Margaret Seikel’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 9/28/24 – no. 0928
Hey, hey! A Saturday puzzle with a proper level of difficulty, lots of good stuff, and a woman’s name in the byline.
Fave fill: FUN RUNS (my husband’s last untimed race was the “ready to run” 20-miler; the Chicago marathon’s coming up in two weeks and he will not be wearing TOE SHOES), TECUMSEH, HORCHATA, SIT-DOWNS, pretty WISTERIA (didn’t know it was a [Flower in Japanese heraldry]), PLUMBERS, BEE POLLEN, “LET’S DANCE” (better clued as a song than a generic phrase), “TRUE THAT,” SEED CAPITAL, adorable HIGHLAND COW, REACTION GIF, and ST. ANTHONY (thought this was going to be STAND-something).
Clue that mystified me needlessly: 35a. [Pancake topper], PAT. Before you pour on that hot SYRUP you want to start spreading that pat of butter.
Neat word to learn: 60a. [Silviculture is the science of maintaining them], FORESTS.
Not wild about 36a. [Speckled steeds], ROANS, but the singular ROAN has a fresh new cluing angle with singer Chappell Roan, whose “Good Luck, Babe!” was a big hit this summer. She opened for pop star Olivia Rodrigo on tour, which gave her a big new audience. I know many of you are vocal about your disdain for pop culture, but for god’s sake, just make a mental note of the name Chappell Roan so you’re ready when it pops up in a crossword. This isn’t rocket science.
Four stars from me.
David Alfred Bywaters’ Wall Street Journal crossword, “It Cuts Both Ways” —pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 9/28/24 • Sat • “It Cuts Both Ways” • Bywaters • solution • 20240928
The title is so perfect that I must assume that the theme derived from it, rather than the other way around.
For eight intersecting entries, the bigram IT has been inserted. The IT is ‘cutting into’ the original phrases, in two directions (across and down). It’s the new, wackified phrases that are clued.
I’ve circled the relevant squares in the solution grid, solely to make them more noticeable.
- 31a. [Gaol units?] BRITAIN CELLS (brain cells).
3d. [“Set a thief to catch a thief,” e.g.?] BANDIT SAW (bandsaw). - 66a. [Magnates who aren’t as big a deal as they pretend to be?] FAKE TITANS (fake tans).
14d. [Nonviolent protests at the Vatican?] CARDINAL SIT-INS (cardinal sins). - 73a. [Problem at an overlong wedding reception?] FINITE WINE (fine wine).
55d. [Etiquette consultant?] POLITE POSITION (pole position). - 105a. [Where the best ostrich feathers come from?] PRIME RATITES (prime rates).
87d. [Not just a cubicle?] LEGIT ROOM (leg room).
I’ll take it.
- 12a [Like some roles after creative differences] RECAST. Whoa, this entry appears in the same relative location in today’s New York Times crossword.
- 21a [Inexplicable event] MIRACLE, not MYSTERY.
- 75a [Magnate] MOGUL. Echoing one of the theme clues.
- 98a [Means] AVERAGES. I started by attempting to fill in AVENUES, but it was a letter shy.
- 103a [Workout unit] REP. 104d [Bench press targets] PECS. 120d [Plank targets] ABS.
- 108a [Drying rack] AIRER. Hmm.
- 12d [Split with force] RIVE, symmetrical to 109d [Tear apart] REND.
- 16d [Hurled] SLUNG.
- 44d [Vapor, in combinations] ATMO-. I didn’t know this definitively, but now I do.
- 54d ]Weisbaden’s state] HESSE. Typically this is clued as the author, Herman. Can’t recall seeing this angle before.
- 76d [Earth viewed as a self-regulating organism] GAIA. Per James Lovelock.
- 99d [Watcher of a Roman temple’s sacred fire] VESTAL. Almost always rendered as vestal virgin(s).
Stella Zawistowski’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 9/28/24 • Saturday Stumper • Zawistowski • solution • 20240928
My final time was a lot faster than expected it would be, considering the sizable impasses encountered.
The puzzle fell in chunks, with whole large sections seeming impenetrable and then miraculously giving way. I was helped along at key moments by several lucky guesses:
- 33a [Pippin or Puck] TRICKSTER.
- 59a [Jen’s Marley & Me spouse] OWEN.
Okay, maybe it was just two, but they were both critical. The former gave me headway into the entire central section and environs, while the latter was instrumental in conquering the lower left corner, which was the final part of the grid.
- 16a [Cranberry kin] PUCE. I don’t feel these hues are too close.
- 19a [“– the parting hour go by”: Matthew Arnold] ERE. My very first entry. Not a quote I’ve ever heard, but given ERE as a frequent crossword entry and the way it fit the phrasing, it seemed likely to be correct.
- 20a [Freshness] INSOLENCE, as INSOUCIANCE didn’t fit.
- 31a [Not a great deal] SCAM. Nice little misdirection clue.
- 36a [Group concerned with balls or and strikes] PBA, not MLB as we were intended to think.
- 39a [Be all over the place] VARY. 55a [Was all over the place] OSCILLATED.
