Robert Logan’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 1/10/25 – no. 0110
Lots of entertaining fill throughout this puzzle. My faves: “WHO KNEW?”, “YEAH, I’M SURE,” SPITBALL as a verb, BENDY STRAW, “HIT ME UP,” KEPT IT REAL, SPAMBOTS, PARTY BUS, and NERFING.
I wonder whether plural SISALS ([Natural rug fibers]) is really legit.
Clue I liked: 14D. [It stands out in a print], WHORL. In a fingerprint, not an art print.
Four stars from me.
Amanda Cook’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 1/10/25 • Fri • Cook • solution • 20250110
nb: This was written on Wednesday, before the horrific fires that have been devastating the Los Angeles area. Just felt the need to acknowledge the tragedy and express sympathies.
- 35aR [Third base, in baseball lingo, or one of four in this puzzle] HOT CORNER. Both of the entries meeting at each of the four corners can be preceded by ‘hot’. They’re clued normally, not in their ‘hot’ sense.
- 1a. [Valued entity] COMMODITY.
1d. [Gâteaux] CAKES. - 10a. [Chances] SHOTS.
14d. [Take off and run?] STREAK. - 43d. [Trade secrets?] GOSSIP. Hot gossip isn’t a phrase I’ve heard much, but maybe I don’t travel in such circles.
64a. [Breathes heavily] PANTS. - 65a. [See’s Candies candy] CHOCOLATE.
53d. [Arrange for serving, as a meal] PLATE.
- 2d [Sheep] OVINES. Plural of the less-seen noun form.
- 39d [One who practices minimal consumption] FREEGAN. Not necessarily minimal personal consumption of, say, food, but as a component of a broader philosophy of limiting participation in a hyperconsumerist economy. Of course that includes minimizing contributions to food waste and so forth.
- 42d [Awareness of wrongdoing, in criminal law] MENS REA, criminal intent, literally ‘guilty mind’.
- 45d [Shakshouka base] TOMATO. Looks tasty, and I don’t even really care for poached eggs.
- 51d [Totes absurd] RIDICulous (totally). 62a [Completely silly] INANE.
- 56d [“Duuuude …”] BRAH, a colloquial form of bro.
- 17a [Result of slaying it at the gym] KILLER ABS. Not sure how common this phrase is, but I note that ‘slaying’ is in the clue to help the solver along.
- 22a [Google rankings metric: Abbr.] SEO, search engine optimization.
- 41a [Hardly cheerful] GRIM. My current métier for the foreseeable future. 11d [“Grimsburg” voice actor Jon] HAMM.
- 52a [The __ Ministry: “Rest is Resistance” organization] NAP. I’m intrigued. As I like to remind people: “the first nap of the day is the most important nap of the day.”
- 56a [Composers’ rights org.] BMI, Broadcast Music, Inc.
- 58a [Magical symbol] SIGIL. etymology: Middle English sigulle, from Latin sigillum — more at SEAL (m-w)
- 63a [Quiz with bona fide answers?] LATIN TEST. Bona fide is, literally, ‘in good faith’ so that’s an apt contrast to the crossing 42-down MENS REA.
Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley’s Universal crossword, “Job Title”—Jim’s review
Theme clues are famous novels (with authors given in parentheses) that are used as literal or punny hints for the occupations in the theme answers. The revealer is LITERARY WORK (56a, [Novel, say … or a theme hint]).
Universal crossword solution · “Job Title” · Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley · Fri., 1.10.25
- 19a. [The Giver? (Lowry)] HUMANITARIAN.
- 30a. [Lord of the Flies? (Golding)] FISHERMAN.
- 37a. [Invisible Man? (Ellison)] ILLUSIONIST.
- 44a. [Interpreter of Maladies? (Lahiri)] PHYSICIAN.
Despite being an English major, I’ve only read one of these (Ellison), but I got the gist of the theme with the first entry and verified it with the second. I didn’t know the last novel, but by then the theme was clear. Good play on words in the revealer, and overall, it’s a fine theme that should work even for solvers who haven’t read any of these books.
Fill highlights include ESPRESSO and SAILED ON clued [Continued, at sea], though I personally wouldn’t have minded if the latter was clued with respect to the Landon Pigg song.
Clues of note:
- 36a. [Like some pizza slices]. OILY. Hmm. “Greasy” would be a better descriptor.
- 12d. [Theater chain that plays a Nicole Kidman ad before each movie]. AMC. Seems like an awfully specific clue that might not have staying power, but I guess it works for right now.
- 50d. [Joints that can be rolled]. ANKLES. Ha! Good clue which is both funny and painful.
Good puzzle. 3.5 stars.
NERF (as a verb) and BENDY STRAW seem like familiar entries of late.
BENDYSTRAW made its NYT debut 3 weeks ago, on Dec 21. (Thank you, xwordinfo!)
