Thursday, January 28, 2021

David Alfred Bywaters’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Kin Group”—Jim P’s review

I need to make this short and sweet. Ongoing shoulder issues mean sitting at a computer is very uncomfortable for me. Just got out of an MRI so hopefully I can start to get some relief soon.

Theme: Silent Ks are added to the Ns in certain phrases.

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Kin Group” · David Alfred Bywaters · Thu., 1.28.21

• 17a. [One whose armor interferes with bedtime comfort?] SLEEPLESS KNIGHT. Possibly the oldest pun on record? (Not the “sleepless” part, just the night/knight part.)
• 31a. [Sweater shoppers?] KNIT PICKERS.
• 48a. [Achieved equilibrium?] KNEW BALANCE.
• 64a. [Macramé class request?] CAN WE PLEASE KNOT? I like this one best, although I usually hear this phrase without the please and in the second person singular (“Can you not?”).

Nice theme. Good choices.

Top fill: BIG SPENDER, BALLERINAS, SULTANS, SCHISMS.

Clues of note:

• 5a. [Lincolnshire sausage ingredient]. SAGE. I went with LEEK for my first guess. I know somebody over does this. Ah, there’s the Glamorgan sausage, a traditional Welsh vegetarian sausage, made of cheese, leeks and bread crumbs.
• 20a. [Cowboy headgear]. HELMET. Oh, I finally just figured this out. Cowboys on the football field, not on the range.
• 5d. [Seraglio figures]. SULTANS. Seraglio is defined as either (1) the women’s apartments (harem) in an Ottoman palace, or (2) a Turkish or Ottoman palace, especially the Sultan’s court and government offices at Constantinople. I’m guessing we’re using the second definition.

Kind of a basic theme for the end of the week, but the puzzle itself is solid all around. 3.7 stars.

Steve Mossberg’s New York Times crossword—Ben’s review

NYT #0128 – 1/28/2021

It’s Thursday!  Let’s crossword:

• 20A: Something directly following a penultimate position — that is to say, diametrically opposed to a primary one — THE LAST WORDILY
• 34A: L iKe aN Ov eN — HOT MESSILY
• 39A: Golden blades that may be tenderly chew’d by equine or bovine beings — HAY LOFTILY
• 53A: The cat’s meow, baby. Dig? — ALL THAT JAZZILY

This Thursday’s puzzle doesn’t feel quite as conceptual as the last few Thursdays.  Adding in commas helps to parse the cluing here – HOT, MESSILY is “L iKe aN Ov eN”.  We also have THE LAST, WORDILY, HAY, LOFTILY (my favorite of these clues), and ALL THAT, JAZZILY.  The more I sit with it, the more this theme grows on me, but in the midst of solving I wasn’t really getting anything to hang onto until I realized I had one theme clue ending in ILY and had letters in the grid that meant all the theme answers would likely follow suit.

25A: Girl group with the 1999 #1 album “FanMail” — TLC

other nice grid bits: ATAT, A AVERAGE (which I tried to make RAVE AGE, but ATE IT in the downs wouldn’t allow that), ARSONIST, EGO TRIP, TWANG, LATTE, ALGIERS, and YOGA MAT

Stay safe! Be well!

Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crossword, “Themeless 145” – Jenni’s write-up

Short review tonight because I have had enough of staring at the computer screen. SO MUCH ZOOM.

Anyway. I enjoyed this Themeless. I would have loved a bit more challenge – in general, I’d be happy if more of the Fireballs were, indeed, blazingly hard. It’s a good puzzle.

The Trademark Peter Gordon Very Long Clue shows up at 48a [J. Robert Oppenheimer said that he remembered the line from the Bhagavad Gita “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” after the first one]. The answer is A–TEST.

Fireball, January 27, 2021, “Themeless #145,” Peter Gordon, solution grid

Things I noticed:

• 1a [They don’t crack when pressured even when they’re full of beans] is SOFT TACOS, which is utterly obvious when it’s filled in and not immediately evident from the clue. The rest of that corner consisted primarily of gimmes so it didn’t slow me down.
• I haven’t seen ACCURST in a very long time. Google Ngram viewer tells me that it peaked in 1807, a smidgen before my time.
• 20a [Bent an elbow, perhaps] is SALUTED, which is a nice misdirection. I was looking for something to do with alcohol.
• I enjoyed the juxtaposition of BAHAMA MAMA and THERESA MAY.
• As he so often does, Peter slips in a couple of nearly matching entries in the NW and SE. The answer symmetrical to THERESA MAY is THERE‘S A WAY.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that OREO CHURROS are a thing.

Brendan Emmett Quigley crossword (No. 1335), “Movin” — Jenni’s review

This was a fun puzzle to solve and an amusing theme, even though I can’t make head or tails out of one of theme answers. I’m counting on our very smart and generous commentariat to enlighten me.

The three theme answers I understand swap the first two letters of one of the words.

Brendan Emmett Quigley, Crossword #1335, “Movin,” solution grid

• 20a [Pioneering law student?] is THE FIRST ONE–L (“The First Noel”).
• 32a [Pelotons?] are INNER BIKES. It has a question mark. It’s symmetrical with the other theme answers. I know it’s correct (I checked). NINER BIKES? INNER IBKES? No idea.
• 39a [What to do when wagering gold isn’t allowed at the poker table?] is ANTE SLVER (Nate Silver).
• 47a [ESP?] is UNCLEAR POWER (nuclear power).

I like the theme already and I’m sure I’ll like it more when someone decodes 32a for me.

Lunch break is almost over, so here’s “what I didn’t know before I did this puzzle.” I didn’t know OMAR Ilhan’s Twitter handle (@IlhanMN) or that the national bird of PERU is the Andean cock-of-the-rock. Quite the handsome avian, that.

Jeff Stillman’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary

LA Times
210128

It’s clue/answer reversal time. Today’s answer is [V] and the clues are three v-shaped things: VICTORYSIGN, TSHIRTNECKTYPE (such an awkward clue… er answer), and GEESEFORMATION. Then, combo-breaker! We have CAESARSFIVE.

With such a staid theme, we could have used some fancy clues, but I count [Summer shade] for TAN and [Long division?] for EON.

I still find it bizarre that Americans would consider a BIGMAC a [Classic fast-food sandwich…] when it’s clearly made with a bun and not slices of bread.

Gareth