Blake Slonecker’s New York Times crossword #1102—Eric’s review
NYT Solution 11-2-24
If you were hoping for a challenging Saturday puzzle after a fun but easy Friday, I hope you weren’t disappointed. This one definitely fell on the easy end of the scale, despite my taking a bunch of false steps along the way.
There are six grid-spanning answers, all of them pretty nice in different ways:
- 17A [Sub’s reference] CLASSROOM ROSTER
- 32A [They’re not afraid to take charge] FEARLESS LEADERS
- 48A [Spin right round] ROTATE CLOCKWISE
- 3D [Andrés Segovia won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for it] CLASSICAL GUITAR
- 8D [Kitchen flippers] SLOTTED SPATULAS
- 12D [Juicy stuff] INTIMATE DETAILS
ROTATE CLOCKWISE is the only one of those answers to have been in a previous NYT crossword. With two other NYT debut answers (35A [Media-based learning sites, informally] AV LABS and 7D [P, B, D, T, K and G] PLOSIVES), the grid felt very fresh.
I put in CLASSICAL GUITAR almost immediately, but then wondered if it was really that simple. But then I realized that 1A [Early electric lights] could be CARBON ARCS (I’d earlier tried ARC LIGHTS, which obviously didn’t fit).
Until I had a few crosses for PLOSIVES, I thought the letters in the clue were atomic symbols. And I blanked for a few minutes on the word SPATULA (and now I’m blanking on the new-to-me word I encountered a few days ago that means the inability to remember a word or name).
Joel Fagliano and his team made it a bit easy with 45A [Record company behind (and inside) Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play”] EMI. (Isn’t a three-letter British record label always EMI, at least in a crossword?
There’s a nice bit of misdirection with 28D [Certain Thanksgiving dish] BOAT. (Admit it: You wanted YAMS or CORN or something similar, right?)
Evan Mulvihill’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 11/2/24 by Evan Mulvihill
I don’t have a ton of time to write this one up, so I’ll say that my favorite section was the sorta-stack in the center of ROOKIE MISTAKES, BOSTON POPS, and TECH STARTUPS. A few more points of interest:
- 27A [Finale of “The Sopranos,” maybe] is MOB HIT. My husband and I recently finished watching the show for the first time (yes, I know, welcome to the early 2000s, Stella) and he firmly believes it wasn’t Tony getting shot, whereas I think he very much might have been.
- 3D [Place to enjoy krioyo cuisine] is CURACAO, but it’s easy to fill in CARACAS if you don’t know the origin of “krioyo,” even with several crossings in place. This adds a little difficulty in this section.
- 19D [Pre-wedding trials] is CAKE TASTINGS, and it’s also easy to think this is something MAKEUP-related if you have the AKE crossings. Ask me how I know.
- 50D [Residue used to make pan sauces] This meaning of FOND was totally new to me, even though I’ve been cooking for years.
Randolph Ross’ Wall Street Journal crossword, “Ooh La La” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 11/2/24 • Sat • “Ooh La La” • Ross • solution • 20241102
A phonetic change theme. This time around it’s the oʊ sound (as in goat) becoming an oo sound. The latter is called a close back rounded vowel and I don’t know the name for the former.
- 24a. [Dangerous mixture at an archery tournament?] BOOZE AND ARROWS (bows…).
- 34a. [What touches the deck of a ship?] CREW’S FEET (crow’s…).
- 54a. [The yacht owner’s spouse’s comment when the y8acht became a money pit?] RUE RUE RUE YOUR BOAT (row, row, row …).
- 70a. [What you might see in a smurf’s bath?] BLUE BUBBLES (blow …).
- 85a. [Result of a tar spill on the highway?] STOP AND GOO TRAFFIC (… go …).
- 103a. [Cyrano de Bergerac’s story, e.g.?] TALE OF WOO (… woe).
- 118a. [Does some bonding at midnight?] GLUES IN THE DARK (glows …).
- 3d. [Prince Charming’s rule?] THE SHOE MUST GO ON (… show …). Ed Sullivan unavailable for comment.
- 49d. [Doing somersaults on the lawn at dawn?] ROLLING IN THE DEW (… dough). “Rolling in the dough” versus “rolling in dough“?
Not positive but I feel this theme will work for most people regardless of dialect and regional pronunciations. We shall see, eh?
In terms of solving experience, the crossword felt to me like a bit of a slog, and it took me longer than a 21×21 grid typically does.
- 1d [Daughter of Muhammad] FATIMA. This past Tuesday’s New Yorker crossword also had this answer in the same location.
- 6d [Arriving soon] NEAR. 27a [Reaction to a long-awaited package delivery] IT’S HERE. (74d [Remote] FAR.)
- 33d [Fall colour] OCHRE. I missed the spelling hint in the clue and as a result waited for crossings to determine whether it might be OCHER.
