LAT 3:14 (Stella)
Newsday 18:43(pannonica)
NYT 6:06 (Amy)
Universal tk (Matthew)
USA Today tk (Matthew)
WSJ untimed (pannonica)
Alina Abidi’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 2/8/25 – no/ 0208
I do like themelesses with lots of long entries (but generally not a bunch of 15s). My faves here: BROWN-NOSER, CACAO NIBS, “NOTE TO SELF,” GIN MARTINIS, ONOMATOPOEIA, CHIPS AHOY!, dorm MEAL PLANS, and a PORTOBELLO mushroom (the spellings with one or two A’s are secondary to PORTOBELLO, per Merriam-Webster, not that most restaurant menus pay attention).
Overall, the fill is really smooth. For me, anyway. If you don’t generally know names, this puzzle likely fought you. I wouldn’t be shocked if some folks went for NELMA crossing SAM’S instead of NELLA Larsen and SAL’S Pizza from Do the Right Thing.
Three things:
- 10D. [Common but often counterproductive response to a recurring problem], ANTI-PATTERN. Never ever heard of it. Here’s a Wikipedia page that slightly dilutes things from the “clear as mud” level to “wow, this water is so turbid that you can’t see a thing through it.” I checked with my software-guy husband aaaand … he’s never heard of anti-pattern, either.
- 21D. [2010s satirical reality series starring comedian Fielder], NATHAN FOR YOU. I never did watch it, though I’d heard good things about it. Okay, I concede that stacking ANTI-PATTERN and NATHAN FOR YOU together can make their crossings a good bit harder and dissatisfying.
- 51A. [Teacup], MINI. As in a tiny dog called a teacup Chihuahua, for example.
Four stars from me for my enjoyment level.
Amie Walker & Matthew Stock’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 2/8/25 by Amie Walker & Matthew Stock
I liked this puzzle! Wish I had time to do more than call out a few notables:
- 1A [Arno city] is PISA. Okay, maybe not a highlight for anyone else, but my husband asked me to marry him on the banks of the Arno river in part because ARNO used to show up in so many grids.
- 17A [Awards show extra] is SEAT FILLER. Loved this entry!
- 18A [Sushi sometimes served with ponzu] is TORO — this was not such a highlight for me, because I don’t think “served with ponzu” really narrows it down?
- 30A [Time of self-prioritization and boundary setting, colloquially] is VILLAIN ERA, another fun entry and probably included at just the right time. In another year, will people still be saying that? IDK.
- 51A [It might have frosted tips] hilariously evokes ’90s hairstyles, but is in fact referring to a PIPING BAG.
- 60A [Cover of knight] is PLATE ARMOR. Snort.
- 29D [Wet bar?] is a great clue for SOAP.
- 49D [Digs for archaeology majors?] is a cute deceptive clue for DORMS.
- 55D [Banks who coined the words “flawsome” and “smize”] is TYRA. Always here for Tyra neologisms!
Aaron Ullman’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “A House Divided” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 2/8/25 • Sat • “A House Divided” • Ullman • solution • 20250208
- 110aR [Staggered structures, as depicted in five spots in this puzzle] SPLIT-LEVEL HOMES. The circled squares, which encompass adjacent rows, spell out types of houses. Not only is it a verbal theme, but it visually echoes the architecture of such structures.
- 23a. [Somebody who’s seen it all] GRIZZLED VETERAN.
29a. [Center of spiritual power] CHAKRA.
(ranch) – fitting that we start with this style, because in my experience most split-level homes are of this variety. - 44a. [Cause for a pause] SEMICOLON.
40a. [Overly dramatic reaction to a fright] I ALMOST DIED.
(colonial) - 56a. [TV boss who said “Make friends first, make sales second, make love third. In no particular order.] MICHAEL SCOTT.
63a. [Government entities] AGENCIES.
(cottage) - 68a. [Adornment near a bridge] NOSE STUD.
75a. [Legolas portrayer] ORLANDO BLOOM.
(tudor) - 88a. [1963 Steve McQueen film, with “The”] GREAT ESCAPE.
