Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “What Comes Fourth?” — you got three in a row… – Erin’s write-up
Jonesin’ solution 7/16/24
Hello lovelies! In this week’s Jonesin’ we have a clever theme of replacing a three-letter consecutive alphabet sequence with the next letter in the alphabet.
- 17a. [Angel’s citation for forgetting an instrument?] NO HARP FOUL (NO HARM NO FOUL)
- 31a. [Question of a continental country consortium’s willingness to rock the mic?] SHOULD EU RAP (SHOULDER STRAP)
- 47a. [The Insult Comic Dog’s French counterpart?] ARF TRIOMPHE (ARC DE TRIOMPHE)
- 63a. [What happens when you treat your garden hose badly?] KINKS ENSUE (HIJINKS ENSUE)
Other things:
- 38d. [Where rational thought occurs in the brain] LEFT SIDE. There are so many nuances to hemisphere localization that don’t hold true from person to person, and pathways are rewritten with age and learning and sometimes in response to injury. Rational thought is generally held in the prefrontal cortex, though.
- 61a. [“Somebody Feed ___” (Netflix travel documentary)] PHIL. Creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond” Phil Rosenthal travels the world and eats delicious food and makes a show about it. I am in the wrong line of work.
Until next week!
Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 686), “Inquire Within!”—Ade’s take
Crossword Nation puzzle solution, Week 686: “Inquire Within”
Hello there, everyone! We have another heatwave that’s descended upon us here in the Northeast! Here is hoping, no matter where you are, that you’re keeping cool and continuing to enjoy your summer!
If you had any questions about today’s grid, our fearless constructor has the answer … by using phrases that have the letters ASK spanning multiple words in the theme entries.
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- TO A SKYLARK (17A: [Shelly poem with the words: “Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight”])
- I WAS KIDDING (23A: [“Don’t take me seriously!”])
- JUDAS KISS (35A: [Act of betrayal disguised as affection])
- ETCH-A-SKETCH (47A: [Toy for drawing])
- HULA SKIRTS (58A: [Garments worn by traditional Polynesian dancers])
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I’ve probably gone on Reddit about two times in my life, but UPVOTES was one of the things I had heard of before, so that didn’t cause me too much stress when seeing the clue (55A: [Positive reddit responses]). What did slow me down for a bit was putting in “knot” for KINK initially (24D: [Masseur target]). Seeing the clue for REID made think of Shark Week, which was observed earlier this month, and how, I think, is getting moved up earlier and earlier in the calendar than when I first remember it (26A: [Tara of “Sharknado”]). I always remembered it during the first or second week of August and right in the middle of summer instead of right at the beginning of summer. Yes, the little things that end up being big deals for others! This is one of them for me! Push back Shark Week to August so my mind can that feel all is right in the world again!
“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: ARROYO (30A: [Metropolitan Opera soprano Martina]) – One of the biggest upsets in Olympic basketball history happened around this time 20 years ago, when Puerto Rico defeated the United States in the preliminary round of the 2004 Athens games. In that particular game, onetime NBA player Carlos Arroyo, who was Puerto Rico’s flag-bearer during the opening ceremonies, had 25 points, seven assists and four steals. Arroyo played in the NBA from 2001 to 2011, and in 2020, released a song that became an international hit, “Bella Reggaeton.”
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
Zachary David Levy’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Uhhhh…”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar names and phrases that feature four Hs. The revealer is FOUR H (39a, [Club for aspiring farmers, and a hint to 17-, 23-, 47- and 58-Across]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Uhhhh…” · Zachary David Levy · Tue., 7.16.24
- 17a. [“I’ll be right back!”] “HOLD THAT THOUGHT!”
- 23a. [It’s observed on the first day of Tishri] ROSH HASHANAH.
- 47a. [The way well-to-do folks live] HIGH ON THE HOG.
- 58a. [Lyndon B. Johnson’s veep] HUBERT H. HUMPHREY.
