Before we get to today’s puzzles, a quick note to promote AVCX’s subscription drive! (Note of transparency: I (Nate) am an editor at AVCX Cryptics and have also joyfully published crosswords with other branches of AVCX.)
AVCX is a phenomenal indie puzzle outlet that offers fun, fresh, and engaging crosswords (themed, themeless, midi, and cryptic!) and trivia on a weekly basis. This winter, AVCX is reorganizing to become fully independent, and we’re working to add 1,000 new solvers by January 1. We’re well on our way, but would love to include you, too!
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Another puzzle plug: Sunday evening is the deadline for the Kickstarter for Peter Gordon’s Fireball Newsflash Crosswords. The subscription pledge is $18 for a year of newsy puzzles, arriving every two or three weeks.
Okay, now onto our Sunday puzzles:
David Kwong’s New York Times crossword, “Art Heist” — Nate’s write-up
12.15.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword
Flavortext: Ten paintings have been stolen by a master thief! To solve this caper, locate each stolen painting in the grid. Then identify the squares in the Across answers from which they’ve been taken. In their place, the thief has left behind 10 pieces of evidence – letters in the Downs. Read them from top to bottom to reveal a message.
21A: EAST(I/ERN ST)ANDARD TIME [Winter setting in New England]
– An ERNST was stolen from this entry and moved to 54A. The I from IS INTO was put in its place.
33A: (W/GO YA)NKEES [Bronx cheer]
– A GOYA was stolen from this entry and moved to 92A. The W from THE CW was put in its place.
35A: BUENOS AIRE (A/S ARGENT)INA [Capital on the Rio de la Plata]
– A SARGENT was stolen from this entry and moved to 13D. The A from MODEL AS was put in its place.
53A: BO(S/DEGAS) [Neighborhood grocery stores]
– A DEGAS was stolen from this entry and moved to 63D. The S from ESTE was put in its place.
64A: HOO(F/KAH LO)UNGE [Bar with hashish pipes]
– A KAHLO was stolen from this entry and moved to 20A. The F from FEMS was put in its place.
71A: FRO(R/M ONE T)O TEN [Common scale ratings]
– A MONET was stolen from this entry and moved to 8A. The R from ASHORE was put in its place.
77A: SM(A/OKE EFFE)CTS [Fog and haze generated for a theatrical production]
– An O’KEEFE was stolen from this entry and moved to 94D. The A from WU-TANG was put in its place.
101A: REGISTERED DIE(M/TITIAN) [Health professional focused on nutrition]
– A TITIAN was stolen from this entry and moved to 4D. The M from SPASM was put in its place.
105A: STEA(E/M IRO)N [Household appliance that makes a hissing sound]
– A MIRO was stolen from this entry and moved to 93A. The E from GETS WISE was put in its place.
118A: MARY HA(D/D A LI)TTLE LAMB [Classic nursery rhyme]
– A DALI was stolen from this entry and moved to 110D. The D from REPLOTTED was put in its place.
Wow, just wow! This grid features ten carefully modified theme entries and the names of the ten artists whose works were stolen from those original theme entries. That is an incredible amount of theme-related fill in what is otherwise a mostly smooth grid! There were certainly a few regions of fill compromise (SNERD / DARIEN being the toughest moment for me), but this felt like a relatively kind solve given the thematic demands. Wow! This was such a joy to solve and it’s a puzzle I’ll remember for a while. What a fun peek into David Kwong’s brain – it should be no surprise to you that he is a real-life magician.
The only real challenge I had in completing this puzzle in the app was when I got to MODEL _S at 8D as the last unfilled square. I had no idea what letter to enter since it’s not checked in BUENOS AIRE_INA and I had no way of easily marking the nine other letter swaps to try and suss it out that way. I’ll admit that I had the app simply reveal that last letter, and I was gratified to see the app highlight the ten letters left behind in place of the stolen artwork, which aptly spelled out I WAS FRAMED! We’ll see about that, art thief!
Wowowwow – the juice certainly felt worth the squeeze on this one. What did you think? Let us know in the comments – and have a wonderful weekend!
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Themeless No. 25” — Matt’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Themeless No. 25,” 12/14/2024
Themeless time in the Washington Post. Let’s dig in.
