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Zhouqin Burnikel’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up
NY Times crossword solution, 3/28/25 – no. 0328
Lovely to find Zhouqin’s byline above the puzzle tonight! Lots of good stuff within.
Fave fill: WASABI MAYO, SCUBA DIVER, WIN BY A MILE, an apian BEE DANCE, PO’BOY (didn’t know it’s a [Food specialty that might be topped with Creole mustard]; was expecting a remoulade), YOGA MATS (liked the clue, [People have a variety of positions on these]), NO-HIT GAMES since the baseball season’s just begun, “STAY CLASSY” (also a catchphrase from the movie Anchorman, though without the returned aggression of the clue, [Sarcastic response to a rude comment]), PLAY DATES, the sport CANOE POLO (can’t say I knew this existed and it sounds exhausting), SINGLE MOM, TOP SPEEDS (interesting that it’s TOP SEEDS with a P added). Re: CANOE POLO: you can play it in an OCEAN or a POOL if you’re into anagramming.
I’d dispute this: 3D. [The crack of dawn], SUNUP. I say the crack of dawn is when the sky first begins to lighten, but the actual SUNUP occurs some time after that. Similarly, it’s not nighttime-dark immediately upon sunset; the same twilight that happens before sunrise is present in the evening.
Geo trivia: 51A. [Country with 14,125 islands (and only 260 inhabited!)], JAPAN. Indonesia’s got about 920 inhabited and around 15,000 islands. The Philippines has a mere 7,641 islands! So few.
Four stars from me.
Katherine Simonson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 3/28/25 • Fri • Simonson • solution • 20250328
Theme here is phrases beginning with the letter E, reparsed wackily to have the E/electronic prefix, as in email, e-tail, e-waste, et cetera.
- 16a. [Headquarters for a simulated space launch?] E-MISSION CONTROL (emission control).
- 29a. [Recognition for top cyber snoops?] E-SPY AWARDS (ESPY Awards).
- 47a. [Group of online church leaders?] E-RECTOR SET (Erector Set).
- 62a. [Co-branding by web-based sellers?] E-MERGING MARKET (emerging market).
The main problem is that the first entry is so much weaker than the other three. Whereas spy awards, rector set, and merging market aren’t really things, mission control most appreciably is; not only that, I daresay it’s more common than emission control (as a phrase in common usage, at least). However, I will note that Ngrams (printed sources) tells a different story:
Nevertheless, my point stands, as mission control is a very recognizable thing.
- 12d [Fine-grained soil] SILT. 18d [Fine-grained soil] CLAY.
- 27d [Guide] USHER. etymology: Middle English ussher, from Anglo-French ussier, usscher, from Vulgar Latin *ustiarius doorkeeper, from Latin ostium, ustium door, mouth of a river — more at OSTIUM (m-w.com)
- 35d [Household expenses] MORTGAGES. The big one.
- 1a [Legato symbol on a score] SLUR, which I always misremember as SLUE.
- 36a [Jasper Johns genre] POP ART. Among several others that he’s been associated with. He’s still alive, age 94.
- 37a [Cal State city] CHICO.
- 46a [Brew in a mug] TEA. 64d [Brew in a mug] ALE.
- 65a [Silky fabric] SATEEN. “Sateen is a fabric made using a satin weave structure but with spun yarn instead of filament yarn. It is a cotton or other non-silk fabric that has the characteristics of silk satin but is less expensive.” (Wikipedia)
Other than the weakness I pointed out, it was a good crossword overall, flowing and well-clued.
Adrian Johnson’s Universal crossword, “Spring Themeless Week, Puzzle 5”—Jim’s review
Lovely themeless grid today with grid-spanners galore going every which way and stacked atop one another.
I loooove “AND YET, HERE WE ARE“. I wonder if that was the seed for this puzzle. Other goodies: THAT’S MORE LIKE IT, CEREMONIAL START, EVERYTHING BAGEL, SAN ANTONIO SPURS, MADAME PRESIDENT, REAL ESTATE MOGUL, “ARE YOU LISTENING?” and GLUE GUNS.
On the other end are entries like AIWA, ELAN, and UNS, but for a puzzle packed with grid-spanners those are hardly worth mentioning.
Clue of note: 3d. [Title for no U.S. head of state, so far]. MADAME PRESIDENT. Ugh. I can’t imagine thinking the current bonehead-in-chief was the better choice. AND YET, HERE WE ARE.
Very nice themeless puzzle. Four stars.
NYT: Yes, a lovely puzzle. Felt right for a Friday.
I had a hard time getting a foothold in the North (It would have helped to know my geography and start with WSW at 1 down, but I wasn’t sure). So, I finished the bottom and then returned to the top 3 stack. Once I thought of WASABI, things flowed.
Love that AFICIONADO means amateur in Spanish. And I learned STAY CLASSY as an expression. I’ve heard people respond “CLASSY” but not the Stay part… Good to know.
I had same strugs in NW until the partial WASABI fell as well. Not crazy about YADA — nonsense words could be anything?!?
Prefer WAWA to be our beloved convenience store here in Philly, but I accept that it’s not fair to those not from the area.
Mutman — I was skeptical about the clue [Nonsense word akin to “blah”]: After all, blah is a real word, not nonsense.
But when YADA became clear, it dawned that it’s a nonsense word in “yada, yada, yada” (a phrase I detest but which caught on after George Costanza often used it to mean yakking), just like “blah, blah, blah”. Which I suspect is what the clue was getting at.
I see your point now. I had a genetic BLAH in my head, say, when you’re just not feeling great. Good point!
Ditto with the NW – I didn’t get anything on a first pass, but moved elsewhere and made steady progress. I know STAYCLASSY from the Ron Burgundy movie with Will Ferrell; I don’t know whether it existed as a phrase before that.
Nitpicky note: I don’t believe that TOPSPEEDS are really a stat for pitchers or racecar drivers. I imagine there may be people who keep track of such things, but they’re not all that significant. And baseball analysts usually talk about pitch velocity, for some reason.
Nice NYT, with a wide-ranging lexicon.
Note that the ‘2025 ORCAS’ page contains a link to the winning puzzles, but the link goes nowhere. Please fix! I’d like to try them.
Hi Matt, I’ve restored that page.
NYT: Very nice Friday puzzle, with a profusion of interesting entries and slightly confusing clues, as well as an interesting diagram.
Did not get far at all initially in the top half, but found traction where BONDS crossed ADD ON, leading to the bottom half filled in. Then got the NW and finally after changing Away to AwED got the NE except for one letter in the Weizenbock space — but I didn’t know what a Weizenbock is. (Probably should’ve guessed based on “hefeweizen” and “bock beer”.) Looked it up and learned it’s a beer. Beer snows might be a fun way to imbibe but it did not sound like an in-the-language phrase — it had to be BEER SNOBS (and ABED). All’s well that ends well.
ORCA awards misspelling: Sorry for my pedantry, but on the page https://crosswordfiend.com/2025-orcas/, the phrase “in memoriam” is misspelled.
Also, as MattF wrote, it would be great to have a live link to them.
I made the NYT unnecessarily difficult for myself by thinking that AFICIONADO in Spanish ought to have the less-common English spelling, with two F’s, and that the futbol cry ought to be the perennial “ole.” But very nice Friday puzzle.