Sam Donaldson’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 8/14/24 – no. 0814
Welcome to the Math Salon! 48a. [With 56-Across, hairstylist’s observation (that also applies to 17-, 25- and 34-Across?)] clues YOUR ROOTS / ARE SHOWING. Those other three themers are phrases with numbers, but the numbers shown are the square roots of what’s in the familiar phrase:
- 17a. [Seventh heaven], CLOUD THREE. Three squared is nine.
- 25a. [March Madness round], SWEET FOUR. 42 = 16.
- 34a. [Beatles hit written by a teenage Paul McCartney], WHEN I’M EIGHT. 8 × 8 = 64, and last Thursday would’ve been my parents’ 60th anniversary, they having gotten married on 8/8/64. Yes, they had a little bit of the times table engraved inside their wedding rings.
The revealer is the dad joke angle that sells the theme. Sam, we expect no less from you!
Fave fill: COLOR IN (touch up your roots, eh?), TOOK A BOW, “OH, LOOK,” STODGY.
Three more things:
- 14a. [“High” time], NOON. Ah! But today, “high” time was about 11:30 for whoever was smoking weed not far from my windows. Isn’t that like morning drinking on a weekday?
- 39a. [Major league?], ARMY. Tricky clue or dad joke? There’s a fine line.
- 32a. [Gym rep], CURL. Shoot, I forgot to do my PT exercises today. I’d better sign off and do them now!
Didn’t love all the fill here. Bits like ODO-, GIAN, ACT I, CDT, and HOER are meh.
3.75 stars from me.
Adam Vincent’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “At-Will Employment”—Jim’s re-cap
I’m still taking some time off, so I didn’t solve this puzzle, but here’s a re-cap. Theme answers describe people or organizations who employ famous people named Bill as identified by the clues. The revealer is PAY THE BILLS (57a, [Make ends meet, and a hint to what four answers in this puzzle do]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “At-Will Employment” · Adam Vincent · Wed., 8.14.24
- 16a. [Clinton] WE THE PEOPLE.
- 20a. [Murray] FILM EXECS.
- 34a. [Cody] WILD WEST SHOWS.
- 52a. [Gates] MICROSOFT.
It took me a few minutes to make sense of the theme, but it works for me. What do you think?
The fill looks quite nice, especially WINNIPEG, WIIMOTE, HONEYBEE, and OPEN MIND.
Sala Wanetick and Emily Biegas’ Universal crossword, “Autonomous Government” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 8/14/24 • Wed • “Autonomous Government” • Wanetick, Biegas • solution • 20240814
As of this moment, I don’t feel I fully grasp the theme here. Perhaps I’ll be more enlightened after working through the entries in the write-up.
- 55aR [Scenario where computers gain world domination, and what caused the starred clues not to match their answers?] AI TAKEOVER. It’s obvious that the bigram AI has replaced a pair of consecutive letters in each of the theme entries, but I can’t make sense of the previously-present letters, nor do I detect any connection among those answers in either their before or after versions.
- 17a. [*Apollo Lunar Module, for one] MAINLANDER (m
oon lander). - 34a. [*Asiago and Romano] CHAISES (ch
eeses). - 3d. [*”How strange”] THAT SAID (that’s
odd). - 36d. [*Reveres] AIRSHIPS (
worships)
Still not seeing any commonalities. Let’s put them in grid order: OO, OD, EE, WO. Nope, nothing—and it doesn’t look promising at all. I have to conclude that it’s just a one-part theme.
Okay, let’s move on to my peeve. 4d [“Council,” for “counsel”] HOMONYM. More specifically, these are homophones (as opposed to homographs). m-w’s discussion of the various terms here.
- 26a [Modest dress worn in Muslim communities] ABAYA. Seems like a useful word for crosswords; surprised we don’t see it more often.
- 33a [Inapt rhyme of “glad”] SAD. 63a [Apt rhyme of “shriek”] EEK.
- 48a [FX franchise whose middle letter stands for “horror”] AHS, American Horror Story, which I have not seen any episodes of.
- 44d [Certain spray bottle] MISTER. I use one for my Fittonia, which is what it needs, as a tropical rain forest plant close to the ground.
Jess Rucks’ USA Today Crossword, “Don’t Move a Muscle! (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up
Hold it right there!
USA Today, August 14, 2024, “Don’t Move a Muscle! (Freestyle)” by Jess Rucks
Favorite fill: CATSCRADLE, CAREBEARS, EGRETS, and STRUGGLEBUS
Stumpers: NADACOLADA (new to me), NERDALERT (cluing threw me off with what seemed like a positive slant), and SPLEEN (forgot about this organ!)
This puzzle took me longer than usual, as today the cluing just didn’t click as well for me. How’d you all do? A great mix of fill, especially the lengthy entries. A solid puzzle with a lovely grid!
3.75 stars
~Emily
Robyn Weintraub’s New Yorker crossword – solution grid
The New Yorker solution grid – Robyn Weintraub – Wednesday 08/14/2024
Emma Oxford & Hannah Binney’s AV Club Classic crossword, “For the Heads”–Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 8/14/24 – “For the Heads”
The theme’s tied together by BRAIN FOOD, and all the themers are foods whose names contain a slang term for the brain or head: MUSKMELON, CORN NUT, CUP NOODLE (a brand of instant noodles), and JELLY BEAN. Can’t say I really know NUT in that sense, though. You could also argue that a singular CORN NUT is bogus, but I can’t really object to a single Cheeto, Frito, or Dorito, so the Corn Nut is allowed in.
The puzzle’s title doesn’t work for me, because what inherent meaning does “For the Heads” have? If I’m missing something obvious, please hit me over the head with it!
Fave fill: “YOU WISH!”, HELLION, SCIMITAR, and GROUCHO.
3.5 stars from me.
P.S. Ben T’s email with the puzzle notes, “Hannah Binney and Emma Oxford are both particle physics PhDs and crossword enthusiasts.” Conceivably, this is the first ever crossword co-constructed by particle physics PhDs!
Wendy L. Brandes’ LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
LA Times
240814
Wendy L. Brandes’s puzzle features a competently designed, if fairly well-worn theme. The explaining answer is TURNINGPALE, and the tetragram PALE is scrambled and spans across the middles of three other entries:
- [*Reacting to a “d’oh” moment], FAC(EPAL)MING
- [*Reimbursement on the go], MOBI(LEPA)YMENT
- [*Last few in a series], FIN(ALEP)ISODES
Gareth
Really didn’t enjoy this one
um – NYT, I assume? (I’d guess most comments are for NYT, but not all of them…)
First, I think good ideas are (sometimes) worth repeating. (Was this one of those times? And was it done well?)
Then: gotta shout out to the 2/4/16 puzzle (by Jeff Chen)…
As always: thanks to that rando guy who keeps up that website… (j/k Jim!!)
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/4/2016&g=60&d=A
As a general practice, please identify the puzzle you’re commenting about.
Thanks.
NYT – @Eric, yep: that is what I was trying to say/mention. Thnx for being more direct! (Seriously!) I love that the previous NYT “roots” puzzle with this theme was published on 2/4/16…
NYT: I really liked the theme, and I’m glad that, as Jeff Chen would say, the goddess Cruciverbia smiled on Sam Donaldson. (Donaldson’s constructor note on Wordplay is all about how lucky he was to find three theme answers for the top half that would fit the grid’s symmetry and that were based on things that should be familiar to most solvers.)
Super fast solve today; came within 2 seconds of my PR. Clocked the theme almost immediately, and fell into place pretty quickly.
@Amy when someone is smoking weed early like that, I’ve heard it called WAKE AND BAKE. Which almost sounds like fodder for a punny theme…
WOKE AND TOKE
HEH in today’s sense and the POP DUO were new to me, part of why the top was slow going and the puzzle by no means easy, but a good one.
TNY’s start in the NW (and so SE) with long entries and no 3-letter ones (till you get to the other corners) added a touch of difficulty to a beginner’s puzzle, which I appreciated.
The WSJ didn’t knock me out, but then I might have been too picky as a solver, especially late in the evening. Two of the employers, after all, are corporate entities (although a wild west show is a tad more generic). But then Clinton’s points to individuals, we the people, albeit it a bit abstract, too. And last film execs are a wider class, again of individuals as opposed to “film studios,” not specific to any hire and, for that matter, not necessarily involved in that aspect of management. But I can live with it better this morning. It’s only a puzzle.
NYT: This was an excellent Thursday puzzle …
… so I’m perfectly happy for it to have been a Wednesday puzzle, perhaps foreshadowing that tomorrow’s puzzle will be even more Thursdayish.
But I wish the revealer had alluded to *square* roots, not just ROOTS, since a root can quite easily be a cube root, a fourth root, etc., etc. (as well as a square root).
But it took me a long time to finish this puzzle, because I paid little attention to the theme, and because that meant I didn’t have a lot of letters to work with — a vicious cycle.
All the more time to enjoy it!
I thought the NYT puzzle was a great idea with a terrible revealer that just didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
NYT: I think 1A counts as an additional themer…
I am equally confused by the Universal theme – is there more to it?
I haven’t been able to come up with more.
I’d also ding a little for having HAIKU as an entry
What’s wrong with HAIKU?
LAT: an addition to the theme is that the letters in the word “PALE” shift one square to the right in successive order.
pannonica (and dh),
I think you got it, and all there is to it. ‘What caused the starred clues not to match their answers’, is ‘AI’. AI ‘took over’ each of those answers, and caused them not to match their clues. I think that’s all there is to it. Or that’s how I interpreted it
PS: Although, unclear on what AI has to do with ‘autonomous government’? (Unless they’re equating government with ‘artificial intelligence’, which is a possibility?)