Saturday, April 15, 2023

Kameron Austin Collins’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 4 15 23, no. 0415

Ah! Yesterday I had anticipated a Saturday puzzle that would feel like a Friday, but we lucked out and got a KAC puzzle, which invariably hits right in the Saturday zone.

I’ve always been partial to themeless grids of this variety, with a stack of good stuff in the 9- to 11-letter range in each quadrant. Fave fill: CARICATURE (thank you, [Sketchy Boardwalk offering?], for getting me started), UFOLOGISTS, a TECH STARTUP, SIEMENS (they make some good hearing aids, yo), “MEANING WHAT?”, the GOING RATES, STEM CELL, SCARE AWAY, LAURA DERN, BUSH HOG (not that I knew this [Land-clearing tractor attachment]), “I CAN’T EVEN,” and “DO YOU MIND?”

Three clues:

• 35d. [Phone number?], RINGTONE. As in a ringtone that’s a song, a song being a musical number. Tricky! I knew it couldn’t mean a local anesthetic for a phone, but the song angle didn’t strike me for a bit.
• Maybe faintly familiar to me? 44a. [Frank ___, Progressive-era novelist who wrote “The Octopus” and “McTeague], NORRIS. Have you read anything by him?
• 54a. [Millions of Ghanaians, ethnically], EWES. Always good to have a break from the female sheep. Here’s a bit about the Ewe people.

4.25 stars from me.

C.C. Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 4/15/23 by C.C. Burnikel

You know what I’m going to say, right? Too easy! If the ACPT were ever to go all-themeless, this would be a great Puzzle 1. As it is, I had to notice most of the best clues after the fact, which is an experience I prefer more on a weekday than on Saturday. Some notable clues and entries:

• 8A [Art form also known as “kado,” or “way of flowers”] is IKEBANA (the Japanese art of flower arranging). Nice to see this entry.
• 39A [Pin cushion?] is a cute clue for MAT — that is, a place that might cushion you if you are pinned while wrestling.
• 49A [Destination for the last flight?] is really clever for ATTIC.
• 4A [Paper product?] is NEWS.
• 8A [“Ms. Marvel” star Vellani] is IMAN. As much as I adore the supermodel, it’s nice to see another cluing angle for that name.
• 13A [Like the traditional Maori greeting known as the Hongi] is NOSE TO NOSE. This was easy to fill in even though I didn’t know the fact coming in, and it was nice to learn it afterward.
• 21A [Senior’s big ask] is a nice clue for PROMPOSAL.

I think this puzzle was so easy because a lot of the tricky wordplay was happening in the shorter entries, leaving lots of mid-length and longer answers clued straightforwardly and thus easy to get. It’s a nice construction, but I would’ve liked it clued A LOT harder.

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Pushing Back” — pannonica’s write-up

WSJ • 4/15/23 • Sat • “Pushing Back” • Shenk • 20230415

The two-word phrases in this theme have had some light editing. To wit, the -ING suffix has been relocated from the first word to the second word. In the process, that second word changes from a regular noun to a gerund.

• 22a. [Pre-departure doings at the Puget ferry terminal?] SOUND BOARDING (sounding board).
• 27a. [Title on a symposium flyer?] TALK HEADING (talking head).
• 45a. [Indication at an intersection, if your signals don’t work?] TURN POINTING (turning point). Of course there are manual signals that every driver should still learn; some may involve pointing.
• 68a. [Job at a pinniped beauty parlor?] SEAL WAXING (sealing wax).
• 71a. [Leaf-peeping trip?] FALL OUTING (falling out, falling-out?). That’s actually a common phrase.
• 97a. [Park designer’s forte?] LAND CRAFTING (landing craft).
• 115a. [Sizing skill for an Amazon Warehouse worker?] BOX MATCHING (boxing match). In my experience feel that some could do a better job on that, but I suspect that they are extremely pressed for time in their work.
• 123a. [Prelude to getting food at the state fair?] STAND ORDERING (standing order).

Okay, these are all fine and entertaining. And clever.

• 7d [Cut down to size] CHASTEN. 19a [Chao who preceded Pete Buttigieg at Transportation] ELAINE.
• 

  WRONG

  21d [Bagel spread] SCHMEAR. I just saw a news item about ‘cream-cheese-stuffed bagels’ and my response is a resounding no, and “wrong, wrong, wrong”.

