Monday, November 4, 2024

Colin Adams’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s write-up

Theme: FASHION FORWARD – each theme answer begins with an article of clothing.

New York Times, 11 04 2024, By Colin Adams

• 16a [Keep a close eye on] – WATCH CAREFULLY
• 26a [Perform karaoke with passion, say] – BELT OUT A SONG
• 42a [“Fine, ignore my advice!”] – SUIT YOURSELF
• 52a [Following the latest style trends … or a hint to the starts of 16-, 26- and 42-Across] – FASHION FORWARD

This was a fun NYT theme debut from Colin, who has had a few themeless puzzles in the NYT earlier this year. Each of the three articles of clothing is used as a verb in their respective theme answers, which is elegant. Speaking of elegant – I also like that the items could all go together into a single outfit, which would probably be worn by someone who was FASHION FORWARD (I work in tech; anyone wearing a SUIT, WATCH, and BELT seems impressively fancy). It might have been nice to work in one more theme answer – maybe a “tie”? – but sometimes the entries don’t play nice.

This is a weird looking grid, for a Monday especially! FASHION FORWARD is 14 letters long, so those stacks of black squares in the corners are built to accommodate it. This choice leads to some great longer fill in the corners – all four of POWERED UP, SPANGLISH, TRUE NORTH, and BILLY IDOL are great! However, the puzzle also feels really segmented into two halves. There’s only one answer, AMITY, that spans both. I think this can be tricky for newer solvers at times because it means that getting a foothold in one section might not help you in others. But that’s a tradeoff this grid makes in order to have those long down answers, which is a totally valid choice! Just interesting to think about, in terms of construction.

There were some fun clues today – I liked the LOLA Bunny reference, and [Cheese that might go unsliced on a charcuterie board] for BRIE. I always mix up FIBULA and tibia – thank goodness they aren’t the same number of letters. I had “die-in” before LIE-IN and “eats” before CHOW. And [Writing hints, as a crossword constructor does] for CLUING is a fun meta crossword reference (I never know whether it should be spelled “clueing” or “cluing”, though).

Happy Monday all!

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Chrono Logic”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar(ish) two-word names and phrases with long TIME SPANS literally spanning the words. The revealer at 60a is clued [Chronological stretches, and an alternative title for this puzzle].

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Chrono Logic” · Mike Shenk · Mon., 11.4.24

• 17a. [The president’s helicopter]
  MARINE ONE.
• 25a. [G or R, e.g.] MOVIE RATING.
• 36a. [Intense brown shade] DEEP OCHER.
• 50a. [“I Got Rhythm” lyricist]
  IRA GERSHWIN.

This doesn’t do a lot for me, but it’s a solid enough theme for a Monday. I do like that the time scale for each hidden word is quite large, but on the other hand, hidden three-letter words aren’t all that impressive. EPOCH is a nice find…if only I’d ever heard the phrase DEEP OCHER.

Nothing especially sparkly in the fill, though I do like AVARICE, CHEROKEE, and PIRANHA. I would be fine never seeing ETO (clued as European Theater of Operations) in a grid again.

Clue of note: 45a. [Wicked people]. FIENDS. Present company excepted, I presume.

Three stars.

Christina Bodensiek, Lydia Roth, & Geoffrey Schorkopf’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 11/4/24 by Christina Bodensiek, Lydia Roth, & Geoffrey Schorkopf

A three-top of constructors today! I rarely do collaborations myself — it’s nearly always at least twice as much work for half the money — but I like this one. It has an interesting theme of a type one doesn’t typically see on Monday. The revealer at 37A [Experimental music genre, and what can be found in this puzzle’s circled letters?] is PROGRESSIVE ROCK, because if you follow the circled squares from top to bottom, the word ORE (a type of ROCK) is PROGRESSing from left to right. Experimental music genre, and what can be found in this puzzle’s circled letters?

• 17A [Defiant retort to a vague threat] is OR ELSE WHAT? (Okay, so the question mark isn’t in the puzzle, but I can’t see the entry without it.) Very lively.
• 23A [Compilations of acting clips] is DEMO REELS.
• 49A [“Out of the office” email message, often] is AUTOREPLY, which feels both current and yet not like it’s going to be dated tomorrow.
• 59A [Quality-over-quantity axiom] is LESS IS MORE.

I like that the constructors chose short themers so they could have four of them in addition to the revealer. And I like the fill, which is easy-breezy and has some really fun bits like WORMHOLES, GROANERS, WINERY, and LEROY clued as the composer LEROY Anderson. (BRB, just realized SYNCOPATED CLOCK is a 15, time to build a puzzle around it.) Really nice puzzle!

Drew Schmenner’s Universal crossword, “Sudden Success” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 11/4/24 • Mon • “Sudden Success” • Schmenner • solution • 20241104

• 62a^R [Overnight star’s path … and a description of the word ladder at the starts of 18-, 24-, 41- and 53-Across?] ZERO TO HERO.
• 18a. [“Stop talking!”] ZIP YOUR LIP.
• 24a. [Postnatal alternatives to baby showers] SIP AND SEES.
• 41a. [“How’s it goin’, bro?”] ’SUP DUDE.
• 53a. [Leader with a periscope] SUB CAPTAIN.

