Heads-up to fans of tough variety crosswords: Andrew Ries has a new collection of eight “Section Eight” puzzles. $8 for 8 puzzles, or $10 for 10. Details here. If you subscribe to Joon Pahk’s Outside the Box puzzle service, you got a taste of this challenge earlier this month with a guest puzzle by Andrew. A dollar per puzzle for a Section Eight that will take you considerably longer than, say, a Sunday-sized crossword, making you work to suss out where the answers fit into the rings. Enjoy!
Peter Collins’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 10/26/24 – no. 1026
Shout-out to the central spanner, ORGAN TRANSPLANT. The organ in question was a kidney, transplanted from one twin to his brother. Transplant science has come a long way in the decades since! Also nice to see: Big MAMA Thornton, IDENTITY THIEVES (strictly as a crossword entry, of course), the STANLEY CUP, SELF-PITY, and RAVISHING.
Not so keen on SUN LOUNGE, MINK STOLES, LAWN TOOL, UNENTERED. I’m feeling some arbitrariness in their midst. And ACNED is unappealing as words go.
Actress VIBEs with Joan CUSACK, Judith IVEY, MERYL Streep, and Laura INNES. LOOS and RHEA could also have been clued via actors) but “I hate trivia” folks would have complained.
A gimme: 48d. [Chicago’s ___ Center, formerly known as the Amoco Building], AON. Real ones still think of it as the Standard Oil Building, of course. It was hilarious when they had to replace the entire marble cladding on this 83-story building because it had been a poor choice to use thin sheets of Carrara marble.
Adam Aaronson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 10/26/24 by Adam Aaronson
I really liked this puzzle! There were some fresh, new-to-me entries, and some very clever cluing of ones I’ve seen before. Highlights and only a couple of lows:
- 15A [Speaker of the house?] is AMAZON ECHO. Haaaahahahahhaa! I knew I was going to like this solve a lot when I dropped this entry in.
- 18A [Quantity of strontium in an award-winning 2018 photograph] is ATOM. I completely missed this clue when solving, but it’s a super interesting way to clue an otherwise throwaway entry.
- 19A [Professor’s domain] is EDU. Again, this is an entry that’s normally a throwaway, but that little bit of deviousness makes the clue special.
- 36A [Stallone role] is RAMBO, but could very easily be ROCKY if you get in via the first letter, which I did. (I knew better than to fill anything in until I had another crossing!)
- The bottom right stack of 10s was my one “meh” area of the puzzle. IMO the clue [Made a solo arrangement?] couldn’t save LIVED ALONE from being a somewhat boring entry, and I think every crossword editor saw DESIRE PATH from a different constructor at the same time and thought, “That’s a sparkly entry!” I think I’ve filled it in three or four times in the last month and could deal with not seeing it again for a while. APPLETINIS and its singular also feel like they go in that “lively the first time, becoming overused” category.
- The NW corner with the J and a bunch of Zs between JAZZ FUSION at 1A and the crossing ZAZU and ZZZ is a flex! (A good flex!)
- 13D [Energy consumption unit?] is a PROTEIN BAR, which is both an entry I don’t feel like I’ve filled in a million times, and also a great clue.
- 25D [Fast-fashion giant based in Singapore] is SHEIN. Given the ubiquitousness of clothes from SHEIN these days, I think it should be in the rotation of 5-letter entries in puzzles, and I’m glad to see it here.
- 27D [Crudely drawn cartoons expressing frustration] is RAGE COMICS. This phrase is new to me. Color me interested!
- 39D [Likely ticket holder?] is SPEEDER. Here’s another great clue I completely missed while solving.
Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal, “Back to Nature” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 10/26/24 • Sat • “Back to Nature” • Larson • solution • 20241026
Theme is phrases where in the original versions the second part is a homophone of an animal, and the animal’s name is used instead.
- 21a. [Fast-running mammal raised out of the elements?] INGROWN HARE (hair). Novel—and weird—interpretation of ‘ingrown’.
- 23a. [Unsteady amphibian?] TIPPY TOAD (toed).
- 49a. [Grizzly mentioned in an online forum?] THREAD BEAR (-bare).
