Monday, September 30, 2024

Alexander Liebeskind’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s write-up

Theme: Each theme answer ends in a word meaning “receipt for amount due”

New York Times, 09 30 2024, By Alexander Liebeskind

• 16a [Sentence that often appears in the first paragraph of an essay] – THESIS STATEMENT
• 22a [Quick confirmation of feasibility] – SANITY CHECK
• 37a [Dose for an LSD trip] – ACID TAB
• 49a [Football player in upstate New York] – BUFFALO BILL
• 59a [Cry from someone seeking revenge … or a hint to the ends of 16-, 22-, 37- and 49-Across] – YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS

Cute theme and an excellent revealer – particularly one that’s 15 letters long! I didn’t realize just how many words had this meaning. I like how all of the ones chosen here successfully twist the second word’s definition; I didn’t know what the connection between each answer was until I reached the reveal. SANITY CHECK is my favorite but THESIS STATEMENT is also a fun spanner. And the BUFFALO BILLs are playing Sunday Night Football as I write this recap, so that’s topical.

Five theme answers doesn’t add a whole lot of fill flexibility, but there are still some great down answers. BOO BIRDS and MAIN IDEA are both standouts – and they each intersect 3 theme answers, very impressive! (I like that MAIN IDEA crosses THESIS STATEMENT especially, given that those two are basically synonyms). ELENA KAGAN is great too, although RETAIL SHOP feels a little reduplicative.

I had the most trouble with the very first answer, [Wheel’s place on a ship] for HELM. I also think [Not worth a ___] for SOU might trip some folks up, because there are many more common words that could fit in that blank. Clue highlights for me were [Drop in the ocean?] for SINK and [Loses on purpose, as an N.B.A. team] for TANKS (is this NBA specific? I thought I’ve heard this terminology in other sports too).

Happy Monday all!

Jake Halperin’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “What the H*ck?”—Jim’s review

Vowel progression theme with phrases that start H*CK. I must say, this has to be the best title for a vowel progression puzzle I’ve ever seen.

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “What the H*ck?” · Jake Halperin · Mon., 9.30.24

• 17a. [Platitude] HACKNEYED PHRASE.
• 23a. [Suppression of speech by interruption from a demonstrator] HECKLER’S VETO. New phrase to me, but it makes sense.
• 40a. [Popular wood for smoking] HICKORY.
• 51a. [Winter Games athlete] HOCKEY PLAYER.
• 62a. [Aunt Polly calls him “poor motherless thing”] HUCKLEBERRY FINN.

Solid. The first entry is a bit green painty, and I’d never heard the second one, but it works just fine. That inspired title is worth the price of admission, though. My first thought on seeing the title was, “What, the WSJ can’t print the word ‘heck’?” But then we get an aha moment as we grok the theme. When was the last time a vowel-progression theme gave you an aha moment? Very cute!

DIALED DOWN, MOTORCYCLE, and “OK THEN” top the fill. I wonder if that POBOX/LOEWE/AFRIN stack in the south caused trouble for some solvers, but I got each of those from crossers and never even saw their clues.

Clues of note:

• 16a. [Site of the Parade of Nations at the 2024 Olympics] SEINE. In the pouring rain no less. I only saw parts of this, but it was nicely done, I thought.
• 26d. [Number of hills of Rome, in old Rome]. VII. This clue was also nicely done.
• 29d. [Yamaha product]. MOTORCYCLE. KEYBOARD didn’t fit.
• 51d. [Left foot’s responsibility, to most drummers]. HI HAT. New cluing angle (at least to me) which I found to be interesting.

Very nice Monday puzzle. 3.75 stars.

Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 9/30/24 by Zhouqin Burnikel

Sorry for missing my last three posts — last Monday I had to recuse myself from reviewing my own puzzle, and the last two Saturday’s posts got eaten by a technical glitch. But we’re back in business with a puzzle that I think might have been even more appropriate next year, given that 2025 is the Year of the Snake. The revealer at 63A [Predatory fish capable of crawling on land, or what each part of 16-, 24-, 37- and 53-Across can be] is SNAKE HEAD, because each of the theme answers is made up of two words that can be placed in front of SNAKE to make a type of SNAKE:

• 16A [Netflix true crime series about big cats] is TIGER KING, leading to TIGER SNAKE and KING SNAKE.
• 25A [Evergreen that grows well in coastal soil] is a SAND PINE, leading to SAND SNAKE and PINE SNAKE.
• 37A [Backyard hideout] is TREEHOUSE, leading to TREE SNAKE and HOUSE SNAKE.
• 53A [Great Barrier Reef locale] is CORAL SEA, leading to CORAL SNAKE and SEA SNAKE.