• 41d [About-face from SSW] NNE. 9d [Direction opposite nord] SUD.
• 47d [Ring quartet] OPERA. This is Wagner’s Ring Cycle, of the Nibelungenlied. 70d [“Parsifal” prop] GRAIL.
• 54d [Trivial lie] TARADIDDLE. Not to be confused with a paradiddle, which is a rapid percussion sequence.
• 82d [Sushi wrapping] NORI. 83d [Rust, essentially] IRON OXIDE. I liked the parallel placement of the NORI/IRON reversal.
• 90d [Siren’s victim] SEDUCEE. Tied for least favorite fill with 132a [Particularly tall] TOWERY. 55a [Least fake] REALEST, I can live with.
• 125d [Dress in] DON. I recently learned via the Haggard Hawks twitter account that the origin of the word is a contraction of ‘do on’ and its complement ‘doff’ similarly derived. (81d [Whacks, mob-style] OFFS.)
• 36a [Ian Thorpe’s nation, in Olympic country codes] AUS, for Australia, whereas Austria’s is AUT. Seems to me the former should be AUL to avoid unnecessary confusion. Why does it enjoy AUS primacy, especially as it’s a younger nation?
• 81d [Held in reserve] ON ICE. I recently had a sashimi lunch and the restaurant served the fish on bowl of ice. That’s no good. It shouldn’t be quite so cold, or you won’t get enough of the flavors. Needless to say I won’t be returning there.
• 91a [Brought into being] SIRED. Well, that’s kind of half the story, isn’t it? But of course the clue is correct in the idiomatic sense.
• 103a [Full of ups and downs] HILLY. 102d [With 63-Across, elevator pioneer] ELISHA | 63a OTIS.

Steve Mossberg’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

Newsday • 4/15/23 • Saturday Stumper • Mossberg • solution • 20230415

Were it not for eventually dredging up 1-across GREMOLATA from my memory I might not have completed this crossword at all. [Green sauce for osso buco]

There were a few particularly obscure clues in this otherwise standard-toughness Stumper. Most notably: 51d [I as in “vin”] NASAL, 10a [Bud with brunch bagels] CAPER, 16a [Show with projectors] OPERA (especially as it’s proximate to the 9-down cinema quote), 32a [Memorable count] STAT, 54a [Not a full-length fantasy] RPG (role-playing game), 

• 20a [Apt rhyme for “retrace”] PACE. Not so apt, in my opinion.
• 39d [What tigers and king cobras share] ASIA. Can’t quite believe that I got this with only the S from the crossing EASE (28d [Great facility]) in place. Seemed to general an answer.
• 40a [Request to keep playing] HIT ME. 5d [Request to keep playing] ONE MORE.
• 62d [Potential power under the hood] SOLAR ROAD. Viable technology is still in early stages, I believe.
• 3d [Word with “eat” in its etymology] ETCH. Makes sense, as the acid ‘eats’ the substrate. I had NOSH here for a while.
• 4d [Common name in County Mayo] MORAN. {An Irish name goes here} clue, whutever.
• The long down answers are cross-referenced: 6d [When miniskirts were in again] LATE EIGHTIES, 21d [Frequent player in the 6 Down] CASSETTE TAPE.
• 9d [“Twice __” (what Goldwyn said a wide screen made a poor film)] AS BAD. Liked the clue, especially since it was rather easy to guess and thus make some early headway.
• 10d [Apt to sway] COGENT. 24d [Aid in arguments] LOGIC.
• 13d [Going-off] ERROR. Really?
• 26d [Ball game] CATCH. So simple it’s tricky.
• 49d [Attempt] CRACK. My first crack was WHACK.
• 50d [Kitchen wrap] APRON. Fooled me on this one. Of course I said SARAN.

And to wrap up, several clues which I surmise must have been good, because they seemed oblique yet still guessable/gettable: 67a [Plumbers often work on them] KNEES, 58d [Japan’s third-largest port city] KOBE (that it was four letters helped greatly), 59d [“The South’s Homepage”] Y’ALL, 18a [They’ll need to be shifted] GEARS, 23a [Present time] NOEL, 30a [Display of brilliance] RIOT (as in colors), 36a [Occasional sportscast coverage] TARP (although ‘sportscast’ is stretching it).

A nice workout. Now can I go make coffee?

Universal, “Universal Freestyle 68” by Karen Steinberg — norah’s write-up

THEME: None!

FAVORITE ENTRIES:

• ⭐⭐KARENS 41D [Entitled female complainers, slangily]
• SLEEPDIVORCE 21A [Marital arrangement involving separate bedrooms]
• COASTALELITES 13D [Educated professionals in New York City and Los Angeles, e.g.]
• IMNOTGONNALIE 15D [“To be honest …”]
• PAPERMARIO 9D [Nintendo franchise whose villains include an origami king]
• END IN TEARS 58A [Finish unhappily for everyone]

OTHER NOTES:

Hello Karen Steinberg, who playfully offers up KARENS in 41D. I love this so much.

The NW of this grid was strangely difficult for me!  I’ve not yet internalized LENDL as a crossword sporps I need to remember, UMBYE looked like not a word, I couldn’t make sense of the sequence I had in 13D – something like —-TALELIT– at first, and I couldn’t put MARCH together easily. SLEEP DIVORCE is new to me too, giving me a longer than average solve time of 6:03. And to be clear, I enjoy when it puts up a bit of a challenge.

I learned about: ISAAC Singer 10D [Yiddish Singer?] , famous for founding the Singer Sewing Machine Company, and apparently also for fathering 26 (!?) children.

Thanks KAREN and the Universal team!