Sunday, March 29, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Ricky Cruz’s New York Times crossword, “Keep The Change”—Amy’s write-up

Not sure I quite see what the full theme is here. Aha, here’s the problem. The theme relies on some shading that isn’t reflected in the .puz version I used: “In the print version of this puzzle, there are two 5×5-square areas of shaded squares: one whose upper-left corner is the third square of 57-Across, and one whose upper-left corner is the sixth square of 59-Across.” Good gravy, that’s ungainly. I really wish the puzzle page would tell us when the .puz option will suck. Yes, probably Wordplay had a notice yesterday, but I barely read this crossword blog, let alone any others!

Let’s lay it out:

• 26a. [Make heads or tails of a situation … or an alternative title for this puzzle], TELL LEFT FROM RIGHT. Usually a phrase used in the negative, no?
• 110a. [Kind of visual puzzle … or what to do with each line in this puzzle’s two shaded areas], SPOT THE DIFFERENCE.
• There are two unchecked entries, 56d. [The circled letters in the first shaded area], BLACK, and 62d. [The circled letters in the second shaded area], WHITE. If you are looking at a version of the puzzle that has those shaded 5×5 sections of grid, which mostly include fragments of answers, the circled B L A C K and W H I T E letters appear in the same spots in those shaded zones.

Strikingly unsatisfying solve in the .puz format, but I acknowledge that it must have been freakishly hard to construct the puzzle with those constraints. Overall, the fill was normal fill (EFTS is among a smattering of musty fill), with some highlights along the way, such as SQUALID, SNOWDEN, IDITAROD, DISTURBIA with a double pop-culture clue (the Rihanna song came to mind first, not that I’ve ever heard it—editing pop-culture crosswords has its advantages!), GET OFF A SHOT, REAL DEAL, SPONGEBOB, CUTTING EDGE, and DOOZIES.

So! I did not get anything out of the theme in the puzzle format I used, but I admire the effort and appreciated the zippy and modern fill. Not a fan of the title—what am I missing? Why “Keep the Change”? I’ll withhold a puzzle rating, but give 1.5 out of 5 stars to the NYT for not making it obvious that only non-.puz formats would provide a satisfactory experience here.

 

Gary Larson’s LA Times crossword, “Inner Cities” – Jenni’s write-up

The run of Sunday LATs by women has ended, and it’s still March. Oh, well.

Each theme answer is hiding something.

• 15d [*Lead singer of a group whose first two Top 40 hits reached #1] is
  FRANKIE VALLI.
• 22a [*Alternative to a pizza oven] is a BAKING STONE.
• 38a [*Office group leader] is a TEAM MANAGER.
• 60a [*Online gaming attraction] are VIDEO SLOTS. I think that should have been “attractions.”
• 62d [*Breakfast order usually made with ham, onion and green pepper] is a DENVER OMELET.
• 77a [*Mathematical abstraction with evenly spaced integers] is a NUMBER LINE.
• 100a [*Only occupant of Vostok I] was YURI GAGARIN.

And the revealer: 118a [Startup funds … and a hint to what’s hidden in the answers to the starred clues], SEED CAPITAL.

It’s a fairly solid theme, but…I really don’t like DENVER OMELET, which has another city in it. It’s even a capital city. Yeah, I know, it’s a state capital, not a national capital, but still. And SEED CAPITAL is more often referred to as SEED MONEY. I checked the Google Ngram viewer to be sure, since this is not my area of expertise. Look for yourself. You can click to embiggen.

A few other things:

• I could have done without APISHLY, which is not a thing anyone says. If they were going to say it, they’d be talking about apes, not a synonym for [In an imitative way]. Dreck like that in the NW corner colors my whole experience of the puzzle. It doesn’t bother me as much if it’s buried in the middle, probably because I might fill it in from crossings and not really see it.
• I remember the days when people could cross THE POND and travel safely through INTL airports. Those old days three or four weeks ago…
• Is CLAMATO juice as disgusting as it sounds? I’ve never tried it. I’ll do a lot of things to further my understanding of crossword puzzles, but I draw the line at drinking that stuff.
• NILLA wafers, on the other hand, are delicious. They were my father’s favorite commercial cookie. Dad had some odd ideas about cookies. He could not stand it when we unscrewed Oreos. He would not allow it in his presence. When my daughter was about two, I took her to Mom and Dad’s and sat her at the kitchen table with my dad – and a box of Oreos, which she had just learned to unscrew. I knew he wouldn’t stop his beloved granddaughter from doing something that made her so happy. The look on my father’s face was priceless. I wish I had a picture of it.
• I forgot that 90 degrees is DUE EAST on a compass and kept trying to make something geometric fit in there.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that FRANKIE VALLI and the Four Seasons reached #1 with their first two Top 40 hits. I also didn’t know that YURI GAGARIN‘s spaceship was Vostok 1 and I had no idea that MA KETTLE was a character in “The Egg and I.” I know the book, a memoir by Betty MacDonald, and I knew it had been made into a movie. Apparently it spawned the Ma and Pa Kettle series of films.

I leave you with the first #1 hit from The Four Seasons. Dig the tuxedos!

Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword, “Extra! Extra!” – Jim Q’s writeup

Don’t worry, you’re not seeing double. Just somthin’ a little Extra in the puzzle today.

THEME: Four-letter words that can follow the word SPARE are represented by double letters in rebus squares within longer entries.

