Sam Ezersky’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s write up
Hey folks, Sophia here covering the Saturday. Today’s puzzle is by Sam, who had several NYT Saturdays last year so I’m pretty familiar with his style – before solving, I readied myself for some tricky wordplay, modern answers of varying lengths (a positive – themeless puzzles are boring if the only interesting words are the long ones), and some Saturday-level answers based on both proper names and uncommon word knowledge. And yep, they’re all here!
New York Times, 01 04 2025, By Sam Ezersky
Wordplay standouts: [L or M, but not N or O] for SIZE, [Hit entertainment org. in Vegas?] for UFC (this took me forever – I had WWE first), [Development area] for UTERUS, [Fudge substitute] for DARN IT, [Join the team?] for YOKE.
Cool modern answers: THE WORST is probably my favorite answer in the puzzle, especially so close to SO OVER IT. Other highlights included UBER ONE and TEN K. There’s also an interesting 90’s bent in terms of CD RACK, TORI Spelling and ELMO being clued as a popular Halloween costume.
Potentially tricky stuff, proper or otherwise: I’m in the subset of people who can drop in CHLOE ZHAO with no crosses, but needed 75% of the letters in ADAM SILVER to remember his name. The only word I straight up didn’t know here was SHOAT, which is, as the clue states, a young pig. (I was kind of hoping [tiny swine] would mean it was like a teacup pig or something, but no.) The middle left section was the hardest for me – I didn’t know ANN LEE, had trouble with the first two letters of AVGAS, and didn’t know what a “head shop” was so couldn’t see VAPE. Simon PEGG, EDDIE Huang, and the NEHRU clue might also prove tricky for folks.
Last thoughts: I didn’t know that ORANGUTAN means “forest person”, that’s so apt. Trying to parse the blank and reference for [___ on one’s 38-Across] and [See 37-Across] for the eventual “ACT on one’s BEHALF” took me far longer than it should have. And the clue of [“Holy oleo!” speaker] for ROBIN was super fun, and felt a little like a crossword fan shout-out with the “oleo” reference.
Have a good weekend all!
Rafael Musa’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 1/4/25 by Rafael Musa
There’s no entry in this puzzle longer than 10 letters (and not that many 8s and 9s either), but the cluing really elevates some of the short- and mid-length entries:
- 1A [Take credit?] is OWE. If 1A in a themeless is going to be a three-letter word (and a ubiquitous three-letter word, at that), this is how to do it — with a nice playful clue.
- 22A [Reptile that dominates Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” era imagery] is SNAKE. If you say so, Gen Z.
- 44A [Baby, in Irish slang] is SNAPPER. TIL.
- 48A [People with no class?] is a nice clue for TRUANTS.
- 58A [Follows a boat, in a way] is also a nice slightly deceptive angle for WATER-SKIS.
- 4D [Works outside?] is CHALK ART, my favorite clue-entry pair in the puzzle. It’s a lively entry, and the clue makes it even better.
- 9D [Emotionally encourage] is a very therapist-friendly clue for AFFIRM. (One of my 2023 New Year’s resolutions was to ask for affirmation and offer affirmation to other people. I recommend both!)
- 26D [Over-the-counter option after an accident?] is a PAPER TOWEL, as in something you might wipe up a counter with after the accident of spilling something. Heh.
- 32D [Group formed in Seoul in 2010] is BTS. I’m singling this clue out because I like when trivia clues refer to something you might not have known off the top of your head, but can figure out from context.
Needle scratch at 54A OH, SPARE ME — the OH up front takes this to green paint territory for me.
Joe Gangi’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Falling Into Place” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 1/4/25 • Sat • “Falling Into PLace” • Gangi • solution • 20250104
First, apologies for the late postings today. I foolishly believed I could outwait a cat lying upon me. We’re talking hours.
The revealer was literally the last entry I filled in, but fortunately I’d figured out the the gimmick long before then.
- 115aR [Certain delivery location, and a hint to solving six answers in this puzzle] DROP ZONE. The affected across theme answers each feature a letter sequence that ‘drops’ down vertically, forming a word that can precede ‘zone’.
- 22a. [“No backsies!”] WE MA{DE A D}EAL.
23d. [This one relates to Stephen King] (The) DEAD Zone. - 32a. [2009 rom-com set in a world where everyone is truthful] THE INVENTIO{N OF LY}ING.
35d. [This one relates to military restrictions] NO-FLY zone. - 44a. [Committed a dangerous traffic violation] BLE{W A R}ED LIGHT.
47d. [This one relates to combat] WAR zone. - 63a. [“Success is nearly mine!”] I {CAN AL}MOST TASTE IT.
64d. [This one relates to Panama] CANAL Zone. - 87a. [Stick a fork in it] KITCH{EN D}RAWER.
