Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Zachary David Levy’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Package Deal”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases punnily applied to new employees at the USPS.

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Package Deal” · Zachary David Levy · Wed., 2.12.25

• 17a. [“Welcome to your USPS orientation! As a reminder, you and your fellow carriers are forbidden from ___”] TRADING POST.
• 27a. [“For customers who have recently moved, you’ll need to double-check the ___”] FAREWELL ADDRESS.
• 34a. [“To avoid parcels bouncing back, ensure they’re not affixed with a ___”] RUBBER STAMP.
• 45a. [“If a mail slot is too narrow, we encourage you to gently ___”] PUSH THE ENVELOPE.
• 57a. [“Most important, remember that your primary responsibility is ___”] TO THE LETTER.

A cute set, and I enjoy a theme that employs some imagination. I think I liked the envelope entry best.

I am currently working my way through Mick Herron’s Slow Horses books (about MI5 and spies therein), so I had trouble parsing 11d LITTLE SPOON which looked to me like it was going to be LITTLE SPOOK. But that’s a fun entry anyway as clued [Participant in a cuddle session]. MR PRESIDENT isn’t quite as fun (esp. in the last couple of months), but I appreciated the clue [1962 Irving Berlin musical]. Other less high lights include NFLERS and MDMA especially crossing proper name ODOM.

Clues of note:

• 53a. [What may lead to travel reservations?]. JET LAG. Nice clue with “reservations” being synonymous with “misgivings.”
• 9d. [Further]. ELSE. I really fought this and wanted ALSO. But I guess it comes from such usage as, “What ELSE did she say?”
• 21d. [Elton or Ringo, e.g.]. SIR. Would you really call one of them a SIR? No, I think you’d say he is a knight.

3.5 stars.

Philip Koski’s New York Times crossword

NY Times crossword solution, 2/12/25 – no. 0212

I didn’t like this puzzle until I filled in the revealer and then I discovered I liked it a lot! The divided revealer is BEHIND A / PAYWALL, and there are walls made of pay (WAGE and SALARY). Those paywalls break up DEFINITE ARTICLE, SPEAK ONE’S PIECE, and CINDERELLA STORY, and you may often find yourself trying to read an article, piece, or story online only to be foiled by a paywall.

Handy tip: On Bluesky, there’s a feed full of gift links from assorted journalistic outlets. If you hit a paywall, take a look and see if the article you want is there.

Fave fill: “ANY IDEAS?”, the GEICO GECKO, BURNOUT. Not keen on very much of the other fill. PAW AT, ANON., TRA LA, RAH, OPERA ARIA, SEEPY crossing LAE, partial I NEED, plural symbol ATS? Sixty-seven theme squares to tend to crowd a grid. Wondering if this theme would have gridded better with two 15s each with its own paywall instead of three?

3.5 stars from me. Cool theme!

Taylor Johnsons USA Today Crossword, “Back Track” — Emily’s write-up

A delightful midweek puzzle with a fantastic themer set and theme. Enjoy!

USA Today, February 12, 2025, “Back Track” by Taylor Johnson

Theme: the second half (aka “back”) of each themer can be appended with –TRACK to form a new phrase

Themers:

• 20a. [Thomas the Tank Engine, to a toddler], CHOOCHOOTRAIN
• 38a. [“Pfft, what a foolish thing to say!”], DONTMAKEMELAUGH
• 54a. [Extremely quickly], LIGHTNINGFAST

Today’s themer set is a hoot! Starting off with CHOOCHOOTRAIN to which many might quip DONTMAKEMELAUGH but surely there was at least a LIGHTNINGFAST smile on everyone’s face (or a shadow of one) for that first themer. Very playful! With the theme, we get TRAIN TRACK, LAUGH TRACK, AND FAST TRACK, all of which tie in well to their original themers too! What fun!

