Jesse Guzman’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Dipping for Honey”—Jim’s review
The puzzle is an homage to WINNIE THE POOH (found in the circled diagonal letters).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Dipping for Honey” · Jesse Guzman · Wed., 3.12.25
- 18a. [Elephantine creatures feared by the circled character] HEFFALUMPS.
- 60a. [Mall workshop, and a hint to filling in this puzzle’s circles] BUILD-A-BEAR. I guess this serves as the revealer.
- 10d. [Like the circled character and his friends] STUFFED.
- 43d. [Creator of the circled character] A. A. MILNE.
Cute theme. I like the design and the wordplay with the revealer, as well as the idea of “building” the bear’s name as you progress through the solve.
That said, I filled in the circled letters immediately after getting HEFFALUMPS so the building idea didn’t quite work for me. And while A.A. MILNE crossing BUILD-A-BEAR is excellent, the other two theme answers (HEFFALUMPS and STUFFED) feel more like filler (as it were). And isn’t it a law that if you have HEFFALUMPS, you have to have Woozles?
So while I like the theme and enjoyed the puzzle, I just wanted it to be a bit tighter.
We get some lovely fill, especially LUTEFISK (though I needed a bunch of crossings). Not sure I’ve heard of OLD IRISH, but it was inferable. Also good: PICARD, ANT NEST, and GAS BAG.
Cute puzzle. 3.5 stars.
Now, enjoy the HEFFALUMPS and Woozles song, courtesy of a WINNIE THE POOH trippin’ on some bad hunny, I guess.
Chandi Deitmer & Kate Hawkins’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 3/12/25 – no. 0312
It’s an elegant theme. A magician might appear to SAW A WOMAN IN HALF, and there are three rough synonyms for “woman” in the shaded squares that are cut in half by black squares: MISSUS, BABE, and DAME. The elegant bit is that the MIS/SUS, BA/BE, and DA/ME fragments come from other women’s names (real, fictional, or mythological: ARTEMIS and “Oh! SUSANNA,”, ELPHABA and BEYONCE, MATILDA and MELANIE. (I sccarcely know of this MELANIE, [“Brand New Key” singer, 1971].)
I started out cranky at 1-Across because I’m not convinced people are actually shouting “IT’S A TIE!” when a baseball game goes into extra innings. Also rather doubt anyone goes around saying “I LOSE” with any regularity. At least we’re spared I RULE in this one.
A couple more things:
- 34D. [“Drink up!”], PROST. Is this German toast a bit hard for a Wednesday puzzle?
- Entirely new to me: 29D. [Sprinkled with seasoning, in Italian], SALATA. Do you folks encounter this word out and about?
Three stars from me.
Desiree Penner and Jeff Sinnock’s Universal crossword, “Deep Blue” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 3/12/25 • Wed • “Deep Blue” • Penner, Sinnock • solution • 20250312
Vertically-oriented theme today, as the idea is that theme entries end with a word that can precede ‘blue’ to make a variety of that color. Since they’re at the bottom of the grid, they’re ‘deep’.
- 2d. [*Traffic helicopter, say] EYE IN THE SKY (sky blue).
- 7d. [*When a New Year’s Eve party typically ends] AFTER MIDNIGHT (midnight blue).
- 16d. [*1968 horror film starring Mia Farrow] ROSEMARY’S BABY (baby blue).
- 26d. [*Spice made from peppers] CHILI POWDER (powder blue).
All works. Nice theme, nice crossword.
whew, right?
- 1d [Emperor who fiddled] NERO. Of course that apocryphal. It was probably a lyre, if anything. 12a [Fiddled (with)] TOYED.
- 17a [“We gotta go!“] LET’S ROLL.
- 20a [Mo. with a Back to the Future Day] OCT. It’s at the point where I pretty much always enter OCT for abbreviated-month clues until dissuaded by crossings.
- 23a [Lion’s lairs] DENS. Maybe in historical times when their distribution was more widespread.
- 29a [Sewer line?] THREAD. The question mark gives away the game.
- 66a [Six-legged insects] ANTS. Uh, all insects are hexapods.
- 12d [Spot on the small screen] TV AD. Many modern TVs are quite large indeed—as big as some shoebox movie theater screens—but we still colloquially call the technology ‘small screen’.
- 18d [Check into] SEE ABOUT.
