Ryan McCarty’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 8/24/24 – no. 0824
Lots of sprightly fill in this 66-worder. Among my favorites: SANDRA OH (I’ve started the final season of Killing Eve and wow, she’s so good in it!), TYPECAST, TURKEY JERKY, PINKY-SWEARS (I like the tricky clue, [Digital agreements?]), CATTY, TARGET DATES, ARM IN ARM (the wordplay and visual delights in the Remy Charlip kids’ book by that name made it a favorite when I was young), SOFT SIDE, CANOODLE, HUNTER HAYES, SHTICKY, FOSTER KITTEN, THE SCARECROW, SAD DAY, and GAY MEN. Oh, and YUCA fries, though I don’t love them as a side. Also, shout-out to nephrologists in the KIDNEY clue!
This lifelong Midwesterner has always heard them called snow tires and not WINTER TIRES. Never heard of BARLEY WATER, some [Drink of boiled grains with purported detoxifying effects]. You know what has detoxifying effects? Your kidneys!
Four stars from me. Surprised to find a Saturday NYT on the easy side this week.
Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 8/24/24 by Zhouqin Burnikel
This puzzle feels very Zhouqin: Between CORN IN A CUP, MACARONI (clued cleverly as [Kraft supply]), RAITA, SALADE, SNAP PEAS, and TUNA ROLL (those last two adjacent to each other), that’s a lot of food in one puzzle. (A LA CARTE, although not itself a food, is food-adjacent.) And the cluing of SILK ROAD as [Route that facilitated the spread of Buddhism] also feels very her.
So — although I wasn’t crazy about some of the green paint-y longer entries like UNTOLD TALE and DISNEY STAR, I can forgive that because this puzzle really does feel like nobody else could have made it.
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “I Hesitate to Add …” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 8/24/24 • Sat • “I Hesitate to Add …” • Shenk • solution • 20240824
In which the filler word UM is shoehorned into familiar phrases, to wacky effect.
- 23a. [Fermented mare’s milk beverage that’s been poisoned?] KUMISS OF DEATH (kiss of death). The most difficult one starts things off, which isn’t an ideal circumstance.
- 40a. [Waltzes featured in “The Greatest Show on Earth”?] BARNUM DANCES (barn dances).
- 45a. [Adam and Eve’s bloodline?] HUMAN DYNASTY (Han Dynasty).
- 66a. [Jokes told by a “Macbeth” trio in a Stratford production?] THE WITCHING HUMOUR (the witching hour).
- 88a. [Appreciative words to those who work at home?] UMPS, I LOVE YOU (P.S. I Love You).
- 93a. [Reddit, say?] FORUM EXAMPLE (for example).
- 116a. [Light units measured on a piscine retina?] FISH EYE LUMENS (fish-eye lens).
These feel somewhat forced and mostly not too humourous. It passed the time well enough.
- 14d [Org. for physicians] AMA. 95d [Org. for attorneys] ABA.
- 15d [Attaches, as a corsage] PINS ON. Sure, I shared this one not long ago, but it’s such a good song that I’m serving it up again.
- 21d [Subscription service’s rate of customer attrition] CHURN. That sounds as if it would be a combined figure of attrition and addition, no?
38d [It comes off a cushion] BANK SHOT. Perhaps my favorite of all of Donald Westlake’s beloved Dortmunder novels.- 47d [Person who’s in it for the long run?] MARATHONER. 85a [Go the distance] LAST.
- 53d [They get marks] CON GAMES. Simple but effective clue.
- 115d [Bossy bellow] MOO.
- 1a [Unwise request if you’re over 18] HIT ME. This is a blackjack clue. But not the weapon kind of blackjack.
- 38a [Femur and fibula, e.g.] BONES. 55a [Femur and fibula setting] LEG.
- 51a [Country with a Caspian coast] IRAN. The Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) was assessed as extinct in 2003.
- 52a [William Golding title] SIR. 83a [Agatha Christie and Iris Murdoch, e.g.] DAMES.
- 77a [Scout’s quest, perhaps] TALENT. At first I thought this had to do with boy scouts or girl scouts, but no.
- 110a [Moorish word for “lord”] CID. Perhaps the most unusual word in the grid, and not all that difficult to get.
Stella Zawistowski’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 8/24/24 • Saturday Stumper • Zawistowski • solution • 20240824
Once again, a daunting but ultimately solvable offering. I kept just chipping away at the white squares until the completed grid was revealed. 28d [He called his field “the art of the hole and the lump”] RODIN.
- 5a [Bartlett’s bit] ADAGE, not QUOTE.
- 16a [Subject/verb in two Seuss titles] I RAN. Pretty sure one of them is If I Ran the Zoo, which I’m also pretty sure was recently either modified (decried as censored by some) or allowed to go out of print.