- 81a. [Bitter mollusk?] SORE MUSSEL (muscle).
- 110a. [Fish in a play?] ACTING KOI (coy).
- 113a. [Flat mate?] KINDRED SOLE (soul).
- 32d. [Antlered animal dressed to the nines?] STYLING MOOSE (mousse).
- 37d. [Pet for a computer technician?] CRASHING BOAR (bore). “Pet”?
These are … mildly entertaining? Might be my mood this morning.
- 1d [Creature sacred to Thoth] IBIS. Not part of the theme. Nor is 56a [Jellied dish] EELS.
- 17d [Tackle’s neighbor] END. Football.
- 30d [You hold them in your arms] ULNAS. “Hold” is a little sketchy, but sure.
- 51d [Bronco halter] BRAKE. The vehicle, not the horse.
- 71d [Bee relative] WASP. They both belong to the Hymenopteran suborder Apocrita, along with 103d ANTS [Aardvark nibbles]. Neither are part of the theme.
- 79d [Shad product] HARD ROE, which is the same as roe. “Soft roe” is actually milt.
- 82d [Clear Chinese liquor] MAOTAI.
- 40a [Key inogredient in pie] LIME. “Key”.
- 54a [Circular stuffers] INSERTS. Think mail.
- 96a [Destination of a flight, perhaps] NEST. The rare time when I first think about stairs, I get double-faked.
- 98a [Voters’ problem] APATHY. Note the location of the apostrophe.
p.s. vote!
Lester Ruff’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 10/26/24 • Saturday Stumper • Ruff, Newman • solution • 20241026
This week’s ‘less rough’ offering was an unusual solve for me, in that I didn’t really conquer sections. Instead, the grid was gradually filled in all-over, kind of the way a slow-loading image dithers from low-resolution to high. A sort of crystallization process.
- 16a [Southern Living’s “#1 must-have plant”] AZALEA. Is that like an annual determination, or what?
- 17a [News of interest] RATE HIKE. Nice little double-entendre clue.
- 30a [Combination plate?] KEYPAD. For instance, on a security system terminal.
- 32a [Sherwood forest dwellers] OAK TREES. Tricky, with the ‘dwellers’ leading one to think of more animated inhabitants.
- 36a [Covered, as mysteries] JACKETED. Books. Stretchy clue.
- 46a [Cost] ARE. For such an open-ended clue/answer it’s best to just leave it to crossings.
- 50a [What a pointer points at] SCENT. Not exactly a tangible object.
- 63a [Frankfurt fruitcake] STOLLEN, not STRUDEL.
- 3d [Stitching tool with an eye] AWL. This would have been my first answered entry, but I wasn’t sure about it. As it turned out, it was one of the last filled in.
- 4d [Churchill’s “categorical inexactitude”] LIES. Was thrown off by the singular/plural discrepancy. Wikipedia seems to suggest that the phrase was terminological inexactitude, but perhaps it was something he repeated in various forms.
- 6d [Idly] FOR NO GOOD REASON. Nice SPANNER (19a [Brit’s wrench]), though I have the sense of encountering it several times before.
- 8d [Abdominal space-savers] LITES. “Abdominal”? Huh?
- 9d [Opposite of “question”] AVER. As a verb.
- 11d [Narrative excerpt] EPISODE, not PASSAGE.
- 20d [Emulatee introducer] À LA. Easily my least favorite clue in the puzzle.
- 23d [Exclamation coined for Buck Rogers] ZAP. Nifty bit of trivia.
- 35d [Not expected to take the lead] REACTIVE. Nice clue, not what I would have expected.
- 39d [Decisive things in rings] KOS. 59a [Thing in a ring] NAPKIN.
- 44d [Frankincense and myrrh] RESINS. Synchronicity! RESIN appears in both the NYT and WSJ crosswords today.
- 51d [Ephesians’ place in the New Testament] TENTH. Didn’t understand this during the solve, but I’m now thinking that it’s simply the TENTH book therein?
- 54d [“For __” (Contact dedication)] CARL Sagan, who I assume died while the film adaptation of his novel was in production.
- 55d [Fabric favored by Pepys] LACE. It’s been a very long time since I read his published diaries, and I certainly don’t recall that.
