Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Put ‘Em Together!” — yeah, I hear you! – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 2/18/25

Hello lovelies! This week we have an interesting substitution-type theme, in which a central CLAP represents two HANDS.

• 19a. [Behind-the-scenes theater worker’s been specially selected?] STAGE CLAP PICKED (STAGEHAND HAND-PICKED)
• 34a. [Pre-owned greeting with a firm grip?] SECOND CLAP SHAKE (SECONDHAND HANDSHAKE)
• 48a. [Straight or flush indicating one way to go to hell?] POKER CLAP BASKET (POKER HAND HANDBASKET)

Other things:

• 3d. [John who’s supposedly hard to see] CENA. Wrestler/actor Cena would taunt his opponents with “You can’t see me” because his moves were too face to catch before they were hit. This evolved into a bunch of invisibility memes.

Until next week!

Zhou Zhang & Kevin Curry’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “This Old Man”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases that start with an informal synonym of “father”. The revealer is FOUNDING FATHERS (54a, [Washington, Adams and Jefferson, and a hint to the starred answers]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “This Old Man” · Zhou Zhang & Kevin Curry · Tue., 2.18.25

• 17a. [*Cultural response to World War I] DADA ART MOVEMENT.
• 23a. [*Some shooting stars?] PAPARAZZI.
• 35a. [*Harmless arachnid] DADDY LONGLEGS. (Aside: Did you get yesterday’s pangram on Spelling Bee?)
• 47a. [*Stick-y treats for hot days] POPSICLES.

Very straightforward theme that gets the job done. There are other “father”-themed puzzles in the Cruciverb database, but none are quite as succinct as this one.

No sparkly long fill today, but I do like “BLAST IT!,” ARMOIRE, PRO TIP, and a cute TAPIR.

Clue of note: 26d. [Sites of some moats]. ZOOS. I had ZOO_ and had to ask myself, “Are moats a thing on Zoom?” Of course we all thought “castles” at first, so I appreciate the misdirection here.

Solid debut puzzle for constructor Zhou Zhang. Nicely done. 3.5 stars.

Erik Agard’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 2/18/25 – no. 0218

Fun theme. When someone’s done something that’s hard to forgive, something appalling, you might say [“Seriously?!”], or any number of things that express the same thing. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU!” is one. An incredulous “WHO DOES THAT?!” is another. You might huff, “THE AUDACITY!” (The Audacity is also the title of Roxane Gay’s Substack newsletter. It includes a book club and I’m reading the selected novel for the first time: Karissa Chen’s Homeseeking.) Last but not least, there’s the drawn-out “WO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-OW.”

A surprising amount of real estate in this Tuesday grid is given over to things I didn’t know:

• [Palestinian activist Tamimi], AHED. Here’s her Wikipedia bio.
• Important powwow figure], HEAD DANCER. Makes perfect sense but I’d not seen the term before.
• [New Mexico site of the largest radioactive accident in U.S. history], CHURCH ROCK. Read up. This happened four months after Three Mile Island. It primarily impacted the Navajo Nation.

I made a wrong turn with HAIR FLIP instead of HAIR TOSS. Just me?

Super tired, signing off. Four stars from me.

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 716), “Ya Think? “—Ade’s take

Crossword Nation puzzle solution, Week 716: “Ya Think?”

Hello there, everyone! Here is hoping all of you are doing well. 

Today’s puzzle is one that American football legend Y.A. Tittle would be proud of. Puns are created when adding the letters YA consecutively into a phrase/name. 

• • • • PAPAYA HAYDN (17A: [Fruit dessert named after the “Surprise Symphony” composer?]) – Papa Haydn
      • DIVINE MISS YAM (26A: [Nickname of a delicious tuber cultivated by singer Bette?]) – Divine Miss M
      • GOYA TO THE DOGS (43A: [Headline of a scathing review of Francisco’s pooch portraits?]) – Go to the dogs
      • ISLE OF MAYAN (59A: [Irish Sea locale devoted to a family of languages within Mesoamerica?]) – Isle of Man

Went to dinner last night right by the South Street Seaport in Manhattan and the combination of being right by the river and winds north of 20 miles per hour definitely made me think of more tropical places like CABO as my face was melting outside (50D: [Baja resort, for short]). CLOSE-SET (38D: [Like an owl’s eyes]) was my favorite fill, with DOPEY (26D: [Colleague of Happy and Bashful]) and DUFFER were the answers that describe me the most, as I don’t think I’ll ever get any good on the links even if I went out to the golf course every day for the next three months (45D: [Bad golfer]). Maybe a 6’4″ person with long arms shouldn’t be using the club-issued golf bag and golf clubs and should get something more suited for my frame. But, then again, I don’t to spend a whole lot of money to still be horrible. I can do bad on my own on the cheap!

