John Kugelman’s New York Times crossword, “Just for Fun” — Nate’s write-up
12.08.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword
23A: COMPLIMENTS FOR FISHING [“What a beautiful tackle box!,” “Nice casting!” and such?] – Fishing for compliments
35A: A LOOP FOR THROWING [Lasso?] – Throwing for a loop
53A: POSITION FOR JOCKEYS [Leaning forward and holding the reins?] – Jockeys for position
73A: DISASTER FOR A RECIPE [Accidentally using salt instead of sugar, say?] – A recipe for disaster
92A: ONES MONEY FOR A RUN [Marathon fee or campaign donation?] – A run for one’s money
106A: PUNISHMENT FOR A GLUTTON [Not being allowed to lick the spatula clean?] – A glutton for punishment
In this week’s theme, X for Y phrases have their X and Y swapped, with clue fit to describe the transformed phrase. I enjoyed most of the themers, and my favorites were probably those that were three-word phrases without the extra A or ONES coming along for the switcheroo. ONES MONEY FOR A RUN felt a bit awkward, but the rest felt solid and fun! (I don’t get how the title connects to the theme, aside from it being an X for Y phrase, since it’s not swapped and wouldn’t make sense if it were…?)
Mostly, this felt like a quick and straightforward solves aside from a few tough proper noun crossings. MADAME / ARRAKIS was hard for me (I had MADAME at first) as were ANNIKA / TKO (as clued) and STAN / NILS toward the bottom. PARD was a wtf kind of entry without the ‘ner to finish it, as was SPOOR generally (which I wanted to be SCENT so bad!). I can also imagine that ARRAKIS / ST OLAF / LOCS / LOCHTE / ESTER will be a tough region for some, so it’ll be interesting to see how this grid plays for everyone. Overall, though, a smooth and straightforward theme with a largely clean grid made for a quick and enjoyable solve.
What did you think of the puzzle? Let us know in the comments section – and have a great weekend!
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Color Inside the Lines” — Matt’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Color Inside the Lines” solution, 12/7/2024
This week’s puzzle from Evan, “Color Inside the Lines” plays with color and rebuses. Phrases that end with a plural color see those colors used in the crossing clues:
- 31a [Is down, emotionally] SINGS THE [blue][blue][blue]. “Sings the blues,” crossing TRUE BLUE, BLUE RIBBON, and BLUE ICE
- 68a [Rose family, once?] CINCINNATI [red][red][red]. “Cincinnati Reds” (as in the former team of Pete Rose), crossing SEE RED, RED PEN, RED ANT
- 30d [Fried side] HASH [brown][brown][brown]. “Hashbrowns,” crossing BROWN COW, BROWN ALE, BROWNIES
- 76d [Non-deciduous plants] EVER[green][green][green]. “Evergreens,” crossing GREENEST, THE GREEN PARTY, BIG GREEN
A revealer plays on the common use of “boxes” in rebus revealers:
- 110a [Some containers for kids’ art supplies, and an alternate title for this puzzle] CRAYON BOXES
It’s only four long entries, but considering each also involves three crossings, it’s a decent amount of theme content. It does force some chunky sections, particularly in the middle, but there are some winners in the longer downs: HUMAN TORCH, IM NO EXPERT, and the image-rich clue for SALSA BAND for a few.
Other highlights: A novel clue for ABE [His veeps were Hannibal and Andrew] // A reminder that Bobby ORR was a truly great hockey player, and not just a friendly set of letters [Scorer of the “flying goal” that won the 1970 Stanley Cup] // A disguised name in [Holder of Justice Department records] for ERIC // [Too bad?] for ABYSMAL, which got a laugh out of me
Shaun Phillips’s Universal Sunday crossword, “It’ll Make Your Head Spin”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases with circled letters (broken into two groupings) that spell out types of dances. The revealer is BREAKDANCE (113a, [Style of movement to music demonstrated by the figure in this grid … and a hint to the circled squares]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “It’ll Make Your Head Spin” · Shaun Phillips · 12.8.24
- 3d. [Emphatic rounds of applause] STANDING OVATIONS.
- 6d. [Reaches an all-time low] HITS ROCK BOTTOM.
- 9d. [Sensitive lad] MAMA’S BOY.
- 12d. [Inflatable “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” decorations] BALLOON LETTERS.
