Jeremy Newton and Tracy Gray’s New York Times crossword, “Breakout Performance” — Nate’s write-up
09.22.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword
This Sunday’s puzzle is a 23-wide by 19-tall, two-part tribute puzzle to THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION on the day before its 30th anniversary.
The top half is largely a straight forward set of theme entries related to the film and one of its quite-relevant main characters:
– 3D/6D: THE SHAWSHANK / REDEMPTION [With 6-Down, prison drama released on September 23, 1994]
– 15D: TIM ROBBINS [Portrayer of 18-Down]
– 18D: ANDY DUFRESNE [Lead role in 3-Down/6-Down]
– 57A: TORNADO [“Bad luck, I guess … It was my turn, that’s all. I was in the path of the ___” (quote from 18-Down)]
The bottom half of the puzzle, on the other hand, plays with a more representative depiction of ANDY DUFRESNE‘s prison break, as hinted by three entries:
– 114A: TUNNEL OUT [Stage a jailbreak à la 18-Down]
– 50A: ESCAPE ACT [Houdini’s signature feat … or a hint to the circled squares in this puzzle]
– 119A: RUN [Make a break for it]
Starting from the bottom of 110D EDNA [Irish novelist O’Brien], we have a series of circled squares across a maze of highlighted corridors that spell ANDY DUFRESNE as he travels to freedom: AND(E) Y –> DUCT(TAPED) –> SHAFT(ED) –> TRENCH(COAT) –> (TEAM E)VENT –> (YOU)TUBE (CLIP) –> (PARA)CHUTE –> (SAFE) PASSAGE –> CANAL (ST) –> TUNNEL (OUT) to safety!
AS A BONUS: Because it is unchecked, the circled Y between 115A and 116A was given to us. Have there been other NYT crosswords where letters were both uncrossed and given to the solver right off the bat? That was a surprise, but it’s also a fun visual depiction of ANDY breaking out of that bottom cell of black squares. Is that Y what’s behind the poster of Rita Hayworth?
Wow, so much going on in this two-part theme and a largely fun grid to go with it with little in the way of crosswordese. Quite the feat! I probably haven’t seen this movie in 20+ years, but it’s one of my husband’s favorites and he got a kick out of seeing this puzzle, so I hope other fans of the movie will also enjoy it!
What did you think of this puzzle? Let us know in the comments section – and have a great weekend!
Dana Edwards’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Musical Arrangements”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are before-and-after style phrases where the beginnings are well-known musical acts.
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Musical Arrangements” · Dana Edwards · 9.22.24
- 22a. [*Jam band’s rhythm?] GRATEFUL DEAD BEAT.
- 39a. [*Mic check before “Speed of Sound”?] COLDPLAY TEST.
- 47a. [*Robert Matthew Van Winkle’s backup dancer?] VANILLA ICE BREAKER.
- 63a. [*Song such as “All Star”?] SMASHMOUTH PIECE.
- 83a. [*Verses by the Roots’ frontman?] QUESTLOVE LANGUAGE.
- 92a. [*Playlist from Thom Yorke and company?] RADIOHEAD SET.
- 113a. [*Lyrics like “Fight the power!” and “Bring the noise!”?] PUBLIC ENEMY LINES.
I like a good before-and-after theme, and this one fits the bill. I especially like the consistency in that each made-up phrase relates to the production or performance of music. There’s also a good mix of musical acts to enjoy. Good theme.
Lots of meaty fill entries to enjoy as well, such as AHA MOMENT, FLOORS IT, TOOLBELT, RAN THE SHOW, CLOSE SHAVE, TOO FAR GONE, BUTT-DIALED, OLD TIMEY, and “THAT STINKS!” Did not know author Jonathan FOER, but he wrote Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. USHES and SETS TO are a bit dodgy, but they’re heavily outweighed by a nice theme and fun fill.
Clues of note:
- 31a. [Cause of much congestion]. SNOT. Breakfast test? What breakfast test?
- 15d. [Called the shots]. RAN THE SHOW. “The” is one of those words you might see duped in different entries within the same grid, but I’d probably avoid having it in the clue if it’s in the entry.
- 70d. [Ended a bad connection?]. BUTT-DIALED. “Ended” being the keyword here.
- 84d. [Number of countries with a nonrectangular flag]. ONE. Nepal. There are other political entities with such flags, though.
- 101d. [First number in an American date, but the second in a European one]. MONTH. And sadly, this is why Europeans can never celebrate Pi Day.
Good puzzle all around. Four stars.
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Code Words”—Matt’s review
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword solution, “Code Words,” 9/22/2024
Meta this week from Evan, and I’m told we can expect one next week, as well. For now, we’re looking for “a famous band.”
