Thursday, November 14, 2024

BEQ untimed (Eric) 

 


LAT 7:34 (Gareth) 

 


NYT 9:47 (ZDL) 

 


Universal tk (Sophia) 

 


USA Today 18:37 (Emily) 

 


WSJ 8:43 (Jim) 

 


Fireball untimed (tk) 

 


Cheryl Liu’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “What the What?”—Jim’s review

Debut grid today. Congratulations to our newest constructor!

Theme answers are phrases of the form A THE B, and they’re all stacked and crossing in the center of the grid.

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “What the What?” · Cheryl Liu · Thu., 11.14.24

  • 28a. [Joined a union?] TIED THE KNOT.
  • 31a. [Be disruptively noisy] WAKE THE DEAD.
  • 32a. [Act on an implicit suggestion] TAKE THE HINT.
  • 14d. [Do some culling] THIN THE HERD.
  • 16d. [Does what’s expected] TOES THE LINE.
  • 19d. [Stack some boxes?] LOAD THE DICE.

Novel theme! I don’t think I’ve seen a theme like this before with six theme answers stacked and crossing in the middle. It wasn’t until late in myself that I figured it out; mostly I was working in the corners, I guess. But it was a nice aha moment to see the theme revealed. A lot of repetition, sure, and there’s not really a why or wherefore, but those center stacks impress me enough to give it a thumbs up.

If I want to be picky I’d ask for all the phrases to be in the first person present tense, and INTAKES crossing TAKE isn’t great, but a unique theme earns some leeway.

Fill highlights: CUBIC FEET, FIREWOOD, ANNE RICE, TITANIC, STAND FAST. Really those corner sections almost as nice as the center of the grid. BLIND AS is less nice, but I’ll close my eyes to it.

Clues of note:

  • 40a. [“And Then There Were None” director Clair]. RENE. Going back to 1945 for this clue. I thought maybe there was a recent remake, but nope.
  • 46a. [Author born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien]. ANNE RICE. Wow. Didn’t know this factoid. You’d think Irish Catholic parents would name her after a saint. She took it upon herself to adopt the name Anne on the first day of school and it stuck.
  • 43d. [Wagons-___ (sleeping cars, abroad)]. LITS. Whoa. Never knew this one despite traveling around Europe for a bit.

Unique theme impressively constructed. Four stars.

Elly Zupko’s Fireball Crossword, “Excalibur” – Jenni’s write-up

Don’t let it be forgot/that once there was a spot/for one brief shining moment….

While the solve wasn’t all that challenging, it took me a while to figure out the complexity of the theme. Here’s Peter’s grid to make it clear.

Fireball, November 13, 2024, Elly Zupko, “Excalibur,” solution grid

  • 17a [Creator of Patrick Bateman] is BRET EASTON ELLIS.
  • 31a [Piper power source] is a PISTON ENGINE. Piper as the plane, I guess.
  • 48a [Succeed in an act of deception] is PULL A FAST ONE.

And the revealer: 65a [Arthurian theme of this puzzle] is SWORD IN THE STONE. Each of the long theme answers contains STONE and a type of SWORD crosses each STONE. Tricky and fun.

What I didn’t know before I solved this puzzle: never heard of the book “The Catalyst” by Chemistry Nobelist Thomas Cech and so did not know it was about RNA.

And of course

Matthew Faiella’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Easy (9m47s)

Matthew Faiella’s New York Times crossword, 11/14/24, 1114

Today’s theme: BACK IN BLACK (Hit rock album of 1980 depicted three times by this puzzle)

  • SET / OUT / KICK / DIDN’T HOLD / STAND / FULL (BACK)
  • (BACK) SEAT DRIVERS / PEDAL / BONE / TRACK / LESS DRESS / FLIP

Saw SET / OUT (BACK) right away, jumped to the revealer, and was off to the races.  Would have finished in the 7s but it took me absolutely forever to notice that I had SANK instead of TANK.

Cracking: Tim TEBOWs game-winning 80-yard OT touchdown pass to lead the Broncos over the Steelers in the 2011 AFC Wild Card game.  He is about as diametrically opposed to me in every social-political-religious-etc context as a person could be, but he always seemed like a nice guy, and his funky delivery (part of the reason why his NFL career was so short) was fun to watch.

Slacking: VEAU, which is veal, you’re eating a baby animal, everything about this entry makes me angry and sad.

SidetrackingMANIaMansion

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1731: Side Connection — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1731: Side Connection

There’s a two-part revealer/explanation for today’s theme:

  • 57A [Secret hookup, or an explanation to this puzzle’s theme] SNEAKY LINK
  • 63A [Forwarded address that is used by the answers at 15-, 24- and 42-Across] URL

The three theme answers are all in two parts and include the letter string URL. The “sneaky” aspect is that the R is hidden in the black square between each part found in the square below the black square where it belongs (thanks to commenter Charlie for correcting my oversight):

  • 15A & 17A [. . . one’s sweetheart] LIGHT OF YOUR LIFE
  • 24A & 27A [. . . markings on some topographical maps signifying elevation] CONTOUR LINES
  • 42A & 43A [. . . economist with an eponymous curve in supply-side economics] ARTHUR LAFFER

I enjoyed this theme in part because I like letters or words that are hidden in the black squares and in part because it took a bit to figure out. CONTOUR LINES had to be correct, but CONTOUR was too long. Given the letters I already had in 12D [Greek island off of Albania], that was obviously CORFU, so the last square in CONTOUR couldn’t be a rebus of UR.

So I did what I usually do in this type of situation: I filled in Across answers that worked with the Down answers and trusted that eventually, everything would make sense.

All three theme answers are solid, though having never studied economics, I needed a few crosses to remember ARTHUR LAFFER.