- 17a [Circular skill] HANDSPRING. Seems like a stretch?
- 19a [70+ feet/second swimmer] MAKO. Needed to experiment with crossings to figure out if this was MAKO or TUNA.
- 24a [She doesn’t play with others] SOLOIST. A really straightforward clue that was instrumental in breaking into the grid.
- 25a [They act as a pair] SCENE PARTNERS. The clue’s ‘act’ was more specific than I’d realized.
- 30a [Ring figures] TOROS, but I had ZEROS first, thinking ring was describing their shape.
- 35a [Press-run product] CIDER. The misdirection didn’t fool me, once I had a crossing or two.
- 36a [Chicagoland city] GARY. Got this off of the A from 11d [Capital an hour’s drive from Vienna] BRATISLAVA.
- 38a [What goes behind a trailer] MOVIE. 46a [Trailer, essentially] TEASER. Surprised it was the same sense in both clues.
- 54a [Cry of apprehension] I SEE. Once again, I wasn’t hoodwinked. Yay, me!
- 57a [Water where “A legendary story awaits”] NESS. I don’t know what the quote is from. § Hm, it seems to be the tagline for the Loch Ness Centre, which I feel not too many people know about?
- 5d [Phone battery saver] APP NAP. I have never heard this phrase.
- 6d [Unoriginal writing] DERIVATIVES. When I still thought 30-across was ZEROS I wondered if there was some portmanteau such as DERIVAZINES.
- 13d [Evince incredulity] SNORT, not STARE.
- 18d [What clogs contain] SOLES. Tenuous.
- 25d [Transparent flute feature] STEM. Not much of a misdirection, since what else could a ‘transparent flute’ be but glassware? Another early entry for me.
- 26d [Purchaser’s procedures] CARE. Not sure what this is about. I mean, I guess I kind of do, but it seems like another big stretch.
- 32d [European cardinal that sounds sapped] DREI, German for the cardinal number three. This one tricked me and I was definitely thinking of birds.
- 38d [Hog’s grunt] MINE, not OINK, which early crossings assured me it couldn’t be—but I still had a tough time recalibrating my interpretation of the clue.
- 39d [Vital cellphone part] MODEM. I didn’t realize that. “Inside every cellular device is a component known as a cellular modem …“
- 47d [Literally, “astrologers”] MAGI. Took a gamble on this one fairly early on.
Whew.
NYT: This lifelong Angelino has always heard them called snow tires also. Not that I have any personal experience. My biggest problem was thinking there might be a product called “Jerky Turkey”. Overall, pretty easy for a Saturday.
NYT: This seemed a bit tough at first, then it became much smoother to solve. It would have been much easier if I could have remembered THE SCARECROW’s name, but I could only picture Cillian Murphy playing that character.
I got a little stuck at HUNTER HAYES crossing Sian HEDER. I listen to a fair amount of country music, but I don’t recognize Mr. Hayes or his 2012 hit. And while we all enjoyed CODA, I didn’t remember the director’s name.
Less problematic was the YEATS/YUCA crossing. The poet could have been Keats, but “no country for old men” sounded more like what little I know of Yeats’s poetry than Keats’s. And I was pretty sure that YUCA was correct, though I haven’t eaten yuca fries.
In the end, though, I was slowed by a typo in the gimme TIME, INC. Luckily, it didn’t take me too long to find that.
And with 13 years in the northeast and 50+ years in Texas, I have only heard of snow tires.
Having lived at various times in Buffalo, Boston, and Minneapolis, I have *definitely* heard of snow tires (and have never heard of “winter tires”), though this was certainly guessable.
The only time I’ve ever heard of it is when Jane and Michael Banks specify that the perfect nanny must “never smell of barley water”
Barley water (generally flavored with orange or lemon) was a staple when I was growing up. I never liked it that much, but that didn’t stop my mum from repeatedly buying it as a ‘treat.’
I call foul with HUNTERxAYES crossing xADER. Could be almost anything. Certainly B, H, M, or R.
Tough but not impossible. H seems like the only letter that works for both names.
Reder is a last name, and so is Rayes. R would definitely work there.
I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone with either of those names. But I concede that R is a decent choice for that square.
Gotta agree with Josh here. Crosses of unknown names are the worst. I did guess it correctly, but that H was the last square to get filled, and it was a WAG. Not a satisfying way to complete a puzzle. No Aha! moment, just “so I guess that’s it.”
I did enjoy the wordplay in this puzzle. The clue for PINKY SWEARS was great, for example.
But the fun parts were overwhelmed by the weight of so many names. Actors, characters, singers, directors, poets, movies and corporations! And even with not knowing many of the names, I was well under my average time, so really easy for a Saturday. Kind of a let-down, actually.
