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Michael Lieberman’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 2/28/25 – no. 0228
Maybe a little on the hard side for Fridays? But not too far afield.
Entries I’m not sure I’ve seen in a grid before: PUBLIC POOL ([Splashy government expenditure?] is about local governments), PAJAMA DAY (such as at a school, when students and staff can wear PJs all day), MISO PASTE, CAR TITLES, and a baseball PITCH CLOCK.
Fave fill: EASY DOES IT, a coconut MACAROON, ATHLEISURE, PEEKABOO, “OKAY, I GIVE.”
Three more things:
- 23A. [Some overhead expenses?], BEANIES. What’s the cost of a knit cap these days? I’m old-school and steadfastly avoid calling such things “beanies.” Back in the day, beanies were little caps not much bigger than a yarmulke, and if you were lucky, your beanie had a propeller on top.
- 55A. [Fruit harvested by the ribeirinhos], ACAI. Looked Portuguese, the ACAI is Brazilian … Wikipedia says the ribeirinhos are a traditional rural group in the Amazon, living near rivers as you might guess from that “ribeir-” bit. Not something we’re expected to know–just “word looks Portuguese, try that Brazilian word that’s 3/4ths vowels.”
- 56A. [Subject of some grainy photographs?], SILO. No, I don’t care for this clue. A photo of a silo that conceals the grain stored within cannot plausibly be called a “grainy photograph, get it?” Too stretchy.
3.75 stars from me.
Wendy L Brandes’ Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 2/28/25 • Fri • Brandes • solution • 20250228
A theme that links magazine and movies.
- 18a. [Mad’s pick for the best movie of all time?] RAGING BULL.
- 24a. [The Atlantic’s pick for the best movie of all time?] OCEAN’S ELEVEN.
- 39a. [Shape’s pick for the best movie of all time?] CIRCLE OF FRIENDS.
- 53a. [Rolling Stone’s pick for the best movie of all time?] SCHOOL OF ROCK.
- 63a. [The New Yorker’s pick for the best movie of all time?] A BRONX TALE.
Just some light wordplay, ahead of the Academy Awards this weekend.
- 7d [Kicked off] BEGUN.
- 11d [Cable channel with reruns of sitcoms and reality shows] TRUTV. Seems like a weird but lucrative mix, and an inapt name.
- 25d [Lake that surrounds Kelleys Island] ERIE. Wikipedia tells me it’s part of OHIO (29d [Home of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks]) and that there’s a human population of about 300, with a summer influx of tourists.
- 34d [Baby newt] EFT. Newt and eft actually share etymology. But I wouldn’t call it duplication, not at all.
- 53d [Ride out of town, in a Western] STAGE. Subtle wordplay here. “Ride” is a noun, not a verb. STAGE is short for stagecoach.
- 55d [“__ to you”] HERE’S.
- 62a [Sine qua non] NEED. Translates literally to “without which, not”.
- 20a [Lab’s dish?] PETRI. Rare clue where ‘lab’ wordplay seems to reference the dog breed and not a scientific facility’ usually it’s the other way around.
- 57d [Small digit?] TOE. Except for the ‘big’ one?
- 67a [Cordon (off)] ROPE. Would this be The Ring magazine’s pick for best move of all time?
Seth Biden-Hersh Universal crossword, “Star Critters”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are idiomatic phrases that feature an animal as a metaphor to describe a person’s behavior. The revealer is ANIMAL ACTOR (51a, [Moose on “Frasier,” for example … or what each of the starred clues’ answers is?]).
Universal crossword solution · “Star Critters” · Seth Biden-Hersh · Fri., 2.28.25
- 3d. [*Pretend to be asleep] PLAY POSSUM.
- 6d. [*Performer who isn’t as talented as they appear to be] SHOW PONY.
- 9d. [*Person prone to histrionics, informally] DRAMA LLAMA.
This theme ended up just being a list of phrases that fit the category, but since I didn’t know there were enough such phrases to fill a theme, it’s cool to see them together. I got hung up a little bit by thinking Moose on Frasier was the other DJ at the radio station who had an animal name. But no, that character was called Bulldog. Moose was the real name of the Jack Russell Terrier that portrayed Eddie in the Crane household.
The tricky thing with this theme is that the revealer is 11-letters long, two theme answers are 10s, and one is an 8. How then does one put them in a symmetrical grid? By going vertical and employing some left/right symmetry. A nifty solution that works well. It does mean there are some entries in the grid that are as long as the theme answers, but the use of asterisks makes it clear which ones are part of the theme and which are not.