85a. [Readings with cryptic language?] CODE BOOKS.
(cape cod)
This is a very solid theme and it’s executed extremely well.
- 3d [Cheese product?] SMILE. So tempting to add ‘processed’ to the clue, but that would be going too far.
- 12d [Periods that may require rationing] WAR TIMES. Or depressions precipitated by horrendous fiscal policies.
- 16d [“Keep that racket down!”] PUT A LID ON IT. I won’t embed the video of the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ most well-known song because I just included one from them in the Tuesday New Yorker write-up, so you get a link today.
- 39d [Any of the “Saw” movies] GOREFEST. 100d [Lighthearted movie] ROMP.
- 43d [Confuzzles] DAZES. Confuzzles is not a word I’m familiar with, but it was pretty easy to figure out the meaning of this portmanteau.
- 65d [Bloodsuckers with bristles] TSETSE FLIES. Not often we see the full name in a crossword grid.
- 68d [“S’all good, man”] NO BIG. Usually I hear “no biggie” but maybe that’s passé. 34a [“S’all good, man”] I’M COOL.
- 72d [Piece that plays it straight] ROOK. Orthogonals.
- 90d [York Peppermint __ ] PATTIE. This is the correct spelling, as I know from the cache of minis in my freezer.
- 1a [Dessert chef’s tool] ZESTER. I don’t normally pay attention to such things when they aren’t thematic, but it feels as if there are a lot of Zs in this grid, even accounting for its larger 21×21 size. Just counted: only six, but maybe that’s still statistically notable?
- 21a [Countenance] TOLERATE.
- 49a [In need of a makeover] DRAB. I’d prefer a ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’ qualifier, since sometimes DRAB is perfectly fine, and sometimes redoing things simply for the sake of motion is unnecessary. Hum, thinking of government AGENCIES (63a) again.
- 65a [Suggestive John Donne poem] THE FLEA. Not to be confused with Augustus De Morgan’s poem Siphonaptera.
- 92a [Show for critiquing] RUN BY. The only clue that misled me, as I took ‘show’ to be a noun.
- 115a [Denali National Park sights] GLACIERS. At least the national park hasn’t been regressively renamed yet. Shhh.
- 119a [Paperless periodicals] E-ZINES. Just realizing that both the first and last across entries have a Z; maybe that’s part of the reason I felt as if there were so many?
Frank Longo’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 2/8/25 • Saturday Stumper • Longo • solution • 20250208
The sequence was what I think of as the typical Stumper experience: a few entries on first pass, some additional fleshing out, a brief stall followed by more progress, the sense that the finish is within grasp, a minor struggle to complete the very last bit.
Today the final area was the top center, because for 19-across [It can’t wait] I had for most of the solve URGENT NEWS. By the time I made my way back to this area, crosses weren’t working and the change was made to URGENT NEED.
- 1a [Necesidad de la vida] AGUA. Always nice when I can plunk in a Newsday one-across right away.
- 5a [People playing in vehicles] for MOVIE STARS is one of those Stumper-type let’s-amp-up-the-difficulty clues. Possibly my very last entry of the solve.
- 16a [Music to a gossip’s ears] I HAD NO IDEA. Toyed with I HEAR{D} — for some while.
- 23a [Town that presents the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award] AYR. Oof.
- 25a [Over the moon in Mexico] FELIZ. More Spanish. I wasn’t quite as confident about this one as I’d been about 1a, but went ahead with it anyway.
- 34a [Where a toy hits the floor] PAW. Toy as in toy breed of dog. Had suspicions about PAW being the answer from the outset, but judiciously waited on crossings.
- 37a [Neither foggy nor windy] CLEAR AND CONCISE. This is about communication, not weather. But because CLEAR works for both, it was difficult to realize that, and as a consequence CONCISE was tricky to get a handle on.
- 40a [Summit lengthener] -EER. 41a [What anything can be in front of] ELSE. Two similar clues back-to-back. Not that it helped me.
- 43a [Descriptor of two South American countries] INLAND. That’d be the contiguous Bolivia and Paraguay.