Themers are relatively easy to spot. The meta element, a touch less so:
- 23a [Pigment used in Frederic Leighton’s painting “Flaming June”] CHROME ORANGE
- 31a [1945 satirical novella that features the revolutionary anthem “Beasts of England”] ANIMAL FARM
- 36a [Miniature military vehicles] MODEL TANKS
- 52a [Term in linear algebra for the series of entries in a square matrix extending from the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner] MAIN DIAGONAL
- 68a [“Yeah, sure, you’ve really got me quaking in my boots here!”] OOH IM SO SCARED
- 83a [Particles that have gained high levels of kinetic energy] HOTEL ELECTRONS
- 103a [In a state between waking and dreaming] HALF ASLEEP
- 112a [Egyptian Islamic scholar who became the grand imam of al-Azhar in 2010] AHMED EL TAYEB
A mix as far as recognizability goes, I’d say. I found the crossings on AHMED EL TAYEB straightforward, but having a sense of the meta mechanism would help plenty there, too. To that end, we have a quasi-revealer waiting at the end:
- 125a [Group that developed a useful phonetic code] NATO
So there’s our “code” referenced in the title. Looking back at the themers, there are indeed letters from the NATO phonetic alphabet hiding in each. I’ve highlighted them in the solution grid rather than spelling it out here, but we’ve got R-A-D-I-O-H-E-A-D spelling out our meta answer. I’m not familiar with the band other than what I’ve learned from crosswords – if I’m missing an easter egg at all in this, would love to hear it.
A pleasing, gentle meta. CHROME ORANGE and AHMED EL TAYEB in particular helped the embedded NATO letters jump out, but even with those two, the mechanism is well-disguised. If I hadn’t known it was a meta, I’m not sure anything would jump out at me from these themers.
Highlights: a bit of wordplay in [Legend wielding an ax?] for ROCK IDOL (‘ax’ being slang for ‘guitar’) // Tricky syntax in [Person not spending any time anywhere?] for MISER (slightly re-parsed: Person who does no spending at any time or at any place)
NYT: I don’t understand the circled squares part of the puzzle….
Just follow them in order, along the escape route.
You start off with A-N-D-Y, then D-U-… (Get it?) …to match 18-Down
This must be their all-time favorite movie, but does it really have to be mine? I struggled with this one, especially the character’s name, and by the end didn’t really want to know. I also didn’t know of INDY DUCT TAPE or IGLOO/YETI in this sense, didn’t know that boot could be used as a verb in this sense, and had my doubts that BEEF works for the start of the long cycle of revenge in a feud, while FISH FIN sounds kinda green paint-y.
As often, I had trouble making out the circled squares after I’d written partly over them with entries, and tried only reading top to bottom and left to right. I’m still not sure I get the concept or why, in effect, his name appears in the puzzle twice.
INDY and DUCT TAPE are two distinct entries. The Y is kind of shoehorned in there.
Thanks.
IGLOO as a Yeti competitor was a no-brainer for me. I used to go past Yeti’s flagship store every weekday on my commute and at least twice a week after I retired. Their coolers are obscenely expensive, which is why we still use an almost 30-year-old IGLOO bought at K-Mart.
I’m a little surprised that you’re not familiar with the concept of booting a parked car. But then, I was surprised that they go back to at least the 1950s, when Denver started using wheel clamps. (I think I first heard of them in the 1980s.)
I’m with you on circles in squares. I get why constructors use them, but they’re hard on aging eyes.
I guess you could say I have the concept, since I recognize the device as the noun boot. But no matter. It didn’t slow me up. My only real problem with the puzzle is that the theme made it a waste of time.
The theme didn’t do anything for me.
If the grid hadn’t been so hard on my eyes, and if I hadn’t had to spend five minutes or more trying to find all my typos, I’d have enjoyed the puzzle more.
NYT: I know this is to be a very famous movie but it is not a film genre I’m into, so it was a struggle to come up with all the names in the top half and the NW fell much later. It was easier to do the bottom half and visualize the escape.
I’m never sure what to think when the entire puzzle revolves around something very specific– a particular movie, a set of steps in Rome…. Either you know quite a bit about it and it’s nice to see how it got depicted, or you really don’t and then you learn something (which is great!) but likely about a topic not close to your heart (or you’d probably already know about it :).
But props for creativity in the construction and some fun entries that were in the language and quite helpful (except for FISH FIN!).
+1 on this. I’ve seen part of the movie on TV, but have never watched the whole thing. I surprised myself by getting the title with just the “E” from EEL in place. Surprised myself further by remembering the actor, but needed multiple crosses to recall his last name. The character’s name? No way!
Tribute puzzles are usually not especially fun (IMHO), and this one was no exception.
And FISH FIN? Oy!
“[A] topic not close to your heart (or you’d probably already know about it :).”
