Tuesday, May 14, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Outposts” — sent to the edges. – Erin’s write-up

Hello lovelies! We have a simple theme this week, where the word POST flanks the theme entries.

• 17a. [1982 horror flick] POLTERGEIST
• 24a. [Sunday dinner slow-cooker option] POT ROAST
• 24d. [Swanky to the max] POSHEST
• 34a. [Faddish mental health proponent] POP PSYCHOLOGIST
• 47a. [Most courteous] POLITEST
• 57a. [Georges Seurat, for one] POINTILLIST

Other things:

• 20a. [North African condiment] HARISSA. This hot chili paste also includes garlic, citrus, olive oil, and spices.
• 40a. [Thompson who’s still on “SNL”] KENAN. He joined the “SNL” cast in 2003. Before that he made kids crack up on Nickelodeon’s “All That” and “Kenan and Kel.”
• 54d. [Robbie who played Cousin Oliver] RIST. Cousin Oliver was added to the last six episodes of “The Brady Bunch” to add a cute kid to the mix. Rist later voiced Michelangelo in several “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” films as well as Stuffy the dragon in “Doc McStuffins.”

Until next week!

Jamey Smith’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Success Strategies”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases whose second words can be synonyms of “process.” Changes in meaning (mainly in the first words) create crossword wackiness. The revealer is “IT’S A PROCESS” (33a, [“Don’t expect instant results,” and a hint to the ends of the theme answers]).

• 15a. [How to avoid the crowds in Giza?] PYRAMID SCHEME.
• 22a. [How to land the job you were destined for?] CALLING PLAN.
• 47a. [How to slash your utility bills?] SOLAR SYSTEM.
• 54a. [How to manage end-of-semester jitters?] FINAL APPROACH.

Pretty nice! I really liked 3 out of 4 of these. SOLAR doesn’t change in meaning as much as the other first words, so that entry feels like an outlier. But other than that, these were enjoyable and the clues were spot-on.

It’s never easy to have an 11-letter central theme answer, and 13-letter top and bottom theme answers add to the challenge. One way to mitigate the effects of these difficulties is to have extra “cheater” squares in the corners as seen today. This looks like it was probably a difficult construction mainly due to lengths of the theme answers. But the end result is a smooth grid with some good fill.

Highlights include “WHY CAN’T I?,” “GO GET ‘EM!,” CORSAIR, MADE HAY, GIDDY, and TOP SPOT. I’m on the fence with NO CATCH [Ruling against a football receiver]. It doesn’t feel like a standalone in-the-language phrase, but I could certainly be wrong about that.

Clues of note:

• 29a. [Vancouver-to-Seattle dir.]. SSE. I live near Tacoma. I drive through Vancouver, WA, far more than Vancouver, BC (and they’re in opposite directions from Seattle). But obviously if someone says “Vancouver,” they’re probably talking about the Canadian city.
• 27d. [Chili peppers, informally]. HOTS. I’ve seen this usage a few times, but it hasn’t sunk in. I guess I’m going to have to get used to it.
• 55d. [ChatGPT and Gemini, e.g.]. AIS. New cluing angle. Not sure I like it, though.

3.75 stars.

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 677), “QB Sneaks”—Ade’s take

Hello there, everyone! Hope you all are having a great start to your week!

As of the time of this post, we are less than two days away from the 2024 NFL schedule reveal, which the league has turned into a night of anticipation, a la a Beyonce/Taylor Swift album drop.  Probably in anticipation of that, today’s theme centers around the position that makes a football team go, the quarterback (QB). In the grid, the five theme answers are two-word entries in which the first word starts with a “Q” and the second begins with a “B.”

• • • QUICK BITE (17A: [Fast repast])
    • QUIET BAR (25A: [Establishment that offers a “Hushed Happy Hour”])
    • QUINTUPLE BYPASS (38A: [Complex coronary procedure])
    • QUEEN BEY (48A: [Regal nickname for multi-Grammy-winning “Crazy in Love” singer])
    • QUIZ BOWLS (61A: [Fast-paced academic competitions])

Loved a good number of the long non-themed entries in the grid, with THREE DAYS being the most appealing since Memorial Day weekend will be here pretty soon and can think about that elongated weekend (9D: [Long weekend duration, typically]). I was probably in high school biology class the last time I came across ENDOSPERM before today, though, when I think about that class, all I can think about are human cells and the “mighty mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell.” (14A: [Tissue that nourishes a plant embryo]). Now I have anthers and stamens and petals in my head now that some plant anatomy has come back in my head, which will probably carry over when I walk outside tomorrow as I hope I don’t get overcome by allergies! 

