Ricky J. Sirois’s New York Times crossword—Sophia’s recap
Happy Saturday everyone! Sophia here covering for Amy.
New York Times, 07 20 2024, By Ricky J. Sirois
I loved all six answers included in today’s triple stacks. BUCKET LIST, IN HOT WATER, and STARS ON ICE start things off strong up top. I liked the juxtaposition of the HOT WATER and the ICE specifically. And then on the bottom, we’ve got BABY BOOMER on STREET TACO on THAT TRACKS. I thought the STREET TACO clue of [Popular choice for un antojito (“little craving”)] is a great example of a “definition” clue that didn’t have to be boring while still being straightforward.
The top right corner was the hardest for me, mostly because I had “last stop” instead of LAST EXIT for [The end of the road, say], which made it super hard to see EXXON and THE EYE. I also wasn’t familiar with LANA Wood, so that also increased the difficulty.
Quick hits on the rest of the puzzle:
- Things that I knew quickly that will probably hold up other people: David GUETTA (a 2010s staple), NEZ PERCE (I’m from the Pacific Northwest)
- Things I didn’t know that held me up: [Spanish province whose capital is Bilbao] for BISCAY, [Punish like Montresor does Fortunato in “The Cask of Amontillado”] for ENTOMB
- Some great tricky clues today: [Supreme leader?] for Diana ROSS was my favorite, followed by [Gal of note] for GADOT and [Reward for staying] for TREAT (like you would give a dog).
- The fill is overall very clean, with the exceptions of EELY and plural COREYS. Some people might include LOTR on that list, but I am not one of those people.
- There are only 10 three letter words in this puzzle and no words over 10 letters. This layout means there are a bunch of midlength answers that can be hard to make shine, but Ricky did a great job choosing answers and writing clues to make everything Saturday-appropriate-tricky while still being interesting.
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Heads of State” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 7/20/24 • Sat • “Heads of State” • Shenk • solution • 20240720
The way this one works is that the capital city mentioned in each clue signals that its two-letter state abbreviation is to be prefixed to a familiar phrase, yielding the wackified one defined.
- 21a. [Aids for sewing dirndls in Montgomery?] ALPINE NEEDLES (AL {Alabama} + pine needles).
- 31a. [Group of deep-cleaning experts from Columbia?] SCRUBBER BAND (SC + rubber band).
- 49a. [Not making the best of peak sunbathing hours in Olympia?] WASTING RAYS (WA + stingrays).
- 55a. [Training somebody to be less fickle in Sacramento?] CAPRICE FIXING (CA + price fixing).
- 78a. [Centuriones Romani in Baton Rouge?] LATIN SOLDIERS (LA + tin soldiers).
- 87a. [Eccentric folks with the most money in Providence?] RICHEST NUTS (RI + chestnuts).
- 100a. [Latest art-house movies in Lincoln?] NEWEST INDIES (NE + West Indies).
- 116a. [Study of the War of the Roses in Tallahassee?] FLORAL HISTORY (FL + oral history). Um, the War of the Roses wasn’t really a floral affair.
This was a fun workout. Not super-innovative, but enough of a twist to keep things engaging for the full 21×21 solve.
- 1a [Get informed] READ UP.
- 20a [Magic bullet] PANACEA. I was on a roll with other semi-guesses in the grid, so I felt my luck would validate CURE-ALL here. Nope.
- 37a [Turophobe’s bane] CHEESE. Not seeing a lot of dictionary support for this presumably rare condition (OneLook links only to Urban Dictionary), but Dictionary.com featured it as their word of the day back in November 2019. Derivation is ultimately from Greek tȳrós (cheese).
- 40a [Site of France’s largest Gothic cathedral] AMIENS. Some ancient memory from college art history classes must have survived, because I instantly knew this with about 70% confidence.
- 52a [Dojo degree] DAN. Appears right below 43a [Birds that didn’t know to fear humans] DODO, so it might function as a gentle nudge.
- 106a [Ordinal number suffix] -ETH. As in twentieth, thirtieth, etc.
