Brandon Koppy’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 3/14/25 – no. 0314
Long day, sleepy head, quick post.
Fave fill: SPIT-TAKE, “WHO’S A GOOD BOY?”, “PUT ME IN, COACH” (without the comma, an air traveler’s request for as little legroom as possible), SKIP CLASS, ANTS ON A LOG (would never eat, raw celery is the devil), concert PRESALE, “I GET THAT A LOT” for a dead ringer for someone, gamer’s SPEEDRUN (see also: how I approach the Wednesday New Yorker themeless), MIND-BOGGLING, BRUSH ASIDE.
Least fave: LIME SODA. This isn’t really a thing, other than the generic term for a bottle of green Jarritos. The clue just says [Fruit-flavored pop], but …
Questionable: 25A. [Where hips do lie], ROSE BED. I appreciate the play on the Shakira song “Hips Don’t Lie,” but I’m not sure ROSE BED is really in use much as a bed of rose bushes.
3.75 stars from me. Good night!
Matt Revis’ Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 3/14/25 • Fri • Revis • solution • 20250314
Some homophone action today.
- 57aR [Car wash freebies, or an apt title for this puzzle] AIR FRESHENERS.
- 15a. [Time when everyone woke up achy and sore?] ERE MATTRESSES (air mattresses).
- 22a. [“Reader, I married him,” “I would always rather be happy than dignified,” etc.?] EYRE QUOTES (air quotes).
- 35a. [Key component of a royal line of succession?] HEIR POWER (air power).
- 48a. [Eligible bachelors in Berlin?] HERR SUPPLY (air supply). Um, no. The h is pronounced. Foul!
Sooo, substituting with a homophone constitutes some sort of ‘freshening’? I don’t buy it. So that’s two dings from me on the theme. Ouch.
- 1d [Took home, in a way] CLEARED (… the air?).
- 6d [Many times o’er] OFT. Nicely turned.
- 37d [Tennis legend Arthur] ASHE. 44a [Home of the Mets from 1964 to 2008] SHEA.
41d [Swiss home of the rock relief known as the Lion Monument] LUCERNE.- 31a [Deep purple] PLUM. 52a [Deep purple berry] AÇAÍ.
- 53a [Antidiscrimination letters] EEO, how quaint. 56d [Against] ANTI-.
- 64a [Playground game similar to hide-and-seek] SARDINES, which I learned of only recently, from another LAT crossword puzzle.
Dylan Schiff’s Universal crossword, “Split Up”—Jim’s review
Circled letters spell out words that can follow the word “split” in other phrases. These circled words are themselves split into two segments and are oriented upwards, hence the title.
Universal crossword solution · “Split Up” · Dylan Schiff · Fri., 3.14.25
The words in question are split SCREEN (from SNEER and C-SECTION), split SECOND (from SAID NO and CESSPITS), split DECISION (from ILLINOIS and ICE DAM), and split VOTE (from HOT TICKET and OVINE).
I solved this without a glance at the clues for the theme answers, because who wants to read clues with awkward parenthetical tips telling you which squares to count? Yet I was still able to fully grok the theme, and that was even without having looked at the title either. All in all, a nice theme executed well. Too bad about the clues.
Top fill entries include SERRANOS, FACED OFF, COIN-OPS, THE OLDS, GONDOLA, and AMOROUS.
Clues of note:
- 16a. [Dig it!]. HOLE. I went with DIRT and that led me to NITPICKED for 10d (which then led to NITPICKER then HOT POCKET before the correct HOT TICKET — I told you I didn’t read those theme answer clues).
- 55d. [___ Spunkmeyer muffins]. OTIS. I know the brand, but I don’t recall ever seeing a clue referring to it before. Looking at the Cruciverb database shows it’s been used 19 times over the years almost exclusively in the LA Times with a few at Universal. Not a single instance at the NYT. So maybe the brand isn’t well known back east?
Good puzzle. 3.75 stars.
NYT: LIME SODA didn’t seem nearly as contrived to me as YES MLADY.
25A refers to hips as in the fruit of the rose
ROSE BED sounds fine to me. (Bed of roses is even a thing.) LIME SODA is carbonated green paint.
Funny how many groups fit the ??????AY pattern–I tried COLD PLAY and GREEN DAY at first.
There was an unfortunate spoiler on the NYT puzzle page – if you scroll down just a little by accident, the headline of the “Wordplay” column was “Question to Ones Best Friend” with a picture of a dog – thus spoiling the pun. When I was a kid, the snack bar at our beach club sold “Lime Rickeys”, which were lime-flavored syrup with seltzer.
Tough NYT for me. I didn’t know the Lorax thing, whatever it might be, or SUGARRAY. The clues for REENTRIES and REOS were tricky (and dubious, for the latter).
OTOH, my parents had a ROSEBED that they were very proud of. Personally, I can’t be bothered with roses — too fussy, especially in the climates I’ve lived in.
WSJ: Pretty easy fills. I don’t need to use google or, worse, crossword solvers like in some of the other contests.
The meta is excellently constructed and cute, so I recommend everybody to try it.
I had most trouble with the NYT in the NW, although I also had to work before I added the comma before COACH elsewhere. I just couldn’t make sense of REOS and WHO’S A GOOD BOY, and both SPEED RUN and SPIT TAKE were new to me (but inferable), but slowly got the point that for once a QB stat isn’t YDs, TDs, or Int. I finally found online that the REO we see so often in crosswords was the ancestor of a pickup, not the luxury passenger car I’d always imagined. As for the best friend line, still has me lost.
Man’s best friend = dog
“Who’s a good boy?” is a common saying when meeting a dog