Sunday, September 15, 2024

Aimee Lucido’s New York Times crossword, “One for the Books” — Nate’s write-up

09.15.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword

– 21A: HIGH FIDELITY [Record book?]
– 31A: MERRIAM-WEBSTER [Spell book?]
– 46A: THE WEALTH OF NATIONS [Green book?]
– 65A: THE GIVING TREE [Logbook?]
– 83A: NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR [Yearbook?]
– 97A: A GAME OF THRONES [Rule book?]
– 113A: FRANKENSTEIN [Scrapbook?]

This week, each themer is a book that’s hinted at by its clue. The theme set didn’t feel as tight as I’d have wanted, as some themers were direct/obvious (MERRIAM-WEBSTER is a dictionary with properly-spelled words and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR is probably the most famous book with a year as its title), some felt like one of many books that applied to the category (there are a lot of famous books about money / wealth, so I wasn’t sure why THE WEALTH OF NATIONS was chosen here), and others I had to guess at (I assume A GAME OF THRONES is about ruling with power – though, again, why this one over any others – while I think FRANKENSTEIN was about a monster made from scraps?). It’s quite possible that I’m just not the right person for this puzzle and that classic book lovers will get an extra kick out of it. I hope they do!

All that said, the grid felt largely clean and certainly well-constructed. Many of the cluing angles revealed a modern sensibility, which I very much appreciated, and the puzzle fell for me in satisfying sections. The theme almost became a side thought for me rather than the highlight of the puzzle, but it certainly wasn’t a negative to my solving experience, which I’ll take!

Apologies for the quick write-up, but it’s quite the busy weekend. I hope you’re having a lovely weekend and that this puzzle was a positive addition to it. Let us know what you thought in the comments section – and have a great day!

Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword, “Word Processing” — Matt’s write-up

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Word Processing”, 9/15/2024

Our theme this week is a somewhat familiar one: theme clues are single words, and the entries are cryptic-style clues for those words, in which the clue word is anagrammed:

• 23a [SATAN] BAD SANTA
• 33a [SOURCE] CORRECTED COURSE
• 41a [RUSTLES] MIXED RESULTS
• 61a [PAP] MOBILE APP
• 68a [SKI TEAM] CARELESS MISTAKE
• 81a [SNUB] MESSY BUN
• 97a [LEANS] CHANGED LANES
• 105a [IT IS DONE] REVISED EDITIONS

The first letter of each anagrammed clue word (put another way: the first letter of the second word of each theme entry) is circled. In order, they aptly spell SCRAMBLE, which itself gets the anagram treatment:

• 122a [Ascends awkwardly, and an anagram of this puzzle’s circled word] CLAMBERS

Neat theme. I didn’t see SCRAMBLE during the solver, but I can’t think of a more apt word to spell when your mechanism is literally scrambling letters. And a nice reminder of the semi-joking, semi-serious cryptic advice that “anything can be an anagram indicator” if you look hard enough.

Other highlights: Realizing there must be another Braxton other than Toni at 27a (TRACI); creative typography in the clue [Volley/ball game?] for TENNIS.

Pam Amick Klawitter’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Migration Patterns”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are pairs of crossing answers. In the Across direction are phrases that include a type of roadway. The roadway is crossed by an animal, though it’s not clued as such. The revealer is WILDLIFE CROSSING (120a, [Conservation construction seen six times in this puzzle]). The letters at each crossing are circled and together spell out ANIMAL.

We also have the theme-adjacent CHICKEN (108a. [Creature clucking about not being in today’s theme (it doesn’t contain an R, O, A or D, though]). I guess in a perfect world you could have CHICKEN crossing ROAD but that’s obviously not possible.

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Migration Patterns” · Pam Amick Klawitter · 9.15.24

• 3d. [Shoulder, as a burden] / 20a. [Summer traffic headache]. BEAR crossing ROAD CONSTRUCTION.
• 19d. [Shut out, in sports slang] / 29a. [Daily Planet journalist] SKUNK crossing LOIS LANE.
• 42d. [One who wants it all] / 46a. [Snowy race route] PIG crossing IDITAROD TRAIL.
• 56d. [Hit hard] / 64a. [Does some serious job searching] RAM crossing POUNDS THE PAVEMENT.
• 85d. [Double-crosser] / 88a. [Manhattan locale synonymous with advertising] RAT crossing MADISON AVENUE.
• 92d. [Chunk detached from an iceberg] / 105a. [Showy NBA play ending in a dunk] CALF crossing ALLEY OOP.

WILDLIFE CROSSING in Canada

My first thought on getting to the revealer was that I’ve never seen a sign that said WILDLIFE CROSSING. But that’s not meant to be where the phrase is from. A WILDLIFE CROSSING is one of those man-made throughways meant solely for critters to get over or under our intrusive roadways. So that’s cool, and it’s a good basis for a theme.

There are however some noticeable inconsistencies in the theme answers, mainly that some of the roadways are not actual roadways, while others are. As used in the grid, LANE and ALLEY aren’t roadways while ROAD, TRAIL, and AVENUE are. PAVEMENT could go either way depending on how you argue it.

But to be fair, there’s a large amount of theme material here, and whenever you have theme answers crossing—even if they’re short, three-letter answers—there will be additional constraints. Ergo, there are a lot of demands on this grid, so I can give the theme a little leeway.

Fill highlights: KNOSSOS, CLOSE IN ON, ROANOKE, SPINAL TAP, DAYS INN. I also liked seeing the military jargon SITREP (short for “situation report”), but it’s probably new to a lot of solvers. Not so keen on I IN [“There’s no ___ team!”] and especially RED A [Letter on Los Angeles Angels caps].

Clues of note:

• 60a. [Spot for withdrawals (Abbr.)]. ATM. I was just wondering if this abbreviation will ever be clued as shorthand for “at the moment”, but checking the Cruciverb database, it already has a couple of times (in the LAT and New Yorker last year). Just be aware that that’s a possibility.
• 122a. [Reddit Q&A sessions]. AMAS. Hmm. An abbreviation pluralized? Not sure I wouldn’t rather see the old Latin cluing angle.
• 7d. [Brief status report]. SITREP. Probably shouldn’t have “report” in the clue.
• 59d. [Dolphins QB Tagovailoa]. TUA. Timely. The QB is in the news these days for going down with another concussion in a Thursday night game. He missed several games in previous seasons for suffering multiple concussions.

3.5 stars.