Favorite fill: SOFTBOIL, TABASCO, DIDO, and ALIA

Stumpers: DRYCLEANED (tried “shampoo” and “washed” first), SPADE (though of “shovel” first), and IMOUT (only “see ya” and “later” came to mind)

Loved the grid and all the lengthy bonus fill. A smooth solve for me this morning, which is delightful for midweek. The overall fill was fresh and fun as well. Fun theme and themer set with a great title hint. Nicely done!

4.5 stars

~Emily

Jim Heane’s Universal crossword, “Coexistence” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 2/12/25 • Wed • “Coexistence” • Heane • solution • 20250212

• 38a^R [Stable, for one … or what’s formed by the start and end of each starred clue’s answer?] ANIMAL ENCLOSURE.
• 17a. [*Engine part] FLYWHEEL (fly, eel).
• 24a. [*Important American document?] BOARDING PASS (boar, ass). American Airlines.
• 50a. [*Gate-crasher?] BATTERING RAM (bat, ram. ‘Ram’ here is very similar in meaning both ways.
• 62a. [*Not progressing] STAGNANT (stag, ant).

Alright, but 50-across is definitely the weakest of the lot.

• 10d [Many November babies] SCORPIOS; just one letter off from the English name of the animal. 26d [Cat, in Chihuahua] GATO; just one letter off from the English name of the animal, plus an extra letter.
• 11d [Finally change your mind] COME AROUND.
  
• 18d [League in which some players shoot for the Sky: Abbr.] WNBA. Note capitalization.
• 37d [Mother cluckers] HENS. An English-name animal (pluralized). Also: edgy?
• 48d [Burrowing weasel] BADGER. Although badgers are members of Mustelidae, the ‘weasel family’, I wouldn’t call them weasels, which I restrict to the subfamily Mustelinae
• 52d [Mourning doves make flimsy ones] NESTS. I did not know this, and probably have no need to? But watch, I’ll remember it forever now.
• 53d [“See?”] GET IT. 31a [“That just clicked!”] OHH.
• 23a [Enjoy a novel, maybe] READ. I was going to question the clue’s wording, but OHH of course one can READ a novel and not enjoy it.
• 65a [What you don’t want to run out of] TIME. 66a [What you don’t want to run out of] GAS.

Annnd… I’m out of time and gas.

Hoang-Kim Vu’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

Despite not following NFL, my Facebook feed has had plenty of HALFTIMESHOWS buzz in it… The puzzle cleverly reinterprets the phrase to mean shows whose titles are, more or less, half time:

• [Olsen twins teen comedy…] NEWYORKMINUTE. Know the phrase, not the show.
• [Jacky Chan/Chris Tucky buddy cop…] RUSHHOUR
• [Amy Adams rom-com], LEAPYEAR. See entry one.

Some more ambitious entries today include LARP and KALAHARI crossing OKAPI. SAMOSA always looks weird, as it has two O’s in South African English.

Gareth

Will Nediger’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Two-Faced”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 2/12/25 – “Two-Faced”

The theme revealer is a term I hadn’t encountered before: 62a. [Affordable alternatives to high-end cosmetics … and what five pairs of entries in this puzzle are], MAKEUP DUPES. There are five other 10- or 11-letter entries, each with a word that’s also a type of makeup–and that makeup appears elsewhere in grid, clued accordingly. ROUGE ET NOIR pairs with 53d ROUGE. POWDER BLUE gets face POWDER, 49d.SWEAT STAIN (eww!), 20a lip STAIN. OCEAN LINER, 23a lip LINER. HEAVY CREAM, 52d skin CREAM, clued [“BB” or “CC” product]. BB and CC creams hit it big in South Korea and then conquered the US makeup world some years back.

Fun way to play with the constructing rule against dupes.

Fave fill: THE L WORD, CHILDE Hassam (American impressionist, lots of flag paintings besides the one in the clue), the yes-I-worked-the-crossings TSUNDOKU.

Four stars from me.