Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Count the Rings” — while you’re over there. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 8/6/24

Hello lovelies! We have a timely Jonesin’ puzzle this week celebrating the Olympic Games in Paris. The circled letters in each theme entry spell the numbers one through five in French.

• 17a. [King,Waters, or Johnson, e.g.] BLUESMAN (UN)
• 24a. [1990s burgers considered one of the most expensive product flops ever] ARCH DELUXES (DEUX)
• 36a. [Bar offer] NEXT ROUND IS ON ME (TROIS)
• 47a. [The fruit it bears is olive-sized and orange-colored] KUMQUAT TREE (QUATRE)
• 59a. [Skincare brand and subsidiary of Estée Lauder] CLINIQUE (CINQ)

Other things:

• 10d. [Edible kelp in Japanese and Korean cuisine] KONBU. Konbu, or kombu, or dasima, is edible if cooked a ton. It is generally used to flavor other foods, especially as part of a base broth.
• 49d. [Knees-to-chest diving positions] TUCKS. Timely clue in this Olympic-themed grid.
• 50d. [Former spicy chip brand] PAQUI. The super spicy chips included Carolina Reaper, Scorpion, and Sichuan pepper powders and challenged adults to eat one chip, then eat or drink nothing after for up to an hour. The chips were discontinued after a teenager with cardiomyopathy passed away after taking the challenge.

Until next week!

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 689), Edgy and Veggie”—Ade’s take

Crossword Nation puzzle solution, Week 689: “Edgy and Veggie”

Hello there, everyone! I hope all of you are doing well today and that you’re all in the Olympic spirit! Well, I’m sure all the triathletes who had to swim in the Seine the other day are hoping that the Olympic spirit doesn’t come with an illness!

Clearly, our constructor didn’t listen to her elders when they told her to not play with her veggies, as today’s puzzle clearly is a case of that. In this case, however, the names of veggies are used as substitutes for words in common phrases to create puns!

• • • SWISS ARMY CHIVES (17A: [Veggie-inspired multi-purpose baked potato garnishes?])
    • PEAS AND QUIET (27A: [Motto of a library that specializes in veggie research?])
    • YOU’VE GOT KALE (45A: [Plant-based remake of a Hanks/Ryan rom-com?])
    • GOURD OF TRUSTEES (59A: [Policy-making overseers at a squash club?])

It’s definitely fair season across the country, so PAVILIONS was nice and timely even though, as I’m thinking about it now, I don’t think I’m going to make it to any fair at any point this summer (11D: [World’s fair structures]). Oh, the days of the TV/VCR, when owning that seemed like you were living large, especially in college (41D: [’90s den combo (before TiVo)]). Definitely still own a whole lot of old VHS tapes that are at the family house, and I’m sure most of them have old sports games and episodes of The Simpsons and In Living Color. 

“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: ORSER (1D: [1987 world figure skating champ Orser]) – Time to talk Winter Olympics for a little bit! Not only was Orser the 1987 world champion, but he also finished as a two-time silver medalist in the Winter Olympics. In both 1984 and 1988, Orser finished second behind Americans, Scott Hamilton in 1984 in Sarajevo and Brian Boitano (anyone else remember the “Battle of the Brians”?) in 1988 in Calgary. But there was much more Olympic glory to come for Orser, as he coached Olympic champions in three successive Winter Olympics: Yuna Kim in 2010 and Yuzuru Hanyu in 2014 and 2018.

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

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Readout”—Jim’s review

Sometimes I’m able to make a guess at what the theme revealer will be. Today’s guess: OPEN BOOK. Bzzt! Close, but wrong. The revealer is BOOKENDS (62a, [Volume supporters, and a hint to the circled letters]). Said circled letters are at the ends of familiar phrases and spell out a synonym of “book.”

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Readout” · Mike Shenk · Tue., 8.6.24

• 17a. House sharing a wall with a neighboring house] TOWNHOME. Tome.
• 26a. Hospital room] DISPENSARY. Diary.
• 39a. Setting for zero-G experiments] SPACE LABORATORY. Story.
• 51a. Volume] NOISE LEVEL. Novel.

No complaints about the theme although SPACE LABORATORY is a mouthful that no one would ever use.

Liked NEWTONIAN, LOVE SONGS, and ONCE MORE and loved DUMB IDEA. The short and mid-range fill flowed smoothly enough as well, although that CAHN/ECO/A CUP section might be troublesome for some solvers.

Clue of note: 16a. [Resting place of King Arthur]. AVALON. This is probably the most commonly-used cluing angle for this name, others being the Toyota sedan and singer Frankie. But I’m partial to the only city on L.A.’s Catalina Island, but I suspect that may not be widely known outside the Southern California area.