My thoughts exactly. I’ve had 30 years to see “The Shawshank Redemption” (and when it came out, we went to the movies often). The fact that I haven’t seen it is indicative of my lack of interest in it, though I know many people consider it their favorite movie.
But between a few letters and the length of the answers, I knew the title as soon as I saw the clue. TIM ROBBINS was a gimme, but I needed a lot of crosses to get the character’s name.
My real issue was that the 23-wide grid made for smaller than usual squares (I solve in the NYT Games app on my iPad). Throw in shaded squares and circles (hey, John) and my eyes were tired by the end. But the fill was generally easy, which means I made a lot of typos. Having to spend five extra minutes to track them all down was not fun.
If I had enjoyed the theme more, I’d be more inclined to overlook iffy answers like FISH FIN, UPN, M AND M’S (no, just no, not ever), HIT A RUT and especially OK TO.
I did like AS IF I CARE and WATCH IT (“Midnight Cowboy”! Now there’s a movie worthy of a tribute puzzle!).
And another +1. I could guess the name of the movie, but did not know either the actor or the character, and still finished this puzzle in 2/3 of my Sunday average time. The theme sucked up all the air, and if the solver is not interested in the theme (as I was not) there’s not much left. Rather bland fill that was not challenging enough to sustain this solver’s interest. But I imagine fans of the movie might have a different experience.
The genre is a drama. It is not an obscure drama. It’s a classic.
Minor quibble with the answer to “Part of HMS” being “HER”. I know historically it’s interchangeable, but isn’t it currently “HIS”?
NYT: Really impressive execution down along the escape route. Not only did the constructors have to find enough synonyms, but they had to cross them with each other to form the route, and then have the correct letters in the correct order to spell our hero’s name as he makes good his escape. And *then* have smooth fill all around. Impressively done!
I’m a fan of the film and have seen it multiple times, but I still didn’t recognize the TORNADO quote. However, I have to think that POOR TASTE stacked atop TUNNEL OUT was not an accident, as Andy had to crawl “through five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness” to get to freedom.
I’ve never seen Shawshank Redemption, so the cleverness of the puzzle was mostly wasted on me. The crosses for ANDYDUFRESNE were fair, so that was OK (but not terribly interesting).
I printed out the puzzle and that Y at the bottom wasn’t filled — but again, it was easy enough to get.
But I don’t understand the meaning of the isolated block in the middle along the bottom. Is it supposed to indicate something related to the movie?
From reading a bazillion comments about this puzzle, I gather the isolated group of squares at the bottom represents ANDY DUFRESNE’s prison cell.
Oh! I don’t know that that would be apparent even if you know the movie. I thought maybe it represented him escaping after going through all the tunnels.
Excellent catch!!
WaPo – took an extra look once I was done and had the last answer in the puzzle filled in. Looked at the long entries again and saw it. Going to stop now, but there’s a hint in this comment :) Love you all
Ditto! A simple meta, once you see it.
AHMED EL-TAYEB was my tip-off, though I appreciated the hint in the SE.
That’s my kind of meta. Not particularly taxing, but also not glaringly obvious.
It’s probably worth mentioning then that next week’s meta is going to be tougher, so both more taxing and less obvious.
Thanks for the warning.
I usually do pretty well with your metas, even the ones that aren’t quite as easy as today’s.
Really fun puzzle! I enjoyed seeing some more unusual math and science answers with HOT ELECTRONS and MAIN DIAGONAL.
Please put me out of my misery, 18 down “see stars” = popes. ?
The Holy See is the pope’s domain, so the See stars would be popes.
Lots of fun etymology here. See means “seat” (of a bishop) and the Holy See is the seat of the Bishop of Rome. It comes from the same Latin verb, sedere that gives us “sit.”
Sedere comes from the Greek hedra (“seat”) which also gives us the other term for a bishop’s seat, “cathedral.”
NYT: I guess I’m somehow in the minority having seen this movie several times; it felt like it was on cable TV rotation very heavily for several years… back when it seemed like Law and Order was also practically available 24/7 on some cable channel or another.
Anyway, I enjoyed it; even filling in the title and names very quickly, there was still a lot going on; I was initially worried that with the theme fill going so fast there wasn’t going to be much left, but it was a good Sunday puzzle overall. Really nice.
I did not like the NYT at all. I’m OK with this tribute, as TSR is on my list of favorite movies. I imagine I’d be singing a different tune if this were about something in which I have no interest or knowledge. As clever as the bottom half was, it was a stretch to connect it to the movie. As Jim’s video clip would attest, Andy Dufresne escaped pretty much along a straight line. Am I being too picky? Also, the mention of Andy’s name within the circled letters raised an eyebrow, as it was a bona-fide clue in the top half. Is this sort of inclusion an exception to the “No dupes” guidance? Finally, I’m beginning to interpret the “Some of these features aren’t included in the ACL version” caution as “Do Not Do This Puzzle”. Maybe I’m just a traditionalist. (When doing the puzzle on the NYT site, it drives me crazy that the clues automatically scroll up and down depending on the location of the cursor. Does anyone find this useful? I prefer that the clues stay static until I scroll through).