- 1d [Paper package] REAM. Twenty quires comprise a ream.
- 18d [Disinterested chooser’s choice] NEITHER. I feel the clue better suggests EITHER.
- 32d [Miscreant] BAD ACTOR, not BAD APPLE, which would have duped 23a [Device that can serve as a HomeKit hub] APPLETV.
- 79d [Headquarters for the Manhattan Project] OAK RIDGE. I guess Los Alamos was just the testing site.
- 88d [Doughy item in a dinner basket] HOT ROLL. Hot?
Matthew Sewell’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 7/20/24 • Saturday Stumper • Sewell • solution • 20240720
Another classic Stumper experience. Just a couple of toeholds to start, then a few more pieces, some weaving, some serious impasses, some insights and breakthroughs, and finally diligence rewarded.
- 5a [Lee alternative] BRAD. Nothing to do with jeans.
- 9a [Make liquid] CASH. As a check, I guess. Anyway, it’s a verb here.
- 16a [Pop icon with an Our Way podcast] ANKA. 14d [Pop icon who lived across the street from Neil Diamond] SEDAKA. Jeez, all of these guys referenced in the same crossword??
- 20a [Defiant non-apology] I SAID WHAT I SAID. Yup.
- 22a [Modern romancee] BAE. 5d [Mac, these days] BRUH.
- 23a [Part of a peak performance] YODELS, not ASCENT.
- 31a [Runner with six toes] EMU. Not on each foot, just to be clear.
- 41a [“Bingo!”] UH-HUH. 44d [“Bingo!”] SURE IS.
- 45a [Stop posting] ETA, not STA.
- 54a [Online source request] CITATION NEEDED. Getting this lengthy entry early on, with relatively few crossings, was very helpful to the solving process.
- 59a [Rude dude] BOZO, not BOOR.
- 60a [Desirable character trait] LEGIBILITY. Whether in handwriting or type design.
- 64a [Frequent filers] CPAS. Easy to misread this clue.
- 3d [Mixologist’s shortening] RITA, for margarita. I do not approve.
- 4d [Native Americans who named a sea] CARIBS. I’m sure they had a name for it, but what did they call it? As it is, they’re the namesake of what we now call the Caribbean Sea.
- 8d [Girl Scout “dancy” cookie] DO-SI-DO. Another linchpin entry, which at long last helped me to complete that upper section of the grid.
- 10d [What Animal Farm has been called] ANTISOVIET. Ya think?
- 24d [Set off] BEGUN, not ANGER.
- 25d [Eastern end of the transcontinental railroad] OMAHA. You’d think it would be, y’know, kind of farther east. >consults Wikipedia< Aha, it seems to be a terminology issue: there have been numerous North American transcontinental railroads.
- 26d [Fusion favorite with salmon-topped slices] SUSHI PIZZA. I’ll take the clue’s word for it. Also, this had better not be a heated foodstuff!
- 29d [Tutta la __ (till dawn)] NOTTE.
- 30d [Whom Tiger tied for PGA Tour wins in 2019] SNEAD. The clue isn’t explicit that that’s all-time wins.
- 42d [Miss Piggy welcome] HIYA. Isn’t this also what she says when performing a karate chop? “hiii-YA!”
- 51d [It shares an etymology with “nepotism”] NIECE. Another key entry for my solving process, which I was able to get by provisionally putting in the -ING from 50a [Carrying on] PLYING.
- 54d [Joint venture] CO-OP. 58d [Joint venture] DYAD.
- 55d [Rows of starts on a 5o-state flag] NINE. Deceptively straightforward clue.
