Saturday, November 23, 2024

Ryan McCarty’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 11/23/24 – no. 1123

Lots of good stuff here, and not overly challenging. Quick RECAP(S) tonight, I need sleep.

Fave fill: SCRUFFY, I LOVE YOU, Jose ANDRES, THAT’S A BIG IF, POOL HUSTLER, a SNAKEPIT for Indiana Jones, OLD BAY seasoning, slangy THIRSTY, BARN OWL, YOUNG AT HEART, TREASURE HUNT, and FROSTY. If you like holiday romcoms, you might like Hot Frosty on Netflix. I also like DUTCH clued via [Double ___], the jump rope pursuit.

Not sure B-TIER is fully a thing, and TUNA CANS feels a little green-painty. USUAL SUSPECTS has lost its “The” to the clue. Plural AGARS, is that legit?

Four stars from me.

Jeanne Breen & John Lieb’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 11/23/24 by Jeanne Breen & John Lieb

Loved this puzzle! It was a really great combo of fresh-feeling entries, cluing trivia in ways that tickle the answer out of your brain even if you don’t know it off the top of your head, and solid wordplay clues. I wish I had more time to describe everything I liked, but here are a few highlights:

• 25A [Product with Ground Ball Grape and Wild Pitch Watermelon flavors] is BIG LEAGUE CHEW. I’m late Gen X, and I often complain that my generation got screwed in terms of puzzle references: The old guard of crossword editors favored references that were before our time, and the late-Millennial/Gen Z folks taking over the helms now don’t want our refs. So BIG LEAGUE CHEW? Is a big source of joy for me.
• 30A [Hit makers?] manages to make EPEES feel new and not like a throwaway.
• 40A [Alternative to a rim shot] is I’M HERE ALL WEEK, another fun near-grid-spanner.
• 46A [Source of pain for some runners, familiarly] is IT BAND (short for “iliotibial band”), a body part we probably all should be paying more attention to, not just runners.
• 51A [Athlete also known as “Fräulein Forehand”] is (Steffi) GRAF — see above re: cluing trivia in interesting ways.
• 11D [Cry over spilled milk?] is WHAT A WASTE. Ha!
• Likewise funny and clever: 27D [Signs that the party’s over?] is GOODIE BAGS.
• 35D SPEED RUN, although clued straightforwardly as [Gamer’s mad dash to complete a level], is a nice entry.

Did not love the abbreviation INDS or AH GOTCHA (those AH and OH phrases always feel contrived to me), but those were minor blips in an otherwise very fun puzzle.

Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “On Middle Ground” — pannonica’s write-up

WSJ • 11/23/24 • Sat • “On MIddle Ground” • Larson • solution • 20241123

Two word phrases, the first word ending with -on, reparsed to be three-word phrases with a standalone on in the center.

• 23a. [Web presence for a Marx brother?] HARPO ON LINE (harpoon line).
• 25a. [Sitting position atop a feather pillow?] BUTT ON DOWN (button-down).
• 40a. [Masculine attire worn by female performers] DRAG ON LADIES (dragon ladies). Racist term?
• 81a. [Gibson appearing in a Dwayne Johnson TV show?] MEL ON BALLERS (melon ballers).
• 96a. [More improvisational?] LESS ON PLAN (lesson plan).
• 102a. [Jokester frequenting Amtrak?] WAG ON TRAINS (wagon trains).
• 3d. [Greek philosopher’s discussion of methodology?] PLATO ON SYSTEMS (platoon systems). The original is not a phrase I’ve encountered before.
• 50d. [Mutiny aboard sailing ships?] COUP ON CLIPPERS (coupon clippers).

Overall the solve was easy and quick, but it take a little while to gain initial traction (despite immediately filling in 1-across [Buyer, in a Latin warning] EMPTOR). The theme isn’t WOW but it works well enough.

Not part of the theme: 58d [Mass parts] CANONS, 67a [Emergency fund] MAD MONEY.

• 26d [Defense gp. since 1949] NATO. Will it survive?
• 37d [Willie of “Eight is Enough”] AAMES. Deep cut, nowadays.
• 55d [Frisbee maker] WHAM-O. Was quick confirmation for my blind fill-in of 61a [Kingdom whose official language is Dzongkha] BHUTAN.
• 69d [Didn’t break] HELD. Once more I’m put in mind of Yeats’ “The Second Coming“. Eternally relevant, but it seems especially prophetic again.
• 86d [“Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” songwriter James] HANLEY. What, who?
  