- 37d [Mesh] AGREE. 1a [Adds to team chemistry] FITS IN.
- 47d [Put up] HOUSE as a verb. Not HOIST.
- 50d [Sonic output] FAST FOOD. Fooled me. I’ve never eaten at a Sonic establishment.
- 55d [Just make ends meet] EKE BY, crossing 60a [Reaction to a rodent] EEK.
- 72d [Grammarian’s concern] USAGE. 94d [Worthless] INUTILE. Whoa, that isn’t a word seen every day.
- 87d [Ref. that added “babyccino” in 2024] OED. I honestly don’t know if the word has to do with infants or coffee.
102d [Snack lover] NOSHER.- 23a [2005 John Banville novel that won the Booker Prize] THE SEA. One of my favorite authors.
- 44a [April 22 honoree] EARTH. Embarrassed to say how long it took me to get this one.
- 61a [Cape Cod town] TRURO. Wondering how well known this is generally. I’ve been to Cape Cod (although not in a long time) and have no memory of such a place name.
- 63a [Social group] CASTE. Oh that kind of social group.
- 80a [Math class calculations] AREAS. 9d [Math class calculations] SLOPES.
- 100a [Chances that you were born in a year ending with 4] ONE IN TEN. Odd clue, but at least it matches this year?
Brad Wilber’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 11/2/24 • Saturday Stumper • Wilber • solution • 20241102
First notable thing about my solve: there were rather a lot of instances where I filled in an entry only to remove it and then put it back in again—sometimes more than one iteration in the same place.
The other notable thing is that I completely solved the northwest section first. Not right away, mind you. Initially I got nowhere there, toured the rest of the grid, where I desultorily dropped in a few answers. But then somehow that upper right section just … fell.
Next was the lower right section, then the lower left, and finally the northeast. It’s safe to say that without adding the F to –ORMS in 12d [Felters’ gear] HAT FORMS I most likely would not have completed this crossword. With the F in place I was able to confirm that 13 down [Enemy of inflation] indeed preceded —LEAK with SLOW (= SLOW LEAK), which sealed 21a [Email letters] as FWD. With enough letters now in place, I was able to reinterpret 18a [Demi ex] not as some strange measurement but as a reference to Demi Moore’s onetime BEAU (9d) ASHTON Kutcher.
- 9a [CIA director under Ford] BUSH, SR. That –SR at the end threw me off more than once.
- 15a [First lady of the 1950s] EVA PERON. Once I eliminated Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower, I remembered how I’d more that once fallen for similar misdirection clues and confidently entered the correct answer.
- 20a [Seek retribution, maybe] SUE. One of those in-then-out-then-in-again entries I mentioned above.
- 30a [Recommendations from MotorHome magazine] KOAS. Had strong suspicions for what turned out to be the right answer, but held off. Once it was in, however, it proved crucial to populating the rest of the grid’s center.
33a [Spotted housecat] EGYPTIAN MAU. I’ve kind of been waiting for MAU to be more common in crosswords, but even so the full name here snuck up on me. I won’t deny that CALIFORNIA SPANGLED crossed my mind too.- 39a [59-Down target] PIRATE RADIO. 59d [TV monitor] FCC. A cross-reference pair that actually helped more than it was an inconvenience!
- 41a [Middle management protocol, for short] LIPO. Tricky clue. 63a [Aimed for new measurements] DIETED.
- 42a [Part of some ballet costumes] SATIN. One of my first grid forays was trying TIARA here.
- 53a [Emerson called him “the jingle man”] POE. That seems uncharacteristically jaunty. Perhaps it has a different contemporary connotation?
- 55a [“Ah-oooo-ga!” producer] KLAXON. Another one of those in-out-in entries. I mean, what else could fit that description? But it didn’t seem to work with crossings. Until it did.
- 57a [Piranha predator] CAIMAN. Another key entry, which I got from just the first A in the crossing 36d [Bloomberg’s Big Apple predecessor] the thoroughly disgraced Rudolph GIULIANI.
- 64a [Fantasia bathers] CENTAURS. Yet another of the in-out-ins. Between this and KLAXONS, I felt pretty strongly that 44d [Longhorns, to Aggies] had to be TEXAS U, even though that arrangement didn’t seem familiar (and my first thought was RIVALS).
- 7d [Weigh stations, for short] POS. Post offices? Letters and packages?
- 8d [Suffix like -ite] -ENE. This clue delayed my confidence in entering URBANITE at 37d [No provincial].
- 24d [Pitch at a high level?] SKYWRITE. Had to dismiss thoughts of echolocation and ultrasonics.
- 25d [Palatial home of Ottoman sultans] TOPKAPI. Thankfully I’m aware of the 1964 film with that title, even though I haven’t seen it.
- 34d [Manxman, e.g.] GAEL, not CELT or BRIT.