ZIP → SIP → SUP → SUB

where SUB is a submarine sandwich, aka a hero sandwich. So there’s some subversive, abstracted wordplay as well as the change-a-letter word ladder.

• 2d [Ninth-month starter homes?] UTERI. Don’t care for this framing, even in jest.
• 4d [Get a move on] HAUL ASS. 1a [Get a move on] RUSH. 47a [“This can’t wait”] ASAP.
• 35d [Doc that ensures secrecy] NDA. Mostly evil.
• 59d [Tycoon] CZAR. This is part of why I don’t care for the term being applied informally to government appointees.
• 64d [Clear (of)] RID. 19d [Topple from power] OUST.
• 68a [Name found in “teen idol”] ENID, which let’s face it is probably an unlikely name for a teen idol.
• 72a [Bold and unconventional] EDGY. Lately there’s often a negative connotation to the term (see edgelord).

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1728 (themeless) — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Themeless Crossword # 1728 — 11/4/24

I got off to an excellent start with this one. I don’t recall hearing 1A [Little by little, in music], but I know what POCO means in that context, so POCO A POCO was a safe bet. I quickly confirmed it with 4D [Item worn during Seijin no Hi ceremonies] OBI. I don’t know what that ceremony is, but if the clue appears to refer to something Japanese, and the OBI fits, wear it.

Further confirmation came from 6D [Astronaut Frank in “2001”] POOLE. As many times as I have seen that movie, I still have no idea what the last 20 or 30 minutes is about. But the HAL 9000 is such an indelible character that it’s impossible to write off that movie. (It doesn’t hurt that both Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood are easy on the eyes.)

So it went, one answer easily following another, until I hit the middle. I had no idea about 28D [Maker of the Hyper Evolve-100 and Rival Vision XXII-800 guns] NERF; until I got the answer, I resented having to think about guns while still laying in bed. Maybe that’s why, for 32D [Takes as one’s own], my mind went for USURPS, then CO-OPTS, before I finally got ADOPTS.

Some stuff I liked:

• 17A [Coinage for a discussion of difficult topics where the participants avoid negative attacks] CIVILOGUE (That’s a new term to me; I wonder what sort of fantasy world that exists in.) 21A [Chat with everybody at the party]
• MINGLE (Not that I have been to a party in years.)
• 38A [“Don’t worry anymore”] JUST FORGET IT 
• 66A [Clause transition] SEMICOLON (I’m a fan.)
• 21D [Nonconformist] MISFIT (I love it when a crossword makes me feel seen.)

A few things I could have done without:

• 62A [They might dangle off a Ram] TRUCK NUTS (It’s kind of a clever clue, and I certainly don’t have anything against testicles, but I don’t want to see giant fake ones hanging off the back of a pickup.)
• 14D [Satisfied paying customer] RENEWER (A pet peeve: Take a verb, add -ER at the end, and you have a crossword answer! (No, you don’t, unless it’s a word people actually use.))

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s 11/4/24 New Yorker crossword — Eric’s review

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s New Yorker crossword 11-4-24

Overall, I found this on the easy side for a Monday New Yorker puzzle. But that was only after abandoning the top third and moving to the bottom, where 45A [ ____ masala (warm spice blend] GARAM and 59A [Lee in the World Golf Hall of Fame] TREVIÑO got me started.

From there, I just built off one answer to get another, which is my favorite way to solve. I had a minor hiccup with 41A [Classic lounge order] VODKA MARTINI — the last three letters made it obvious that it was some sort of MARTINI, but I opted for DIRTY first. I also couldn’t come up with 26A [Fast-paced David Mamet satire about Hollywood moguls] SPEED-THE-PLOW until I had the last word. I’ve seen a few movie adaptations of Mamet’s plays, but it looks like that the film version of that play may (ironically) have died in development hell. (Does anyone think “Fast-paced” adds anything in this clue? What Mamet play isn’t “fast-paced”?)

When I moved back to the top part, I saw that I’d skipped some gimmes such as 9D [“The Story of ____” (Truffaut film about a daughter of Victor Hugo)] ADELE H (which I should probably see some day; I’ve enjoyed other Truffaut films) and 10D [Goat’s plaint] MAA. I briefly wondered if 12D [Roman emperor who ruled for three months] was NERO, but eventually 17A [Relaxing for several minutes] TAKING A BREATHER made OTHO apparent.

Fans of Greek mythology got both 19A [Thrower of the Apple of Discord] ERIS (for which I put HERA at first) and 40A [Perseus and Heracles, for two] DEMIGODS.

Fave clue/answer pair: 56A [Ones whose work gets a lot of foot traffic?] SIDEWALK ARTISTS.

The Golden Apple of Discord by Jacob Jordaens