88d. [This one relates to rushing] END zone. - 100a. [“You misunderstand”] THAT’S NOT WHA{T I ME}ANT.
103d. [This one relates to clocks] TIME zone.
Solid stuff.
- 8d [Entrance] ARRIVAL.
- 10d [Not cut, say] ATTEND. Li’l tricky.
- 14d [Locale of 85-Across] MIAMI AREA. 85a [City up the coast from Fort Lauderdale] BOCA RATON. 95d [The Muppets’ Rizzo, e.g.] RAT.
- 42d [Bottle spirits?] GENII. Question mark made it easy. Plus, the clue phrase feels antiquated anyway.
- 68d [Sing one’s own praises] CROW, not BRAG.
- 77d [“Frozen” structure] ICE PALACE. Tried CASTLE first. 72a [77-Down inhabitant] ELSA.
- 87d [Add, as nuts to dough] KNEAD IN. I feel that I typically see directions to stir in things such as nuts, and then directions to knead, but this phrase seems plausible too.
- 94d [Model citizen?] STATUE. Iffy.
- 97d [“Ah, ’tis a momentous occasion!”] HUZZAH. Is it really so archaic? I use it kind of frequently.
- 101d [Film __ (moody movies)] NOIRS. m-w lists plurals as film noirs, films noir, and films noirs. I would tend to use the last one.
- 5a [Smart measurements] IQS. Not really. Such testing has roots in racism and eugenics.
- 19a [Aria passage with a quickening tempo] STRETTO. etymology: stretto from Italian, from stretto narrow, close, from Latin strictus, past participle; stretta from Italian, from feminine of stretto — more at STRICT (m-w)
- 25a [House on a hacienda] CASA. Hacienda can refer to the overall estate or to the house itself.
- 40a [Not in the game world, to a gamer] IRL, in real life.
- 60a [Glad cousin] IRIS. I don’t understand this. Oh wait! Glad is an abbreviated form of gladiola.
- 108a [Polish people?] EDIT. When I saw the question mark, I reflexively started putting in EDIT, had second thoughts because I was seeing polish as a noun and hence EDITORS would be the answer, took it out and waited for crossings, whereupon I was able to discern that polish was a verb.
- 121a [Worry] SWEAT. 50a [Worry excessively] LOSE SLEEP.
Less Ruff’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 1/4/25 • Saturday Stumper • Ruff, Newman • solution • 20250104
This one struck me as tougher than the advertised ‘less rough’. Struggled throughout, but eventually made serious headway across the bottom and got those two-thirds completely sorted, while still having only desultory incursions up top. And then, finally, I kind of rushed to the end, as everything started clicking into place.
- 1a [Up now] AT BAT, not AWAKE.
- 6a [Best Direction, Best Latin, etc.] VMAS, not EMMY.
- Fine stacking: 14a [Riot of miscellany] CRAZY QUILT, 17a [“Señor Burns” performer on The Simpsons] TITO PUENTE. 55a [Rubs in] GLOATS OVER, 58a [“Scream queen” since the ’70s] LINDA BLAIR.
- 19a [Michener book with a “Bulls” chapter] IBERIA. Once I corrected 1-across from AWAKE to AT BAT and abandoned WAPO at 2d [“Plebeian Protector” paper nickname] in favor of TRIB, this answer was easily evident.
- 23a [An interim Australian bioregion] CORAL SEA. Anyone else confidently plunk down WALLACEA? Anyone?
- 25a [What a lifeboat carries] GO-BAG. Even with the GOB– in place early thanks to the relatively easy crossings of 25d [She “pioneered screen” performance, per TCM] GISH and 27d [Sistine Chapel artist before Michelangelo] BOTTICELLI, I had trouble perceiving this across answer. By the way, the clue for GISH would have been much easier to parse if “pioneered screen performance” were all in quotes, but since I haven’t seen the source, it may not be accurate—but honestly I’m having trouble imagining how else the original phrasing could have been presented.
- 28a [Tempete dans un verre d’__ (fuss about trivialities)] EAU. 24d [Ciel d’__ (weather prevision)] AZUR. Yeh, these were no fun, especially so close together.
- 37a [Howl, yowl, growl …] CRY. 61a [Howls, yowls, growls …] YELLS.
- 41a [“Inventive name from Old Norse for “elf”] ALVA. The inventive being a reference to Thomas Edison, whose middle name this is.
- 42a [Invented things] LIED, though I first had the equally reasonable LIES.
- 47a [Firmware storage unit] ROM. I’m thinking this is a unit as a physical entity rather than a measurement?
- 3d [Ease off] BATE. I guess this is the root of the much more common abate. 60a [Handle with care] EASE.
7d [Italy’s Microlino EV, e.g.] MINICAR. I’ve been a fan for quite a while now.- 9d [Heads for drivers] STEER. As in ‘head of cattle’ and ‘cattle driver’. It’s buried deep.