- 30d [They no longer work] RETIREES. Not always! They’re just done with their main careers. Many work or volunteer in other ways after they’ve retired.
- 32d [Feet in a meter?] IAMBS. Question mark not really necessary, since it isn’t really possible to get 3.280839895 into 5 crossword squares.
- 33d [Jack who eschewed fat] SPRAT. Little bit of visual wordplay in the clue with chew/fat.
- 59d [Bird-watcher, maybe] CAT. Often! But if you have cats, be careful if you let them outside. They can catch bird flu. In fact, be sure you don’t have, for instance, bird poop on your shoes or clothing when you come inside.
Dena R. Verkuil’s USA Today Crossword, “Page-turner (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up
Fill me in!
USA Today, March 12, 2025, “Page-turner (Freestyle)” by Dena R. Verkuil
Favorite fill: AVIDREADER, ITSMYTREAT, MINIMOON, and ENOUGHSAID
Stumpers: WHOO (I use “woohoo” so this took me a while), ARENT (needed crossings), and OHYOU (cluing didn’t quite get me there)
A fun puzzle today, though I got stumped by lots of the cluing so it took me a while to solve. Crossings were fair overall but it’s tough when I just don’t know something or a reference to it. Fill was fresh and fun. How’d you all do?
3.5 stars
~Emily
Rebecca Goldstein’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary
The theme concept itself is well trodden – phrases are hidden in the middle of long answers. The execution is pretty neat though, with a punchy final answer in HOLDONTOYOURHAT, and a brazen choice of TOQUE with a tricky q to fit in…
[Gym shorts, yoga pants, and the like], ATHLETICAPPAREL. {CAP}
[Adios, amigo], HASTAMANANA. {TAM}
[Raise doubts], CALLINTOQUESTION. {TOQUE}
[Concept in modern morality], CYBERETHICS. {BERET}. Sounds rather dated?
Not a lot to add otherwise. I liked the definitions chosen for [Successful in a critical situation], CLUTCH; and [Exquisitely delicate], ETHEREAL
Gareth
Geoffrey Schorkopf & Shannon Rapp’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Camera Obscura”—Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 3/12/25 – “Camera Obscura”
This is one of those themes where you can easily complete the whole puzzle without having the faintest idea what the theme is. Each themer has its own angle, so it’s not obvious.
- 53a. [Prohibition-era crime comedy created in a wide shot?], SOME LIKE IT HOT. The word SHOT is “wide” here: the S at the start and the HOT at the end.
- 3d. [Coming-of-age sports comedy partially told backwards?], THE SANDLOT. TOLD backwards is DLOT, the last four letters of the movie title.
- 7d. [Investigative journalism drama with an early plot twist?], SPOTLIGHT. PLOT is “twisted” into the POTL in the “early” part of the word.
- 11d. [Centuries-spanning sci-fi epic interspersed with jump cuts?], CLOUD ATLAS. The “interspersed with jump cuts” bit refers to C..U..T..S, with two letters between two letters in CUTS. This trick was the toughest to figure out.
Fave fill: DOGGO, a hundred percent. Also GUN-SHY, EMMA STONE, HIT ME UP, ON THE DL.
3.75 stars from me.
NYT: Not my cup of tea today. I never like unnecessarily repetitive clues like the ones for NOHOW and ABHOR when [Never] and [Hate] (among many others) would suffice.
But also I was not crazy about the theme. I don’t like even suggestions of violence, — yeah, even if it’s only a magic trick. But also there was nothing in the puzzle that suggested a magic trick per se, just three words for women that were each separated by black squares.
This is of course just my personal reaction.
Ricotta salata is a fairly common feta-like Italian cheese. They even make it in Wisconsin. That’s why I knew SALATA and figure it’s Wednesday fair.
As a non-foodie, SALATA was unknown to me. And the crossing with ADJ was my last empty square, until the clue for the latter clicked.
Spelling Bee history!
Spelling Bee:
Yup, the first S ever.
(I had to resort to the 4-letter words today.)
Noted! I was really hoping that when Sam broke his fast for the letter ‘S’, he would go all ‘Wheel of Fortune’ on it and have L N R S T E A so that there’d be like a thousand or so points. But hey, it was nice to see the long forgotten letter anyhow!
It’s pretty impressive to include S in the Bee and have so few makeable words.
I’ve always assumed that ‘S’ wasn’t used in the Bee because it would lead to word lists that are too long.