NYT: Generally straightforward, but I agree with Josh that the HUNTER/HEDER crossing was bad. I guessed right, but H is not the only possibility. Never heard of YUCA fries but fortunately I knew the poet was YEATS. Compared to yesterday’s very elegant puzzle, this one could have used some polishing.
Stumper: Similar experience to pannonica — took a long time to get going but then steady progress. PELEG and EGGDONOR were my initial entries. I couldn’t come up with BRATISLAVA immediately, and briefly wondered whether it might be Washington — an hour’s drive, depending on traffic, from Vienna, Va. I too didn’t know APPNAP and was puzzled by CARE. I had ONCE before LEDE but otherwise no hiccups.
“Compared to yesterday’s very elegant puzzle, this one could have used some polishing.”
That’s an interesting observation. (I disagree; except for the HAYES/HEDER crossing, this was fine.)
Rafael Musa, the more experienced of Friday’s constructors (based on NYT puzzles) has 13 NYT credits. Ryan McCarty has 28. I wonder if the editors took a lighter had with Mr. McCarty’s grid because of his greater experience?
NYT: A good challenge that did not feel extremely hard today. Had never heard of HUNTER HAYES or Sian HEDER, and my last square filled was a lucky guess of that H where they cross.
Also never heard of BIG AIR, and the clue “Hardly open” for CAGEY was successful misdirection for me, so the SE corner was a tough one.
Also, despite having heard the word SHTICK from an early age, I had never encountered SHTICKY before, hut it was ultimately guessable.
Stumper: Did not like “purchaser’s procedures” for “care” — still don’t get that one. At least when I did a search on Marist rivals, Siena and other schools came up, not Iona, so I don’t know how much of a rival Iona is.
“Capital an hour’s drive from Vienna”: I was hoping pannonica might paste in a musical selection from the Bratislava Hot Serenaders. Lots of their stuff on YouTube, and holy smokes, are they good.
New to me; will check them out.
Gearheads definitely talk about “winter tires.”
One reason is that modern high-performance tire compounds become dangerously brittle at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Tires like Pirelli P-Zeros and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S and, now S 5, are not safe if the temp drops below 40. Sports car drivers will switch to winter tires in winter, even in some fairly mild climates that never see snow. While many winter tires have tread patterns or studs designed for snow, others are just made of rubber compounds that stay supple at low temperatures.
I’m guessing the brittleness occurs at -40º Fahrenheit (= -40º Celsius).
Or do you really mean plus 40º F. ?
He really means +40* F. High performance tires designed for warm weather use lose their “grippiness” at temperatures approaching freezing.
Indeed.
Stumper: the HARDEST STUMPER EVER. Like, by FAR. This isn’t a complaint at all — I do the Stumpers for the wild challenge — but holy crap that was insane. I ended up with a DNF because I gave up in the GARY/LDL/LYNN/DREI section. City I don’t know, acronym I couldn’t think of, person I don’t know, and the absolute most brutal Stumper clue I’ve ever seen. Cardinal meaning cardinal number?!?!? Absolutely heinously tricky. (Again, not complaining!)
But there was one square I didn’t like: the cross of ALIA and PELEG. Rough Natick. Latin word from a phrase I’ve never heard and never will again, and uninferrable name from a book I’ve never read and never will. It could’ve been almost any consonant.
NYT was on the easier side- had the same issue many did, but sorted it out.
Stumper- Whoa nelly that was a tough one for me. CARE was last to go in. I get it, but eek. I really enjoyed myself- any time I can solve a Stella Stumper is a big win for me.
For me, the NYT was appropriately hard for a Saturday. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find a foothold (even with YEATS as a gimme, a poem I know by heart), and then each corner plus the large center presented its own hard puzzle. Didn’t help that I knew pretty much none of the long answers veering toward the center, many of whom (but not BARLEY WATER, where I guessed barley wines) were names.
My last to fall, though, was SANDRA OH (which now I recognize) crossing SHTICKY (a part of speech formation from SHTICK you may never see again. That’s a good stand-in for the puzzle’s difficulties. Another good indicator: CANOODLE (whose meaning I couldn’t quite remember) clued with the dated or British sense of “spoon.” But overall a worthy challenge, and I’m fine with it.
stumper: count me in the stumped crowd, after about an hour and getting less than halfway (mostly just the upper right corner and middle right sections) i put it down and came back to it… i did manage to get most of the way through, with only one check, but this one definitely TAXED me… once again proving you geniuses are leagues beyond me
WSJ:
It took me 90 minutes and I did not cheat, though I didn’t fully understand it until I read the explanation here. I would not have even attempted it, but I thought I had clicked on the Monday puzzle. After about ten minutes I was thinking that I had encountered the hardest Monday puzzle ever. I think it’s a brilliant puzzle. Congratulations to the constructor.