Good theme and I loved those theme entries. I couldn’t remember what Hubert Humphrey’s middle initial was, but the theme bailed me out. Love when that happens!
Loved the fill, too, with lively entries like IN DA HOUSE and NOSE FLUTE as well as DRIVE THRU and STAGE DOOR.
Clue of note: 4d. [Here, in cringeworthy slang]. IN DA HOUSE. Seems like you could try to get away with a lot of questionable entries by identifying them as “cringeworthy.” Is this a valid approach? What say you? This one seems benign to me.
3.75 stars.
Kelly Richardson’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 7/16/24 – no. 0716
Oh! There’s a tornado warning for the next 40 minutes. I’ll make this short, as blogging on the hall floor is NOT MY CUP OF TEA. The theme is tea. SOME LIKE IT HOT (I prefer iced, unsweetened). PEACH, PEKOE, and ASSAM teas appear in a little cup made of black squares in the lower middle zone of the grid. Feel like Assam tea is one I encounter only in crosswords, but your tea mileage may vary.
Fave fill: THAT’S THAT, WINNOWED, NO CONTEST, AMBIANCE, TWO-TONE shoes.
3.5 stars from me. I didn’t love the theme, but appreciated that it was a new sort of angle.
Rebecca Goldstein’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up
This puzzle made me hungry. It is dinner time, to be fair.
Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2024, Rebecca Goldstein, solution grid
- 16a [Arbitrary allowance for error] is the FUDGE FACTOR.
- 24a [Poker player with the tallest stacks] is the CHIP LEADER.
- 47a [Rite of passage for a Jewish boy] is BAR MITZVAH.
- 59a [Words on a novelty apron] are KISS THE CHEF.
And the revealer: 36a [Sweet treats for a valentine, or what the starts of 16-, 24-, 47-, and 59-Across are] is BOXES OF CHOCOLATE. The BOXES are the squares on the grid. Yum, and nice!
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that IKE Barinholtz won “Celebrity Jeopardy!” in 2023. Or even that he exists.
Paolo Pasco’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up
New Yorker • 7/16/24 • Tue • Pasco • solution • 20240716
Another not-so-challenging “moderately challenging” crossword. A pleasant diversion, which is really all we generally ask for.
- 1a [Tech Web site that anagrams to 14-Across] CNET. Nice when the first entry is a gimme, and it gives you another.
- 16a [Points opposite each other on a planet] ANTIPODES. Some interesting lore here.
- 21a Nebulous phase at the beginning of a potential relationship] TALKING STAGE. I wasn’t conversant with the term, but it was fairly easily gettable.
- 43a [__-ace (unlikely to experience sexual attraction or crushes)] ARO-. As a refresher, that’s aromantic-asexual.
- 52a [Emperor who ruled the Qing Dynasty for more than six decades] QIANLONG.
- Beer with a 2004 ad in which a donkey is invited to join a team of Clydesdales] BUDWEISER. Life imitates art: news from just last month.
- 1d [Absurd, in slang] CRAY. This is merely a respelling of just the first syllable of crazy.
- 10d [Ones getting loud when things get hot?] FIRE ALARMS. 30d [“Oo-la-la!”] SO HOT.
- 11d [Tiered hat worn by the members of Devo] ENERGY DOME. Took a few beats for me to remember the name.
- 22d [Grp. whose alphabet includes Romeo and Juliett] NATO. Hum, I’d always assumed the latter had the same spelling as the Shakespearean character (Juliet).
Catherine Cetta’s Universal Crossword, “Noodles Around” — Matt F’s Review
Universal Solution 07.16.2024
Noodles, hidden in theme answers, read in clockwise order around the grid.