Quick nit re Universal 88A: “Bow” is a noun that refers to a part of a boat; “Aft” is an adjective or adverb referring to a location or direction. The opposite of “bow” would be “stern”, and the opposite of “aft” (or “abaft”) would be “fore” (or “forward”).
You can adjust the settings via the little blue cogwheel in the upper left:
@pannonica: Not a particular fan of that “San José Strut” jingle at the end, eh? ;-)
You know it. Plus it’s way too loud compared to other things I might use the speaker for.
Turning off the stupid jingle was the first thing I did when I started using the app.
Too bad they won’t let you turn off the other “Yay you” junk.
“show puzzle milestones”?
pannonica,
The “Puzzle milestones” are the halfway point and the thre-quarters point.
I don’t mind the first time the pop-up for a successful completion appears. But if I want to look at a completed puzzle, it takes three clicks to get there. (Yes, in the scheme of things, this is a minor problem.)
Oh yes, “admire your puzzle”. blech.
I love the jingle. I’ve never used the app but my wife does every morning. My first knowledge of the puzzle since I did it a few weeks earlier is hearing how long Elaine took to solve it. That tells me a lot about how the discussion will unwind here. It’s been my morning ritual for quite a while now. She solves over coffee in the dining room while I’m doing other puzzles in bed, so it’s very convenient that it’s loud.
Thanks. I’m aware of the custom/settings window – but is there a setting to leave the clues alone while solving? My issue is that as I navigate from one clue to the next in the grid, the list of clues on the side scroll up and down and back up again – a continuous animation that is useless to me and very distracting. Otherwise, I can deal with the other settings.
I tend to look only at the clue that appears above the grid, the one that I’ve selected to see.
dh: ok, I’d say that’s a fair beef. e.g., say you toggle from 4-Across to 4-Down, and now 1- through 3-Down have immediately auto-scrolled out of sight, even though you were kinda looking intending to skim through clues for that entire NW clunk?
On a laptop, you can first generate a pdf “print copy” of the puzzle, of course – then use that (static) list of clues in a different browser window as you fill in the puzzle via the app (tracking time and streak, e.g.). It is nice to be able to glance at a “not auto-scrolling” list of clues. (Experimenting for Monday’s’ puzzle, I still needed to scroll now and then, to have the text large enough to read, but it was minimal scrolling. Worked pretty well.)
I’d think having an option where the auto-scroll centers the clue you’re on would be nice. (e.g., you jump to 10-Down, and it puts 10-Down’s clue centered among the Down clues, versus right at the top)
Cumbersome.
LAT – I was limited by what I know from figuring out the theme. I went to Crossword Corner and read the explanation. Pretty good execution of the theme
Your comment piqued my interest enough to do the puzzle (and in any case I was waiting for paint to dry). I could make sense of a few of the theme answers but my Spanish isn’t enough to interpret the others. Maybe the LAT audience is expected to know more, but it doesn’t seem like an audience-friendly puzzle.
I’m from L.A. and really enjoyed it, especially the estate agent at 115A.
My Spanish is quite limited, but ONCE IN A LIFETIME was enough to make the theme click.
I didn’t understand PIE IN THE SKY while solving. I should have; PIE is close to the French “pied,” which I know means “foot.”
I enjoyed the puzzle quite a bit.
Good puzzle for Spanglish speaking solvers, but I don’t think this puzzle should have been published.
Themeless Sunday 103:
Technical nit:
34 Across should be “…at maximum” ;)
Please explain ?
I completed the puzzle with no errors, despite never having seen the film. I struggled with “INDY DUCT TAPED” because I cannot recall seeing an answer without any clue. I thought the “D” meant 500! I assume that duct tape was involved in the escape, but I can’t see how that phrase can be added to a clue for what seems to me to be without justification.
115a [Annual May race, familiarly] INDY (the Indianapolis 500)
116a [Held together in a makeshift way] DUCT TAPED.
…one single niche (unless you’re a movie buff) movie from literally decades ago? The whole entire Sunday 21×21 puzzle? Unfortunate. :(
I mean, it’s not like everyone has to see every single movie that comes out, but The Shawshank Redemption is a film that’s consistently placed in the “100 Best Movies of All Times” types of lists so I’m a bit surprised by the lack of love it’s getting in the comments section here.
As a fan of the movie, I liked the puzzle quite a bit.
I’ve seen Shawshank 10+ times,but I must admit I had no idea how to spell Dufresne and I do not remember that tornado quote. Brilliant puzzle.