Some clue and answer pairs I liked:

  • 18A [Mexican fritters] CHURROS Yum. I had dinner last night at a Mexican restaurant with the Light of My Life, and we were sorely tempted when our server asked if we wanted dessert: “Flan? Churros?” We plan to go back sometime soon for churros and hot chocolate if they have it.
  • 61A [Every movie has one] TITLE I originally put THEME, all the while thinking it was probably wrong. But 53D [Test version of software] had to be BETA, which allowed me to see TITLE.
  • 47D [Wisdom tooth, e.g.] MOLAR OK, there’s nothing remarkable about this pair, except that it gives me an excuse to mention that my wisdom teeth never came in — and neither did one of my 13-year-molars.
  • 59D [Necessity for an opening act?] KEY Nice little misdirection there.

I had never heard of the Handel opera RODELINDA (30A). I knew he wrote operas, but I think of orchestral pieces like “Water Music” when I think of Handel.

Lynn Lempel’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary

LA Times
241114

Today’s puzzle by Lynn Lempel features letter addition, a common enough theme trope. However, the execution here is immaculate. The revealer is ITSAFIRST – A is added to the beginnings of four phrases. I loved all four of the phrases created that way. They were:

  • [Reason for copyright suits filed by Atari?], APINGPONG
  • [Where squirrels stash treats?], ACORNHOLE
  • [Shenanigans in the physics lab?], ATOMFOOLERY
  • [Rueful remark after losing on the Strip?], ALASVEGAS

Gareth

Steve Johnson’s USA Today Crossword, “Good Try (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up

An apt title–how did you all do?

alt=”Completed USA Today crossword for Thursday November 14, 2024”
USA Today, November 14, 2024, “Good Try (Freestyle)” by Steve Johnson[/caption]

ALT

CAP

Favorite fill: SCRATCHTHAT crossing with CATS, STUPENDOUS, and WITHER

Stumpers: ILY (new to me), KARMA (new to me), and FLAIR (only “glitz” and “bling” came to mind)

A longer solve for me today. Cluing was a bit tricker though nothing difficult so I was likely having an off day. Good overall fill and a nice mix.

3.5 stars

~Emily

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22 Responses to Thursday, November 14, 2024

  1. Dan says:

    NYT: That was a Thursday whose theme was pretty easy to grok, once hitting the second instance of a missing “back”.

    But what I liked most about it is the clues were just a little short of Friday level trickiness, but they slowed me way the heck down, leading to a distinctly above-average number of minutes it took to finish this. To my delight, because I really enjoy solving a good puzzle like this, and the longer it lasts, the more fun it is.

    And plenty of the clues were tricky in a very fun way.

    Favorite clue/answer combo: “Motor coach?” for backSEAT DRIVER. It deserves an award.

    • Dallas says:

      Fun Thursday; at first I tried to put the BACK in as a rebus, before I got to the revealer… and the first thing that came to mind was BABY GOT BACK… but that’s definitely not 1980 :-) I made the same SANK / TANK mistake, which was my final error. Nice fill, good cluing. I was a little thrown by the KRYPTON clue, because I’m used to thinking about the periodic table, and Br and Rb are on opposite sides, so at first I had trouble visualizing Kr being “between” the two elements but it certainly works. “Between Argon and Xenon” would’ve been better for me, but that’s just me.

      Nice puzzle!

  2. placematfan says:

    I was asking myself, Why would you put HEME in your grid when you didn’t have to (HEME –> SEMI and OUT –> CUT, e.g.)? But then it gets 25 million hits on Google, the first page of 100 hits not even mentioning crosswords, which, if it had (and the total had been under 1 or 2 million), would have validated my snobbish assertion that it’s unnecessary crosswordese. So, huh.

  3. Alan D. says:

    What the heck is going on with the WSJ? Yesterday’s themed puzzle had 68 words and today’s had only 62!!! That’s nuts!

  4. Me says:

    NYT: I just really clicked with this puzzle. I figured out the theme fairly quickly, and I was also on the constructor’s wavelength in terms of the cluing. It helped me in solving that there were 13(!) theme answers once I figured out the “BACK” gimmick. I actually had a Thursday PB by 2 seconds today! It’s been a while since I’ve had a PB on any day, and this was a nice thing to have happen. My OCD side also liked that my Thursday PB is now the same as my Friday PB, while before it was 2 seconds longer so I did not have an ascending PB over the week.

  5. Charlie says:

    BEQ:
    The R’s are not hidden in the black squares, they are below the black squares.

    • Eric Hougland says:

      Thanks! I missed that (obviously).

      And that makes the construction a bit trickier, since each word below a black square that separates the two parts of the theme answer has to begin with R.

    • marciem says:

      Good catch!! I didn’t see that… With the first one I looked for the r while solving but the one above didn’t work (one below wasn’t there yet) so I went with thinking that the r was hidden in the black square and didn’t look further.

  6. GingerF says:

    NYT – I’m wondering in terms of crossword puzzle construction – is the lower left corner (BELL, YELL, CELL [with additional two ls in SKULL] an okay thing to do?

    • Martin says:

      It doesn’t violate any rule, so it’s up to the editor to decide whether it adds or detracts sparkle. The Shortz approach to editing is to not be bothered by much as long as it doesn’t introduce potential spoilers for the solver. Note that stacking BELL and YELL assures two more LL words. It might strike other editors as inelegant, I guess.

  7. Steve says:

    Eric – Glad to see you are doing the BEQ ones now, appreciate it! Half the time I have no idea what the trick is (like today), so now I can see how far off I was, haha.

  8. Karen says:

    BEQ: Thanks again, Eric, for a great write-up. So happy that BEQ is getting the attention he deserves. May you enjoy a long and happy life here at Crossword Fiend!

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