Thursday, December 12, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam Acker’s Fireball Crossword, “Motion to Strike” – Jenni’s write-up

The title made me think of themes that dropped motion-related words, or something legal. Wrong on both counts.

We have rebi! They’re not symmetrical. The pattern matters, and Peter’s grid shows it better than mine.

• In the NW we have 3d [Bounced from place to place] crossing 19a [1965 western spoof featuring Jane Fonda]: PIN{BALL}ED and CAT {BALL}OU.
• 23a gives us a bit of a different twist. [A walk in the park?] is {BALL}{BALL}{BALL}{BALL} – four balls. The park in question is a baseball park.
• 45a [They’re solid orange in pool] is {BALL}{BALL}{BALL}{BALL}{BALL} – five-balls.
• 60a and 61d give us a single again: [Weirdo] and [Person stepping on toes] are ODD{BALL} and {BALL}ERINA.
• 63a [Golf match with two teams of two] is another {BALL}{BALL}{BALL}{BALL} four-ball.

30d explains what we’re looking at. [Desktop toy named for a physicist (and depicted in this puzzle)] is NEWTON‘S CRADLE. You’ve seen it, even if you don’t know it by that name.

We have an bonus at 10d [Game’s power switch?] is MOMENTUM SHIFT.

I love this puzzle. It’s layered and interesting and works at every level. So much fun. The last Fireball of 2024 was a good’un.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that the rap song “Big POPPA” was nominated for a Grammy.

Robert Charlton’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “That’s a Take!”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are words and phrases that feature the letters AND, but the clues are written as if those letters were removed. The revealer is “AND…CUT!” (62a, [Director’s call, plus a hint to making sense of eight Across answers]).

• 1a. [Biden or Harris, for short] DEMAND. Dem.
• 7a. [Behave like a helicopter parent] HANDOVER. Hover.
• 17a. [Screw up] ERRAND. Err.
• 18a. [Dark beer] STANDOUT. Stout.
• 34a. [Fiddle feature] STRANDING. String.
• 53a. [Ride for a Quidditch player] BAND ROOM. Broom.
• 56a. [Pops] PANDAS. Pas.
• 61a. [Bra part] SAND TRAP. Strap.

Nice theme that kept me guessing for a good while. That NW corner was tough since you don’t know what’s going on at the start and then you get an entry like REALIA thrown at you and you wonder if it’s part of the theme (it isn’t). But mostly, an enjoyable theme.

With the exception of PANDAS. It’s bad enough we sometimes get PAS (clued as plural fathers) on occasion in a crossword’s fill, but to make it one of your theme answers really weakens the theme (in my view). There’s got to be something more interesting than PAS. Even PANDER would be better. If that corner was re-done, then maybe SST and the crossing of proper names SPAHN and CHEOPS could be removed.

Never heard of MARS ONE [Failed Dutch organization that hoped to establish a colony on the Red Planet], but kudos to the Dutch for a bold vision (sounds like it wasn’t thought through, though). Other interesting tidbits: MEANIES (blue or otherwise), AMIDALA, AREA CODE, and ALTO SOLO.

Clues of note:

• 21a. [Title for Angelico]. FRA. Mmm. Frangelico. Hit me with your best recipe involving the nutty liqueur. I’m usually good with the original Nutty Irishman: Equal parts Frangelico and Irish Cream.
• 22a. [Start of the seventh century]. DCI. I for one would not be opposed to cluing this with respect to the British police rank of Detective Chief Inspector (DCI John Luther, for example).
• 46a. [Scarf stuff]. SILK. I realized this clue would also work for “eat” or “consume”.

Good puzzle overall. 3.5 stars.

Daniel Bodily’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Easy (8m14s)

Today’s theme: solve by numbers

• SWEET SIXTEEN, which is SPOT
• CATCH TWENTY TWO, which is AIR
• AREA FIFTY ONE, which is CODES

Interesting twist on cross-referencing other answers in the grid — conventionally, the whole word is highlighted in pale yellow (at least on the app and website).  The puzzle is undersized at 14×15 to accommodate CATCH TWENTY TWO as the grid-spanning center, so I would imagine everyone’s solves will be on the faster side.