- 42a [Cab’s family] RED WINE. Cabernet sauvignon. Family is doing some heavy lifting, no?
- 44a [Lacking] FREE OF. Puts me in mind of Time Bandits (1981):
Evil: Oh, Benson… Dear Benson, you are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence.
Benson: Oh, you say such nice things, Master.
Evil: Yes I know, I’m sorry. - 47a [Huron, Ohio’s county (no kidding!)] ERIE. The parenthetical made this one a gimme.
- 62a [Splashy bash] POOL PARTY. The PARTY part was easy, and then with four blank letters up front, the rest wasn’t so hard either.
- 5d [Word above Ben on newest C-notes] ONE. Almost a case of what-else-could-it-be.
- 6d [Hardware taking heat] URN. ‘Hardware’ seems odd here.
- 9d [Bostonian’s rubber bands] ELASTICS. I wasn’t aware of this regionalism.
- 13d [Ceres’ Greek analog] DEMETER. A gimme, but not particularly potent for resolving the northeast corner, which didn’t put up much resistance.
- 21d [Declaration of independence] LET ME BE, not LET ME GO.
- Just as the WSJ crossword replicated RECAST from the NYT, here the Newsday has 29d [Character] NATURE in approximately the same location as 58-down in the WSJ. Coincidences!
- 34d [Doesn’t rise quickly] CREEPS UP. ‘Rise’? Hm, not sure what the imagined context for that word would be. The sun?
- 36d [Ironmonger?] PRO SHOP. Tough clue, even with the question mark signal.
- 37d [Thundering] BELLOWS. Tried not-a-word BELLOWY (cf BILLOWY) first. Do the clue and answer agree?
- 44d [Turin TMI] FINITO. Is that the local equivalent? I could see that.
- 48d [Where Beowulf begins] RECTO. Could be just about any book title here.
- 52d [What an obsolete ISBN is] OOP, out-of-print.
- 56d [Unheard howl] LOL. Kind of a double-entendre there, as (1) it’s a text version of a laugh, and (2) very often it’s an exaggeration, as there is no actual laughing out loud occurring.
NYT: Enjoyed the puzzle, and it seemed about right for a Saturday.
New to me: HORCHATA and BACNE.
Troubles in the NE slowed me down for a bit. Kept “Act casual” for too long at 10-D. Went with AORTAs in stead of AORTAE. Had the damnedest time parsing STANTHONY – needed to think a little more carefully about “intercessor.”
Didn’t know the David Bowie album. LET’S DANCE put me in mind of Kevin Bacon in “Footloose.”
I had the exact same problem with ST ANTHONY; took me forever for my mind to put the space after St. I originally wanted TRUE TRUE so TRUE THAT took a while too, and slowed by down on HORCHATA. I liked the clue for BACNE. The EBIKE clue felt like a real NYC clue; hardly any food delivery down here in east central illinois is done by e-bike, but it made sense. Nearly an average Saturday time for me.
In Austin, where I lived until recently, the latest thing in food delivery is a robotic pod on wheels that I presume is supposed to keep the food hot. But the ones I have seen were always followed by someone on a scooter, so I really don’t get the point.
But yeah, I think the use of E-BIKEs for food delivery is a very urban thing.
Excellent, challenging NYT. As I struggled with it, I thought it would take forever, but I ended up being only a few minutes slower than my average Saturday time.
NYT: A fun, breezy puzzle-solving experience that would have been under 10 minutes but for AtrA before AFTA, ON the set before ON SCREEN and rear before RUMP.
I loved seeing HORCHATA (which I haven’t made in a while) and the great MOE Tucker. (But please, no more BACNE. Ever. Really.)
I did the same with AtrA… not sure where that came from…
AtrA is a perfectly logical answer to [Shaving brand]. It’s been in the NYT crossword four times as often as AFTA.
And I’ve been using Atra blades for years so that was basically a gimme.
Same for me on Atra and “rear.” I could have lived without knowing there’s a term for BACNE.
It’s a word that I picked up from some crossword a few years ago. I know the condition exists, but did we really need a word for it?
The singer’s name is Chappell Roan, not “Roan Chappell.” When you’re lecturing “the rubes” about the relevance of pop culture, it’s best not to butcher the names of apparently relevant pop culture figures. Kinda proves the point of the people you’re lecturing at.
Fixed the mistake.
Nobody here said “the rubes” other than you, and there are ample comments throughout the week complaining about names from pop culture. Also, a zillion crossword clues use one name in the clue for the other part of the name. Surely there are plenty of people who’ve come to think that there’s an actor named Mara Rooney when it’s flipped.
NYT: Nice Saturday challenge! I fell into the ATRA/AFTA trap also, never heard of HORCHATA either.
Not to be a self-proclaiming wordsmith, but I personally coined BACNE in the 70s because I come from a terrible gene line that had that issue. And I had it bad in high school. Just great for the self-esteem! I see the word became popular in the 90s.
In hindsight, I guess the Seven Sisters refers to the colleges. Now I get it.
I’m truly sorry to hear that you had trouble with acne on your back (or anywhere) as a teenager. That must have been unpleasant.