- 13d [Sly spouse from the ’70s] TALIA. Stallone, Shire. In the Rocky movies.
- 28d [Cambridge’s region] EAST ANGLIA. I eventually got it, but this was a minor oof.
- 31d [Many a hybrid] BUS, not CUR.
- 40d [VW liftbacks] ARTEONS. Never heard of it, but I haven’t been paying attention to such things lately.
- 41d [Either of a wedding gown duo] ARMHOLE. Weird clue, especially since BRIDE doesn’t fit. I mean, what’s the misdirection to?
- 46d [Putting great effort] EAGLE. Golf. Clue trying a little too hard, and maybe losing the thread.
- 56d [Block’s 22-Across] -ADE, blockade. Ouch. See also 43a [Diet denouement] -ARY, which I suspected was the answer from early on, but had to wait quite some time before feeling confident via a crossing word or two.
Wow. Sam Ezersky’s NYT was quite a workout! For the first 10 minutes or so, I had that appalling feeling that I might finally DNF a Saturday puzzle, because, through that first pass, I had only one or two sad, tentative answers.
But then I just hung around, pulled out a few stabs (which turned out to be correct) from my semiconscious mind, and eventually the whole puzzle fell into place. Slower than my average time, but, to my surprise, not by a huge amount.
Scary, but satisfying. Eventually.
Will this be the new “take no prisoners!” Will Shortz? (Welcome back, by the way. Joel did a terrific job, but you were widely missed, of course.)
I was also worried till I got deep into it and it started to come together. Pretty fun Saturday!
Most puzzles are “typical” and don’t merit a medium rating. So I wouldn’t mind seeing the “star rating” system be modified.
Too many “3 stars” ratings means that most puzzles stay centered in the middle of the road, and we don’t get the full effect of what most solvers on this website think about a specific puzzle.
(Also, I wouldn’t mind seeing the 3.5 stars, 3 stars, and 2.5 stars ratings taken off the board.)
I don’t get what you’re saying. If most puzzles are typical, then wouldn’t they merit a medium rating?
If the 3.5, 3, and 2.5 star ratings were removed, we’d see a better striation in the scores — one that might go higher or lower — instead of staying centered in the 3.5 to 2.5 range.
NYT: Every time ORANG is an answer with a clue that refers to the ape, someone complains that it’s offensive because “orang” means “person” in Malay. Having seen those complaints made ORANGUTAN a gimme for me.
What a fun puzzle. Loved the orang clue. Loved the ways the clues moved back and forth in time (CD rack). Sam and Will – great team. Great to have you back editing Will.
And thanks to Joel for holding down the fort.
Pretty good NYT. About halfway through I thought ‘Ezersky’, which puts Sam into an elite group of recognizable constructors.
NYT was super tough in the top left corner for me. One nit: Chloe Zhao was Best Director in 2021, not 2020 as the clue states. No women were nominated in 2020.
I think this has come up before. The Oscars awarded in 2021 were for achievements in 2020.
It comes up every time. The official name is the “93rd Academy Awards.”
Horrible NYT. Full of proper names and trivia. I hope that this was in the pipeline before Will returned and that we will see crossWORD puzzles in the future.
On a first pass through the NYT I didn’t get much, but I knew ANNLEE and that was my foothold. Not too hard overall — but not a puzzle I found all that enjoyable. A bundle of names and esoterica — AVGAS, AZTECEMPEROR, SHOAT, ‘ochlocracy.’ I remembered CHLOE but not her last name.
There’s something about Ezersky’s puzzles that I dislike — they seem a bit show-offy, the constructor being a bit too pleased to trot out a bunch of odd miscellenea to trip up solvers.
I tend to agree with your second paragraph.
I solved it with no errors, but it took forever. I like a good Saturday workout, but this one didn’t provide much of a payoff for all that work. Sam and I never seem to be on the same wavelength.
Same.
ANN LEE was my foothold, too, since fortunately I’d seen a show about the Shakers at the American Folk Art Museum in late fall. But what a tough puzzle, especially in the NW and NE, where the names were denser. I still don’t know what I think of it. But clever throughout. I ended puzzled by CASK, but oops! It’s as close as anything in this puzzle to obvious!
NYT: AVGAS isn’t a portmanteau, right? It’s short for aviation gasoline, so it’s just a shortened version of those two words. But that’s not what portmanteaus are, as far as I understand. Those are when you take two words and smash them together, not just shorten each one. For example, brunch is from breakfast and lunch. A portmanteau of aviation gasoline would be something like avoline.
Agreed.
While most portmanteaux are the first part of one word and the last part of the second, I don’t know that’s always the case.