- 45a [What flashing or swelling is symptomatic of] OP ART. No way to get this without significant crossings.
- 49a [Asian capital-list leader] ABU Dhabi, first alphabetically. I was guilty of glossing the clue and thinking about Japan’s Shinzo ABE.
- 53a [Traditional origin of rebellion] EARLY TEENS. Oof. 54d [School-__ ] AGER.
- 57a [Saluting] IN HOMAGE TO. Tried working it as —ING TO.
- 2d [Xena’s sidekick] GABRIELLE. Unknown to me. However, with just a couple of letters already in place 3d [1999 biography subtitled “Magician or Mystic?”] URI GELLER was a gimme.
- 7d [The world, figuratively] VALE. As in the Christian phrase vale of tears.
- 9d [Town on the Chisholm Trail] ENID. Back when I had URGENT NEWS for 19a, I’d tested out AMES here.
- 10d [Most common labor issue] SON. I guess, by some fractional percentage? And I believe that rate is subject to change depending on exogenous factors, at least in smaller populations.
- 13d [Fresh supply] REFIT. Tough, but it checks out in dictionaries.
- 26d [43rd st.] IDAho. State, not street.
- 34d [It’s often felt on Halloween] PIRATE HAT. Easy to see through the misdirection when the clue is awkward like that, but I still had trouble figuring out the first word of the answer.
- 39d [Baton twirler] COP. MAJORETTE was obviously too long. Obviously.
- 43d [Former Apple snap importer] IPHOTO. Bleh.
- 58d [Loup de __ (old salt: Fr.)] MER. New to me, but the clue made it easy.
I was mildly surprised by the under-20-minute solve time.
NYT felt even easier than last week.
NYT: pretty smooth fill overall, felt more like a Friday than a Saturday to me. I had heard of ANTIPATTERN before, but it’s not at all what leapt to mind for me… I managed to cobble it together from the crosses. I had a little trouble with the spelling for ONOMATOPOEIA, but got there eventually. Felt like I was on the wavelength with the constructor.
Finished NYT in average time even though I was nearly about to look up an entry or two in the NE corner. Good puzzle.
NYT seemed particularly easy for a Saturday. I do often forget how to spell onomatopoeia.
Generally agree that it was quite easy and very smooth, except for the NE. I didn’t know ANTIPATTERN, and the clue for SUMO was no help to me. I had to look up Rikishi, and then it opened up.
Some very lovely long answers– NOTE TO SELF is may favorite. And BALLOON HAT brought back memories of taking my kids to fairs and fun places.
PS. I looked up ANTI PATTERN and it seems like a useful expression when you’re looking for a polite way to tell someone they’re perseverating in a dumb way… NOTE TO SELF.
I was on track for a Saturday PR, except that I had BUONA at 28A and “onomatapoeia” looked good to me. Given the tricky long spellings and unknown (to me) names and TV shows, a near-record finish tells me this was a very, very easy Saturday puzzle. I enjoyed it, just thought it went by pretty quickly. I did wonder if BALLOON HAT is enough of a real thing to be in the puzzle, and ditto ANTI-PATTERN, which is new to me.
NYT was a good deal slower for me than yesterday’s. ANTIPATTERN/NITRO/NATHANFORYOU was a problematic area, although inferrable in the end (never heard of any of them).
Your inferential skills exceed mine. My order in a coffee shop is “house blend, black.” Never heard of the TV show, and Bella and Della seemed at least as likely as NELLA at 37-A.
I ended up trying FAT HAT FOR YOU for the TV show because it was the only thing I could come up with (even though Tella didn’t seem to make much sense at 37-A).
NYT: A good puzzle, despite my never having heard of NATHAN FOR YOU, and having had cOlA before SODA. I enjoyed seeing ONOMATOPOEIA and the other long entries.
But although dictionaries list one meaning of “kibitz” as “chat”, the 22A clue [Kibitzes] for GABS relies on a meaning I’ve heard probably less than 1/10 of 1% of the times I’ve encountered this word — if that often. In my experience, the overwhelmingly dominant meaning is *to offer unwanted advice*, especially in real time to someone playing a game like bridge or chess.