Do try horchata if you see it on a menu. It’s tasty stuff!
Not looking for sympathy, but thank you. Today I guess I would be on anti-depressants and seeing a therapist instead of just sucking it up and getting through it.
You’re welcome.
Quick correction: It’s Chappell Roan. Also, definitely make note of her.
Oops, fixed. Chappelle is such a familiar surname. If she still went by Kayleigh Amstutz, it’d be easier to keep straight.
NYT was a little easier for me than yesterday’s. I fell into the ATRA trap at 1D, compounded by trying GHOST at 2D. Parsing STANTHONY (Stan who?) slowed me down in that section. I’ve heard of HORCHATA but didn’t know what it is (and now that I’ve learned, I won’t be trying it, thankyouverymuch).
I don’t like the clue for INNS. A respite is a break, a hiatus, a period of time away from obligations, etc. You might go to a country inn for a respite, but the inn itself isn’t a respite.
I wasn’t crazy about the INNS clue, either. I saw that as a possible answer as soon as I read the clue, but resisted putting it in until it was obvious that was what the answer was.
Good point!
There have been a lot of clues lately that aren’t quite accurate in a similar way to this one.
+1
Stumper: Took a while to get a foothold, but a couple of down-answers in the NW finally got me going. Solved counter-clockwise from there – still slow going, but steady progress. A half-hour is pretty good for me to finish a Stumper with no errors.
WSJ: Thanks to Glenn, the Fiend friend, for providing the Across Lite file with rebus squares so designated. The WSJ site doesn’t mark them so the automatically generated .puz file can’t. Glenn makes a special .puz file by hand for me to post. We know some solvers appreciate seeing the rebus indicator come on in Across Lite, and they have Glenn to thank.
Oh, I hadn’t realized they were indicated in the original.
Thanks Glenn! I actually had to do a quick error check (By the way I loved this puzzle, both theme and difficulty wise) and was surprised when certain things passed the check. Kudos to David and Mike S for a great grid!
Yes,thanks. I’m still wrapping my head around solving themes. I just got add T one way and lose I the other. Didn’t see IT like you explained.
NYT: This was a real toughie that remained very white for way too long, a few letters here, a few there, fingerholds and toeholds, until very slowly a bit of traction began to manifest itself. First quadrant to fall was the SE. The NW was pretty tough but the NE was my very last to fall. Didn’t take nearly as long as it appeared at first, but I had den for INN, odds for BOTH, and thought the forgetfulness intercessor began with stand, like a stand-in or something. Nope. When ST. ANTHONY appeared out of the blau, it was a total surprise.
PS I had thought ROAN was just a certain color, but had no idea ROANS might be speckled. Wikipedia makes it clearer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roan_(horse).
Just the opposite for me today. But I’m not at all surprised that this trivia-heavy puzzle was difficult for a lot of people. For me, just a lucky day where I knew, or could infer, most of the answers, and ended up with a near-personal-best time. But I don’t really enjoy this kind of puzzle.
I don’t like seeing “true dat” expressed as “true that”, because it’s just wrong. It’s the formal rendering of a colloquial phrase; but the fact that it’s a casual phrase should exempt it from decolloquialization. I think if I heard it pronounced with a “th” sound I would think to myself about the speaker, You probably shouldn’t use that. It’s poser-ish or something.
Stumper: Agree with everything pannonica said. I thought 49A “pedal pusher’s apparatus” was also stretching it. However, “recto” was the worst — ugh. I got the NE first, then SE, NW, and my husband finished the SE.
NYT: It’s so good when a first pass long answer is patently obvious. Alas, ANGUSCATTLE turned out to be wrong.
stumper: 45′, not clean… which is par for my part of the course… some cute clues like 1d, 36d, and 43d, but a lot of frustrating ones too – particularly 61a: “scrabble play?” really?? maybe i guess it’s interesting that it’s allowed, but i did not like it, especially in the moment
LAT: I was happy to see a Rachel Fabi & Rebecca Goldstein byline, as I have truly enjoyed some of their puzzles.
Maybe it was that I started it around 5 AM when I couldn’t get back to sleep, but I found it rough going and not a whole lot of fun. The clues in the top half were either too vague or too cute to be of much use. [Shirley Jackson collection] for SHORT STORIES had me trying to remember anything about Ms Jackson’s work besides “The Lottery” and “The Haunting of Hill House.” BARTERERS is the kind of “turn a verb into a noun no one uses” answer that always annoys me.
I was particularly irked by LSAT PREP [Case study?]. You don’t prepare for the LSAT by reading case law (at least you didn’t when I took it). Cases are what you read in law school. If they made you read cases to get into law school, nobody would want to go there.
On the other hand, I did like seeing RACHEL CARSON’s full name in the grid, and KNEE [Source of child support?] had a clever clue.
I’d noticed an improvement in editing and puzzle selection over the last few months, but this puzzle was difficult, and made harder by clues such as:
44A: “going afk” = “TTYL” (I guess “afk” means “away from keyboard)
1D: [Raises eyebrows] = “SUP”
60D: “Fitted __” = “Cap”