NYT: “LOOS and RHEA could also have been clued via actors . . . .”
RHEA could obviously have been RHEA Perlman. But until now, I didn’t realize that Anita LOOS had an acting career. I’ve always thought of her as a writer.
Wikipedia lists a few other LOOSes who were actors, but none meet my criteria for inclusion in a mainstream media crossword.
I guess roles in four movies can be called a career.
And RHEA Seehorn, who was excellent in “Better Call Saul.”
Duh! We loved that show!
LOOS as toilets have appeared in the singular often enough that I’ve learned to wait to see whether to enter LAV instead. And I’m delighted with Rhea as a bird rather than a name someone might like. Overall, a hard puzzle but worth it.
Today’s WSJ variety puzzle by Patrick Berry is a thing of beauty! What a masterwork.
Thank you for pointing this out. It was indeed a lot of fun to solve.
Thanks. I haven’t had time to get started. His, which don’t make placement at all easy, are always tough.
Wow, I got it but with serious rough spots along the way. I didn’t know OWN, although we’ve seen plenty of Oprah, and had “gesture” rather than POSTURE for silent element in oratory crossing her. I also went a while without THE ROPES, wondering if the H and R were going to lead t something beginning “hire.”
Didn’t help that the instructions puzzled me because, in print from pdf, the only visible shading is for the long, narrow unused horizontals. After a glance at a new pdf, I only made things worse by shading all the exterior “squares” rather than every other one. But fascinating in its way.
Yes! A delightfully tricky treat for Halloween. Just have an eraser handy…
I worked it in pen! But I did need some scratch space in the margins (for test-writing words in reverse).
Thanks for mentioning it. I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. It was quite a challenge and an impressive bit of puzzle-making.
I got two-thirds done yesterday, marking up a screenshot on my iPad. But all my markings got lost somehow, so today, I printed it out (which I should’ve done in the first place).
Probably my biggest mistake was sticking for too long with A19 [Squealed (on)] RATTED. My husband was an art major, so I knew the [Artist’s paint-mixing tool] wanted to be PALETTE KNIFE, but I couldn’t get the end of it until I realized that RATTED ought to be FINKED.
I showed the completed puzzle to my husband and he asked if I’d read this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2024/10/27/frankie-valli-lip-syncing-interview/
NYT was a tad faster than yesterday for me. I had LAW… at the beginning of the answer for “Spade, for one,” and assumed the clue was referencing Sam Spade, but that puzzlement was easy to resolve. I don’t think of a spade as a lawn tool, though. I use mine on almost anything but the lawn.
+1. Totally convinced about Sam Spade.
Yup … ‘garden TOOL’ seems much more appropriate for a spade
NYT: Well, no Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993, but it definitely has crossed the border. It travels for playoff games in which it might be won. So, it definitely crossed the border last year during the finals between the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers. It was in Edmonton for game 6 and Florida for game 7.
While that clue may be true in a metaphorical sense, the fact that it is literally false made it seem kinda snarky to me. The cup is controlled by the NHL and spends much of its time on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
“…winning teams currently get the Stanley Cup during the summer and a limited number of days during the season” per Wikipedia. So it actually travels back and forth across the border with some regularity.
And I also forgot that each individual player gets a day with it too. Even more cross-border travel.
Stumper: As usual, I agree with pannonica. Did not like clues for 46A and 8D. By the way, a small error, 51A Ephesians is 51D — and, yes, it’s tenth in the listing: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians….
I still, like pannonica, don’t understand the 8D clue. Is that because it eliminates the need for the GH in the answer?
Lite beer and other “lite” versions of foods have less calories and therefore keep the abdomen from expanding. Or “less filling” will work, as in “Miller Lite: Tastes Great, Less Filling.”
51a -> 51d fixed, thanks!
You’re welcome!
Stumper re LITES: The only thing I can think of is lite food, for your stomach. But if that’s the case, the clue is opposite what it’s trying to say. Lite food doesn’t save space in your stomach. The point of lite food is that you can eat more of it without it having as many calories. So its purpose is to take up more stomach space, not less.
I think the idea is that such foods are supposed to be less fattening.