- 15d. [Ovo vegetarian deli order] EGG SALAD SANDWICH.
- 110a. [Carnival game with a mallet] WHACK–A-MOLE.
Lovely! My first thought on seeing the title and the grid was that this was about bobble-head dolls. No idea why since their heads don’t spin, but there ya go. The actual theme makes much more sense.
I didn’t spot the upside-down break dancer spinning on their head (ala Raygun (jk)) until after the solve when I got to enjoy the full aha moment. The actual dances and theme answers involved are lively and fun with a great variety amongst the dances. Well-chosen theme answers!
The fill was smooth all over and contributed to a quick solve time for me. Highlights include TRADE SCHOOL, CAKE MIX, LIVE SET, HOROSCOPE, INDIE FILM (shout-out to today’s Connections), EVA PERON, “I CALL DIBS,” SUNRISE, ARIZONA, “AHOY THERE!,” “NOT A FAN,” and those creepy-cute little AYE-AYES.
Clues of note:
- 15a. [___ on the Shelf (holiday tradition)]*. ELF. *Not a tradition.
- 41a. [Day celebrating trees]. ARBOR. This kind of clue bugs me. Arbor Day is a day celebrating trees. An ARBOR is a shady alcove formed by tree branches or vines.
- 67a. [“Sure ya did”]. “I BET.” Nice change of pace from the usual [“As if!”].
- 76a. [Deadlocks]. TIES. Ugh to this one, too. One of my pet peeves when watching Brent Musberger call a football game was when one team tied the score, he’d call it a deadlock. No. A deadlock is a situation in which no progress is made by either side. It takes time and multiple attempts to break the stalemate to form a deadlock. Simply tying the score does not form a deadlock.
- 44d. [Weakens, in gamer lingo]. NERFS. Another clue with a newer angle. I like it even if I’ve never used it.
- 116d. [“Time” traveling in reverse?]. EMIT. Quasi-cryptic type clue.
Beautifully crafted grid with lively theme answers and just as lively fill. 4.25 stars.
I’m torn about the NYT. The theme was great, and I smiled more than once. I also got the first, about fishing, before I got the theme itself, which gave me a nice handle. It should have felt easy.
But then I got on so much painful fill and unfinished crossings, probably a record for other than TNY. It doesn’t bother Nate one bit, but he does itemize most of it, a lot if it, to which I’ll add MOON / IMED, which I still don’t understand. (I’ve seen Moon Pie bu not moon jelly, and have seen “slacked” only in “slacked off,” or idled, not instant messaged.) I also don’t understand the clue, which sounds ever so amazed, for LETS GO, which sounds merely impatient. Not a fun puzzle at all.
As a high school teacher, I can confirm that the youths of today say “Let’s gooooo” to mean “hot diggity” or “oh, boy” or similar.
And Slack is an instant messaging platform that many offices (such as my wife’s) use to communicate. She can confirm that “Slack” has been made into a verb.
I didn’t know “moon jelly” either, but a quick Google search revealed that it’s a kind of jellyfish.
You learned three new things! I think that’s pretty fun.
Learning is good. It just doesn’t necessarily happen when the items cross. Then it’s no longer learning. It’s you’re aware or you’re not.
Slack in this sense is a “cloud-based team communication platform” — something like Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
I’ve never used it. Wikipedia and Slack’s own website suggest that the private messaging component is called “direct messaging,” so IM’ED might ought to be DM’ED. (I don’t bother trying to remember which services use IM and which use DM. It’s easier just to wait for the crosses.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)
The LET’S GO clue does seem a bit off. The best I can think of is someone telling me that the ski resort near me just got 12” of new snow, to which I might reply either “That’s awesome!” or “Let’s go!” (Assuming, of course, that I wasn’t already in the garage loading my skis on the car.)
[Edited to say that I could have saved myself some trouble if I had read Ethan’s reply first]
Agree. Is there such a thing as a fast slog? That’s what this puzzle felt like.
Thanks, Ethan and Eric… I was mystified by the same things John was.
New rule for constructors: All clues must start with a lower case letter unless they are a proper noun, name or brand name!! LOL… sorry, I’ve been caught more than once with a word that was someone’s name or a brand name like today as the capitalized first word of a clue :) .
My last to fall was the poky/Arrakis area, which I didn’t know. I also didn’t know Pouffe.
