurdity. Cool J, Bean, and … all those other LLS.

Fill aside, I enjoyed this trip through 2019 music. Several stars for a star-studded puzzle!

David Alfred Bywaters’s LA Times crossword – Jenni’s write-up

It’s a sound-alike substitution theme that mostly works.

Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2019, David Alfred Bywaters, solution grid

• 17a [A vat, some cloth, etc.?] are DYER NEEDS (dire needs). To my ear, this one is a direct homophone.
• 24a [One in a Mesoamerican cleanup crew?] is a MAYAN SWEEPER (minesweeper). This one sounds a little different (I was raised in NY and have lived mostly in the mid-Atlantic).
• 38a. Apothecary’s concern? is PHIAL MANAGEMENT (file management). You don’t hear the word PHIAL pronounced all that often. In my head, it sounds exactly like FILE.
• 47a [Large cat romantically interested in opposite-sex large cats?] is a STRAIGHT LION (straight line). Again not quite the same. Funny!
• 60a [Surprisingly genteel outbreak of lawlessness?] is a CIVIL RIOT (civil right). Really doesn’t sound alike to me. Plus I don’t think of that term in the singular. It’s CIVIL rights. The Google Ngram viewer agrees with me.

It’s a cute theme idea that doesn’t quite pan out.

A few other things:

• I don’t know if it was deliberate misdirection to have RISE and RIDE at 1a and 1d, respectively, with RIDE clued as [Lift]. It made the start more challenging than the puzzle was overall.
• 9a [Comes impressively into view] is LOOMS. I think of something that LOOMS more as ominous than impressive.
• Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard someone say IN A PET in general conversation. Anyone? Bueller?
• 27d [City near Provo] is LEHI. Since I live in the Lehigh Valley and we have a lot of Biblical place names here, I wondered if there was a connection. I’m sitting about ten miles west of Bethlehem, which is south of Nazareth and east of Egypt. Drive a few minutes south of my house and you’ll be in Emmaus. Anyway, I looked it up, and it appears that “Lehigh” comes from a Lenni Lenape word meaning “forked.” The missionaries heard it as Lehanweking and shortened it to Lehigh. Lehi, Utah, is derived from a Biblical Hebrew word meaning “jawbone,” marking the site where Samson killed 1,000 warriors using only the jawbone of a donkey as a weapon. “Lehi” is also a prophet in the Book of Mormon. {political joke about jawbones and donkeys redacted}
• 45d [Hitchcock was known for them] are CAMEOS – his uncredited appearances in his films.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: I’d never heard of ARNETT Cobb, and I didn’t know that the KNEE was the largest joint in the human body. That didn’t seem relevant during anatomy class, and I am so not an orthopedist.