- 17A – [Place serving cappuccinos and macchiatos] = ESSPRESSO BAR (soba noodles)
- 10D – [Certain guys on movie sets] = CAMERA MEN (ramen noodles)
- 61A – [Claire’s time travel portal in “Outlander,” e.g.] = STONE CIRCLE (rice noodles)
- 35D – [Keyboard piece for four hands] = PIANO DUET (udon noodles)
This had to be a tough theme to execute, since it constrains the grid so much. Not only do answers have to go in all directions, but each “noodle” has to fall somewhere in the connected pathway of theme answers. Luckily, the theme answers themselves do not intersect, and that at least provides a little bit of leeway for block placement to allow for clean fill. Not only is the fill clean, but some great bonuses were worked in here, too, like HOME RUN, HAVE WE MET, CHAI LATTE, and LASER TAG. Great puzzle all around!
Thank you to Catherine for creating this puzzle, and to David Steinberg for the editorial touch.
NYT: I thought it was great. I like the playful theme and the unusual combination of almost grid-spanning theme answers and the short stack in the middle. And it left room from some cool downs- Adding HOUSE CAT and ALIENATE to Amy’s list .
Well done!
I’m not a huge fan of Tuesday-level puzzles, but gotta say I didn’t see the theme payoff answer coming, and it got a huge smile. The top answer was more predictable but nice and apt, too, and a nice grid shape. Peach is not my cup of tea, but the puzzle was.
TNY: A minute faster than today’s NYT – “moderately challenging” seems like a stretch. The only real problem area was in the SW, where I had two names I didn’t know crossing a movie title I didn’t know. At least the movie title clue let me know I was looking for the same letter for both crosses.
I was ok with the puzzle for “moderately challenging,” which I take as anywhere in the broad range of “medium” in a week of difficult / medium / easy. Here I could see the constructor looking for ways to make it more challenging. Say, we’ve no doubt seen ESSEX before, but not as British TV new to me; ONYX is a standby, but not in a geography feature not seen before; and ARO has newly become a crossword go-to, but not as part of a phrase also new to me.
I did find it easier than many, although it got a magnitude harder at the end, in the S / SE, owing to NEON, GREEG, QIANLONG, SKDOO, and a “Young Sheldon” — this being TNY, all proper names and three of them pop culture. And whatever the puzzle’s drawbacks, at least some nitpickers can rejoice that “Big stink” isn’t a clue for “odor.”
TNY: not especially challenging, but it had a couple of entries that struck me because of US-UK differences:
REDSKY at night, shepherd’s delight, is what I grew up with, in a rural part of central England, far from the sea (OK, 60 miles, but that’s about as far from the sea as you can get in England).
OARS as ‘crew team’s implement’ – I remember being perplexed when someone asked me about ‘crew’ as a sport. It’s called rowing in the UK. ‘Crew team’ still seems odd to me because pleonasm.
There is also sculling.
True, but in common usage (in the UK at least) sculling is regarded as a type of rowing. Not by purists, admittedly.
It’s familiar enough to me, but I’ve never understood where this usage of “crew” came from. The Olympics calls the sport rowing, as does the NCAA. I think both organizations refer to the team as the crew, but that would make “crew team” redundant.
The sport of crew is scholastic. It applies to rowing in high school or college. It is an error to call rowing “crew” after college. That’s why the Olympic sport is rowing.
That doesn’t answer Gary’s question, though.
Amy, are you around Illinois somewhere? We had tornado warnings last night too here in Urbana… everything ended up fine for us, hope it was okay for you too.
Hope all is well for Amy too.
Chicago actually had several touchdowns last night! The folk wisdom was that tornadoes don’t ever happen in the city, but that’s been disproved now. No drama on my block, though.
New Yorker: I was about 30 seconds faster with the New Yorker than with today’s NYT, so I’d call it “lightly challenging.” There were no real snags, though I got QIANLONG solely from the crosses. TALKING STAGE is new to me. Though I can easily picture Devo’s ENERGY DOMES, I don’t remember ever hearing that name.
ON LIVE strikes me as a bit green-painty. Wouldn’t you just say that it’s a LIVE broadcuast?
I don’t agree.