There have been times in the past when it seems that the editors have deliberately put a potentially obscure answer in the grid twice in a short amount of time. But I feel like that’s generally happened when it’s a short entry in a late-week puzzle. BENDY STRAW, at 10 letters, is one of the 4 longest entries in this themeless puzzle, and it’s almost like duplicating a theme answer within 3 weeks. It was also 1A on Saturday, Dec 21, so its original appearance was more prominent and in a later-in-the-week puzzle.
What’s up with Crossword Scraper? Not working this morning.
Actually, the issue may be Across Lite. Is it not compatible with the latest Microsoft update? Where do I find other solving platforms?
Try the Nexus solver – I personally prefer it to AcrossLite; it just seems a little cleaner and fresher.
I’ve been happily using XWord for years.
https://mrichards42.github.io/xword/
Thanks
FWIW … I use Crossword Scraper every day and have had no problems to date. I “upgraded” (tongue-in-cheek) to Windows 11 relatively recently and have kept it updated. I’ve had a few issues with it, but so far, the Chrome Scraper add-in still works for me. I don’t use AcrossLite.
My last square in the NYT was NOO_ES crossing CNN. The first was hard to parse and the second I’m unfamiliar with.
I don’t understand why ANGST is “Growing pain?”, even with the question mark. And LORANGE is just bizarre. You’re telling me that Grand Marnier is made with a brandy and the orange? Weird.
Pretty good Friday challenge overall, though. I liked YEAHIMSURE, WHOKNEW, and KINDASORTA.
That NO ONE’S/CNN cross took a while for me, too. Fortunately, I’m familiar enough with the CNN tag-line that I eventually filled it in (but it feels a little obscure).
I assume the ANGST clue is getting at teen ANGST. Not my favorite clue, but I can live with it.
Grand Marnier is an orange-flavored cognac-based liqueur, but I don’t know enough French to know whether L’ORANGE fits there or not.
Like the same set of answers you did. Also liked the clue for PLACEBO.
It’s the articles before cognac and orange that bother me. The clue sounds like you take a glass of brandy and stick the orange (the only one you have, evidently) in it.
The l’orange is fine, but “un cognac” in the clue would have been better as “le cognac.” The article is part of a noun in French, so Grand Marnier is composed of le cognac et l’orange (cognac and orange). But there are many kinds of cognacs, so “un cognac et l’orange” isn’t really wrong. (Of course, there are many kinds of oranges too.)
My French is very rusty, but I don’t believe you would use either definite or indefinite articles. French wikipedia calls it une liqueur à base de cognac et d’oranges amères, and using Google Translate on “Grand Marnier is made from cognac and oranges” produces Le Grand Marnier est fabriqué à partir de cognac et d’oranges.
It’s “cognac” vs. “some cognac.” There are lots of possibilities.
Here’s one that uses articles. (“Au” = “à la.”)
Martin, I know you always insist on having the last word, but these exchanges would be less annoying if you could try not to be so condescending.
Truly sorry you feel that way. What do you think a good clue for LORANGE would have been?
As with the English THE ORANGE, perhaps L’ORANGE defies cluing because it’s not the sort of entry that really works in a crossword.
I agree it’s a tough entry to clue well. Rejecting the puzzle seems a little harsh, but perhaps the only solution.
I don’t completely agree that it’s like THE ORANGE, since French normally includes the article with the noun. A child’s book in English would show Orange, but a French book would show L’orange. Of course, that doesn’t help in an English-language crossword.
Let’s be honest, the only reason that LORANGE is in the puzzle is because it happens to appear in filling software databases, on the basis of it having appeared one time in a puzzle (Newsday, 1998), when it was clued as an overlong partial – the clue was [Duck a ___]. Constructor should have weeded that entry out and re-filled that corner, and could have done so in a minute or two. Not like it held the whole puzzle together.
ALORANGE is a legit crossword entry – it has dictionary backing (unabridged MW, but still).
LORANGE has no business being in any American crossword, and the fumbling clue only emphasizes why.
There are, indeed, “many kinds of oranges” and Grand Marnier (and also Cointreau and other triple-secs) is made, specifically, with a distilled essence derived from the rind of the bitter orange, also called the Seville orange or marmalade orange.
Not just any orange will do. The bitter orange is a cross between the pomelo and the wild-type mandarin orange, producing a fruit with a stronger sour and bitter flavor, and containing more essential oil. The flesh is generally considered inedible.
So if “un cognac” refers to one of the many cognacs, shouldn’t the clue also allude to one of many (types of) oranges?
I’m certainly no French scholar, but the clue seemed very oddly phrased to me.
Yesterday’s NYT was filled with proper nouns and non-english words. nice to have a bit of a reprieve today.
I agree with this sentiment, and think that this puzzle would have been improved had “l’orange” been avoided.
Amy, many thanks for explaining WHORL. I put it in, since it seemed better than any alternative I could think of, but I was still uncomfortable, not seeing what it had to do with a print, either in art or in clothing. Answer: neither.