Monday, September 9, 2024

Tim D’Alfonso’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s write-up

Theme: THROW SHADE – hidden words meaning “to throw” are shaded gray

New York Times, 09 09 2024, By Tim D’Alfonso

• 18a [Beach project that rarely survives high tide] – SANDCASTLE
• 23a [Numbskull] – CHUCKLEHEAD
• 39a [State of total happiness] – HOG HEAVEN
• 56a [Sandwich specialty of Maine] – LOBSTER ROLL
• 63a [Make a subtle insult, or a hint to four highlighted groups of letters in this puzzle] – THROW SHADE

Nice theme parsing! THROW SHADE is a term that’s been pretty commonplace for about a decade (it was added to the OED in 2014), so I think it’s totally fair game to base a theme around. Fun fact, the term can be found in Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park”, and then was used heavily in queer ballroom and drag culture before becoming mainstream.

I liked all the chosen theme answers, although it could have been cool to have one of the shaded terms cross multiple words. But given that there are five pretty long theme answers including the revealer, I think it’s more important to pick fun answers, which this puzzle certainly did. The whole thing feels very apt for the end of summer – it conjures up images of eating a LOBSTER ROLL on the beach while building a SAND CASTLE (can you tell I was on vacation in New England recently?)

The stacks of three seven-letter down answers in the NW and SE corners of the puzzle are very snazzy, especially given how few three letter words are in those areas. I will say that the clue of  [Crossword solver’s correction mark] for ERASURE felt a little off to me, and I think NULL SET might be tricky for less math-y people than me, but INSECTS BELLHOP SLOWEST POLENTA are all great. EAT CROW and ON THE GO make fun (rhyming!) bonuses too. I do wish the middle of the puzzle was a little cleaner – ETCH-A crossing NCOS is a little rough – but the rest of the puzzle played pretty fair to me.

Happy Monday all, and congrats to Tim on a fabulous debut!

Howard Neuthaler’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Clip Joint”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases whose final few letters spell out synonyms of “cut”. The revealer is FINAL CUT (58a, [Director’s demand, and the last four or five letters of each starred answer]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Clip Joint” · Howard Neuthaler · Mon., 9.9.24

• 17a. [*Storied nymph who married Orpheus ] EURYDICE.
• 29a. [*Kwame Alexander books, e.g.] CHILDREN’S LIT.
• 43a. [*Optimal, say] AS GOOD AS EVER.

Solid theme. I like that the “cut” words are disguised as parts of other words thereby making the theme a bit stealthier and that they’re not circled. Maybe it’s not as straightforward as a typical Monday, but still simple enough for longtime solvers.

This played harder than typical or else I was distracted by the cat we don’t own that came wandering into our house. But that middle section did seem on the more challenging side with BARLINE, LHASANS, and STEUBEN. I did like “AW COME ON” and THE BOSS. SIDE-EYES is weird as a plural though.

Clues of note:

• 19a. [Small ornamental box]. CASKET. New to me. I only know it as a synonym of “coffin.”
• 38d. [Critical looks]. SIDE-EYES. Maybe this would work better clued as a present-tense verb? [Gives a skeptical look]. Whaddya think?

3.5 stars.

Sala Wanetick & Emily Biegas’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 9/9/24 by Sala Wanetick & Emily Biegas

I thought I was pretty slick for getting decently sub-2 on this one, and then realized that it’s a slightly slimmer than normal grid: 14×15.

The revealer at 52A [Leave one’s vehicle in a traffic lane, and an apt description of the answers to the starred clues] is DOUBLE-PARK (boo to people who do this and don’t stay with the vehicle!), because each theme entry consists of two (DOUBLE) words that can precede the word PARK to form new phrases:

• 16A [*DieHard product] is a CAR BATTERY, leading to CAR PARK (what Brits call a parking lot) and BATTERY PARK (a neighborhood in lower Manhattan).
• 23A [*Presence in a pet-friendly workplace] is an OFFICE DOG. Pre-pandemic, I worked for an ad agency that allowed dogs in the office. That’s probably the only thing I miss about office work in the Before Times. OFFICE PARK and DOG PARK are pretty self-explanatory.
• 32A [*Los Angeles neighborhood in many John Singleton films] is SOUTH CENTRAL, leading to SOUTH PARK (formerly one of my absolute favorite TV shows, and still fun to watch now and then) and CENTRAL PARK, which despite being full of tourists has some lovely less-traveled corners for New Yorkers to explore. (I recommend Lasker Rink, which is way more chill and less crowded than Wollman Rink.)
• 44A [*University in Muncie, Indiana] is BALL STATE, leading to BALLPARK and STATE PARK. (I recommend Buttermilk Falls!)

I liked the 7s and 8s in this grid a lot: FEDERAL clued in its architectural sense, VIRTUOSO, USUALLY, CATAPULT.

CJ Tan’s Universal crossword, “East and West” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 9/9/24 • Mon • “East and West” • Tan • solution • 20240909

A quick, sprightly solve.

• 58a^R [Be reciprocal, or what 17-, 34- and 40-Across contain] GO BOTH WAYS. Yep, that’s it. They each have “GO” and also “OG”.
• 17a. [Second City food with no ketchup] CHICAGO DOG. The no ketchup aspect is pretty much the only thing they’ve gotten right.
• 34a. [Navigation service launched in 2005] GOOGLE MAPS.
• 40a. [Where one might first learn of a high-profile breakup] GOSSIP BLOG.

So there’s one with the bigrams at the perimeter, one with the them smooshed together, and one somewhere in between.

• 26d [Fiji neighbor] SAMOA. About 1140 kilometers, or 708 miles. So it’s definitely a relative quality.
• 
  15a [Common sans-serif font] ARIAL. Recently encountered the rather upsetting above image, posted by a typography enthusiast.
• 23a [Common rap name starter] LIL. 24a [Color of Disgust from “Inside Out”] GREEN.
  
• 33a [Programming language, or an Asian island] JAVA. Exponentially a greater distance from Fiji than SAMOA.
• 61a [Wine, in Italy] VINO. Pretty direct cognate.

Liz Gorski’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 9/9/24 – Gorski

I like the triple-stacked 15s a lot, but the bulk of the clues are for 3- to 5-letter entries that suffer for having to work with those stacks.

Fave fill: FLOATING ISLANDS (I wanted the French term for it, ÎLE FLOTTANTE, to fit; I’ve encountered that on Top Chef), LAURENCE OLIVIER, LONG-FORM ARTICLE, “UNDERNEATH IT ALL” (as a phrase; never heard of the song), MOBILE LIBRARIES, and Tracy Chapman’s great “GIVE ME ONE REASON.”

Not so keen on WESER, YIPES (we all fill in YIKES, don’t we?), musicians LYN and BEV and INI and OMI, ABCD, plural GEDS and GMATS, partial I’LL DO, RHUMB, and that solitary FRIED CLAM (just the one). If you complain of “trivia quiz” crosswords, I suspect the abundance of non–household names vexed you some.

New to me (besides LYN and BEV): 11d. [Letter for letter], LITERATIM. Know your Latin?

Favorite clue: 27d. [Like minds?], PLURAL. Like the word “minds.”

2.5 stars from me. I’d rather skip the constructor challenge of weaving a puzzle with three triple-stacks of spanners and instead have a puzzle with better fill overall.