Emily Biegas’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 7/20/24 by Emily Biegas
Things I liked about this puzzle:
- Learning some new facts like that HENNA is a [Beard dye in some cultures] and that KOI is a [Coldwater breed that originated in Niigata, Japan]
- Good use of fill-in-the-blanks, which are often associated with easy puzzles but can be great in themelesses when there’s more than one word that can go in a blank. Because FITBs are usually done for shorter answers, when this happens in a themeless it can cause a short entry that might otherwise be used as a toehold on the puzzle to force you to move elsewhere to get that toehold. Examples: 25A [Red ___] which could easily be SEA instead of the correct ALE; 28A [Tony Gwynn’s “The ___ of Hitting”], which could plausibly be TAO or who knows what else instead of the correct ART; 20A [___ rock], which has oodles of possibilities that you have to use some crossings to narrow down to YACHT.
- 24D [Eugene or Gary] which totally fooled me into thinking this was a clue asking for two people with the same last name, rather than that each is a CITY.
- 29D [Air drops?] is a cute clue for MIST.
Things I didn’t like about this puzzle:
- The grid design. The black square count is 40, which is awfully high for a themeless. If it’s going to be that high, I’d like it to lead to some pretty great marquee answers and/or some cool grid art. I thought the longer entries were
- Seemed like more one-word clues than usual.
BTW, although the classic [Arnold Palmer ratio] is indeed ONE TO ONE (lemonade to iced tea), may I recommend 1:2 or even 1:3? I’m not into sweet drinks and find that adding more (unsweetened) iced tea when I make one of these leads to a more refreshing beverage.
NYT was challenging today. Even knowing the gist of some clues, I went through a couple iterations. ENCASE -> ENTRAP -> ENTOMB, BASQUE -> BISCAY, ONEALONE -> ONEBYONE, STREETFOOD -> STREETTACO. Good but tricky!
The NW corner took me forever; everything else went in reasonably well. I got hung up trying to make FIX SPEED and ONE SPEED work (while alternating with EBAY and ETSY)… it was hard for me to see a TWO SPEED as a “basic bike”; once you’ve put a derailleur on it, it’s getting more complex. Anyway, just my hang up. A good Saturday!
Re TWO SPEED, that was my thought exactly. Had “one speed” there for quite a while. Looking it up, it appears that a lot of two-speed bikes use an auto-shifting hub rather than a typical derailleur. Even so, it’s not clear to me how a bike with any shifting mechanism could be considered more “basic” than a classic one-speed.
I thought it was easy to average difficulty. I like the clue for BUCKET LIST, but I hate the term.
I pulled David GUETTA’s name from some recess of my brain, even though I don’t listen to dance music and had no idea that he is French. That G made GADOT a gimme.
The triple stack in the SE is nice. For some reason, I associate PABST with Pittsburgh. (I’ve never had a PBR; where I live, the cheap beer of choice is usually Lone Star.)
I found it pretty hard. And since I thought yesterday was Saturday (as did Amy :), I was not ready for it…
There were places that flowed easily (SE), but the cluing was not obvious to me– When I finally got BUCKET LIST I thought: “Not in a million years would this be on my bucket list”. Obviously, it makes sense to others.
But I always appreciate learning things– e.g. the meaning of Antojitos, and it’s fun to see the diversity of knowledge out there.
In the Stumper (for which I used both fingerholds and toeholds), shouldn’t “Whom Tiger tied for PGA Tour wins in 2019” read Woods? Last name in clue, last name in answer?
I think since it’s the Stumper anything goes.
What I’d like to know is whether Brad is an alternative to Lee in that they’re both names, or is there more to it?
I was astonished that I solved all of this without any cheats.
I’m presuming that both can be derived from Bradley. I don’t personally know any Bradleys that go by Lee, but it seems plausible at least.
Nice NYT. A few unfamiliar entries, some misleading clues, but all gettable with crossings
I was thrown off by “Touring show for figure skaters” (17A). I immediately filled in “IceCapades” because that was the commonly used term when I was growing up. And I guess my classical education is wanting because I do not recall the term Ship of Theseus (21A). I knew of the paradox but not its name.
I’ve also seen the paradox identified as “George Washington’s Hatchet” (or Axe).
NYT: This was typical of my very favorite Saturday puzzles. It was very hard, and completing one area did not lead to completing any other area. Finally I decided to look up the Spanish province, and BISCAY was just enough to complete the thing, taking almost twice my average Saturday even with that lookup.
