Taylor Johnson & Rafael Musa’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 8/23/24 – no. 0823
Untimed because DNC, but I think easier than many other Fri NYTs of late.
Awfully chatty fill tonight. “I HAVE TO RUN.” “NOTE TO SELF: don’t forget to blog the puzzle tonight.” “YEAH, FINE,” whatever. “AHOY THERE,” matey! “WHO KNOWS?” “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” “TMI!” “EEK!”
I learned years ago that the [Holly genus] is ILEX. That is unexciting fill (though I do dig the botanical). Zippier fill: HORNY TOAD, SHAKE ON IT, CINNAMON, BIG PICTURE, ARM-WRESTLE (solid clue, [Try to get the upper hand?]), RATE HIKES (we await the opposite), AVEDA (friend of mine loves their haircare products), SWIFTIES (neither Taylor nor Beyoncé was a surprise DNC performer tonight, but Leon Panetta spoke so who’s not excited about that), and comedian NANCHERLA Aparna with rock-solid crossings that tell me nobody should cry “natick” here.
Four stars from me.
Wendy L Brandes’ Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 8/23/24 • Fri • Brandes • solution • 20240823
As of this moment I still don’t understand the theme. Perhaps I’ll be fortunate and it’ll dawn on me as I write this.
- 52aR [Cheer heard in the Bronx, or a phonetic hint for making the starred clues match their answers] LET’S GO YANKEES. (unrelated: 21d [Fan sounds] RAHS.)
- 20a. [*Bean poles] STRIKE LEADERS. Okay, I’m making a connection with yankee bean (soup), but that seems extraneous. The revealer tells us that the aspect is phonetic, but I’m not seeing how to apply it to ‘bean poles’. Next!
- 27a. [*Beat poet] WITCHES’ CAULDRON. Okay, I’ve got it because I noticed cauldron = pot. We’re to remove (yank) the Es from the clues: [Bat pot]. So that would make 20-across [Ban pols], which seems like a stretch for STRIKE LEADERS.
- 43a. [*Came clean] PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB. [Cam clan].
Now that I understand the mechanism, I can say that these clues are all stretches, but within the bounds of crossword reason and logic.
- 38d [Sleight of hand] ILLUSION. I believe this is more of a metaphorical sleight of hand.
- 43d [Like someone who writes thank-you notes] POLITE. 1a [Like dumping someone via text] COLD.
- 61d [Rapper on the “King’s Disease” trilogy of albums] NAS. I have a NAS for my music library—a network attached storage unit.
- 26a [Another name for bingo] BEANO. I hadn’t realized they were the same thing.
- 49a [ __ Hebrides] OUTER. 63a [ __ Hebrides] INNER.
- 67a [Concludes] ENDS, appropriately.
Shannon Rapp and Will Eisenberg’s Universal crossword, “Up for Promotion”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are long Down entries whose top letters were change from P to something else. The P is for PAWNS (72a, [70-Across pieces “promoted” after reaching the top row “something else” letters]) and the “something else” are letters that start the other CHESS (70a, [Board game “played” in this puzzle]) pieces a pawn might be promoted to.
Universal crossword solution · “Up for Promotion” · Shannon Rapp and Will Eisenberg · Fri., 8.23.24
- 3d. [Canine checking on Carlsbad Caverns, e.g.?] BARK RANGER. Pawn becomes a Bishop.
- 5d. [Drive-through session after a panel?] Q AND A EXPRESS. Pawn becomes a Queen.
- 9d. [Command such as “Darling, smooch me this instant!”?] NECKING ORDER. Pawn becomes a kNight. (N because K is for King).
- 11d. [Cape Canaveral cancellation?] ROCKET VETO. Pawn becomes a Rook.
Nifty theme, especially if you’re familiar with the ins and outs of CHESS. But though I’ve played the game in the past, I wasn’t aware that a pawn could be promoted to anything other than a queen. I mean, why would you choose a less powerful piece? The other thing I had to infer was the N for knight. (Of course, there’s also an N in “king”, but the king shouldn’t have to belittle himself to use any letter other than K.) So I was in the dark for nearly the entire solve, and had to slowly make sense of it at the end. I did enjoy the wordplay enough to enjoy the puzzle, though.
Smooth, solid fill rounds things out in the grid, though there are no other marquee entries.
Clue of note: 18a. [Group with a Bass singer]. N’SYNC. Lance Bass, if I recall correctly. Not sure how much longer a clue of this type will last.
3.5 stars.
NYT: SE fell last, partly because I didn’t know NANCHERLA. Had MEA (culpa) at 44A and thought that was a great clue, OWN at 60D was only 2/3 correct making the BIGPICTURE hard to see.
All in all a fun Friday puzzle!
NYT: My husband and I split a bottle of wine with dinner last night, which we rarely do. I started this fun puzzle around 10:30 last night. Typically, I would have finished it before going to sleep. But when I found myself typing random U’s in the grid, I knew that I should leave the last third for later.
Like a lot of people, I didn’t know the name Arpana NANCHERLA (“Bojack
Horseman” is the only program she has worked on regularly that is at all familiar). But the already tricky SE corner was made trickier by having ARM WRESTel.
I would take issue with the idea that a WARPED record is “broken.” A warped LP will likely still be playable, though it may not sound good.
I’m jealous of the constructing skills displayed by working in fun answers like ARE YOU KIDDING ME? and NOTE TO SELF. They remind me of a Robyn Weintraub grid.
I loved seeing HORNY TOAD in a grid almost as much as I enjoy seeing one in real life. And AVEDA makes (made?) a bath soap that I really liked (and I’m not someone who usually care much about pricey personal care products).
Inspired by 43D, here’s a favorite piece by Scott Joplin:
https://tinyurl.com/443svjjs
I read your entire comment in my head with a drunk voice, and it was hilarious, especially when it got to the soap.
I’m glad to have brought a little amusement to your Friday morning.
Insomnia makes me write more than I usually do.
Oops! The comedian’s first name is Aparna. My apologies to Ms. NANCHERLA.
I didn’t know NANCHERLA either, although I recognized the name once it appeared. I had trouble in that area because I started with LIE for ‘makeup ingredient’ but was set right by SPAY and INDISPUTE (the latter doesn’t seem like a very idiomatic phrase, but maybe that’s just me).
I found the puzzle overall a bit chewier than a typical Friday. Very nicely constructed.
Nice puzzle. It took a little longer than the typical Friday, but I had stayed up to watch the end of the Democratic convention, and had had a couple of glasses of wine along the way, so …
Only two complete unknowns – KESHA and NANCHERLA – which is pretty good for me on a Friday.
A lot of nice long entries and a few Friday-level fun clues.
@Eric H: thnx for that great musical connection! :-)
Reminds me of the old upright I learned on… (cracked-skin, gutted player piano, bought on-the-cheap – and just wonderful)
A kinda melancholy-yet-romantic piece, arguably… and (of course) – it also reminds me of “The Sting”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rcjl3YLsuE
A recent take on Joplin’s “Solace”:
You’re welcome!
About the same time “The Sting” came out, my oldest sister had Joshua Rifkin’s multi LP set of Scott Joplin’s piano music. I love listening to it.
NYT: A fine Friday puzzle that was definitely on the hard side for me. No idea who or what KESHA the “TikTok creator” is, and never ever heard of NANCHERLA (but the crossings made that gettable).
I wonder if this bodes a really tough Saturday puzzle.
“Tik Tok” is a 2009 dance pop song by the singer KESHA (f/k/a KE$HA). It was apparently a big hit, though I don’t know that I have ever heard it.
There was a little bit of a hint for KESHA in the clue, because the song’s title is stylized as “TiK ToK,” which is how it was written in the clue. “TiK ToK” was an enormous hit, #1 in the US for nine weeks and it was also the biggest-selling single of the year worldwide. If you were listening to pop radio in 2009, you’ve heard the song, although the title is not a big part of the lyrics so you might not know that’s the name.
I solved the puzzle faster than most Fridays, but I thought that ILEX and Aparna NANCHERLA were pretty obscure for Friday (although with fair crosses so still gettable). Bete NOIRE is also a bit obscure, but again with fair crosses.
“If you were listening to pop radio in 2009”
Ha! I haven’t listened to pop radio since the mid-1950s, when there was basically only one music genre played on the radio.
Like “Listen to the Mockingbird” and “Istanbul not Constantinople”.
I also didn’t know SARA, although it didn’t hold me up, but the SE was definitely the hardest. Maybe I just wasn’t responding, although I can’t help thinking that DNA came slowly to more than me because it’s so loose a clue. (Makeup of WHAT?) I also started with “own” for PWN, which I didn’t know, and couldn’t swear to LASH in the singular. I was also surprised to think of Cubism with regard to Art Deco (anything but if you ask me), but it does check out.
Cubism to art deco was new to me, too. Live and learn.
haven’t been here for ages. came here today to find out LAT theme. even after reading ur explanation…. I don’t get it. but thx
Read the revealer as the instruction “let’s go yank ‘EE’s,” and delete both E’s in each theme clue. For the STRIKE LEADERS one, [Bean poles] becomes [Ban pols], changing the noun phrase of STRIKE LEADERS into the verb command to “strike (eliminate, as in “strike from the record”) political leaders.” Does that help?
Thank you. I was also stumped.
Oh I see. That was really an obscure, unhelpful, theme. I was seeing STRIKE LEADERS as either leading a work stoppage or an army action, and didn’t get “ban pols” even after yanking the ee’s.
NYT was super fast; within 30 seconds of my PR. It helped that I knew Aparna NANCHERLA (though I admittedly did not spell her name correctly on the first try…) from listening to comedy podcasts over the years. I got briefly slowed down when I put in COME AT instead of COMBAT, but other than that, very smooth. I’m a bit nervous for tomorrow’s Saturday now.
I had a small panic, though, when I pulled up the puzzle… as I hadn’t completed Thursday! I had filled the grid, but hadn’t yet found my mistake, and forgot to finish it before the end of the day. But it looks like it kept my streak alive, which dropped my blood pressure back down :-)
NYT: Natick on ambiguous letter of I HAVE TO RUN / I HATE TO RUN crossing an uninferrable brand name. Boo.
“I wasn’t aware that a pawn could be promoted to anything other than a queen. I mean, why would you choose a less powerful piece?”
Queen is the best choice 95%+ of the time. Rook occasionally to avoid a stalemate (or as a joke since the piece is going to be recaptured anyway). Bishop is almost never necessary so mostly for jokes. Knight is reasonably common (maybe 3%) and sometimes necessary (to fork and/or check and/or capture something).
WSJ: If you’re old like me, the meta is pretty easy. But it’s almost certain to give you an earworm.