Benjamin McAvoy-Bickford’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Just Chilling”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are idiomatic phrases regarding the relative temperature of something. The phrases go from hot to cold as the solver goes down the grid, as hinted at by the title.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Just Chilling” · Benjamin McAvoy-Bickford · Wed., 10.16.24
- 17a. [At least 2600 degrees Fahrenheit] HOT AS BLUE BLAZES. Why that temperature? I’m guessing that’s when a flame turns blue.
- 26a. [160 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take] WARM AS TOAST.
- 41a. [40 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly] COOL AS A CUCUMBER.
- 50a. [Below 32 degrees Fahrenheit] COLD AS ICE.
Fun theme, and I’m impressed with the two grid spanners. I’ll admit to never having heard WARM AS TOAST, but a quick online search shows that it checks out. This grid needed a little bit of serendipity in that each phrase has an odd-number of letters in it, thereby allowing our constructor to employ left-right symmetry as the next best option to the usual rotational symmetry. But overall, it’s a lovely execution of a nice theme.
Fill highlights: MODEL UN, LAB COAT, “YES IT IS“, and YAZOO [It flows into the Mississippi at Vicksburg]. Even though this last one takes me back to when I lived in Mississippi, you can’t not like the name YAZOO.
Clues of note:
- 37a. [“For real?!”]. OMG. I see this clue is trying to tie in with the next clue [“For real?!” response] (“YES IT IS”), but it doesn’t quite work. OMG isn’t usually posed as a question.
- 10d. [Ego booster?]. ANALYST. Eh? Not sure about this one. Maybe it’s using ANALYST as a shortened form of psychoanalyst?
- 31d. [What all politics is, reportedly]. LOCAL. So get out there and VOTE!!!
- 61d. [Industry embodiment]. ANT. There seemed to be lot of Thursdayish cluing today, with this one being just an example. The answer isn’t readily apparent, but give it a little thought and you’ll likely hit upon it.
Nice grid. 3.5 stars.
Hanh Nuynh’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 10/16/24 – no. 1016
Cute theme. (I say again: “cute” is praise, not an insult.”) BEGINNER SPANISH (which I might prefer to be beginning Spanish) is the [Introductory foreign language class suggested by this puzzle’s theme], and the four themers are words that can be fractured into a basic Spanish word followed by an English word.
- 17a. [Three tickets] clues TRES PASSES, because three is tres and, in English, passes are tickets to an event. TRESPASSES, of course, is also a word.
- 26a. [With money], CON TENDER. Con = with, legal tender.
- 51a. [More revered], MAS SACRED.
- 60a. [Crazy reason], LOCO MOTIVE.
Today I learned: SEVEN is the [Number of blessings at a Jewish wedding].
Not so sure about: 50d. [What to do before a marathon, perhaps], REST UP. How do you define resting up? Last Saturday, my husband did go to bed early, but he also did a “shakeout run” of a mere three miles the day before the marathon. There was also a lot of eating.
Fave fill: ATHENA, Dolly PARTON, “ANYHOO.”
Four stars from me.
NYT: I enjoyed the solve. But I have a few nits.
To clue AMEND as “Revise” isn’t wrong, but it contains no hint that AMEND means to improve — so it would appear that this word and “emend” are considered interchangeable.
Nobody ever uses BEGINNER [language]. They *might* say BEGINNER’s [language].
And the meanings of words matter! Personally, I don’t want to encounter words like MASSACRED (no matter how cute the multilingual pun) or RICIN when I am trying to forget about the troubled world and just do a !@#$%^ crossword puzzle.
Amy would prefer “beginning Spanish.” It’s hard to disagree with such a reasonable opinion. OTOH, “Nobody ever uses …” has the disadvantage of begging for rebuttal.