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Kathy Lowden’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up
NY Times crossword solution, 3/17/25 – no. 0317
Happy International Women’s Day! That was back on Saturday the 8th, while Monday is St. Patrick’s Day. The theme is GIRL POWER, 63a. [Slogan that celebrates a young woman’s confidence and independence … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 40-/41- and 49-Across]. There are four women with positive attributes for last names:
- 17A. [Emmy-winning actress for “Hacks”], JEAN SMART. Love that show!
- 24A. [Only person in the arts ever to be named Time’s Person of the Year], TAYLOR SWIFT.
- 40A. [With 41-Across, former “S.N.L.” regular who played Gemma and Cathy Anne], CECILY / STRONG. I don’t recall those character names but was always a fan of Strong’s.
- 49A. [She played Serena on “Gossip Girl”], BLAKE LIVELY. She’s had a rough year or two.
A little surprised to see TARSI, TSE, MOCS, ELS in a Monday puzzle.
I take issue with the clue for WIENIE, [Twerp]. That meaning would be spelled WEENIE, per both me and Merriam-Webster. M-W reserves WIENIE for a hot dog. I stand with Merriam-Webster! I hadn’t even checked that crossing because the E seemed indisputable.
3.75 stars from me.
Kevin Curry’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Save the Earthtones”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases whose final words can also precede the color “green” in other phrases. The revealer is GO GREEN (40d, [Make ecologically sound decisions, and a hint to what the starred answers do]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Save the Earthtones” · Kevin Curry · Mon., 3.17.25
- 17a. [*Rapper whose stage name refers to his rapid-fire delivery] MACHINE GUN KELLY.
- 28a. [*Pro at company recruiting] HEADHUNTER.
- 34a. [*British moneymaker once overseen by Sir Isaac Newton] ROYAL MINT.
- 43a. [*Kalamata, e.g.] GREEK OLIVE.
- 54a. [*Gnome home, perhaps] ENCHANTED FOREST.
‘Tis the day for the wearin’ of the green, so I guess this puzzle is safe from getting pinched. Good choices of theme answers, especially those grid-spanners. (And yes, the varying green colors you see above are accurate with the correct RGB values. The things I do for you…)
Smooth fill all around with highlights DRACULA, LACONIC, ORLANDO, SEANCES, and MACARONI. I’m giving SAVES GAS the side-eye since it really doesn’t feel like a crossword-worthy phrase, but I suppose it could be worse. New to me is OWL CITY [“Avian” artist with the 2009 #1 hit “Fireflies”] though I did recognize the song once I heard it, and my daughter immediately asked why I was listening to OWL CITY.
Clue of note: 2d. [Blood count?]. DRACULA. Don’t know if it’s new or not, but that’s a good clue.
Nice Monday grid. 3.5 stars.
Kit Sheffield’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 3/17/25 by Kit Sheffield
The revealer at 64A [Molar, or a feature of 17-, 24-, 39-, and 50-Across] is BACK TOOTH, telling us that the “back” part/last word (or the second half of a compound word, in a couple of cases) can be added to TOOTH to make a new word or phrase:
- 17A [Hustler with a cue stick] is a POOL SHARK, leading to SHARK TOOTH.
- 24A [Hunting dogs with a keen sense of smell] is BLOODHOUNDS, leading to HOUNDSTOOTH.
- 39A [Completely unexpected revelation] is BOLT FROM THE BLUE, leading to BLUETOOTH.
- 50A [Like chocolate with a high cacao percentage] is BITTERSWEET, leading to SWEET TOOTH.
Lots of thematic material, which I appreciate. The fill was easy like Monday morning, with ILIUM and ELO as the only crosswordese annoyances. I enjoyed the clue pairing of [No longer fashionable] for OUT and [Fashionable again] for the crossing RETRO.
Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap
New Yorker crossword solution, 3/17/25 – Gorski
This one fell faster than expected, perhaps because there were some crusty old bits of crosswordese that are gimmes to me, like ARN and SARD (feel like I haven’t seen either in years), and the crossing names (generic EMIL meets RUMER Godden, ARLO meets an ELAYNE I’d never heard of) didn’t hold me up.
Fave fill: HAND WASH ONLY, CRIME SCENE, NUT BUTTER, CENTENNIAL. Liked having both the LAKOTA and SANTEE peoples here. Could have done without dull verbs like ENSHEATHE and INTONATE. Neither of those really adds any meaning beyond their sheathe and intone roots!
New to me: 49d. [1966 comedy starring Sophia Loren and Paul Newman], LADY L.
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1766 — Eric’s review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1766 — 3/17/35
I found a few sticky spots, but didn’t have any real problems. It’s an open grid, which I liked. I also liked the stack in the NW, with 14A SMELLS A RAT on top of 17A INNOCENTLY.
I was less fond of the stack in the SE, where 53A [Hunter Hayes hit with the lyric “It ain’t right if you ain’t lost your mind”] I WANT CRAZY sits atop 56A [Time when many give up] LENT SEASON. I didn’t know the song and didn’t remember looking up Hunter Hayes in connection with some other crossword. The LENT SEASON clue is good, but the SEASON seems redundant. When I was a practicing Catholic decades ago, you gave up something for LENT, period.