Those nits picked, I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. I didn’t find it a slog at all and looked forward to the themers once I caught on.
liked the NYT—fun theme and some great clues but boy felt like a heckuva lot of names:
PELE ZAHN ST.OLAF LOCHTE LANA OORT POE STAN TYRONE NILS LYNDA FLYNT IAGO LAMOTTA EDNA ANNIKA NEO ODIE plus some other proper nouns in RHÔNE ERIES ASUS ARRAKIS SYDNEY TKO (as clued) PONTIACS LAO TOGO (as clued) LEGOLAND PUSHPOP then add in the abbreviations GPA LSAT TNT etc
just felt like noticeably more than a typical Sunday. even with some of the above being good entries in and of themselves
How is “Nothing weird about that” AS YOU DO?
Hi Lee,
“As you do” might sound more familiar in its variant “as one does,” used with a self-mocking tone, as in, “I was finishing a quart of Cherry Garcia for dinner, as one does…”
This was (in)famously used by Ricky Gervais when he hosted the Golden Globes and did a bit on how “Charlie Sheen drove to his ex-wife’s house to introduce her to his porn star girl friend, as you do.”
Off the topic, it’s amusing that we’re so conditioned to expect A LOT of French in the NYTXW that people are putting in “madame” even when the clue specifies an Italian word.
I’m only familiar with this in the form “as one does”, used ironically or sarcastically. So AS YOU DO was slow to come, and felt off.
I concur with @Josh’s characterization of this puzzle as a “fast slog”.
I realize the NYT clue for ONSPEC is technically not incorrect. But this answer often seems to be clued in relation to how freelancers work. And sure, in some fields (such as crossword construction perhaps) work is done on spec. And you can write a spec script. But nobody making a living freelancing is spending much, if any, of their time writing on spec.
I spent 25+ years working freelance, and that clue bugged me too. It’s lazy cluing – similar to the way odors are always bad, shade trees are always elms, and a lotion additive is always aloe.
I’ve never liked that clue. Freelancers are hired to do a job — and to save money by getting around legal requirements for overtime, vacations, and other benefits, sleazy as that may be. Conversely, a novelist, say, is not a freelancer, but simply a writer.
It’s not necessarily a sleazy arrangement. A small magazine will often use freelancers to cover specific topics, and at least in my case I was happier as a freelancer than a full-time employee.
I’ve written for magazines, but my point is that I didn’t see it as freelance work, which I’ve also done as an editor. I wasn’t taking on a job, but a piece.
I also didn’t say it’s always sleazy, not at all, although it can be. My sister keeps getting hired back to a company for successive periods of six months or rather more, in one case adding up to three years, precisely to avoid paying benefits. If your own job was eliminated in favor of a long-term hire without benefits, I doubt you’d like that either.
Absolutely no first-hand knowledge of how freelance writing works. So, is it the case that a freelance writer shops an idea around to various publications and gets an agreement before actually writing the piece, as opposed to writing a piece and then shopping it around?
Correct. (I’ve been a freelance writer for 30+ years.) There are some exceptions, of course, but most of the time you get an acceptance for an idea before writing, or the work is commissioned.
In addition, a publication may ask you to write on a particular subject, if you have known expertise. A lot of my work came that way.
Pretty much. In my case, they’ve a monthly call to bounce ideas off them, and some take, most don’t. Nothing wrong with that. The editor gets to decide, naturally, what comports with the publication’s profile and would interest its readers.
Nate, for the NYT title, “Just for Fun”, to make sense, one might reword it, with the “just” being moot, as, “Just Having Fun With the Word ‘For'”, “Fun With ‘For'”, etc.
UNI-SUN: Very excellent puzzle by creator Shaun Phillips that was fun & breezy and contained a cute figure in the grid! (And editor Jeff Chen didn’t muff any clues this time, lol!)
WaPo: nice theme and a fun puzzle! I really prefer this type of rebus, where it’s adding a new “letter” for fill, and especially good when the rebus entry is repeated. Took me a bit to get it (I kept trying to figure out how to get in HASH BROWNS, and then decided perhaps it was another food before it clicked). Nicely done.
WaPo: Just finished it, absolutely love it, for all the reasons Dallas gives. Once again, Evan Birnholz shows how much he really cares about his solvers and their enjoyment.