NYT Spelling Bee: In contrast to my recent complaint about this game, today’s (Saturday, July 20) puzzle may be the most fun Spelling Bee I’ve ever tackled. (Always without help or lookups.)
I’m still finding words of 5 or more letters (38 so far), and the number of exotic such words seems to surpass any previous Spelling Bee I can remember. And so far, at least three pangrams.
I’m at 34 words and still nine points away from Genius. There are a lot interesting words to find.
It’s much more enjoyable for me than that one on Thursday (I think) that had D, E, G, I and N. I just don’t understand the appeal of finding the same word three times. I’m too old for typing practice.
Or four. WIDE, WIDEN, WIDENED, WIDENING.
Right. I get so bored with those that I sometimes miss some of the forms.
I always dread the puzzles with “U” and “N” (Tuesday or Wednesday this week?). They always seem to highlight the capriciousness of Sam’s word choices. But I did enjoy learning DUETTED (rolls eyes). Hope to work that into a conversation soon.
And I do agree with Dan – it seemed like there were some interesting words in today’s puzzle. I made it to Genius, which is when I look at the “Hints” to see how much further I have to go. Still missing over 20 words. I may take another peek at bedtime, but I’m not going to see the Queen Bee today!
Shortly after the game’s inception someone observed, and taught me, a formula for how many *points* are left to find beyond the listed criterion for “Genius”: Multiply that number of points by 10/7. (I usually just divide by 7 and then append a zero or multiply by 10 in your favorite way.)
I’m not sure of the rounding convention, but rounding up to the next integer seems safest.
Today had two words I have never in life seen or heard, (ic5 and rh6) which is one reason I keep going back :D… I like learning new words. I was so proud when the AR(5) word slid right off my fingertips from having learned it at SB earlier.
I’m with others in that I cringe when I see both ed and ing in the mix… booorrrinng, and usually no new words, just the same old with suffixes.
the length of today’s was a bit daunting though… to me.
One thing that amuses me somewhat, that I’ve never seen anyone mention that the CA(7) word is pronounced the same as a country that starts with Q, at least according to google ‘pronounce’. No disparagement of said country intended.
The IC word has been in the crossword 70 times, 13 in the Shortz era. The RH word never. I got it but was surprised that it was used. “It took that?” happens about a tenth as often as “Why won’t it take that?”
“The IC word has been in the crossword 70 times,13 in the Shortz era. “… well sheesh I must’ve gotten it from crosses when it showed up, I sure don’t remember seeing it ever.. :D
Ichor always reminds me of “I Corps,” the unit that M*A*S*H reported to and was pronounced the same. I first thought that it was ICHOR, which made sense to young me — transfusions and blood of the gods — but I figured out I was wrong somehow.
I would have sworn I had never seen the RH word. But my dictionary app allows me to mark words as “favorites,” and when I went to mark the RH word today, it was already starred (meaning that I have looked it up at least once before).
but it’s only showed up 4 times since I’ve been doing the NYT xwords, twice on Sundays, so I forgive myself missing it :)
marciem — I’ve been told by someone who worked in that Q country for years that the correct pronunciation is approximately the same as the word “cutter”, which differs from the ca7 word both in the second vowel and which syllable is stressed.
Three pangrams, huh? I got two, but it wouldn’t accept my third — TROCHAIC. So I am still hunting for another.
I haven’t been exposed to much of Miss Piggy. I do know she says, “Moi?” so I thought it likely her welcome would be “Hola!” Half-right anyway.
“Hiya” is Kermit’s catchphrase. He’s welcoming her.
Or maybe it’s Fozzie.
I had to look it up.
https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Repeated_phrases
Kermit – Hi-Ho!
Miss Piggy – Hi-ya!
Fozzie Bear – Hiya hiya hiya!
I’m a big fan of David Guetta (he had some legit bangers), but he also gave us one of the cringiest videos of 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZgEtgxxg0