Friday, October 22, 2021

Robyn Weintraub’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 10 22 21, no. 1022

Quick and breezy! A shame—it would have been nice to have to spend more time piecing together Robyn’s puzzle.

Fave fill: NAIL POLISH (followed by the “ladies’ fingers” clue for OKRA), CASE DISMISSED, “LET THAT SINK IN,” GO ON STRIKE, EXPRESS TRAIN, LEFT TOWN, EATING FOR TWO. LEAS, EFT, ANAT, and ESSO were on the “meh” side, but overall I did like the puzzle.

Five more things:

• 37a. [One-fourth of KISS], STUPID. This is not an insult aimed at Gene Simmons, no. It’s “keep it simple, stupid.”
• 44a. [Kitty food?], POKER CHIP. Cute clue.
• Did not know: 52a. [___ Sarnoff, Warner Bros. C.E.O. beginning in 2019], ANN. Have made a note of it now.
• 12d. [Nation conspicuously missing from the Wilson-proposed League of Nations, in brief], USA. For real? “I came up with this great idea for a club! You’re all in it! Yes, all of you. … What, me? Uhhh… look over there!”
• 40d. [Herb often used in preparing potatoes and omelets], CHIVE. Blech. You can have my share.

Four stars from me. Happy Friday, people!

Victor Fleming, Marya Doery, and Carla Frechette’s Universal crossword, “You Can Say That Again!”—Jim P’s review

A little bird told me that Judge Vic’s co-constructors are two sisters. Checking the database, they had their debut back in July in the Inkubator.

This one is a breezy, clean solve with a simple theme: Six-letter words preceding nine-letter words which are actually the first words plus a three-letter prefix. If you’re keeping score, they each add up to 15-letter grid-spanning entries.

Universal crossword solution · “You Can Say That Again!” · Victor Fleming, Marya Doery, & Carla Frechette · Fri., 10.22.21

• 20a. [Retired actor?] FORMER PERFORMER.
• 36a. [Many chicks and calves?] SPRING OFFSPRING.
• 49a. [Kindhearted mixologist?] TENDER BARTENDER.

Cute and tidy. I happened to just see the latest James Bond film the other night (first time in a theater in gods-know-when), and I can’t help repeating each of these entries in Bondian fashion.  “TENDER. BAR TENDER.”

Surely, a fourth grid-spanning entry could have been found, but three makes for plenty of theme material, and a fourth might have gummed up the works.

As it is, the fill is clean with nice entries CROW’S NEST, “OH CRUD,” and HOT POT. I’m okay with STOMPED IN [Entered loudly], but I really wanted it to be STORMED IN.

Clues of note:

• 19a. [Red Sox Hall of Famer Martinez]. PEDRO. My last name is Peredo, which gets mangled in many ways. I think the one I like best is when people look at my name and somehow come up with PEDRO. Works for me.
• 44a. [Shortened facial hair?]. STACHE. Fun clue and entry. But [Trimmed facial hair?] might have been a touch better.
• 42d. [“___ all the same”]. THEY’RE. Anyone else go with THANKS? I was convinced of it for a long time.

Whoa. Just noticed there are no three-letter entries in the entire grid. Don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before. A nice little feat that.

3.75 stars.

Alexander Liebeskind & Jeff Chen’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

LAT • 10/22/21 • Fri • Liebeskind, Chen • solution • 20211022

What goes around comes around, as they say.

• 19a. [*Failed-delivery words] RETURN TO SENDER.
• 37a. [*Arrives back at square one] COMES FULL CIRCLE.
• 53a^R [*Bamboozled … and what the circled letters, when connected in the proper sequence, can be?] THROWN FOR A LOOP.

Traveling clockwise from the first circled letter reveals BOOMERANG as the name and shape of the object in question.

Can’t say I’ve seen this theme before, and it works well.

Time for my customary tour around the grid.

• 9d [Iced tea brand named for a Florida neighborhood] SOBE. One, I didn’t know this. Two, I’m guessing the derivation is SOuth BEach? Three, the BOOMERANG outlined in the grid sort of resembles Florida, don’t you think?
• (Four,) Does that mean there’s a minor duplication in the clue at 24d [Beach lotion meas.] SPF?
• 47d [Where to see strikes but not strikeouts] ALLEYS. Bowling, not baseball.
• 55d [“No shirt, no shoes, no service,” e.g.] RULE, but I tried SIGN first.
• 57d [Demolish] Tried RAZE before getting WHUP via crossings.
• 15a [Searches, like a pig does for truffles] ROOTLES. Such a good word. Alas, major duplication with 1d [Wilbur of “Charlotte’s Web,” e.g.] PIG.
• 26a [Home of Triple-A baseball’s Rainiers] TACOMA. Was able to get this one with only the T, thanks to geography knowledge.
• 50a [Folk tail?] -LORE. Cute. Maybe my favorite clue here.

Erik Agard’s USA Today crossword, “Fresh Starts”—Darby’s write-up

Edited by: Erik Agard

Theme: Each themed answer is comprised of two words that begin with RE and DO respectively and the key is the first two letters of each word. Together, we get some “fresh starts” with REDO.

Theme Answers

Erik Agard’s USA Today crossword, “Fresh Starts” solution, 10/22/2021

• 25a [“TV show starring Paulina Alexis, Lane Factor, D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai and Devery Jacobs”] RESERVATION DOGS
• 36a [“Metaphor for high turnover”] REVOLVING DOOR
• 47a [“Something might be proven beyond one”] REASONABLE DOUBT

This was a tricky theme, but I thought that the theme answers were awesome. Both RESERVATION DOGS and REASONABLE DOUBT were excellent grid-spanners. I also appreciated the complexity of the title of the puzzle. The fact that “Starts” is plural is key to decoding and looking at the first bits of each word in the answer. I’d say that this theme is more difficult than usual for the USA Today puzzles, which is a good thing, I think, for a puzzle running at the end of the week.