- 43d [Georgia state flower] AZALEA. Despite not knowing the answer from the clue’s framing, I eventually had enough crossings to make an educated guess. Having this entry was instrumental in finishing off that lower right corner.
- 45d [Pressing job] IRONER. Least favorite entry of the entire crossword.
- 56d [Kipling uses it eight times in “Recessional”] LEST. Okay, whatever.
- 60d [Ending meaning “aptitude”] -ILE. Tough. m-w.com says “tending to or capable of” and cites contractile as an example. I could only think of the two-letter -FU.
I put KLM in almost immediately without thinking, which made the SE harder than it should have been. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone abbreviate Korean Air (plus, I’m not certain there’s even a “Lines” in their official name — the website just says “Korean Air,” at least in English).
Otherwise great puzzle!
I agree about KAL, and I actually googled it after entering it to see if it makes sense. If you just enter KAL, you get all sorts of things (vitamins, software) but not airlines. But if you google Korean Air abbreviation, you do get KAL. So, it’s technically correct and has some face validity, but a little on the edge.
I struggled with a number of entries, didn’t love GRADERS as clued, but that’s all par for the course on a Saturday.
Those of us of a certain age remember KAL 007 (quite googleable).
“Korean Air” is the trade name used by Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd. KAL is its international airline designator, used in its flight numbers. KAL used to be on their tail fins, too, until they changed their livery.
They fly direct routes to all major hubs in Europe and North America. Maybe we see them more here on the west coast, but this seems like pretty standard Saturday fill to me, and not unfair at all. Certainly more interesting than most 3-letter fill!
Loved this puzzle! Very few names, very little dreck, lots of clever clues and original answers. Like Eric, I found it a bit on the easy side, but XWStats.com rates it “very hard” as of right now.
aphasia?
Anomia?
Thanks. I think what I was thinking of is “lethologica,” but “anomia” is a good word to know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_of_the_tongue
Ooh, I like this one! Thanks.
Didn’t know it. Now like you, I need to avoid having it at the tip of my tongue!
There is a very fun card-based game called Anomia (developed by friends of friends).
Haha. That does sound fun. I need to find it. I think I’d be great at it!
Thanks, pannonica.
I don’t think that’s the word, because as I understand it, aphasia occurs when there’s damage to the brain from injury or disease. So far, neither of those things has happened to my head.
Just found it: “Lethologica.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_of_the_tongue
Whoops, no offense intended!
None taken.
LAT: Went with SENAC and SAKETASTINGS, which seemed plausible.
Stumper: Not much luck but it was fun looking at the answers.
Why would the word POSTED be on a “No Trespassing” sign? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on one before.
It’s common in areas where hunting occurs.
I’ve seen it many times, particularly out in the country.
Here’s one example:
https://i1.wp.com/www.notrespassingsigns.us/wp-content/uploads/orange-no-trespassing-self-supporting-rigid-sign-1.png?fit=1300%2C1300&ssl=1
That said, it’s always seemed pretty redundant to put POSTED on the sign.
I’ve seen a number of such signs, and always wondered about them. Wouldn’t it be enough to post NO TRESPASSING? Why should you have to declare that you’ve done it by posting POSTED NO TRESPASSING? And if a sign doesn’t take effect until you declare that you’ve posted it, wouldn’t you also have to declare that you’ve posted POSTED NO TRESPASSING by posting POSTED POSTED NO TRESPASSING, and so on and so on and so on . . . ?
Some people, I discovered with a little research, claim that certain states’ laws require use of the word POSTED, but no one cites any such laws, and I couldn’t find any. But many states permit the prohibition of trespassing or hunting on private property, provided the proper signs are posted, and they sometimes specify such details as the wording, size, or shape of the sign. So POSTED NO TRESPASSING may mean something like “This NO TRESPASSING sign is posted in accordance with the laws governing such signs.” Or maybe no one gives it a second thought, and the owners just buy pre-made signs off the shelf.
I don’t know that this constitutes a “requirement,” or if it’s “law” vs. a “regulation,” but the New York Department of Environmental Conservation certainly seems to “encourage” the use of POSTED on such signs. (See section on “Signage Details.”)
https://dec.ny.gov/nature/forests-trees/private-forest-management/posting-your-land
Where I grew up, in rural Wisconsin, it was very common to see POSTED on No Trespassing signs.
Thanks, Gary. I hadn’t seen that before. If you follow one of the links on that page, you can eventually reach N.Y. State Environmental Conservation Law §11-2111 (paraphrased on the DEC page), which reads in part:
“Signs shall bear a conspicuous statement which shall
either (a) consist of the word ‘posted’, or (b) warn against entry for specified purposes or all purposes without the consent of the person or organization authorized to post the protected area. A statement consisting of the word ‘Posted’ shall have the effect of a warning against all such acts.”
