Monday, December 9, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elliot Caroll’s New York Times crossword— Sophia’s write-up

Theme: The first word of each theme answer can be shortened to Al.

• 20a [Cocktail made with Southern Comfort, sloe gin, amaretto and orange juice] – ALABAMA SLAMMER
• 34a [Crinkly kitchen wrap] – ALUMINUM FOIL
• 41a [Writer, director and co-star of “Defending Your Life,” 1991] – ALBERT BROOKS
• 55a [1986 hit song for Paul Simon … or an instruction from the starts of 20-, 34- and 41-Across?] – YOU CAN CALL ME AL

Fun theme, and I’m not just saying that because I love the song :) AL is the postal code for ALABAMA, Al is the chemical abbreviation for ALUMINUM, and of course anyone named ALBERT can go by Al. I figured out what was going on with the theme quickly, but I still needed a fair amount of crossing answers for two of the themed ones – I wasn’t familiar with the ALABAMA SLAMMER cocktail or the movie “Defending Your Life”. Still, three very recognizable ALs makes a great group.

I really loved the clueing in today’s puzzle, where a lot of entries had a fresh or modern spin. Some standouts for me were [Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me ___”] for MUCH, the CIA tweet for NOR, [Change, as a bill or a will] for AMEND, and [“Break the ice” or “break a leg”] for IDIOM. Clue highlight has to be [What’s deep in a pit?] for TUBA, though – what a great piece of wordplay.

There were also some great fill entries of course – I liked HUNDO, ON BLAST, RACCOON, FILMDOM. THE MENU is one of my favorite movies of the 2020’s so far, I recommend it highly for folks who haven’t seen it! It’s a little bit of a thriller, a little bit of a black comedy. And I of course loved the Steven YEUN inclusion, who’s been in two more great movies of this decade, “Nope” and “Minari”. I only got tripped up at the beginning of the puzzle with “impact” instead of IMPAIR for 1d [Cause damage to]; after that it was smooth Monday sailing.

Congrats to Elliot on a fabulous NYT debut!

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Final Scores”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases whose final letters spell out synonyms of “loads” (meaning “a lot of”). The revealer is BACKLOADS (55a, [Postpones until final stages, as contract costs, and a hint to the circled parts]).

• 16a. [Openings in a TV schedule] TIME SLOTS.
• 22a. [Places for piercings, perhaps] BELLY BUTTONS.
• 34a. [Overnight repeats, of sorts] RECURRING DREAMS.
• 44a. [Canine cross-breeds] LABRADOODLES.

Solid Monday theme with mostly fun theme answers. I don’t know if this was intentional, but I liked how the synonyms got longer (or at least didn’t get any shorter) as we progress down the grid. The revealer doesn’t do much for me but it serves its purpose.

I was off to a pretty quick start but once I hit GO AT IT, things started to slow down, especially in the bottom half (looking at MISDO and BEYS especially). Some thorny entries for a Monday, and no marquee highlights to dig into.

Clue of note: 24a. [Nation with the most coastline]. CANADA. Neat bit of trivia I never considered, but I guess it makes sense. Norway, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Russia round out the top 5. The US comes in at number 8.

Solid theme. Not a lot of pizzazz in the fill though. 3.25 stars.

Renee Thomason’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

No time for opinions today, just the theme. The revealer at 61A [Beginning stages, and what the starts of 16-, 24-, 38-, and 47-Across literally are?] is EARLY DAYS, because “early” (i.e., first) in each theme answer you have a word that can be put before DAYS to make a new phrase:

• 16A [Disney princess with a jealous stepmother] is SNOW WHITE, leading to SNOW DAYS.
• 24A [Truly exhausted] is DOG TIRED, leading to DOG DAYS.
• 38A [First line of a nursery rhyme about the cow that jumped over the moon] is HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, leading to HEYDAYS.
• 47A [Competitive countenance] is GAME FACE, leading to GAME DAYS.

Noelle Griskey’s Universal crossword, “Break Cover” — pannonica’s write-up

• 62a^R [Closing words in Hollywood, and a hint to the indicated letters] THAT’S A WRAP.
• 16a. [Ottawa-to-Halifax shipping option] CANADA POST (cast).
• 24a. [Terrified] SCARED STIFF (scarf).
• 37a. [Hiking path] FOOT TRAIL (foil).
• 53a. [Beethoven or Chopin work] PIANO SONATA (pita).

Flanking the sides of the theme answers are indeed words that can be considered various types of wraps. We’ve previously seen some crosswords using the same revealer (e.g., here, here, here, and here), but I don’t know that any of them work in quite this doubled way.

• 1d [Trojans’ sch.] USC. 2d [Jamaican music genre] SKA. Lurking here is ¾ of TUSK.
  
• 11d [Sandcastle creator’s quantity] PAILFUL. Oof, this entry is almost painful.
• 32d [The Calgary Stampede and others] RODEOS. Guessable with a couple of crossings.
• 51d [Frayed bit] TATTER.
  