I believe the likes of romcom, sitcom, neocon, biopic and hazmat are usually considered to be portmanteaux.
I think AVGAS counts as a portmanteau. Does anyone know how it is typically pronounced? Is it with a short “a” or a long “a”? It looks like it should be a short “a,” but “aviation” has a long “a” and I don’t know if that is carried over into AVGAS.
I didn’t like AVGAS for a different, kind of irrational reason. I realize AVGAS is a completely legitimate entity (which is why my dislike of its use here is probably hard to defend), but it’s super-specialized and it felt like the main reason it’s in the puzzle is because it’s unusual to have a V and a G next to each other. It would never make into Sam’s Spelling Bee list, so I don’t know if it should be in his crosswords. I felt like the puzzle already had too many impossible-to-guess proper nouns, and throwing in specialized terminology because of its letter combinations seems to me like too much.
That being said, I actually knew most of the proper nouns and finished this puzzle much faster than the last couple of Sam Ezersky NYT Saturdays, which were major struggles for me. Or Puzzle #5 from last year’s ACPT, which was no fun at all even if you put aside the gimmick.
Online dictionaries seem to agree that it’s pronounced with a short a.
Gary, thank you!
I just read Rex Parker’s commentary on the puzzle, where he said,
“I do not like AVGAS (AViation + GASoline) as an answer (mostly because I have no idea what that is and it seems like an awful abbr. contrivance)”
So I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it! :)
Not a fan of Sam’s today. Lots of names and tricky entries and for what? I wasn’t super impressed with the debuts.
NYT: A (mostly) thoroughly enjoyable challenge that had, for me, too many clues for proper names that I didn’t know.
So I ended up looking up the first name of the NBA commish. Which did the trick.
I hate to need to look something up, so I wish there had been fewer mysterious-to-me persons clued in this puzzle.
But I certainly liked the wild variety of different non-name answers in this puzzle.
BTW, I did not understand why 10A “Red container, maybe” is CASK.
It had to be CASK, but why? Why should it “maybe” be red?
CASK as in a container that may contain red wine
Oh, that is very good, and must be what was intended. Google AI came up with something else: “Casks are often painted red, particularly at the ends, mainly due to tradition and the color’s visibility; it’s a common practice to paint cask ends red, making them easily identifiable in a cellar or warehouse, with the color red simply becoming the standard over time, not necessarily signifying any specific meaning beyond ease of recognition.” That’s so funny to me, because the red-wine connection must be the right one.
It may contain a red, like cab.
Aha, thank you.
(The interpretation “container of red” never occurred to me.)
I had to look up almost every single thing in this puzzle. I don’t why I did that–maybe something was appealing. I don’t usually do Saturdays unless I can fill in three answers, but I think I only had TORI to begin.
No Stumper? I thought it wasn’t too bad. Reagardin 9D “heads for drivers” — took me a bit after I got the answer to understand the answer as cattle. I wasn’t fond of 25D “she ‘pioneered screen’ performance, per TCM” — at first, I was thinking someone somehow pioneered screens, which made no sense. Since I don’t have pannonica’s grid to check, I’ll have to do a search to verify my answer to 40D — I’ve never heard of it (I have the print version).
Working on it now.
Thanks! I rely on you! :)
ROM is “read-only memory.”
I never heard of “wallacea,” but got “Coral Sea” from the crossings.
I once was at a museum in Port Huron, Michigan, where Edison lived when he was young and there were references to “Alva Edison” — apparently that’s what his family called him at that time. So it’s more than a miidle name — it was a name he used.
The source text whence “pioneered screen” is “Having pioneered screen acting from vaudeville entertainment into a form of artistic expression…”. I don’t see why the clue couldn’t have been “She ‘pioneered screen acting’, per TCM”. Maybe to make it harder to find the answer via a search?
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/71895%7C99056/Lillian-Gish#biography
Thanks for sleuthing. Agreed that it could (should?) easily have been ‘acting’ inclusive.
Thanks! I was wondering!
It certainly wasn’t ‘Les Ruff’ for me. I needed pannonica’s explanation of STEER. I thought a GOBAG was something households in disaster-prone areas had — why would a lifeboat carry one? What is ‘interim’ about the Coral Sea? Are hybrid BUSes really that common?
Having CRIES and CRY in the same puzzle is inelegant.
in crossing entries, at that
The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia is a planning tool that is updated periodically.
That seems like a misunderstanding. It’s the periodically updated list of bioregions that is ‘interim.’
Lovely WSJ puzzle. THAT is the kind of wordplay I like to see as opposed to trivia contests.
There is an error in the January 4th Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle at 27 across. The German word, Fraulein, has two dots, not three, over the “a”. The answer should’ve been “zwei,” not “drei.” But, of course, that wouldn’t fit.
https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/01/03/saturday-january-4-2025/