So the word POSTED isn’t required, but if included, it can (at least in New York) stand all by itself as shorthand for a warning against unauthorized entry for any purpose.
Thanks again for pointing this out.
In the Stumper, is it accurate to refer to George H. W. Bush as “Senior”? His son doesn’t share the same exact name.
It’s not correct, but it’s commonly done as a quick and easy way to differentate between the two.
As usual, I agree with pannonica — oh my goodness, that upper right! Ugh! I tried “bcc,” rather than “fwd,” which threw me. Also, I don’t think of Hana as a rival of Chris and Evonne — she was later, I think (not a tennis expert).
Stumper: CLOSE-SET? That took all the crosses and I still thought I had an error when I left the SE.
BUSH SR was my first guess for 9A because I figured it would be a recognizable person and I knew George HW had been CIA director (though not when). But reSEW and not seeing BEAU as a “regular” fellow made that an in-and-out-and-in for me.
Ah-oooo-ga, indeed. Thanks, Brad Wilber!
LAT: I’m missing who 13A Polo player? Lauren is. I assume it’s a hidden capital, as in Marco Polo, but I can’t figure out how to google this to get an answer.
Try Ralph, who has the Polo line of clothing.
It’s a reference to Ralph LAUREN’s Polo brand clothing line. The ‘player’ framing is a little wishy-washy.
Ahh, thank you both. I was convinced it was going to be a movie or TV role based on “player.”
The constructors will try to trick you into blind alleys sometimes :) . Makes it fun. As pannonica said, that “player” is a bit of a stretch but it works.
Maybe the “player” reference is because polo shirts are worn by golfers and other athletic-type “players”?
stumper: about an hour, not clean… lots of misdirects that foxed me… le sigh, will try again…
Stumper: hard, just how I like it, but with THREE Naticks that I didn’t like. ESTE/TOPKAPI, and HATFORMS and RONDEAU crossing MAU. All of those letters could be so many things. Before I guessed the U I literally guessed every single consonant.
Stumper: So many cheats I wondered why I bothered. The grid seemed so broken up that even when I solved one corner (and I did get a couple of corners unaided), it didn’t help anywhere else.
But at least I learned where Darjeeling is. I wouldn’t have thought it was that close to Nepal.
Like pannonica, I had RIVALS before TEXASU. I’m a UT alum, but it’s been so long that I’d forgotten that’s how Aggies refer to the University of Texas. (No UT student or graduate would use that.)
Ah! I was wondering about that TEXASU! I’m not very familiar with Texas colleges/universities — I only know what I know from crossword puzzles that refer to them. :)
I puzzled at POSTED myself, and that, BRAGG, INA, and spelling out “to a TEE” made that a hard finish, in a puzzle that I reclaimed sector by sector, with work. I’m still puzzling at TESTS for pilots, although of course there are test pilots. But a creative puzzle. Nice one.
KAL came to me just fine. EMI slowed me down mostly because it’s not legit in a cryptic puzzle (my favorite type) for hidden words to come at the beginning or end of a string. But that’s hardly an issue in a standard American puzzle.
I agree with you. I found the puzzle to be both enjoyable and a slog, usually at the same time. I did finally understand TESTS for pilots though, near the end after a long while. Pilots, tests, trials, experiments.
We used to enjoy the WSJ Saturday puzzles, but a few months ago there was a devastating change. We used to print these on letter paper without any problem but now we get a minuscule version that’s hard for our elderly eyes to read. We’ve tried every trick we know on several Windows 10 computers, using up-to-date versions of Windows 10 and Firefox and Adobe. These systems work fine for every other crossword we choose to print, but WSJ remains so handicapped we’ve given up trying. Does anybody have a solution?
You could go to the WaPo webpage for crosswords and then use the Crossword Scraper add-in to get the puzzle into .puz form, and then you can print it out however you want.
I use the WSJ link to pdf rather than Crossword Scraper (which I use for TNY, which never prints right without it), but it’s fine for me. My pdf reader’s print interface has options for fit to margins, reduce to margins, none, and custom sizing, so there’s plent of room to play around. I’ve found none does best for weekdays, but fit to margins is essential for Saturday (both the regular and the variety puzzle).
Of course, this requires opening in a pdf reader, such as Acrobat or FoxIt. If you instead default to opening in the browser, that could be a factor.
+1
And thank you for the hint, John!
I appreciate your efforts but none of the ideas I tried helped. I finally found the following solution: upload the .pdf version to https://pdftoimage.com/ and turn it into a picture that you can then download. With my system, it worked fine to right-click on the image and print it on legal-sized paper. Bit of a kludge but what can you expect when so few of us actually prefer to read dead-tree stuff?
Re: Stumper
My first thought on POS was Point Of Sale, as produce gets weighed there. Not too certain on that, but it feels stumper-level