I wonder if it is just for today, the 2500 wordiversary, or if S is in there permanently. Personally I hope not. All we’d need is a hive with ingeds+1 in it and we’d be here til next christmas on just that puzzle. Mr. Ed and gerund get enough play without adding plurals.
I suspect that will not be a problem, based on how few words seem to be findable today.
I would not mind an occasional S at all; I have badly missed that letter!
I think Sam had to really work to find a hive with an S that didn’t have hundreds of valid words. I would be surprised if we saw many more.
Great music in the Uni write-up! Don’t miss the linked tunes. I haven’t thought of Junior Walker & the All-Stars in a while
Thanks!
NYT: I am fine with SALATA because BABE is a given and the word is related to the English word “salad”, so it should be guessable.
But TEMPERA crossing ELPHABA crossing PROST? Thanks but no thanks.
But then SALATA crosses ELPHABA, too. PROST did lose me. I’d have sworn it was “prosit,” but I guess it’s a different language. I did luck out in that TEMPERA was a gimme for me.
I wasn’t crazy about the NYT puzzle because “MISSUS,” “BABE,” and “DAME” aren’t my preferred words for women. But I changed my mind after reading Amy’s recap. I hadn’t noted the six women who aren’t sawn in half. Those six entries do make it an elegant theme.
Me too! I solved it quickly and didn’t notice all of the women spanning opposite sides. Definitely went up in my opinion after reading the writeup,
Aaargh. A very similar theme–if not one with the same revealer (it was definitely close)–was done somewhere by a person whose name I can’t recall. Pretty sure it’s a guy, and he’s, like, a professional magician or something. I think he has some sort of podcast, or else he’s a YouTube content creator. He’s done some work with the NYT and one time in particular it was a big deal, like his live act coincided with the publication date of his puzzle, or something. I’ve been unable to find that constructor’s name or the puzzle I’m thinking of. Little help?
David Kwong?
Yes! Thanks, pann. It’s this one:
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/27/2017
Now,… ever since Timothy Parker Gate I’ve become very interested in the nonexistent field of Cruciverbal Ethics; I want to take that class, brick and mortar. Because I find it interesting to wonder about how individual constructors FEEL about, more or less, doing a done theme, especially today as opposed to 10 or 20 years ago. Back in the day, it was rather common for, say, a Fiend commentor or a Crossword Corner commentor or a Wordplay commentor to post when they noticed that “this had been done before” or “I saw this before”. Seems like that happens much less frequently than it used to. Now in no way am I meaning to accuse today’s NYT constructors of lifting a theme, but I understand how this may come off as exactly that.
What I’m curious about is: When I browsed today’s NYT write-up, I remembered how fabulous I thought Kwong’s puzzle was; and I remember how, as a constructor, there was some quick recognition in my head along the lines of “Wish I’d thought of that” or “Guess I won’t be doing THAT theme, dammit”–like, that was just what I had learned was part of how Crossworld works. Thing is, it’s just a statistical eventuality–with SO MANY puzzles being made nowadays–that themes are going to be duplicated.
For example, when I browsed yesterday’s WSJ review of a puzzle with the theme of Car Makes That Begin Entries, and a SIDECAR revealer, my constructor brain starts looking at what this constructor did and Why did he choose these themers? and Why not other themers? and Could he have fit one more themer in there? and Why not longer Longdowns? and How hard would this skeleton grid be to fill? and Oh, man, a pair of cheaters right in those corners would have made those two sections so much better, and all that. But, again, there was an immediate concession or agreement or response of “That’s cool, why the hell didn’t I think of that?”. I’m 52, published some puzzles for a while about 10 to 15 years ago; do constructors, especially ones younger than me, have a similar take on, specifically, the morality of where the line IS between using someone else’s puzzle as acceptable idea generation, and stealing someone else’s work? (Holy cow, I’m deja vuing right now that I’ve ranted about this before, but whatever.) Like, is it okay to just go peruse old xwordinfo or Fiend grids, looking for ideas? Because that just wouldn’t sit well with me, and I don’t know if that’s a generational disposition or a personal one.
Re: NYT 54 Across
Melanie was awesome. Sadly, she died about a year ago.
Melanie performed at Woodstock. While Brand New Key was her only real radio hit, she had many great songs including, Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma, and Lay Down (Candles in the Rain). Her voice had impressive power and color.
+1