Cracking: did you ever notice how musicians always end their performances ON THAT NOTE

Slacking: IGA Swiatek, currently suspended for doping, while claiming that she was taking a WIDELY ABUSED DOPING AGENT “jetlag treatment” supposedly tainted with trimetazidine

Sidetracking: STRANGERS With Candy

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1739: “‘A’ MAN ON THE INSIDE” — Eric’s review

One on the easier side from Brendan today. Each theme answer incorporates the given name of a famous man and each name begins with A:

• 17A [Writer Oz in a flat cap?] TAM O’SHANTER Amos Oz, who died in 2018, was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. The name seems vaguely familiar to me, but once I had the end of this answer, the “A” name had to be AMOS.
• 25A [Representative Schiff into nuts?] MACADAMIAS The clue is technically out of date; California governor Gavin Newsome recently appointed Adam Schiff to fill out the rest of Dianne Feinstein’s Senate term, and he’ll be sworn in for his own six-year term in January.
• 31A NHL star Ovechkin in the middle of a test? ORAL EXAM I’m not up on my hockey stars, but having figured out the theme, my only question was whether the name was ALEX or ALEXI.
• 41A [Prayer opening featuring singer Guthrie?] DEAR LORD Well, Woody Guthrie didn’t fit the theme.
• 48A [Actor Alda showing up in a perspective for newsreaders around here?] LOCAL ANGLE
• 57A [Speak convincingly about “Beverly Hills Cop’s” Foley?] WAX ELOQUENT

Alan Alda, Arlo Guthrie, and Axel Foley might be more familiar to older solvers (like me). I’d be interested to hear if younger solvers struggled with the theme answers because they didn’t know those names.

I enjoyed how I could easily figure out LOCAL ANGLE and WAX ELOQUENT once I plugged in those names.

A few little things I liked:

• 3D [Joke that skewers one’s family] YO MOMMA This slowed me down a bit because I wanted it to be YO MAMA. Yo mileage may vary.
• 33D [Second person] EVE/39D [First person?] PIONEER I usually don’t care for Biblical references in my puzzles, but this pairing is kind of fun.
• 36D [Only airman to escape in “Catch-22”] ORR Catch-22 is my favorite novel, so I’ll always prefer a clue about Yossarian’s tent mate to one about Phil Esposito’s teammate. (But hey, Brendan, where’s the spoiler alert?)
• 38D [“___ is full of musical amateurs” (George Bernard Shaw)] HELL I didn’t know the quote, but I know enough about Shaw that it was easy to guess the missing word.

Darryl Gonzalez’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

Short note, my hard drive went for a Burton a couple of weeks back, I had been solving on Wendy’s laptop with its malfunctioning keyboard, but I replaced the HDD today, and installed uBuntu. I have spent the last two hours trying to find a way to solve .PUZ files, and for now am uploading them to squares.io. If anyone has any good ideas…

Darryl Gonzalez’s puzzle today features clue/answer reversal, in this case “Mars”. Mars is a ROMANGODOFWAR, a CANDYCOMPANY, DOESDAMAGETO and MUSICIANBRUNO. Yes, it is those.

My favourite clue was the simple [Fail suddenly & spectacularly] for CRATER. I had no idea OMELET bars are a thing anywhere, and in fact assumed it was some bar shaped omelet. NAPA as an [Auto parts chain…], FRYE as a [Leather boot brand] and [Balloon material…] MYLAR were also mystery names for me. I don’t know if the puzzle played harder than normal because of these, or if it was the unfamiliar interface…

Gareth

Adam Simpson’s USA Today Crossword, “Triathlon” — Emily’s write-up

Ready, set, go!

alt=”Completed USA Today crossword for Thursday December 12, 2024”
USA Today, December 12, 2024, “ Triathlon” by Adam Simpson[/caption]

Theme: each themer begins with a part of a triathlon

Themers:

• 19a. [Take a difficult path], SWIMUPSTREAM
• 36a. [Practice of sending invoices on a schedule], CYCLEBILLING
• 53a. [Try to get elected], RUNFOROFFICE

Today’s themer set contains SWIMUPSTREAM, CYCLEBILLING, and RUNFOROFFICE. None were difficult, though didn’t fall into place right away for me. Also, with the theme, they are in order of the triathlon events. Nice!

Favorite fill: UMAMI, GETAT, ONSITE, and PARSED

Stumpers: YEET (needed crossings), BLEH (“yuck”, “ick”, and “eww” came to mind first), and OPENIT (needed crossings)

Lovely grid and an overall smooth solve. Lots of fresh fill too, at least for me. Great cluing and fun lengthy fill.

4.0 stars

~Emily