I think that even on a Saturday, a word like “kibitz” that may be unfamiliar to many solvers is best clued with its usual meaning, especially when the alternative meaning is used so rarely.
I wondered about that. I know ‘kibitz’ in the bridge sense, where it means watching others play (without offering commentary or advice, or you will be kicked out). I wasn’t sure whether other meanings were more widely known.
Stumper was relatively straightforward. I didn’t understand EARP — I was thinking of the song and didn’t know there was movie My Darling Clementine.
I got WESTESSEX fairly quickly, but as far as I know it’s not any kind of officially named area. There’s a West Essex NJ, which complicates google searches.
I thought about URGENTNEWS but waited on crosses before putting in the second half of the answer. The SW was the last area for me. Coming up with school-AGED and then INHOMAGETO cracked it open, but I still had to correct IPHONE to IPHOTO.
It’s an amazing movie, fwiw. One of John Ford and Henry Fonda’s respective bests.
Stumper: I agree with pannonica — the upper right (including the center mentioned) was the worst, partly because I had “holes” for 14D, thinking of a dial phone. I have no clue about the reasoning behind the clueing for 45A. I wasn’t fond of “chief proponent” for “guru” (33A) because a guru (to me) is knowledgeable about something, not necessarily selling it, but I guess it works on some level.
I agree with you re GURU. Regarding 45A, I’m guessing Mr. Longo/Mr. Newman got the clue from the Op Art Wikipedia page: “Typically, [Op Artworks] give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns, or swelling or warping.”
NYT: I’m a little shocked by the rating, I thought this was a lovely Saturday puzzle, maybe even too easy. I guess not knowing Nathan For You can make that corner tough.
That being said, everyone should watch Nathan For You. It’s definitely cringy, but works as a great metaphor for current events.
Hi all,
If this is spam, please just remove it – but:
I had felt bad about a recent nyt Monday puzzle being a bit too challenging… (Jan. 20)
FWIW, this one (out today) is closer to “Monday” difficulty (I hope) — in case you want an easy puzzle today, with a not-unrelated theme (to WORK LIKE A DOG).
(Plus, it has [Smell] as non-controversial clueing for a particular 4-letter work…)
https://spyscape.com/crosswords/puzzle-319-life-at-the-intelligence-agency
I enjoyed your 1/20 puzzle. It took me about a minute longer than typical for a Monday NYT but was certainly not too challenging.
Thanks PJ!
My family and friends are absolutely not crossword people (beyond just the mini). It can at times feel like being part of a HAM radio club (or amigurumi club, or origami club, or similar), to dork out thinking about crosswords, b/c of this…
I continued on my weird week where my times for Tues-Sat were all pretty similar, although I usually have a steep curve where my time for Saturday is typically 3-4x that for Tuesday.
NYT: I did not appreciate the plethora of names and rated it appropriately low. Happily, it was solvable with the crossings and a little bit of fortuitous guesswork.
We Were Not Amused.
loved the NYT and ANTIPATTERN was immediately gettable as someone in software.
Amy think of it as “a seemingly obvious or common way of approaching a problem [typeically in writing software] that actually is a really poor way to go about it.”
so it’s a pattern: give a dozen engineers the outline of the problem and many of them will separately choose to try that approach. but it’s an antipattern: it is a bad way of going about it, and it’s bad in a non-obvious way.
I like to think of non-software analogies: ask a dozen anti-abortion people what the best way to prevent abortion is and they’ll tell you “ban abortion”. but that’s a terrible way to go about achieving that goal (of that is your goal): women find other ways to have abortion many of them at greater risk, or they take a logical step of more permanent birth control.
a non-anti pattern might be to provide struggling women with the resources they need: maternal healthcare, paid childcare, healthcare and support for them and the kid, well funded domestic violence shelters, comprehensive early sex education, free birth control, and so on. do all that any you’ll find abortions go down. but that’s a much less obvious way of trying to achieve your goal.