August Miller’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 10/19/24 – no. 1019
Markedly harder than usual, or just me having an off evening?
Favorite clue, in retrospect: 1a. [Lab evidence, perhaps], PAW PRINTS. Labrador retriever, not laboratory. Yes, it fooled me.
Fave fill: Hollywood’s PRE-CODE ERA, SWEETIE, PBS KIDS (programming block, not the block of a street), PEABODY Awards, GETAWAY CAR, PBS star RICK STEVES, “THAT’S NEAT,” BUS DRIVERS (mildly tricky clue, [They may open doors for you]), IPAD MINI, kid-lit’s ADA TWIST (hey, she’s useful for ADA clue variety when you’ve used Lovelace or the American Dental Association, or the Americans with Disabilities Act recently), MACBETH, PICTIONARY. Didn’t realize that about-face was also a verb so ABOUT-FACED surprised me.
I feel like there’s a wrong nuance, a misplaced focus, in the clue for CLASS ACTS. [Impressively respectful types] wants to have respectable instead of respectful, if you ask me. The class act doesn’t need to be overly deferential. Respect is accorded to them, not just from them.
3.75 stars from me.
NYT: My slowest NYT Saturday since the end of August. When I started, I failed to see the clue for PRE-CODE ERA (a gimme), so I moved over to the NE. The combo of MAPS, MACBETH and THANE made me think I would breeze through this. Such hubris! Despite having spent almost 30 years working for STATE REPS, I interpreted the “local” as “municipal” and had a hard time finishing the NE corner.
The SW corner was little better. I learned the term AAVE from a New Yorker puzzle about a year or more back. I plugged it in quickly, but took it out when the V seemed to make the crosses unworkable. Then I misinterpreted the “Indie” of 55A as “india.arie,” a singer whose music I don’t know and whose exact name I can never remember.
I know the difference between AUGUR and AUGeR, so it’s a mystery why I chose the wrong word. But that made it hard to see the cleverly clued URANIUM ORE.
I thought the URANIUM ORE clue was a bit too clever, in the Stumper style. Uranium ore is processed into yellowcake at a uranium mill. The yellowcake is converted into uranium hexafluoride at another facility, and then enriched by centrifuge, “reconverted” into uranium dioxide, pelletized and assembled into fuel rods. None of these steps happen in a nuclear power plant, which I presume the clue is alluding to. Fuel rods are the plant matter.
But I didn’t comment on it, because Saturday.