“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: SNOW (57A: [Winter blanket?]) – It’s a family affair with today’s feature, as Jack Snow was a wide receiver at Notre Dame who played 11 seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, becoming one of the top pass-catchers in the league. At the end of his career in 1975, Snow caught 45 touchdowns and amassed 6,012 receiving yards, ranking 30th all time in that category. His son, J.T., became a six-time Gold-glove winning first baseman who also played the majority of his career in the state of California, with the California Angels and San Francisco Giants.

Thank you so much for the time, everybody! Have a wonderful and safe rest of your day and, as always, keep solving!

Take care!

Ade/AOK

Richard D. Allen’s Universal Crossword, “Hour-Long” (ed. David Steinberg) — Matt F’s Review

Universal Solution 02.18.2025

It took me a minute to unpack this theme after solving. We have 3 job titles, each comprised of a 9-letter adjective + a 5-letter noun. In other words (as explained by the reveal):

• 53A: [Forty-hour gigs … or 19-, 32-, and 39-Across, based on the lengths of their words?] = NINE TO FIVE JOBS

These are the three jobs in the theme set:

• 19A: [Parts specialist?] = CHARACTER ACTOR
• 32A: [Child care worker?] = PEDIATRIC NURSE
• 39A: [Policy adviser?] = INSURANCE AGENT

Nice theme set! I don’t even know how one would begin finding a list of job titles that fit this pattern. The 2nd theme clue doesn’t land the wordplay quite as well as the first and third, but I appreciate the effort to elevate the theme with a bit of playfulness in the clues. The longest non-theme answers are MASCARA, RACCOON, REVERES, and AIRVENT. I liked the lower right corner the best, where REDHOT crossed DJSET and HOWLS.

Wyna Liu’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

New Yorker • 2/18/25 • Tuesday • Liu • solution • 20250218

Today’s Tuesday was even easier than the normally relaxed standards of New Yorker ‘moderately challenging’ offerings. A very flowing, strikingly circular shaped grid.

• We start off with a long punny clue, so it’s unlikely that anyone’s going to get that right away. But the crossing downs readily open things up. 1a [Shepherd’s accessory?] DOG COLLAR. (26d [Something shaken in a trick] PAW.)
• 10a [Pair on a Canadian nickel] MAPLE LEAVES. The —EAVE— already in place had me thinking of BEAVER[s], which didn’t fit. However, I’m vindicated because a single beaver indeed graces the reverse of their nickel. The two maple leaves? They’re on the back of the one cent coin. WAIT! Correction to my ‘correction’: two small maple leaves flank the text 5 CENTS on the nickel.
  
• 15a [Deep sleep] SOPOR. Toughish word, but we know it from the more common inflected form soporific. Crossed by another unusual word, 4d [Tomb or monument for someone buried elsewhere] CENOTAPH. etymology: French cénotaphe, from Latin cenotaphium, from Greek kenotaphion, from kenos empty + taphos tomb (m-w.com)
• 34a [Words before “don’t cry,” maybe] NOW NOW.
  
• 44a [Creatures that can move their eyes independently of each other] CHAMELEONS. Like turrets, they are.
• 51a [Personal reflections shared on social media?] MIRROR SELFIES. Great clue!
• 55a [Feature of a tearjerker, often] SAD ENDING. Meh entry.
• 1d [Material for building a table?] DATA SET. Great clue!
• 6d [Historian Jill who wrote “These Truths”] LEPORE. She is or was a regular contributor to the New Yorker.
• 9d [Space with game tables, perhaps] REC HALL. Doubt I was alone in trying REC ROOM first, but the crossing 16a [Gradations of color] HUES disabused me of that possibility.
• 10d [Bishop’s headdress] MITRE. I got faked out because the American spelling is MITER. Perhaps the New Yorker’s idiosyncratic style guide dictates the variant.
• 29d [Wayne’s world?] GOTHAM. Bruce Wayne.
• 35d [Once and quince, e.g.] NUMEROS. Eleven and twelve, respectively, in Spanish. But they’re spelled the same as two English words; the italic text indicating foreign language undermines the ruse, however.
• 36d [Harmonica player in “Once Upon a Time in the West”] Charles BRONSON.
  —Did you bring a horse for me?
  —Well … looks like we’re … looks like we’re shy one horse.
  —You brought two too many.
• 37d [Using rapid transit?] RAFTING. Another great clue!

Kyle Dolan’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

I had a silly mistake that cost me some time and made this more complicated than it needed to be. The theme answers have circles.

• • 16a [Student with twice the usual level of concentration?] is DOUBLE MAJOR.
  • 28a [Bridal shower planner, typically] is MAID OF HONOR.
  • 43a [“We need medical help here!”] is CALL A DOCTOR.

And the revealer: 58a [Common minivan feature or a “closing” feature of this puzzle?] is SLIDING DOOR. This theme is well-constructed and all the theme answers are solid. Nice!

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that Ayo TOMETI  was the co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Sigh. I am ashamed.