Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “O Rings”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar English words that feature an O which has been repurposed as the Irish “of”. This causes a reparsing of the entry into three words and ensuing crossword wackiness.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “O Rings” · Gary Larson · Thu., 3.13.25
- 16a. [Free trial at an Irish streaming service?] COMP O’ SITE.
- 20a. [Starting point for measuring the width of an Irish airplane?] END O’ WING.
- 38a. [Irish study in the youngest Kennedy brother’s house?] DEN O’ TED.
- 55a. [Treasury agent Eliot’s favorite Irish pub?] BAR O’ NESS.
- 60a. [Irish domicile on the boardwalk?] HOME O’ PATH.
Not counted as a theme answer but coulda been one: 42d LEGO SET -> LEG O’ SET [Egyptian god’s limb, to an Irish historian?]. (Oof. Had to get Irish in there somehow.)
For me, this whole theme was an “oof.” The entries and some of the clues felt pretty tortured, especially that last one. And the whole thing borders on stereotyping and making fun of a single nationality, which doesn’t sit right. YMMV, of course, but this one wasn’t for me.
I did love PIEHOLE and FAUX PAS in the fill as well as “ALL IS WELL” and SLIDE RULE. I haven’t seen the ELOI in a grid in quite a while, but they make a return today. As does SST, which I could do without until we see another one take to the skies.
Clues of note:
- 45a. [Audition tapes]. DEMOS. Reparse this as DEM O’S and it could have been clued as a theme revealer.
- 21d. [Obeli, in printed matter]. DAGGERS. These guys: †††
2.75 stars.
NYT: Kinda cute. And I definitely liked that the visible entries for the theme entries were also words.
But I’ve never seen the past tense of SIMULCAST be anything other than SIMULCAST. And the triangle and circle squares seemed to mean precisely the same thing, so I’m puzzled over why two different symbols were needed. For that matter I’m puzzled at why plain, ordinary circles — instead of these special shapes — would not have sufficed, since the shapes of a triangle and circle per se seemed to have nothing to do with the theme. Or did I miss what the connection is?
Triangles spell “Chips” and circles spell “Salsa”?
hah just saw this after writing my own comment. yup. v cute.
yeah wondering the same thing. nice thursday took a little sussing out then the revealer led to the aha.
WAIT I HAVE IT. the triangle letters in order C. H. I. P. S. and the circle letters. S. A. L. S. A.
verrry cute!
and love that the dipping answers are valid entries without the dips: CARETS / CAR SEATS, CAPITOL / CAP PISTOL, etc.
Anyone care to explain the Fireball gimmick? Looks to me like themeless with randomly inserted strings of (6 or 7) consecutive letters in some across entries for no reason. I don’t get it.
Sorry — not random. Replacing “TO” — but it isn’t “A to Z” so I still must be missing something.
Ok nevermind — it is “A to Z” (or really “X to Y” where the X and Y are the stopping and starting points and the consecutive letters replace “TO”.) Pretty clever actually, now that I see it.