Note: No WSJ puzzle due to the holiday. Happy New Year!
Seth Bisen-Hersh & Jeff Chen’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 1/1/25 – no. 0101
A Hanukkah crossword! And it turns out that while nun, gimel, and shin are familiar to me as Hebrew letters on the dreidel, but this puzzle taught me that the four letters stand for other words in the game! (Wikipedia link for those of you who were also in the dark.) Nun gives you theYiddish for “not,” which I guess equates to NONE in NONE THE WISER. Gimel gets you to ALL in ALL THE RAGE. Shin is PUT IN, in PUT IN WRITING (anyone else try PUT INTO WORDS first?). And the Hebrew letter I had zero recollection of hei, yields HALF in the Kennedy HALF DOLLAR. The revealer is two-pronged: The obvious part is the dreidel drawn in the center of the grid. There’s also the 4-letter 52d SPIN, [Take a turn with the object illustrated by the central black squares in this puzzle (leading to one of the four circled results)]. CLAY is what the traditional dreidel is made of, in song (if you struggled to get that unchecked Y and you’re from in the US, I think that’s on you), and Hanukkah GELT refers to chocolate coins in 59d.
Freshest-feeling fill: WORK BAG, [Stylish tote for an executive].
Can’t believe the words “demure” and “mindful” weren’t used in the DECOROUSLY clue. Come on, Will! This was the last chance in 2024 to use them before they’re dated and forgotten. (Yes, I know the newspaper puzzles aim for material that won’t feel dated in reprint collections.)
Four stars from me.
Olivia Mitra Framke & Sally Hoelscher’s USA Today Crossword, “EVs” — Emily’s write-up
Happy New Year! Kick off 2025 with an early victory with this nice puzzle.
USA Today, January 01, 2025, “EVs” by Olivia Mitra Framke & Sally Hoelscher
Theme: each themer contains E—V—
Themers:
- 17a. [Manhattan neighborhood that includes Alphabet City and Little Ukraine], EAST VILLAGE
- 34a. [Person who’s draining to interact with], ENERGY VAMPIRE
- 57a. [Casting ballots prior to election day], EARLY VOTING
A variety of themers in today’s set, starting with EASTVILLAGE, followed closely by an ENERGYVAMPIRE that I first tried “emotional” and brought up by the easy fill of EARLYVOTING. A fun theme indeed!
Favorite fill: IMSODOWN, HOTSPOT, ILOVEIT, and MEANIE (which makes me think of Sue from Owl Diaries)
Stumpers: adverb (needed crossings), cadet (stuck on “redshirt”), and OOF (“eek”, “aah”, and “ooh” came to mind first)
Though it felt like the cluing was trickier than some puzzles, my solve was still fairly smooth and though not my fastest time, it didn’t take as long as it first felt. The across cluing seems a bit tougher than the down cluing but the crossings were fair and the puzzle filled easily once I got footholds. Lovely fill and I enjoyed all of the lengthy bonus fill! A great start to 2025 crosswords
4.25 stars
~Emily
Adam Aaronson’s New Yorker crossword – Kyle’s write-up
Happy New Year! The first New Yorker crossword of 2025, and third of this week’s special themed series, comes from Adam Aaronson. We’re given a hint that the theme is “So much to say”
Revealer: 62A [“That’s so nice of you”…and a literal description of the last word in 17-, 21-, 39- or 57-Across] “IT MEANS A LOT”
The New Yorker solution grid – Adam Aaronson – Wednesday 01/01/2025
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- 17A [Classic folk song with the line “I owe my soul to the company store”] “SIXTEEN TONS”. New to me. According to Wikipedia, the song is about coal mining in Kentucky in the early 20th century, and the line refers to the practice of paying miners in scrip that they could only spend at the company store. Interesting bit of economic history.
- 21A [Fuels up before a long race] CARBO-LOADS
- 39A [Achieving the miraculous] MOVING MOUNTAINS. Nice spanner.
- 57A [John Williams’s compositions for “Jaws” and “Star Wars”, for example] FILM SCORES
Some nice bonus fill in BANANA OIL, READ ALONG, “LOVE, SIMON” and EVIL PLANS. Thanks Adam!
Ricky Sirois’ Universal crossword, “Cookie Cutter” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 1/1/25 • Wed • “Cookie Cutter” • Sirois • solution • 20250101
Cookie type names are distributed across three consecutive entries.
- 19a [1965 Alabama march site] SELMA
20a [Sedan, e.g.] CAR
21a [NBA legend Shaquille] O’NEAL.
macaron - 33a [Drive-__ ] THRU
36a [Styling product] GEL
37a [More sore] ACHIER
rugelach - 42a [Cover stories?] ALIBIS
45a [Camp bet] COT
46a [Throw] TOSS
biscotto (singular) - 55a [Getting older] AGING
58a [Hosp. areas] ERS
61a [Backs of necks] NAPES
ginger snap
Nicely turned.
- 7d [Tiny amount] IOTA, which I’d first tried for the crossing 5a WHIT, clued the same way.
- 8d [Pip-squeak] TWERP. I’ve mostly seen the clue as an unhyphenated word, but m-w and American Heritage dictionaries prefer the hyphenated version. Onelook.com shows ample support for both versions.