  “what? who?”
• 88d [Bearer of Peruvian packs] LLAMA, crossed by 94a [Grassy plain] LLANO.
• 17a [Mischievous scoundrel] SCALAWAG. For some reason I misspelled this as SCALIWAG and needed to hunt up the error at puzzle’s end.
• 21a [Dodgers’ catchers, perhaps] IRS AGENTS. Cute. I’m sure most of you know this but the original Brooklyn Dodgers were named after trolley-avoiders.
• 30a [“Ditto”] I AGREE. First tried I AM TOO, with 31d [Sludge] GUNK as MUCK.
• 62a [Shea players, once] BEATLES. Good misdirection. Neither NY METS nor NY JETS would fit.
• 69a [Jersey group] HERD. This one fooled me too.
• 90a [Much of the Venusian surface] BASALT. I was thinking of geographical features, but even had I been considering content from the start that would have been no help without crossings.

Matthew Sewell’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

Newsday • 11/23/24 • Saturday Stumper • Sewell • solution • 20241123

Usually a Sewell Stumper will hang me up for longer than this. For my solve today there seemed to be no set path—I basically plowed my way through willy-nilly.

• 1a [Floored it?] SPILT. Dastardly clue.
• 6a [Vocal imperfections] LISPS. Was thinking it might be FRIES.
• 11a [Toy from Central Europe] POMeranian. My first bit of fill.
• 14a [“Couldn’t be better!”] TEN OUT OF TEN. Once I had the first TEN, it seemed obvious.
• 16a [Part of some US embassy addresses] APO, not GOV or DOT.
• 18a [Seashell souvenir] LEI. I thought they had to be made of flowers, guess not.
• 20a [Layer of cement] MASON. Noun-verb switcheroo fooled me for a couple of seconds.
• 27a [Name on the cover of the history Broadcast Hysteria] ORSON. 54d [Place cited in Broadcast Hysteria] MARS.
  
• 32a [Paradoxical posing] KOAN. I should have gotten this one easily, but instead it waited for two, three crossings.
• 35a [What many football fans flourish] SOCCER SCARVES. Thinking about non-American football eluded me for unknown reasons.
• 40a [Aurora, alternatively] EOS. Another gimme.
• 51a [Service center] ALTAR. Nice laconic clue.
• 57a [Classy?] EDUCATIONAL. Initially considering the too-long INSTRUCTIONAL didn’t really help me to see the correct answer.
• 61a [California condor habitat] SIERRA MADRE. Its close relative is the Andean condor. 63a [Setting for multiple Vargas Llosa novels] ANDES.
• 1d [Back with bucks] STAKE, not ENDOW.
• 5d [Curry coloring] TURMERIC. Another easy one.
• 7d [Connection to a conclusion] IF SO, not ERGO.
• 10d [Particle accelerator?] SNEEZE. Nice clue, maybe a little audacious.
• 11d [They overlook fjords] PALISADES. Several days ago I watched Songs of Earth, a very thoughtful documentary, both personal and universal.
• 12d [Pilots] OPERATES, not OVERSEES.
• 24d [Mexican rice milk] HORCHATA. Just needed the first H to jolt my memory.
• 26d [Lady of African nationality] ANNA. I don’t understand this one.
• 28d [Its seeds make caffeine-free coffee] OKRA. ew?
• 29d [Denial of service?] NO SIR. Irrationally held off on putting the correct answer in because SIR NO SIR was in today’s New York Times crossword.
• 31d [Something spotted in the garden] TOADSTOOL, from just the first T.
• 33d [“Justice is Served” utensil set seller] ACLU. I knew it couldn’t be IKEA and I felt FRED is not well-known enough, even though it sounds like something they’d come up with.
• 35d [Stick it in your eyelets] SHOELACE. An uncharacteristically face-value clue. You could even call it straitlaced.
• 49d [Aural comforter] I CARE. Not what I was expecting.
• 58d [Half of a kid’s meal] DIN-din, not MAC. And I thought I was so on the ball this time.