I love the shape of this grid so much. In these early days of my constructing adventures, I’m always really nervous about having too many black squares together, so I was stoked to see the two bracket-shapes cordoning off the center segment of the grid. I almost expected to see a secret code in the letters descending diagonally from each corner. But can we also talk about EERIE TROLL appearing together in the top corner? One could even say that the pairing is [“Strange in a scary way”], per EERIE’s 12a clue. It’s ~spooky season~, y’all.

Some Friday faves:

• 1a [“Mvskoke for ‘thank you’”] – MVTO kicked off this puzzle with an answer that I didn’t know, but I appreciated the reference and the chance to talk about the importance of preserving Indigenous language. The United Nations highlights that Indigenous languages are not only “methods of communication, but also extensive and complex systems of knowledge,” and, as a result, the decimation of Indigenous language is a colonial practice. The Mvskoke (or Muscogee) Nation runs a Mvskoke Language Program to “preserve, maintain, and revitalize the language of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation by connecting with tribal elders, encouraging adult citizens, and teaching our children the significance of reading, writing, and speaking in the language of our ancestors.”
• 18a & 19a [“Big name in cookies”] – I love when constructors challenge the hegemony of OREOs in puzzles by referencing popular cookie brands like Famous AMOS. It always feels a little bit like “Yeah, we include you all the time, and it’s to the point where we can make fun of that.”
• 25a [“TV show starring Paulina Alexis, Lane Factor, D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai and Devery Jacobs”] – I haven’t had a chance to watch RESERVATION DOGS, but it’s high on my end-of-the-semester list. Notably, it features all Indigenous writers and directors in addition to a mostly Native cast.
• 22d & 24d [“Palindromic first name”] –  Y’all know I love a BOGO clue, so AVA and ANA crossing RESERVATION DOGS was a high key win (^see OREO and AMOS above and also any time I’m on when these appear), and with 48d & 66a’s [“Nickname for Edward”] (EDDIE and NED) and 40a and 62a’s [“Single-digit perfect square”] (ONE and NINE), Erik went for one more than a hat-trick, which is supposedly called a “haul.”

CIAO (29a [“Ta-ta!”]) for now, y’all! Have a great weekend!

Robyn Weintraub’s New Yorker puzzle– malaika’s write-up

Happy Robyn Day to all who celebrate!!! A Times themeless and a New Yorker themeless! This puzzle rocked, with the caveat that there were a few pieces of fill that I think are too obscure / tricky for an easy puzzle. I wasn’t a fan of EWERS (35A: Widemouthed pitchers), MORES (41A: Social conventions), ROW A (2D: It’s nearest to the front of the stage), AS MAD (5D: Comparable to a hatter or a wet hen). I’ve solved enough puzzles that I could drop those terms in, but I don’t know that they’re super in the lexicon.

Robyn Weintraub’s October 22, 2021 New Yorker puzzle

Robyn is associated with breezy, whimsical, conversational puzzles, so I wanted to take a look at a few of the things that contributed to this fun solve:

There were long entries that were super vivid in a fun way, like MALL SANTA, WATER BALLOONS, BLUE GREEN and UPTOWN FUNK. There were gently punny clues, like [They make a big splash] for WATER BALLOONS and [Hunter who sports an astronomically large belt] for ORION. And one of my favorite things, Robyn is great at taking words that can be a little downer-y and transform them into something fun. Obviously nothing is wrong with the entries DIRT (Crushed Oreos, whimsically, in some desserts) or POOR (“Give me your tired, your ___…”), but it’s nice how her clues bring to mind dessert and poetry.

Closing on an irrelevant story: Whenever I see something about corn / scarecrows (CROW: Unwelcome visitor in a cornfield), I remember part of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book where their cornfield is attacked by blackbirds. They will starve without the corn, so they have to run around the field with pots and pans, scaring the birds away. Eventually, Pa shoots some of them, and Ma cooks them into a pie. The description of the pie (you can read it here!) was so lush and detailed that it has been ingrained in my head for seventeen years and every now and then I am like “Damn I wish I could eat Ma’s blackbird pie.”

Margaret Seikel’s Inkubator crossword, “Leader of the PAC”—Rebecca’s review

Another great puzzle from the Inkubator this week celebrating one of my favorite organizations.

Inkubator, October 21, 2021, Margaret Seikel, “Leader of the PAC” solution grid

• 18A [Where one might mail it in?] POST OFFICE
• 27A [“Do you want kids?” on a first date, e.g.] BLUNT QUESTION
• 47A [Mickey’s rival in a 1936 short] MORTIMER MOUSE
• 59A [Group that fundraises for Democratic women who support abortion rights … or an apt description to the starts of 18-, 27-, and 47-Across] EMILY’S LIST
  

EMILY’S LIST theme today that put famous Emilys at the start of the themed entries. MORTIMER was definitely the most difficult of the three, but all worked really well with the theme and while Dickinson feels missing in any list of Emilys, I can’t think of any way to throw that name into a different phrase.

Solid construction throughout. Fun fill and cluing all around, if a little violent in the SE. Clean across the grid, with a nice mix of types of cluing which kept the puzzle moving. Loved the clues for AREOLAS [Nipple rings?], BRIDAL EXPO [Event for those otherwise engaged?], and TESS [Plus-size model Holliday].