Spencer Leach’s New York Times crossword No. 1101 —Eric’s review
NYT Solution 11-1-24
I found this to be a fairly typical NYT Friday, pretty easy throughout with a playful sensibility.
Fun clue and answer pairs:
- 13A [Where opposites don’t attract?] LESBIAN BAR
- 41A [November handout] I VOTED STICKER (If you’re eligible, vote! And not just to get the sticker, even if it’s as cool as the one I got):
- 54A [“I” lift?] EGO BOOSTER
- 1D [Dated a while back?] OLDE (I haven’t seen this clue before; it’s a nice change from the ones with “shoppe.”)
- 6D [In which computer chips are used?] ONLINE POKER (I kind of want a subject for this clause, maybe “Venue”?)
- 10D [Line from an unhappy diner] SEND IT BACK (Sometimes you just have to do this, but if you do, please be polite and don’t take it out on the server.)
One cute clue that I didn’t understand until afterward: 25A [Golden retriever who ends up with a chocolate lab?] CHARLIE BUCKET Roald Dahl’s books were not part of my childhood, and I didn’t know the last name of the protagonist of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
The middle of the grid was a bit stickier for me because of the aforementioned CHARLIE BUCKET; my never having eaten edamame (30A; I had PEAS before PODS); and my inexplicable failure to read the net in [Net alternative] (35A) as a generic top-level domain. Toss in ZILLIONS instead of JILLIONS at 24A, and I had a hard time seeing 24D [Bench coverings] JUDGES’ ROBES.
Renee Thomason and Katie Hale’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 11/1/24 • Fri • Thomason, Hale • solution • 20241101
Finished this one without processing the theme. Let’s take a look now.
- 58aR [Give clear directions, or how to make the starred clues match their answers?] SHOW THE WAY.
- 18a. [*Pop-up shop on the edge of the road?] SIDE HUSTLE. Hm. SIDE = “edge of the road”, but I can’t decode the rest.
- 23a. [*Underground market for home goods?] FAIR TRADE. Uh-oh. I see a loose connection, but not getting it. What’s the revealer again? SHOW THE WAY. No, not helping …
- 35a. [*Butcher’s knife that’s very hard to handle?] WARD CLEAVER. Okay, CLEAVER is very clearly a “butcher’s knife”. ‘Very hard to handle’ could be awkWARD, but I’m not seeing how show the way informs this. Does it have anything to do with 49d [Nervously clumsy] GAWKY?
- 50a. [*Snuck up on a chicken coop to collect breakfast?] LAID AN EGG. Aha! A last-minute reprieve: that obviously needs to be waylaid, so we needed wayward, Wayfair, and wayside in the other entries.
I feel fortunate to have finally figured it out.
- 1d [In need of a Mr. Yuk sticker] UNSAFE. Going to have to look that up. Here we are.
- 2d [Instrument also known as a chau gong] TAM-TAM.
- 9d [Mae’s sister on “Star Wars: The Acolyte”] OSHA. Different framing. Perhaps because it’s right next to 19d [MyPlate org.] USDA?
- 35d [“Let’s check the map”] WE’RE LOST. Hard to get to without a few crossing letters in place.
- 43d [Wasp, for one] PEST. Okay, but they’re also pollinators and predators, among other things.
- 1a [State that’s easy to draw] UTAH. In fact, the crossword’s grid contains two five-square blocks that echo its shape.
- 16a [Princess athlete in the 1976 Summer Olympics] ANNE. For equestrian competition, natch.
- 64a [Supersmall] ITTY. 3d [Infinitesimal] ATOMIC. –”Is it atomic?” –”Yessir, VERY atomic!”
Aidan Deshong’s Universal crossword, “Skipping School”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar words and phrases that include the letters in the names of well-known American universities. Mentally remove those letters from the entry to satisfy the clue. The revealer is COLLEGE DROPOUTS (37a, [Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, for two … or a hint to which letters you should ignore in the starred clues’ answers]).
Universal crossword solution · “Skipping School” · Aidan Deshong · Fri., 11.1.24
- 17a. [*Microwave button] STAY ALERT. Remove YALE to get START.
- 26a. [*Worn out] BEATRICE. Take out RICE and you have BEAT.
- 52a. [*Aardvark’s snacks] PENNANTS. Lose the PENN and your left with ANTS.
- 62a. [*Change for a ten] FREEDIVES. Drop REED and you have FIVES.
Good theme. I especially like the synchronicity between revealer and title. As for the entries themselves, I’m partial to the ones where the school is fully embedded within the entry making it just that much more difficult to suss out.
