Desirée Penner and Jeff Sinnock’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s write-up
Theme: TIME AND TIME AGAIN – both halves of each theme answer can follow the word “time”
New York Times, 10 07 2024, By Desirée Penner and Jeff Sinnock
- 19a [For which 7-7-7 might be a jackpot] – SLOT MACHINE (time slot, time machine)
- 25a [Something a loyal customer may redeem for a free drink] – STAMP CARD (timestamp, time card)
- 53a [Taboo] – OFF LIMITS (time off, time limits)
- 63a [Historical drama, e.g.] – PERIOD PIECE (time period, timepiece)
- 39a [Repeatedly … or what can precede both halves of the answers to 19-, 25-, 53- and 63-Across?] – TIME AND TIME AGAIN
Solid Monday puzzle from Desirée and Jeff! The theme is elevated by having the same word, TIME, able to follow both halves of the theme answers, rather than just one or the other. This theme type comes up every so often, and I’m always surprised by how many common phrases fit the pattern – PERIOD PIECE and SLOT MACHINE are my favorite here. It took me a weirdly long time to get OFF-LIMITS, I think because the clue is pretty general? But the bottom right of the puzzle was definitely the hardest for me because of it.
Oh, and the grid-spanning TIME AND TIME AGAIN is lovely and ties the whole theme together perfectly, great find. The entry does mean that the puzzle is oversize at 16×15 squares. This explains why I felt like I was moving pretty fast today, but ended up with close to average time.
Five theme answers today means a fair amount of fill constraints, but overall the fill is pretty good. “The Holdovers” was one of my favorite movies of last year, so I loved seeing Paul GIAMATTI referenced for that. CASHMERE is nice as its symmetric partner too. There were a few more pieces of crosswordese than I like to see on Monday (ATRAS is the biggest one, LIRA/OBIE/IONA also fit), but nothing *too* outrageous. My favorite clue was [Like the slang “totally tubular” and “da bomb”] for DATED, and I didn’t know the trivia of [Boxer who lit the cauldron at the 1996 Olympics] for ALI so that was cool to learn.
Happy Monday all!
Ilana Levene’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 10/7/24 by Ilana Levene
Looks like we have a debut today. Congratulations to the constructor!
This puzzle practically solved itself, such that I sort of noticed the theme while I was doing it, but didn’t need to refer to it at all. The revealer at 55A [Metaphor for constant, unpredictable change, or the pattern made by this puzzle’s circles] is SHIFTING SANDS, and in the grid that means that the circled letters, which spell SAND each time, form an undulating pattern of sorts.
- 20A [Chicago’s Italian beef, for one] is a STEAK SANDWICH.
- 34A [Pronouns on a towel set, in some families] is HIS AND HERS, with SAND crossing HIS AND. Do people have HIS AND HERS (or HIS AND HIS, HERS AND THEIRS), etc. towel sets any more? I’m asking.
- 41A [La Jolla sch. with a top-ranked surf team] is UC SAN DIEGO.
The grid was easy to fill, with fine but unremarkable longer nonthemers like OUTGREW, INCLINED, and ASSESSORS. (I’m not so sure I love ICE HOTELS as a plural.) Lots of 4s and 5s contributed to the ease. All in all, a nice easy-breezy debut!
Freddie Cheng’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Take a Trip”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are phrases that feature the letters in the word MIND, which get farther apart in each successive entry. The revealer is “MIND. BLOWN.” (63a, [“Wow, that’s unbelievable!” and a clue to the circled letters]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Take a Trip” · Freddie Cheng · Mon., 10.7.24
- 16a. [2007 Paula Cole song]
COMIN‘ DOWN. - 27a. [Collection by Pindar celebrating victories at the Panhellenic Games]
OLYMPIAN ODES. - 46a. [Neil Gaiman novel adapted as a Starz series]
AMERICAN GODS.