I always enjoy double themes like these and there were some nice mid-length answers like BIG DATA, MARTINI, EGO TRIP, and SET MENU to round this puzzle out.

David Ding’s Universal crossword, “Shifting Gears” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 9/30/24 • Mon • Ding • “Shifting Gears” • solution • 20240930

Super-easy and fast puzzle. I still don’t know what the theme was because I ignored the relevant entries after recognizing that they depended on wordplay. BUT judging from the title, which I also bypassed until after the grid was complete, I’m going to guess that those entries contain anagrams of gears in a car’s automatic transmission… oh, just the gear names without anagrams… oh wait, I see.

It’s two-word phrases with the names of gears as one of the words, but their partners have been switched around.

• 20a. [Obsessed with not taking sides? (D to N)] NEUTRAL CRAZY (drive crazy, drive → neutral).
• 33a. [What you do while traveling on a horse, technically? (P to D)] DRIVE AND RIDE (park and ride, park → drive).
• 44a. [Roller coaster designer? (R to P)] PARK ENGINEER (reverse engineer, reverse → park).
• 60a. [Hue observed in photo negatives? (N to R)] REVERSE COLOR (neutral color, neutral → reverse).

Note that (1) these are all shifts that are feasible (D to R or vice-versa is not recommended), (2) they’re in sequence if you read bottom-to-top: N → R → P → D → N, and you can even circle back again. So they really are shifts, per the title.

• 9d [Extraordinary thing] DOOZY, 8a [Quirky thing] ODDITY.
• 10d [Unit of age for Fido] DOG YEAR. Calculating a dog (or cat, or any animal really) equivalent of human aging isn’t a straight ratio, so my advice is for people to abandon the concept entirely.
• 25a [Hurls, slangily] YEETS. We’ve now seen this neologism enough times in crosswords that it shouldn’t be controversial.
• 42a [“Who am __ judge?”] ITO. Little play on jurist Lance?
• 73a [JFK, for example] DEM. 30a [JFK landing guess] ETA.

Natan Last’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 9/30/24 – Natan Last

I’m always pleased to see Natan’s New Yorker byline awaiting me. I know I’ll learn some things along the way and have a good time.

Fave fill: GET A PASS, NAIROBI (hadn’t heard about the [City where parliament was stormed in June, 2024, in a wave of protests against proposed taxes] situation), RAISE THE DEAD, “DON’T SWEAT IT,” COWBOY CARTER (this is Beyoncé’s hit country album, Carter being her marital surname), NO-LOOK pass (but not keen on “pass” being needed in this clue when GET A PASS is up above—but Jokic is incredible on this front, a preternatural gift for knowing exactly where a teammate will be behind him when he throws the ball blindly. Here’s an entertaining video compilation of his no-looks from seven years ago), EHARMONY, BUSINESS CARD, FOSTER MOTHER, HATE-READS.

New to me:

• 5d. [___ de cambio (exchange rate, in Spanish)], TIPO. Got it through the crossings, not a Spanish word I know.
• 25d. [Martinican psychiatrist and thinker who’s the subject of the 2024 book “The Rebel’s Clinic”], FANON. I know the name Frantz Fanon but not his biography.
• 12d. [Lumber that yields colored substances], DYEWOOD. Never heard of it till now.
• LOONS yodel?

ACKEE, the [National fruit of Jamaica], doesn’t get much play in the U.S. since it’s illegal to import fresh ackee and not much is grown here. You have to know what you’re doing to prepare it safely. I’ll note that there’s also a British actress named Naomi Ackie who stars in a current movie, Blink Twice. A shortish last name that’s 60% vowels? You know she’ll make an appearance in crosswords.

Four stars from me.