Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Temp Job”—Jim’s review
Theme answers started out as familiar two-word phrases with initial letters H and C, except those two letters have been swapped to wacky effect. The revealer is HOT AND COLD (60a, [How emotions may blow, and a hint to the switches in the theme answers]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Temp Job” · Mike Shenk · Wed., 10.2.24
- 16a. [New Holstein taken to the pawnshop?] CALF HOCKED. Half-cocked.
- 20a. [Sleeve, for a poker cheat?] CARD HIDER. Hard cider. A spoonerism swaps beginning sounds. Clearly this is not a spoonerism since the C goes from soft to hard.
- 37a. [Features of the Easter Bunny’s checking each 36-Down for freshness?] HARE AND CANDLING. Care and handling. One, cumbersome clue which I still can’t make sense of. Two, I know “shipping and handling” much better than “care and handling” (see Google ngram viewer image below). Three, do people know that “candling” is using a light to check the quality of an EGG? I didn’t, though it was inferable.
- 55a. [Songwriter Porter, to Linda Lee Thomas?] HUBBY COLE. Cubbyhole. Best entry of the bunch.
I had trouble getting behind this one, especially with that third one, and there just wasn’t enough humor to keep me going. The pronunciation change in only one of the entries is somewhat jarring.
On top of that, all the proper names in the grid added to my consternation, especially the mash-up of ROCCO, DAKAR, and MOORE in the North. Elsewhere we have REDD, GOODE, PEALE, and ITALO (those last two also cross). Walter KOENIG was a gimme for me, but probably not for other solvers. And there are more on in addition to these.
There are some highlights though: DOODAD, HANKIE, and TRICYCLES. I didn’t know DOGTOOTH [Pointed ornament of Gothic architecture], so that was interesting to learn about.
Dog’s-Tooth Ornament. Illustration for Blackie’s Modern Cyclopedia (1899).
Clues are relatively straightforward, yet my solve time was about double last Wednesday’s puzzle. I blame all the proper names.
Oh, I do like the title which I didn’t suss out until halfway through writing this up. Think “Temp” as in “Temperature”.
2.75 stars.
Luke Schreiber’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 10/2/22 – no. 1002
The theme in this 15×16 puzzle is the game ANIMAL CROSSING, and its 14 crossings are all animals (not always clued as such): ANTEATER, NEMATODE, GUINEA PIG, CLAM, CARP, LION, CARDINAL, REINDEER, DODO, WASP, SEAL, KING COBRA, MASTODON, TREE FROG. The arthropods are dismayed to have no representation here.
Heckuva lot of theme squares here! That does bring some compromises, such as ABES, A NO, UHS, TEASEL, IS OUT, EDA, and RIA.
Overall, I enjoyed the animals lurking in 14 rows. 3.5 stars from me
David Bukszpan’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Get Out”—Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 10/2/24 – “Get Out”
We go to Greek mythology for this week’s puzzle. ARIADNE left a RED / THREAD (as seen with the snaking thread of RED RED throughout the grid), so that THESEUS could find his way out of the labyrinth set by DAEDALUS, with the menacing MINOTAUR. I think that’s all the cross-referenced classics here.
Fave fill: Y.A. BOOK, BAD TRIPS, DECIPHER. Plenty of meh short fill to accommodate the RED THREAD throughout.
3.5 stars from me.
Jacob Reed’s Universal crossword, “Undercover Agent” — pannonica’s debriefing
Universal • 10/2/24 • Wed • “Undercover Agent” • Reed • solution • 20241002
- 59aR [Heist helper … and a hint to who has infiltrated 17-, 29- or 47-across] INSIDE MAN. Those entries contain guy’s names, altering their meanings. All of the names are are hypocorisms, probably simply for brevity and usefulness.
- 17a. [Wing motions?] FLAP{JACK}S.
- 29a. [Squeaky rodents?] MIC{ROB}E.
- 47a. [Pick up the tab?] PA{NICK}Y.
I was about to complain that the theme seemed to lack an additional layer to make it more cohesive, and suggest that the containing words could all be sites of heists—but then I realized that each of these nicknames has another meaning: jack, rob, and nick are all words that can mean ‘to steal’. So that’s much better.
- 10d [Warrior one or cobra] YOGA POSE, also known as ASANA.
- 12d [Name hidden in “future nostalgia”] ENOS. Oohhh-kay.
- 23d [Union contract, informally?] PRENUP. With the P already in place, this wasn’t too tricky at all.
- 24d [SoCal neighborhood that borders Boyle Heights] EAST LA. With the E in place, and with my relative ignorance on the subject, I put in ENCINO.
- 38d [Christmas-themed pub crawl] SANTACON, which often has unsavory overtones and/or consequences.
- 50d [Most broad] WIDEST. 51a [Most loyal] TRUEST.
- 33a [Classic bagel type] PLAIN. Smallish and flatter too, please.
- 54a [Gated community?] HEAVEN. Cute.
- 68a [Painter Francisco] GOYA.
NYT: I really enjoyed the solve and the animal theme.
But I was puzzled by the apparent inconsistency between the animals clued as themselcves and the animals like CARP and WASP that were clued otherwise.
Am I missing a hidden consistency? Or is this issue a foolish hobgoblin of a little mind?
In his constructor, Luke K. Schreiber says “I tried to disguise the theme whenever possible, though for some themed entries (such as 17-Across) there was no alternative cluing approach.”
To have found 14 animals that work not only with ANIMAL CROSSING but with each other and the grid… just wow. Definitely worth the compromises, which really weren’t so many.
Nematodes are just, like, crazy, “accounting for about 80% of all individual animals on Earth”, per Wikipedia.
NYT: very impressive puzzle!
I struggled in the NE. Having ANTELOPE instead of ANTEATER didn’t help. BARKER seems a bit archaic these days, no??
Power’s out. Once the battery backup is exhausted, puzzles will be unavailable until they restore it. Estimate is 6 hours :=(. Sorry.