3.5 stars.

Dani Raymon’s New York Times crossword–answer grid

NY Times crossword solution, 8/6/24 – no. 0806

Theme is phrases starting with “AS.”

I’m too wiped out from a medical procedure today to review the puzzle, but perhaps someone else in Team Fiend will pop in with some feedback.

Brooke Husic’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

New Yorker • 8/6/24 • Tue • Husic • solution • 20240806

Hard to tell where this one falls on the challenging scale, because I was eating breakfast during my solve. My uncalibrated sense is that was a little more difficult than recent Tuesdays.

• 14a [Large, edible Amazonian seeds] BRAZIL NUTS. I’m so primed to say açaí when registering edible and Amazonian.
• 16a [ __ saltado (Peruvian stir-fry)] LOMO. My first try was LIMA.
• 21a [Country that’s home to the Nubian pyramids] SUDAN, not EGYPT.
  
• 22a [Marsh bird with “Virginia” and “king” species] RAIL. I know them as shore birds, but Wikipedia says marshes are their ideal habitat.
• 26a [Angora’s cry] BLEAT. The goat kind.
• 28a [Cheese known as queso de bola in the Philippines] EDAM. This is specifically mentioned on the Wikipedia page.
• 31a [Classification for a person whose volatility evokes Animal or Cookie Monster] CHAOS MUPPET. I’ve heard of chaos agents, but this is new to me. I like it.
• 35a [2022 Noah Kahan song whose title refers to the bleak transitional period between fall and winter] STICK SEASON. Also new to me. Listened, didn’t grab me. So here’s this instead, which I find marginally more palatable:
  54a
• 54a [Intimate eye contact] SOUL GAZING. Also new to me. Meh.
• 56a [Sequence that provides coded instructions for making a protein] GENE. Straight definition.
• 57a [Nickname for a raccoon] TRASH PANDA. Not new to me, maybe a little cute, but passive-aggressively disparaging nonetheless.
• 59a [Frequent sound at the Spanish festival La Tomatina] SPLAT. This is the one where the whole town becomes a tomato food fight.
• 3d [Club promoter, at times] CADDIE. Nice.
• Bunch of unusual shortish names in the grid: sculptor Sarah SZE (4d), drag performer GIA Gunn (37a), supermodel ADUT Akech (53a), actress Naomi ACKIE (32d).
• 10d [A great one might be described as “no-skip”] ALBUM. Zero filler.
• 11d [Initial sketch, perhaps] COLD OPEN. Deft misdirection.
• 46d [Oklahoma City that’s home to the Greenwood Rising history center] TULSA. Greenwood was dubbed the ‘Black Wall Street’ and was the site of a 1921 massacre.
• 47d [Number associated with good luck, in Chinese culture] EIGHT. Thinking of the author Jennifer 8 Lee.

A strong, well-connected grid. Midlength stacks in the northwest/southeast, big triple-stack across the center, transected by a vertical grid-spanning entry, BUSINESS AS USUAL (7d).

Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword, “You’re So Handy!” — Matt F’s Review

Universal Solution 08.06.2024

Time to get to work! Let’s see if we can put together the pieces of this puzzle based on the revealer:

• 56A: [Mechanic, e.g. … and when parsed differently, a description of [the theme]] = REPAIR PERSON

Each theme answer is an example of a RE-pair person, meaning their name contains a pair of RE’s.

• 20A: [Redheaded country music icon] = REBA MCENTIRE
• 31A: [Nine Inch Nails’ lead singer] = TRENT REZNOR
• 48A: [He danced with Ginger Rogers] = FRED ASTAIRE

This is a nice theme set. While solving I wondered what these names had to do with being “handy” (because of the title), and did not see the RE-RE pattern until the end. The names came easily, although I could see a potential hiccup in deciding between “I” or “Y” at the BRIAR/MCENTIRE intersection. The symmetrical placement of SWAT AT / TEAR AT made those partials stand out in a less-than-ideal way, and the isolated corners choked off the solving flow, but I really don’t have much to complain about overall. Drew did a nice job keeping the fill clean and gettable. It helped that these 3 people are very famous in the entertainment industry. Astaire is cemented in Hollywood history, McEntire was famous enough to star in her own sitcom in the early aughts, and Reznor is still producing music – most recently helping score the 2024 movie, Challengers. My favorite clue was 3D – [“Party at my CRIB” (pun on a onesie)].

Thank you for the puzzle, Drew! And thank you, David Steinberg, for the editorial touch.