Other stuff that grabbed my eye:
- 18A [Major joint?] BRIG “Major” as in the military rank. I had thought that BRIG was limited to ships, but it’s actually any prison, especially one on a warship.
- 30A [Annoying time it takes a gun to go off in some online shooter games] BULLET LAG I don’t play video games and had never heard this term before, but it wasn’t too hard with a few crosses.
- 42A [“The Substance” director Coralie ___] FARGEAT I know a little about the movie, but the director’s name is new to me. Because it’s an unusual name, it took me a bit to get it all.
- 5D [Cost of drinking?] ALCOHOL TAXES The H from the gimme of 22A [Thin Lizzy frontman Lynott] PHIL made ALCOHOL obvious; I wanted TAX but there’s nothing wrong with TAXES.
- 10D [Phishing expedition, e.g.] CYBERATTACK I needed the Y of 16A YOLO [Daring motto] to see that one.
- 21D [Chemistry and biology, e.g.] PURE SCIENCE I tried HARD SCIENCE first.
- 22D [Richard III’s house] PLANTAGENET I just learned the etymology of that name: “from Latin planta genista ‘sprig of broom,’ said to be worn as a crest by and given as a nickname to Geoffrey, count of Anjou, the father of Henry II.”
- 30D [Setting for the final scene of “Vertigo”] BELL TOWER Considering that I’ve seen Vertigo two or three times, it took me a bit to come up with the answer. I could picture Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in a tower, but thought the answer would be less generic. (It’s the bell tower at the Mission San Juan Batista, SSE of San Jose.)
Bill Steuben’s Universal crossword, “Money Back” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 3/17/25 • Mon • “Money Back” • Steuben • solution • 20250317
Here I am, returned from a weekend away—a mini-vacation if you will.
Didn’t really see much less appreciate the theme during the solve, but it’s laid out thanks to the revealer.
- 49aR [Finish with a flourish … and what the answers to the starred clues do] END ON A HIGH NOTE. Not a music theme.
- 20a. [*Sanctimonious] HOLIER-THAN-THOU.
- 26a. [*Low-fat cereal since 1955] SPECIAL K.
- 37a. [*Sound at the start of “groom”] HARD G.
- 42a. [*Las Vegas casino targeted in “Ocean’s Eleven”] MGM GRAND.
So that’s thou, K, G, and grand. It’s pretty much two sets of two, but it all works. 10a [Piece of paper money] BILL, like the namesake constructor.
- 1d [Kid] JOSH. 7d [Foolhardy] RASH. 40a [Foolish people] DOPES.
- 5d [“Good __” (Shakespearean greeting)] MORROW. An archaic definitional sense is ‘morning’, whereas a merely fusty sense is ‘the next day’ aka tomorrow.
- 28d [Heart readout, for short] ECG, not EKG—which I believe is more commonly used.
- 16a [Musical tern meaning “together” that’s hidden backward in “feudalism”] A DUE. That’s kind of neat.
- 38a [Tend to] MIND. Some ambiguity in this laconic clue makes it just that much tougher.
- 46a [Some peaceful protests] SIT-INS. Current admin is trying to characterize all protests as violent.
- 59a [Smell to high heaven] REEK. Clue duplicates part of the revealer (49a).
Nice, smooth crossword to ease me back into the grind.
NYT: I was even more surprised to see ARBOL in a Monday puzzle. According to xwordinfo, this is only the third time it’s ever appeared in the NYT. When I google it, most of the sites that come up are Spanish or French. I had never heard of it before this.
Same here.* I liked the puzzle, though.
*Of course Martin knows it (see below).
In all fairness, searching for “Chile de arbol ” does better. It’s new to me, too, as unfortunately all three of four themers. That amount of relying on crossings, with no aha moment, made it less than fun for me. But I’ll put it down to my pop culture ignorance and not judge this one.
Chile de arbol (“tree chili”) is a favorite of ours. I grind a handful as our house crushed red pepper. It’s way more exciting on pizza than the generic stuff. Highly recommended for spice lovers.
TNY: I enjoyed the puzzle, but I don’t recall the last time I solved a “challenging” Monday in 12 minutes – and that included about a half a minute that it took me to remember to correct the spelling for the knitting stitch (I can never remember if it’s “purl” or “perl.”) It helped that I recognized about half the proper names – that doesn’t happen very often for me in a Monday TNY.
Liked the clues for ARE YOU DECENT and HAND WASH ONLY (the latter being the reason I try to avoid doing my wife’s laundry). Agree with Amy about ENSHEATHE and INTONATE.
I had a lot of tough spots, enough for Monday, like RUMER and ELAYNE, but mostly just slowed way, way down for much of the E and SE, as with those two odd verbs, TAYE, LADYL, SANTEE, “abet” as nonjudgmental, and whatever else. Thankfully, I knew SACR-” as a prefix.
I found it very easy by Monday NYT standards. I knew RUMER Godden somehow, which helped with the top. I was slower in the bottom half, with HANDWASHONLY, INTONATE and LADYL slowing me down. I don’t possess any clothes that are HANDWASHONLY, because duh.