THEME ANSWERS:

• 23A [Relaxed dress code] CASUAL ATTIRE.  The crossings include PUTTER, SHIITES, SORRY, THEE. 
• 15D [Portobello top] MUSHROOM CAP. DEAD PARROT, SNOOTY (not SNOTTY!), ME TOO, EMMYS. 
• 56A [Final notes?] CRIB SHEETS. CHIRR, RADII, B-BALL, ASSES. 
• 79A [Like exhibits with audio and video components] MULTI–MEDIA. OTTER, WII-MOTE, DEMME, PUREE. 
• 67A [Blue Jacket’s boot] HOCKEY SKATE. GEKKO, EERIE, SAY YES, LESSON PLAN. 
• 117A [Leonidas’s belligerent catchphrase in “300”] THIS ….. IS ….. SPARTA!!!!!!!! SLAPPED, JAY HAAS, ERRED, AT TEN.
• 68 [Extra, or a word that precedes the “extra” words in this puzzle] SPARE. 

This was an all-around TIGHT puzzle, and a joy to solve. I picked up on the double letter rebus early, but it still took quite a while to fully understand that A) There was a four-in-a-row rebus pattern and B) They were embedded within longer answers. I don’t know why it took me so long to see the latter. Early on, I was almost annoyed when I stumbled on double letters that weren’t in a rebus.

Once grokked, it’s one of those puzzles where the theme helps with the fill and the fill helps with the theme. For instance, if you’re anything like me, you’ve never heard of Jonathan DEMME. And you can’t quite see MULTI–MEDIA just yet. However, you know you’re looking for a four-letter word that can follow SPARE, and you see TI?E. Well… it must be TIME, which gives you DEMME, which gives you MULTI–MEDIA, and whoo hoo! What a feeling!

NOTABLE FILL/CLUES:

• 14A [Midwest city whose name is always spelled in Vietnamese?] AMES. I highlighted it in red there. Love these cryptic-esque clues.
• 34A [Subject of a classic Monty Python pet shop sketch] DEAD PARROT. I vaguely remember this sketch, but it certainly makes for interesting fill! Note: Just re-watched. Absurd and hilarious. 

• 33D [Had class?] TAUGHT. Question mark is less punny to me now as I’m not really sure how to conduct my online classes while quarantined. Still in the experimental phase.

Nothing much to scowl at and some decent bit in this one. Memorable puzzle indeed.

Lynn Lempel’s Universal crossword — “Going to the Dogs” — Jim Q’s review

Some puzzles are for the birds. This one’s for the dogs.

THEME: Phrases that include breeds of dogs are reimagined and clued via dog breed.

THEME ANSWERS:

• 17A [Brief films about certain dogs?] BOXER SHORTS. Cute. 
• 27A [Certain dog’s place to swim?] DALMATIAN COAST. 
• 42A [Certain dogs from the same litter?] POINTER SISTERS. 
• 55A [Parents in a certain dog family?] LAB PARTNERS. 

Tight theme and concept. What more can you want from Universal and Lynn Lempel? My favorite of the four themers was the first one. If I had to pick one that felt off, it’d be DALMATIAN COAST as dalmatians are actually named for that region in Croatia. The first word in this type of theme shouldn’t be reminiscent of the actual breed of dog at all, right?

Things got screwy for me in the ALL MIXED UP, X-RAY, JOEY area. I put ORALS in for 46A [Pictures for the dentist], and could not for the life of me figure out the answer to the (very good) clue at 36D [Bouncing baby?]. JOEY. Of course!

Fun theme and a nice start to the Sunday solves! 3.8 Stars.

Alison Ohringer’s Sunday Universal crossword — “Follow the Recipe” — Jim Q’s review

Not much of a cook here, so not sure I’ll be able to use this puzzle to much avail…

THEME: Ingredients of an apple pie are “mixed” within theme answers.

THEME ANSWERS:

• 23A [Move like some babies (unscramble each set of circled letters!)] WALK ON ALL FOURS. Flour. 
• 36A [“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”] NEWTON’S THIRD LAW. Lard. 
• 57A [Event in which the moon obscures the sun] TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE. Salt.
• 79A [Contemporary of W.E.B. DuBois] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. Water.
• 99A [One may evoke pity] EMOTIONAL APPEAL. Apple. 
• 118A [Pointed green vegetable] ASPARAGUS SPEAR. Sugar. The SPEAR part is entirely superfluous here… the letters in SUGAR don’t bridge it and just ASPARAGUS by itself sounds better with the clue. 
• 86A [Result of mixing the ingredients hidden in 23-, 36-, 57- and 79-Across] CRUST. 
• 115A [End result of this puzzle’s recipe] PIE. 

I don’t know about this. I feel like if I followed the recipe as per the title, I’d have a mess. I don’t know how long to bake it for, what kind of dishes to use, how much of each ingredient… I think I’d go nuts with the salt, throw one whole apple in the middle, and forego the oven entirely. Done!

I get how the ingredients are “mixed” in the theme answers, but once I saw the title and read the (spoiler alert!) instructions in the first clue: Unscramble each set of circled letters!, this just turned into a themeless. I didn’t bother to unscramble anything until after I was finished and was listing the theme answers above.

Also, 2D [Reason to leave a message] NO ANSWER is not all that accurate any more! MYSPACE doesn’t exactly help to give it an up-to-date feel either. OH WELL.

And lastly, of course, I wonder how this appears in print since circles are necessary, and Universal can’t pull those off… I assume the solving audience is asked to count letters? Weird.

2.2 Stars from me on this one. I was on auto-pilot.