Whew. I wasn’t expecting that on a Monday. Never heard the song by Paula Cole which doesn’t look like it made too many waves, nor the Pindar work. AMERICAN GODS was easy for me, but I bet it wasn’t for a lot of solvers. Based on the difficulty of the theme answers alone, this seems like it should’ve run later in the week. I did enjoy the revealer, though.
I also enjoyed some of those lovely long Down entries: GO INTO OVERDRIVE, FINE MOTOR SKILLS, and TAKE HEART. I did end with an error though when I put in I LOST instead of I LOSE. I like that I LOSE matches I WIN in the present tense, but who says “I LOSE” instead of “I lost”?
Clue of note: 59d. [Kiss, in Kensington]. SNOG. Well, it’s more than just a kiss, it’s what we’d call “making out.”
Three stars.
Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap
New Yorker crossword solution 10/7/24 – Berry
Smooth puzzle, not as tough as I was expecting.
Fave fill: ART LESSON, BLOWDARTS, POP TOP, HALL OF MIRRORS, KANGAROO COURT, BARGAIN BRANDS, ROOT CANAL (obligatory reminder: while root canal treatment, aka endodontic treatment, isn’t pleasant, it’s not the painful thing it’s made out to be. It’s the inflamed, infected root causing tooth pain that hurts! The treatment gets rid of that pain), KALAHARI Desert.
New to me but inferrable: 13d. [Spacecraft window], VIEWPORT.
Word that has worn out its welcome: 14d. [Features of aviator hats], EARLAPS. I’ll bet 99.9% of people call them earflaps. Indeed, the Merriam-Webster page for earlap refers to user to the earflap definition. We’ve been using earflaps since the 1800s, while earlap is much older: Middle English erelappe, from Old English ēarlæppa, from ēar– (from ēare ear) + læppa lap.
Four stars from me.
Paul Coulter’s Universal crossword, “Music to My Ears” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 10/7/24 • Mon • “Music to My Ears” • Coulter • solution • 20241007
The theme is musical genres. The original phrases involve homophones (“to my ears” of the title) of said genres, which have supplanted the former.
- 20a. [“Heavy” music played at the opening ceremonies of biennial games?] OLYMPIC METAL (medal).
- 28a. [Church roof features where loudspeakers blast hymns to an overflow crowd?] CHORAL GABLES (Coral). Quite the extended clue.
- 45a. [Reality show where tribes must perform Aretha Franklin music] SOUL SURVIVOR (sole).
- 55a. [Hip-hop producer’s words after a successful recording?] AND THAT’S A RAP (wrap).
This seems like a lucrative theme conceit, easily expandable to a large 21×21 grid. Feels a little bereft here?
- 13d [Hog’s home] STY. “home”, hmph.
- 26d [Orchestra’s pace] TEMPO. Unrelated to the theme.
- 32d [Betelgeuse’s constellation] ORION. In the news recently: “Betelgeuse has a tiny companion star hidden in plain sight“. Further, Betelgeuse has been noteworthy in recent years because it’s expected to go supernova soonish.
- 47d [Sch. near Minnesota’s western border] UND. The University of North Dakota, I expect. Can’t recall seeing this as a crossword entry previously.
- 58d [Jazz instrument, briefly] SAX. Also unrelated to the theme.
- 18a [Pirate Lafitte] JEAN.
- 42a [Name that sounds like a car] OTTO. More homophones.
- 67a [Midwestern ice cream brand] EDY’S. Also Eastern US.
TNY: Challenging? Not very. Nice puzzle, as would be expected from Berry, but I didn’t come across anything that slowed me down much.
I struggled a bit in the NW. I understood the context of the clue for 1-A, but made a wrong guess there. You could count the number of movie directors I recognize on 10 fingers, so another wrong guess (Hitchcock) at 15-A. The “teen drama” at 23-A took a long time to come to me, even after I had the last two letters.
Even with that, it seemed a little less than “challenging.”
But also a very enjoyable solve.
Under 10 minutes for me, which is considerably less than a Monday New Yorker from before they revamped their schedule typically took.
