As we head into Christmas and the start of Hanukkah, a quick reminder to consider gifting a subscription to AVCX to all the word nerds and smarty pants folks in your life! What a neat gift to get fun, fresh, and engaging crosswords (themed, themeless, midi, and cryptic!) and trivia in your inbox on a weekly basis. Choose amongst tiered prices to pay what you can afford, and enjoy some sample puzzles in the new web-based solving interface!
Note of transparency: I (Nate) am an editor at AVCX Cryptics and have also joyfully published crosswords with other branches of AVCX. Even if those things weren’t true, I’d attest to my AVCX subscription and its high quality puzzles being worth every penny!
Now, onto our Sunday puzzles:
Adrian Johnson’s New York Times crossword, “Go With the Flow” — Nate’s write-up
12.22.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword
This week, we’re treated to an incredibly smoooooooth themeless / freestyle puzzle! Aside from one very annoying square, this puzzle was such a joyful solve where I did really feel like I could “Go With the Flow” as a solver. Kudos to the constructor for filling this wide open grid in such a clean and clever way!
I cruised through this grid and alllllllllllllllllllmost broke 10:00, but got stymied by the JOG TROT / JELL crossing with 9:59 on the clock. I had no earthly idea what that letter could be (dog trot? hog trot? bog trot?) that I had to run the alphabet there, which took about 30 seconds on my phone. I guess that’s where JELL-O gets its name, but JELL felt anachronistic in an otherwise clean, modern grid. Maybe if JOG TROT had been clued a bit more specifically, that J square would have felt a bit more fair? Let me know if you got stumped there, too, or if it was just me!
Since there are no themers, here are some of the longest entries:
1A DEADLIEST CATCH [Reality show about the perils of crabbing in the Bering Sea]
19A EXPRESS CHECKOUT [Fast lane]
22A PERISH THE THOUGHT [“God forbid!”]
91A EQUATORIAL GUINEA [Only African nation where Spanish is an official language]
95A ALTERNATE ENDING [Second-place finish?]
97A LETTERS TO SANTA [They’re usually written in December]
Let us know in the comments what you thought of the puzzle (and if you PBed or got close!). And to those who celebrate any of the upcoming holidays, here’s to a joyful season!
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Sign of the Times” — Matt’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Sign of the Times” solution, 12/22/2024
It’s a meta this week, and we’re looking for “an apt four-letter word” in a puzzle titled “Sign of the Times.” Right at the middle of the grid is a revealer/hint: [Road sign that hints at something found four times in this puzzles (as well as its shape)] DEER XING.
From there, I did a lot of staring around. An allusion to Santa’s Reindeer is there at 1A for CUPID [Seasonal team member often paired with another (but not this time)], but I couldn’t quickly find any of the others either in whole or in part, even if the obvious way to a four-letter word from a deer-themed puzzle is to group eight items into pairs and note their crossings.
The puzzle vaguely looks like the diamond shape of a road sign, there is no obvious group of longer answers that look like themers, and the grid is a bit name-heavy for Evan’s typical style. This all had me considering that each piece of theme content was hidden among multiple answers.
After a few minutes mulling on “deer” and “crossing” and ignoring some of the spidey-sense of the last paragraph, I eventually saw DANCER hidden in a diagonal beginning near the northwest corner of the grid, and it was simple work to find the remaining eight reindeer, including Rudolph. Working in grid order, their crossings spell N-O-E-L, indeed an apt word for this time of year and theme.
In the end, the diagonal placement of theme material not only explains the more constrained fill but also leans on the traffic-sign shape in the grid, as well. Sometimes the things you notice as a little off *are* meaningful to the meta, I guess!
Other highlights: Some old crossword friends that I haven’t seen in a bit, in OREL, ASCH, XENA, alongside newer names like soccer star TOBIN Heath // the reminder that NOTRE Dame reopened this month after a few years of restoration work // I should say that while the grid was name-heavy, the overall cluing voice was eased up a bit – my solve time for the grid itself was on the fast side // the turns of phrase in [Bond maker Fleming] for IAN and [Space of waste] for TRASH CAN
Have a lovely week! A Merry Christmas if you celebrate, and peace and good vibes if you don’t!
Kareem Ayas’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Buzz Words”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are all the entries surrounding the large black shape in the center of the grid. Each word is missing the letter B, and we’re meant to imagine a whole host of Bs filling the shape which turns out to be a BEARD OF BEES (66d, [What’s pictured in the central structure … and a phonetic hint to 33 answers in this puzzle]). In addition, several long answers punnily refer to the insects. For brevity, I won’t list all the B words.