Speaking of those long non-theme entries, they’re all pretty great: MIRACLE BRA, ICEBREAKER, ETHIOPIA, HEROINES, SLEEPWEAR, and “HI THERE“. I’m not overly fond of entries like NIP AT and RAN TO, but if that’s the worst on offer, then that’s not too bad at all.
Solid puzzle. 3.5 stars.
NYT: A good Friday puzzle which fell smoothly until only the upper right — a sea of white — remained. Somehow managed to complete the puzzle despite being stalled for a few minutes at this point. Tried PAnAMA DAY before seeing that n —> J.
NYT: Seemed a little on the easy side for a Friday, in spite of several unfamiliar names in the NW and a couple of missteps (“tied to” before TIED IN, “votes aye” before “votes yea” before VOTES YES).
Where I live, PAJAMA DAY is the day you go shopping at Walmart.
i interpreted the SILO clue as “a photo of a silo would usually show it amidst fields of grain, hence a grainy photo.”
Thanks! I hadn’t understood that clue.
NYT: Woot– sailed through this one with Wednesday time, and really enjoyed it.
Lovely construction with 4 sets of triple stacks, all great entries. Amazingly little crosswordese.
PEEKABOO opened the whole top half for me, evoking images of babies laughing, made my day.
Gets an A+ from me.
NYT Spelling Bee: I had griped that the Bee hadn’t been much fun (for four days in a row) recently. But yesterday and today were plenty of fun for me. The letters cooperated, there were many words to find, and all is well in Mudville.
For yesterday, the only pangram was a word that I believe has been a pangram before, but it’s not a word I’ve ever seen used in real life, either in print or in conversation. (I’m not sure what the Spelling Bee spoiler rules are here, so I’ll just note that yesterday’s Spelling Bee had ACFILOR as the letters rather than write out the pangram, although it’s yesterday’s puzzle, so it’s probably okay anyway and I’m being overly cautious.) If there’s only one pangram, I kind of think it should be a commonplace word.
It’s more of a technical word in the US, but is common in the UK where we would use “caloric.” But it’s used in chemistry as well as by dieticians.
“Colorific” was more of a snag for me. That took a while.
Found them both. Both suck. Just about over the Spelling Bee.
I found the heat-related pangram in a surprising way that has worked for me occasionally: I’m away from my computer but remind myself what the letters are, and let them tumble around in my mind. Sometimes that works better than staring at the seven hexagons.
I didn’t get the other word that differs from this by just one letter, a word I don’t think I’ve ever encountered before. (American Heritage calls it “rare”.)
[Earth to Spelling Bee: Why are you accepting rare words but rejecting such a vast number of non-rare words?
I mean, what is the principle behind these decisions?]
Again, they both make the cut in the abridged M-W 11 Collegiate. And neither has a “rare” or other tag. Admittedly, dictionaries differ but I never have a problem with Sam including a word that’s in the abridged dictionary. I agree that lots of such words are refused, and his deciding a word is obscure does cause me more consternation, but I just move on.
As I refer to Sam’s choices, it’s Caprice™
Martin, thanks for explaining that it’s not unusual in the UK despite it’s being unusual in the US. I only came up with it after I saw the -ific ending and was kind of randomly attaching stuff to it.
NYT: All in all I sailed through this one. With just a little slowness up top.
I still don’t quite get why BEANIES is an expense. I mean, isn’t any piece of clothing an expense? I get the overhead part, but the clue seems green-painty as opposed to the entry.
Nice Friday overall!
NYT: Need a square revealed in NW at the end but otherwise finished in 17 minutes, which is like my time for easier Thursdays. Can’t say Wednesday time as I am still very bitter about the latest Wednesday.
I was stuck on S _ _ O in the NYT for a long time at the end. But I do accept the stretchy pun. Overall a nicely challenging puzzle.
NYT: Faster than this week’s Wednesday or Thursday for me. Seems like the difficulty progression through the week has gone awry lately.
I enjoyed some of the clues (“splashy public expenditure) but others were just too dad-jokey for me (“subject of some grainy photographs?”). Several unknown names that came easily enough from crosses. A SO-SO Friday in my book.
Ditto regarding your first paragraph. I liked the puzzle more than you did, but I can’t accept TIL meaning “up to” unless it’s a direct, specific quote.