Strong long fill in all four corners today: DIAGONAL, ALIENATES, UNSOLVED, and especially “WHO ARE YOU?” I like “I’LL SEE” but don’t people usually say “we’ll see” even if they’re just talking about themselves?
Clues of note:
- 21a. [Piece de resistance?]. OHM. Very cute. I like it.
- 10d. [“Have we met?”]. “WHO ARE YOU?” These don’t feel quite equivalent to me, but I suppose there are instances where they can be interchanged. The clue phrase feels far more polite, however.
Nice puzzle. 3.5 stars.
NYT: I appreciate seeing Eric’s review, saying he didn’t know CHARLIE’s last name and that slowed down the middle. It’s exactly my experience, but I enjoyed the puzzle, and managed to solve it in spite of this major gap in my knowledge.
The cluing for SEND IT BACK seemed a little off to me. If it’s a “line” to a server, you wouldn’t say “Send it back” but “Take it back”. No?
It would be nice to get a STICKER if you use an absentee ballot. I’d have been sporting one for weeks now.
I got BUCKET from the crosses, before realizing it was CHARLIE. And my county does send I VOTED STICKERS out with their mail in ballots.
When I saw LESBIAN BAR, it makes me think of this Simpsons bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgP_c3ndM0w
I’m not a Simpsons watcher so what came to my mind was the fabulous Jonathan Richman song.
Thank for that link, David. I thought of Richman’s song, too, and wanted to include a link with my review.
But I’m still trying to get to the point where I can post a review without some coding error that messes up the whole page of reviews. So I decided to skip the video this time.
Nice… new to me, but I like
Jonathan Richman is fantastic. He gets away with goofy songs that no one else could pull off.
I tend to stop following artists when I don’t hear them on the radio or whatever (not that Richman got much air play even on the non-commercial stations that I used to listen to). So I don’t know much about his work in the last few years. But I know he’s still touring.
My Maryland absentee voting packet included an ‘I Voted’ sticker.
NYT: Just the right level of difficulty for a Friday, for me… with a plus of added humor/tricksiness. I think they purposely left off “venue” on the poker clue, to try to make you (ME) get thinking of computer innards… one of the trickies. I made the same mistake of Zillions for Jillions. Liked the “opposites don’t attract” and “dated a while back” clues, for freshness and humor.
I enjoyed being taken back to Willie Wonka (sorry, that’s dated but where I know Charlie from and anything with Gene Wilder is worth remembering) but couldn’t immediately come up with the first two letters of his last name… LOL @ me.
I might say to my dinner partner, if they’re dissatisfied, “send it back”. I never do it myself, I just vow never to eat there again… I even leave a decent tip, knowing it isn’t the server’s fault.
I want your “I voted” sticker!! The one we got was just plain, and we live in a lovely area that should give scenics like yours, Eric!
Two things I should clarify:
My I VOTED sticker was something you had to print yourself. We have a color printer, but no label stock to feed in it. It’s also pretty big (close to 2”), so it wouldn’t fit well on my bike helmet, which is where I usually put those stickers. So it exists only as a bunch of pixels.
I don’t send food back to the kitchen lightly. But something like an entree with twice as much salt as it needs, or broccoli that’s been steamed to death — sorry, they can do better. (And in my experience, they have done better the second time.)
Ok, I’ll forgive my local election board. That one you show sure is pretty😊
Set a new Friday personal best on the NYT today, was a fun solve!
I was also in the ZILLION camp, and was in the middle of asking myself “Is there some other proper name for a Judge’s Robe that starts with Z?” when the lightbulb went off.
NYT: The CHARLIE BUCKETS clue is in contention for a Best Clue Orca imo. Maybe I’m biased though because it name drops two of my favorite dog breeds!
I agree it was great! I spent too much time trying to fit some kind of “..doodle” breed at the end.
My thoughts exactly. I have to imagine the clue came before the puzzle, that CHARLIEBUCKET was a seed entry if only to showcase to the world this amazing clue. I love it!
LAT: Thanks for the write-up, pannonica! I couldn’t figure out the theme at all, glad I’m not alone in finding it a little difficult. Still wondering about yesterday’s LAT, I posted a question in the comments but there was no write-up.
Regarding Thursday’s LAT, are you referring to your question about [Full of beans] ALL WET? I think those idioms are equivalent. One of the definitions of beans at Merriam-Webster is “NONSENSE, BUNKUM —used in the phrase full of beans.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beans
Yeah, I’m much more familiar with definition 4a: energetic rather than 4b: nonsense.
There is a would-be commenter who goes by Alvin. Hey, buddy! I hope your life perks up, because trying to post comments personally attacking people you’ve never met? It tells us way more about you than about us.