“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: SIMMS (42A: [Ex-Giant quarterback Phil]) – Given today’s theme, it’s perfect that we get to talk a little about a former quarterback, and a Hall-of-Fame one at that. Thought he did not come from a football powerhouse in college (Morehead State), Simms was the seventh overall pick in the 1979 NFL Draft by Big Blue. Simms spent all 15 seasons of his career with the Giants, winning two Super Bowls and making two Pro Bowls, the second of those Pro Bowls coming in his final season in 1993. Simms, almost inarguably, had the greatest single-game performance by a quarterback in Super Bowl history, completing 22 of 25 passes (88%) for 268 yards and three touchdowns in the Giants’ win over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI. The completion percentage and passer rating (150.9, close to a perfect 158.3) remain Super Bowl records.

Thank you so much for the time, everybody! Have a wonderful and safe rest of your day and, as always, keep solving!

Take care!

Ade/AOK

Alex Eaton-Salners’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

This is one of those puzzles where you can solve it like a 74-word themeless if you work through everything except the ending of the 38d clue, [Common spots for eagles’ nests … or a hint to 2-, 9-, 21- and 24-Down]. Those would be TREETOPS, and those four Downs have tree parts at their starts, on top. Elegantly, each is used in a non-arboreal context. ROOTS FOR, BARK COLLAR (that’s a thing??), TRUNK SHOW, and LEAVES ALONE are all unrelated to trees, but a tree has roots and leaves (in the plural) and bark and a trunk.

Fave fill: BALL PIT, UNEARTH (ever notice that this word isn’t intimately related to unearthly?), B-SCHOOL (business school), ORANGINA.

Four stars from me.

Sala Wanetick & Emily Biegas’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

The solve was definitely Tuesday-level. One of the theme answers felt more Thursday-ish to me. Not the definition, which was clear, but the way it worked in the theme. Let me explain.

All the theme answers have standard definitions.

• 20a [Specialized curriculum in a public school] is a MAGNET PROGRAM.
• 35a [Expand one’s horizons] is BRANCH OUT.
• 40a [Pet with separation anxiety, perhaps] is a VELCRO DOG. I suspect I’m not the only one who plopped in RESCUE for the first word.

What do all these things have in common? 52a tells us it’s [Complicated discussion topic, and an apt description of the start of 20-, 35-, or 40-Across?] and the answer is STICKY SUBJECT. OK, MAGNET  and VELCRO stick to things. Got it. But a BRANCH? Eventually it dawned on me that a branch is a stick. Cute! Definitely trickier (or, er, stickier) than I’d expect on a Tuesday.

A few other things:

• Geography is most definitely not my thing, so I put in SOMALIA at 5d for [Westernmost country of continental Africa] even though I didn’t think it was in Western Africa. It’s not. The answer is SENEGAL. Apparently even when I know something about geography I still get it wrong.
• I guess I need to study the ATLAS a bit more.
• When being married to a geologst pays off: you know the answer to [Quartz suffix] is ITE.
• If we have to have ENS in a puzzle I’d rather see it clued as [Coast Guard rank: Abbr.] than the plural of the letter or the dash, so thanks.
• 38d [Mimics] is COPYCATS. Took me a minute – I was looking for a verb, not a noun.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that SALMA Hayek is married to François-Henri Pinault. A Google search confirms that her Instagram feed identifies her as Hayek Pinault so she chooses (at least some of the time) to use his name.

I debated which of these to post and decided not to choose.

Wyna Liu’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

This ‘moderately challenging’ one played a little harder for me than yesterday’s ‘challenging’ offering. In fact, I finished with an ERROR (38d) that I couldn’t locate and needed to use the check grid feature to identify: the crossing of 7d [One transferring property rights, for example] ASSIGNOR and 29a [I.P. or trademark holder, e.g.] LICENSOR—I’d had the less-legalistic -ER suffix for both.

• 1a [Star trek?] SPACE WALK. I’ll allow it.
• 24a [Discover alternatives] AMEXES. Misleading clue, but I wasn’t fooled.
• 25a [Word in titles from Chinua Achebe and Maurice Sendak] THINGS. Things Fall Apart, Where the Wild Things Are. So, maybe therapy is where the wild things fall apart?
  