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Buzz Words” · Kareem Ayas · 12.22.24
- 24a. [Develop a certain allergic reaction … and a punny description related to 66-Down] BREAK OUT IN HIVES.
- 62d. [Potential by-product of 66-Down, punnily] MUSTACHE WAX.
- 108a. [Hexagonal structure … and what punnily might be needed for 66-Down?] HONEYCOMB.
Pretty nice! It didn’t take long to figure out that something was missing from those answers in the center and then only a little bit more to figure out that what was missing was letters B. I found the punny phrases satisfying, especially HONEYCOMB. However, I’m not getting a BEARD OF BEES when I look at the grid art. It just looked like a regular bee hive (or an acorn or an upside-down Christmas tree). Are those T shapes above the bees meant to be eyes and a nose? Why does it all look like a a happy lion’s face to me?
After grokking the theme, my first thought was that it would have been nice if the only Bs in the grid were in the center. But then I thought it made sense that a few were flitting around here and there.
Fill highlights: SLURPEE, LAB COAT crossing TUBE TOP, FORREST Gump, AIR KISS, NAIL FILES, SORKINESE, STENOPAD, and GULLIBLE. I lost some time when I put in TAPE UP instead of TACK UP even though the clue makes it pretty clear we’re not using tape [Pin to the wall].
Clue of note: 18a. [“Honey”]. SUGAR. This entry is on the opposite side of the grid as HONEYCOMB, but still, why not use a different clue?
Creative puzzle. 3.75 stars.
Jelly jells. Ideas jell. Seems like an ok word to me.
I would have said that those things gel – I don’t know that I’ve ever seen / heard JELL outside of just today realizing the JELL-O connection.
Aha.
Until the 20th century, gel was only a noun and jell was only a verb. Although those are still the preferred usages, gel did start to creep into the language as a verb. I guess that’s another one of those ship-has-sailed words, but I’m still OG on gel/jell.
I got JOG TROT slowly, but without undue trouble as both parts are so familiar. The crossing seems fine, as “gel” is so common in crosswords, and the spelling brings it closer to Jello. But in fact it’s also in all dictionaries. My tough crossing was LITE BRITES / SOBE.
Overall, an easy Sunday, but lively. It had better have been, since I have so much trouble motivating myself to keep going without a theme as motivation to the scale of a Sunday. I’m happy with themeless Friday and Saturday, but they have an obvious point in themselves, the difficulty, and don’t go on forever.
“I had no earthly idea what that letter could be (dog trot? hog trot? bog trot?”
Same here.
And also agree that this was a wonderful and smooth Sunday.
@Martin, interesting to hear the history of gel and jell.
My initial thought was that JELL is obscure and should be considered bad fill–that it’s just not In The Language; after I googled [“jell” -“jell-o”] and the first 50 results displayed nothing but dictionaries or usage documentation, or brand names, I would consider it a reasonable assertion. JOGTROT did not google much better. That is an ugly cross–perhaps no Natick, but ugly nonetheless.
NYT: Nate, it took me longer to find the D in dOGTROT that should’ve been a J than it did to solve the puzzle. (I even deleted every letter and retyped it and managed to make the same mistake twice, despite knowing 42A had to be JELL since gELs hadn’t worked.
I had the J from the beginning, so I managed to PR by 3 minutes over my previous time (would’ve been 4 except for some unknown reason I typed in EQUATORIAN instead of EQUATORIAL … whatever that was supposed to be).
I really dug the grid art which looked like waves on the ocean. Not a bad themeless sunday!
NYT: JOG is a relaxed gait. TROT is a relaxed gait. Yes – I know it you can find it in dictionaries, but there is no earthly reason for the phrase JOG TROT to exist. And it certainly shouldn’t show up in a NYT crossword.
This isn’t sour grapes – I had no trouble filling the entry after a couple of crosses. But it’s crappy fill (IMHO).
Overall, a nice Sunday workout, and I was pleased to be spared a theme.
I waited for the NYT theme to become apparent — and waited, and waited — pretty nice themeless. Was the title meant to be suggestive of anything?
I put in JELL immediately, so that wasn’t a problem.
WaPo: it was clear we were looking for the names of Santa’s reindeer, but after spending a minute or two scanning the grid, I couldn’t find any and so (as is my wont) gave up. Demonstrating once again that metas are not my thing.
I got briefly stumped on FORA/I and MA/ILAGA. Had it wrong first then saw it during my re-check. Agreed with JOGTROT having no place in a NY Times crossword. I’ll take it if that’s the price for a themeless Sunday, though. I wish they were more common!