I was slowed down by blanking on CALGARY (there are not that many Canadian cities that could have hosted the Winter Olympics), mistyping ORANGE, not trusting VANNA because of the RS____ . . . In short, the usual things that keep me from zooming through as if it were a Monday puzzle almost anywhere else.
The stair- stepped stack in the center has some nice answers, but there’s a sameiness to the clueing. That said, HALL OF MIRRORS was the only one of the three that I got instantly, and the clue for KANGAROO COURT is pretty good.
I’m pretty much convinced that Patrick Berry is incapable of making a bad puzzle.
The NW made it hard to get a foothold, and it almost defeated me at the end. I had a tough time in the SW as well, what with three geography facts, the A in a familiar record label, a bit of Marvel lore, and the mathematician. None of the central stack was anywhere near a gimme. Still, I know others here are more on TNY wavelength, and still a typically interesting Berry challenge.
I do think of a TROPE as a figure of speech or rhetorical device, a bromide as a platitude. And other sciences have laws, too. I worked with a chemist who wrote a book called The Second Law.
I had the same hesitation about TROPE.
ALPERT was a gimme. I love Herb Alpert’s music, and just read an article last week in the NYT about the recent release of his 50th album – the guy’s only 89 years old! The article reminded me that he’s the “A” in A&M Records (along with Jerry Moss).
Interesting.
I liked the puzzle overall and didn’t get slowed down too much … but I did a double take when I saw ALI was clued as the toxic Islamophobic bigot Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ugh.
Hmm…according to Wikipedia, Ali has done great things in her life. Why would you call her a “toxic Islamophobic bigot”? (Maybe you know some things that Wiki doesn’t?)
Where to start?
She has publicly advocated for the abolition of Islamic schools, stating “Everyone says we allow Christian and Jewish schools but they are different.”
She once gave an interview in Reason magazine where she said “we are at war with Islam” and that if Islam is not completely defeated in all of its forms, “then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.” She also said in a separate interview that “violence is inherent in Islam” and that “it’s a destructive, nihilistic cult of death.”
Anders Breivik, the right-wing neo-Nazi terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, cited Ali as an inspiration in his manifesto which called for the mass deportation of Muslims from Europe. Ali, for her part, said that Breivik’s views were being “censored” and that “he had no other choice but to use violence.”
I’m calling Ayaan Hirsi Ali a toxic Islamophobic bigot because she is, in fact, a toxic Islamophobic bigot.
TY for the reply, Evan. But I can understand Ali’s hatred for the Islamic religion, seeing as she was genitally mutilated when she was young, and has since converted to Christianity.
NYT: Is “da bomb” really dated, though?
Hmm… An excellent question (for sidetracking). “There’s no need to fear; ngram viewer is here!”
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=da+bomb%2Ctotally+tubular
Huh. Maybe you’re right, based on modern/continued frequency there. Words we “remember” might correlate to words somebody still uses, too. What examples work better for DATED? ice box? rumble seat? bathinette? aquadrome? brilliantine? t top? There’s a fine line between “sounding oldish” and “I have no idea what this could be referencing…” :-P
I know my examples don’t focus on “slang” there, but you could think of clearly DATED things, ideas, concepts – whatever.
Also, I thought the NYT clue was just fine! (Just interesting to sidetrack, regardless.)
FWIW – The theme in NYT’s Monday “Strands” game had the same/cutesy “DATED” vibe. (To me. i.e., lotsa dorky/dated lingo?) [Yes, I’ll shut up now…]
BEQ: The top half was much harder than the bottom. I didn’t know CLAUDE. McKay, GERAINT (as clued), ARAL SEA (as clued), Alan ALDRIDGE (though I can picture the Elton John album cover) or NENE LEAKES.
DESIRE PATH is new to me. I’d always heard such unofficial routes called “social trails.”
I was tempted to check some of my answers, but ultimately didn’t need to.
WST–It would be difficult to find any more obscure clues, particularly for a Monday. (1)
Seemed like a fine puzzle to me, but not Monday level.
Pindar and Ibsen to Paula Cole and Miley Cyrus. Something for almost everyone.