• 32a [Designer purse with a certain gold monogram] YSL BAG. Is this standalone crossworthy?
• 37a [French city thought to be the namesake for a system of weight] TROYES. That name, in turn is not related to Troy, or Ilium, from ancient mythology. Instead, Troyes was the city of the Gallic tribe of the Tricaesses and in Roman times was known as Tricassium or Tricassae, and Troyes is the francophone version thence.
• 51a [Sound that a leopard can make but a cheetah can’t] ROAR. Leopards are members of the felid subfamily Pantherinae, all members of which—with the exception of snow leopards—are capable of roaring.
• 3d [Tree whose bark  had medicinal qualities] ALDER. Seemed a pretty open-ended clue, so I waited for crossings.
• 11d [Winter Olympics event also known as the long program] FREE SKATE, not to be confused with freeskates.
• 21d [Armpits, anatomically] AXILLAS. Quickly realized that OXTERS wouldn’t fit, but went with the more formal AXILLAE until 42a [Skin flicks] NUDIES showed me otherwise.
• 25d [Description for a reunion or a Scotch] TEN YEAR. Not sure how often the “old” modifier is dispensed from or elided in describing the booze.
• 44d [Diamond certifier: Abbr.] RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America.
• 46d [First word of the Pokémon slogan] “GOTTA catch ’em all!” This, with 26d [Toddler member of the same species as Yoda and Yaddle] GROGU and 9d [Bowser’s turtle-like minions] KOOPAS might be too much for some solvers.
• 47d [Smile or frown signifier, briefly] PAREN(thesis), in emoticons.

Dennis Nullet’s USA Today Crossword, “Gee Whiz” — Sophia’s recap

Editor: Jared Goudsmit
Theme: Each theme answer begins with a word that starts with G that means “whiz”

• 17a [Best Buy’s group of technicians] – GEEK SQUAD
• 38a [Place to get help with a glitchy Mac] – GENIUS BAR
• 64a [Founder of Sikhism] – GURU NANAK

I did not know how many G “whiz” words there are! I really liked the title and central gimmick here. I do wish that there was only one of GEEK SQUAD and GENIUS BAR since they are basically the same type of job, but for different companies? As evidenced by the fact that my immediate thought for the Best Buy answer was “Genius bar! No wait, that’s Apple”… so imagine my surprise to see GENIUS BAR pop up a few answers later! They are both fun fill though, so I’m not too hung up on it.

Fill highlights: TOTE BAG, TAHINI, BOOGIES, GRENADA. Also having both DOG and CATS in the grid clued similarly!

Clue highlights: [“Let’s ___ down to business / To defeat the Huns”] for GET (this is a lyric from Mulan). Also, it took me a very long time to even understand the clue on SATES – [Word that aptly bookends “satisfies”] just means that SATES is the “outside” of “satisfies“.

New to me: ARIA clued by [Yunah Lee solo], SKI clued by [Compete like Sabrina Simader]

 

Universal Crossword – Matt F’s Review

Title: A Little Something Extra
Constructors: Jeanne Breen
Editor: Taylor Johnson

Theme Synopsis:

We have a nice hidden word puzzle today, going in the down direction to enhance the wordplay of the revealer:

• 41D – Adds some excitement to … and what you’ll find in the starred clues’ answers? = SPICES UP

Each theme answer contains a spice written backwards, or, “up,” as it appears in the grid:

• 3D – Starting point for a mountain climber = BAS(E CAM)P (mace)
• 8D – Storms out = LEAV(ES IN A) HUFF (anise)
• 17D – Mount St. Helens, e.g. = ACTIV(E VOLC)ANO (clove)

Overall Impressions

Solid hidden word theme today with some fun theme phrases. LEAVES IN A HUFF is my favorite, even if it the last word is not strictly necessary for the theme because HUFF does not hold any of the hidden letters. The theme consumes a lot of real estate and does not leave much room for bonus words, but the mid-length stuff holds the grid down nicely: HAN SOLO, SURE CAN, RECLUSE; and the 3×6 corners are nice (and trickier to fill than you might think.) Good job keeping the grid fairly open and “flowy” in general.

Thanks for the puzzle, Jeanne!