I don’t recall Evan’s previous Sunday themelesses to have such open areas in the corners. It both led to a quick start and meant that my progress was tougher through much of the puzzle, where there were fewer very long entries than in past puzzles. (I usually find the longest entries easier to drop in.)
I also found the cluing a bit on the tougher side for an Evan puzzle, so there was a nice challenge here. In many cases, that was from trickier or older trivia than usual – OSBORNE, BRAUN, HATTER, ARTE, WAITE – but I also liked a number of creative clues for longer entries:
- 1a [One with real chops for chops] KARATE MASTER. “Chops” as skill and something done in karate.
- 107a [Retirement account?] BEDTIME STORY. As in “retiring” to bed.
- 28d [Saving time?] RESCUE MISSION
- 38d [Bench player’s chance to play brilliantly?] PIANO CONCERTO. A ‘bench player’ is not a substitute here, but a player of pianos, seated on a bench.
Other highlights: DIGITAL DETOX, SPACESHIP EARTH, ENERGIZER BUNNY, ONE HORSE RACE, MINERAL WATER, APPS as [Things often launched by a thumb], a chance to learn that ANDY Griffith was in “Matlock” as well as the eponymous show, adding QUEENIE to my reading list
Evan tells me next week is a meta, so get ready! Cheers.
I wish the instructions had said, “To solve this caper, identify THE ARTIST OF each stolen painting…” The comments on Wordplay are very negative. I’m not sure how I feel. I think I would have liked it better if I worked it on paper so I could highlight everything, but my printer’s not working. Going back and forth was tricky.
I am impressed by how the names worked, especially Titian and O’Keeffe.
I cannot get it to solve – I’ve tried entering the 10 cells as a rebus with the “clue” letter/, and also with clue letter / the stolen artists’ name), and I tried it as a regular cell, using the clue letter alone. I’m solving it on my laptop from NYT website. Fun theme, but not fun for me since I don’t know exactly what’s required in the 10 key cells
NYT: I had fun discovering the stolen paintings – although all of the cross-referencing was a PITA. I was originally looking for names of paintings (e.g., Mona Lisa), but I’m good with the idea of a stolen painting being a MONET or a GOYA – that’s in the language.
A message embedded in the puzzle with letters being left in place of the stolen paintings was a clever idea, and I’m sure it represents an impressive feat of construction. But ten Across answers that make no sense was too big a price to pay (IMHO).
Definitely in the category of impressive construction, but no fun at all to solve, for me.
Most of the problems have already been pointed out: nonsense theme entries like WNKEES, HOOFUNGE, etc. after the substitutions, the basically unchecked end of MODEL? (though I did correctly guess A rather than T), tons of short uninteresting fill in order to fit all that theme in. A couple of the substitutions using a letter that was at one end of the artist’s name (DEGAS/S and DALI/D) also made those ones a little more confusing.
And all made even worse by the failure in the web/app version to cross-reference the long themers back to the artists (e.g. 8-A highlights 71-A, but 71-A does NOT highlight 8-A for some reason).
And I did know both DARIEN and SNERD but I see for others it was a classic Natick, right down to one of them being a New England town.
All in all, just a slog.
It’s not HOOFUNGE, it’s HOOKAH LOUNGE with an F crossing the rebus KAHLO. It’s no more nonsense than any entry with a rebus where the rebus is abbreviated.
The (movable) rebus element is what made this puzzle so special, for me anyway, so I think it does the construction a great disservice to call these entries nonsense.
I get that it’s not for everyone, but I really enjoyed this puzzle.
NYT: Yeah, I loved every minute of my terrible solve time. All that cross referencing always plays heck with the clock, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process. This is definitely the sort of thing–puzzles with tricky extra problems, rebuses, and meta answers–that I come to the pastime for.
I feel like this might have been a real bear for someone who didn’t know their western art museum canon, though. If this had been built around sports stars or Tony winners I would have been pulling out my hair.
Not sure if anyone from NYT reads these, but it would have been helpful if the 10 theme answers highlighted the artist clue in addition to the artist clue highlighting the theme answers.
I agree with this suggestion!