Thursday, April 2, 2020

Jim Holland’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “By the Numbers”—Jim P’s review

Theme: Phrases with certain numbers in them have that number replaced by a single Roman numeral. WHEN IN ROME is the revealer at 64a, clued [Beginning of travel advice appropriate to the starred answers].

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “By the Numbers” · Jim Holland · Thu., 4.2.20

• 17a [*Agent, traditionally] X-PERCENTER. Ten-percenter, referring to an agent’s typical cut.
• 27a [*Field divider] L-YARD LINE. 50-yard line of American football.
• 49a [*Conflict between the Houses of Plantagenet and Valois] C YEARS’ WAR. The Hundred Years’ War, which actually lasted 116 years from 1337 to 1453.
• 10d [*Performing flawlessly] BATTING M. Batting 1000.
• 39d [*Biggies of big business] FORTUNE D. Fortune 500.

Nifty theme which I enjoyed. When it comes to Roman numerals, I used to always get D and L mixed up. But now it’s a point of pride for me that I can remember that D and L stand for 500 and 50 respectively. What cemented it in my mind was the 2005 Super Bowl, the “Extra-Large Super Bowl XL.” Knowing that we are nowhere near the 500th Super Bowl, I’m now able to remember that L is 50 and therefore D must be 500. If I’m still around for Super Bowl D, I might start getting confused again.

With six theme entries in a pinwheel design, there’s not much room for long flashy fill. We get HANDBILL and TIED ONTO, which are fine, but not terribly exciting.

Cluing felt heavily reliant on trivia today, which sometimes happens on a Thursday. These in particular I did not enjoy:

• 42a. [Allan Lane spoke for him]. MR ED.
• 51a. [Twelve Oaks neighbor]. TARA.
• 5d. [Haggard book]. SHE. This one, especially, irked me. I assumed it was a book by country singer Merle Haggard. Nope, it’s referring to 19th-century writer H. Rider Haggard and his 1886 book She: A History of Adventure. I’ve never heard of either. I’m not saying a puzzle should only have things that I know about in it, but this seems unusually off of anyone’s radar. Correct me if I’m wrong.
• 24d. [Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From ___”]. ALOES. I think I’d rather have it clued as the plural of ALOE.

Contrast those with the clue for NILE: [Shadoofs raise water from it]. Yes, it’s trivia, but at least it’s interesting and I learned from it. A shadoof is a pole with a bucket and a counterweight, making it look vaguely like a trebuchet.

Favorite clue goes to 45a [Dirty mouth output?] for SILT. Cute.

Nice puzzle with a satisfying trick for a theme. Fill is on the average side and trivia in the clues sapped some of the fun out of it. A mixed bag for me. 3.4 stars.

Trip Payne’s Fireball Crossword, “Cuckoo Crossword”–Jenni’s write-up

April Fools! After last week’s brain-crushing meta, Peter and Trip team up to give us utter wackiness.

I love these puzzles. There are just enough “normal” entries to give me a foothold and then I’m off and running to cloud-cuckoo-land, giggling all the while. This was just the right medicine for the middle of another week that feels like it’s going on for years.

My favorite entries:

Fireball Crossword, April 1, 2020, Trip Payne, “Cuckoo Crossword,” solution grid

• 1a [“Mike Pence approves the Republican National Committee’s purchase of a Hummer,” for short] reads like a Variety headline: USA VP OKS GOP SUV.
• 2d [Person who orders drinks from an automaton bartender] is a SALOON ROBOT USER.
• 6d has my favorite clue: [How you would introduce a 1960s TV kid to an ancient Greek physician (I don’t know, maybe it’s time travel or something, just go with me on this)]. The answer is OPIE, GALEN. It helps to know your ancient Greek physicians – this one was actually a gimme.
• 18a [Note that Jim Davis left for his cartoon dog before he’d finished inking its face] is IOU EYES ODIE.
• Timely entry: 44a [Quarantine the mascot with the top hat and monocle] is ISOLATE MR PEANUT. He may not have an N95 mask, but he has gloves.

Yay for pure fun!

Evan Mahnken’s New York Times crossword—Ben’s review

It’s Thursday, y’all!  We’ve almost made it through another week.  Let’s talk about the NYT crossword, which is from Evan Mahnken this week.  Our revealer at 57A points to “the contents of some special squares in the grid” having “Fancy-schmancy language”.  I’m more familiar with those being TEN-DOLLAR WORDS, but times have changed and apparently those are now FIVE-DOLLAR WORDS.  Anyways, as suggested by that, five squares in the grid have “dollar words”:

NYT 4/2/2020 – No. 0402

• 9A and 9D both have NOTE (“Places for to-do lists” — [NOTE]PAD, “Tryst locale” — [NO-TE]LL MOTEL)
• 17A and 18D share BUCK (“Social media fad that went viral in 2014” — ICE [BUCK]ET CHALLENGE, “Cowpoke” — [BUCK]AROO)
• 24A and 27D feature BILL (“Large-beaked bird found in Africa” — HORN[BILL], “TV host once with with an “Explaining Jokes to Idiots” segment” — [BILL] MAHER)
• 28A and 28D have SINGLE (“Only card of its suit in a hand” — [SINGLE]TON, “Places where business is picking up?” — [SINGLE]S BARS)
• and finally, 38A and 38D use CLAM (“Ado” — [CLAM]OR, “Manhattan, for one” — [CLAM] CHOWDER)

I liked this one!  NO TELL MOTEL was my aha into what was going on, and figuring it out early followed by BUCKAROO shortly thereafter meant that this felt pretty easily, though CLAMOR/CLAM CHOWDER took forever to click for me.  My brain thinks “cocktail” for “Manhattan” before it thinks chowder.  Throwing in ALS at 61D was a nice touch to go along with ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE.

Be well, all!  Stay healthy!

Susan Gelfand’s Universal crossword — “Fantasy Sports” — Jim Q’s review

Fantastic puzzle! In more ways than one, of course.

THEME: Common phrases reimagined as if they’re “fantastic” sports plays.

Universal crossword solution · “Fantasy Sports” · Susan Gelfand · Thu., 4.2.20

THEME ANSWERS:

• 17A [Made an extraordinary boxing play?] PUNCHED THE CLOCK. 
• 26A [Made an extraordinary volleyball play?] SPIKED A DRINK. 
• 42A [Made an extraordinary baseball play?] PITCHED A TENT. 
• 54A [Made an extraordinary baseball play?] PASSED THE BUTTER. 

A nice consistent set here. I must admit, I didn’t really understand the “extraordinary” part of the clues, but I suppose it goes along with the title. “Extraordinary” more of a synonym to “fantasized” than “great.” What other things are PASSED, PITCHED, SPIKED, and PUNCHED in common phrases? I know I initially wanted PITCHED A FIT and PASSED THE TORCH when I got the first words respectively.

Nice longer downs in the fill included SANITIZED (because that’s on all our minds right now!) and ART EDITOR.

Overall, 3.5 Stars. An enjoyable start to the day!

Alan DerKazarian’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

LA Times
200402

JUMPSCARE is a really excellent entry, let alone revealer. The rest of the theme is a little more covert. Five synonyms for scare (n.) are presented, but hidden across two entries – “jumping” the black square.

This theme time tends to have few splashy entries. This is couple with a fairly taxing grid design. The frayed edges here are the bottom right with OSIER and ICHOR in one corner; both ALOAN and ADRAG , two arbitrary A ___ entries in one puzzle; a very name-heavy corner with ECHOSTAR and tough clues for LACROSSE and BOSCH.

Gareth