• 60d [Knucklehead] TWIT. My instinct was to put in DOLT without any crossings, but I’d surely have been embarrassed for making an ass of myself. Glad I waited a bit.
• 65d [Santa __ ] ANA. Between USC, San Diego’s status as a SEAPORT (42d), there’s definitely a SoCal vibe here (along with a minor Canadian one). Oh wait, here’s another: 20a [SoCal area with the Latino Walk of Fame] EAST LA.
• 14a [Squishy Easter treat] PEEP. blech
• 19a [Geography class item] GLOBE. 72a [Map book] ATLAS.
• 36a [Same __ song] OLD. Such a starkly plain clue.
• 69a [Nyad who swam from Cuba to Florida] DIANA. Not without some controversy.

This is the end of the write-up.

Liz Gorski’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

Fave bits: The Vegas rarity angle for RAIN and SNOWFALL, WISTERIA, TOKENISM with a historical Malcolm X clue, TATTOO REMOVAL clued via [It involves disappearing ink].

Not wild about the fill in general, though. NET WT, SHA, LOMA, some dated references, etc. ELIO was a designer mentioned in a disco song?!?

Three stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1738: Themeless — Eric’s review

A fairly challenging Monday, especially in the NW corner. I jumped around more than usual, trying to get whatever toeholds I could.

Not unexpectedly, there were plenty of names. There were some I didn’t know off the top of my head (or at all, really):

• 15A [Furniture designer who made the iconic Ball Chair] EERO AARNIO I could picture the chair, but I don’t think I had heard the name before. Those three vowels in the middle are the kind of thing that makes you question whether your crosses are right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• 16A [TV actress Loughlin] LORI I’ve never seen “Full House,” but it ran for seven seasons about 30 years ago. More recently, she’s been on some show called “When Calls the Heart,” which is not at all familiar.
• 18A [Actor Teague] OWEN I don’t think I’ve seen him in anything.
• 52A [Comic character whose debut was in the play “I Can Do Bad All by Myself”] MADEA I would have guessed that this character was first on screen.
• 54A [Insurance company with a Latin name] UNUM That name sounds only vaguely familiar.
• 56A [Kahului Airport island] MAUI I considered and rejected OAHU; I should’ve remembered that the airport in Honolulu is named after Senator Daniel Inouye.
• 40D [Notre Dame’s sister school] ST. MARY’S College, in Notre Dame, Indiana. I made a lucky guess here after getting a few letters.

A couple of names I knew outright or got with a few strategic crosses:

• 39A [Green who created “Robot Chicken”] SETH This was my first entry.
• 53D [2011 Peace Prize winner ___ Johnson Sirleaf] ELLEN As president of Liberia (2006–2018), she was the first female elected head of state in Africa. She shared the Nobel with the Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and the Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

Some other good stuff:

• 21A [Printing problem] SMUDGE I tried SMEARS first — just one of several incorrect answers.
• 35A [Creamery order] ONE SCOOP Yeah, right.
• 40A [Rags, in Yiddish] SHMATTES Yiddish is full of colorful words; I was pleased that I remembered this one just from the unlikely-looking SHM-.
• 49A [Drizzle on some oatmeal] SYRUP I had oatmeal for breakfast, but sweetened it with brown sugar. I’m not sure why I don’t like maple syrup on anything but pancakes or waffles.
• 67A [“We’re not finished yet”] MORE TO COME
• 24D [Big Brazilian export] SAMBA
• 42D [Section of the brain] MEDULLA oblongata. It’s that stem-like thing atop the spinal cord that controls autonomous functions like breathing.

Overall, a nice puzzle.

Olivia Mitra Framke and Sally Hoelscher’s USA Today Crossword — Eric’s review

I’m going to blame my sluggish time on my unfamiliarity with the USA Today Crossword interface. It’s a little different than some of the others that I use. But I also had a few wrong answers that slowed me down.

The “First Dance” title suggests that the first word in each theme answer is one that can precede “dance”:

• 18A [“Howl’s Moving Castle” animation company] STUDIO GHIBLI I don’t thing I’ve seen that one, but I know I’ve seen “Spirited Away” and maybe “My Neighbor Totoro.” I’ve been underwhelmed by what I’ve seen from them.
• 34A [“Come on over and take a look”] STEP ON UP
• 50A [Stacked deli offering] CLUB SANDWICH I had the U from 42D EDU and tried making REUBEN fit somehow. It didn’t work out so well.

Three theme answers seems a bit on the skimpy side, but I don’t know if that’s normal for USA Today puzzles.

A few nice Down answers liven up the grid:

• 8D [Cartoonish portrait] CARICATURE
• 13D [Self-centered endeavor] EGO TRIP
• 28D [“We need to accept facts . . .”] LET’S FACE IT This may have been my biggest mistake, putting in LET’S BE REAL.

One of those curious crossword coincidences: 29A [Beethoven wrote 32 of them for the piano] SONATAS reminded me of the Universal puzzle for today, in which 53A [Beethoven or Chopin work] is PIANO SONATA.