- 15d [“Frida” or “Erin Brockovich”] BIOPIC, which should never be rhymed with ‘myopic’ except in jest.
- 28d [Cake serving] SLICE. Central entry, and it kind of describes the division of the theme answers.
- 13a [Iolani Palace island] OAHU. IOLANI caused consternation for some commenters as an entry just a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal crossword.
- 68a [Hamster’s home] CAGE. I intensely dislike clues with such framing.
Maddy Ziegler’s AV Club Classic Crossword, “Loafing”–Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, “Loafing” – 1/1/25 – Ziegler
I solved the puzzle, closed the puzzle file without saving, and soon realized it was meant to be blogged today. Pardon the auto-completed solution grid.
There are three rows of unchecked squares in the grid. The divided revealer entry in the lower right is SLICED / BREAD, and those rows that alternate between white and black squares spell out the breads CIABATTA, CHALLAH, and BAGUETTE, “sliced” by black squares.
Solid fill and clues overall.
New to me: [“The Feminist Killjoy Handbook” author Ahmed], SARA. That sounds like a good book!
Four stars from me.
Jay Silverman’s LA Times crossword–Gareth’s theme summary
1 Jan 25
Jay Silverman’s theme is a typical one for a Wednesday in the LA Times. The explaining answer is CHOPPYWATERS, and the circles, which are separated by uncircled letters, spell out generic bodies of water: a bay in SLUMBERPARTY; a canal in CHAINMAIL; a lake in COLORADOROCKIES; and a sea in MUSCLECAR.
Gareth
To a happy and healthy 2025 to all here.
Some know I spend the week leading up to 1/1 in Seattle preparing a traditional Japanese New Years spread for 50 or so family and friends. I just finished making a gallon of kimpira, which reminded me of all of you. Soon I’ll be done for the night and will drink a champagne toast to the health of all the Fiends.
HNY!
I googled kimpira so Fiend readers don’t have to. Here’s what I think is the relevant Wikipedia article (and the turn of the year is a good time to donate to nonprofit Wikipedia):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinpira
Sorry. There was some discussion about fairness when KINPIRA appeared in the 11/29 puzzle. I realize you were not around for some time. Special wishes for you!
Nice effect to see the Y is not completely unchecked as all the interior letters are C, L, A or Y.
As unfamiliar as I was with the sides of the dreidel, I first thought the circled words were the Hebrew letters themselves (although I did question how PUTIN made his way into the Hebrew alphabet!)
Happy puzzling to all in 2025!
Good point about Y, thanks! I just figured it had to be CLAY since you can’t make much out of a clam (or clan, clap, clad, or claw).
On seeing PUTIN, before I got the theme I truly was wondering if Putin had put in an appearance (maybe to welcome the new year with his free pass from our next president).
I also got PUTIN as one of the theme answers fairly early, and I was nervous what the theme was going to end up being… I don’t think of Vladimir Putin and the holiday spirit as going well together.
I was quite relieved to find out the theme answer was two words! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to everyone!
Fun puzzle! I made a batch of latkes fried in duck fat (from Thanksgiving) for lunch on our final day of Hanukkah.
Hippo Gnu Deer everyone!
Well, the NYT was pretty easy but also totally mystifying to me. I figured the object in the middle was supposed to be a dreidel, but the seasonal song and the game meant nothing.
I’m puzzled by WORKBAG — that seems totally green-painty, and also sounds like something a plumber or electrician might carry around. But it’s a ‘stylish tote’? Google brings up all kinds of work bags, most of them very utilitarian — L.L. Bean has one for hunters, because of course they do.
Interesting NYT. A drawn picture in black and white squares isn’t always convincing, but this works. I learned details, too, I should be sorry to say given my Jewish ancestry. But cluing was totally fair.
Speaking of tradition, I’d swear I didn’t know before that an elm stands for wisdom.
Yes, that ELM clue puzzled me too. I thought that in crosswordland, elms are known only for providing shade (unlike other trees!) but apparently they dispense wisdom too.
Acknowledging that the puzzle editors at the NYT don’t care much about duplications, I nevertheless chafed at NONE THE WISER after the two [Symbols of wisdom] clues (ELMS, OWLS).
I’m ok with it, give or take not recognizing elms as this. Think of it as a feature, one phrase leading to two entirely different answers in different parts of the grid. I can almost hear the constructor saying, Gotcha!
TNY is easy but not bad.
I was puzzled by that clue for ELMS, too. I did a little research, and could only find “verification” on some amateur Celtic/Druid fan sites, not anywhere that I would consider authoritative. It didn’t slow me down much, in any case. I just thought it was weird.
What slowed me down was SNOT. I put in “snob” on my first pass through the puzzle, and was surprised when I got the “not quite” message when the grid was filled in. It took me a couple of minutes to check all my entries before I got to “gelb” and saw my mistake. But I still think “snob” was a better answer for that clue.
I was a bit irritated by what seemed to be a very weird and choppy AVCX grid, and then delighted when I hit the revealer and realized what was going on.
Happy 2025, Cru! May your troubles last as long as your resolutions.