Sunday, March 30, 2025

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Simeon Seigel’s New York Times Crossword “Mark My Words”— Eric’s Review

Simeon Seigel’s New York Times Crossword, “Mark My Words” — 3/30/25

I found this a bit trickier than recent New York Times Sunday puzzles. Maybe if I’d read the title before starting, the theme would have clicked more readily. Probably not, though; the title is awfully vague.

Anyway, what we have for the theme is clues in which punctuation symbols are an essential part of the clue:

• 27A [. [Not this]] THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT A very common phrase that took me a long time to see.
• 35A [. . . Ancient] PREHISTORIC PERIODS I would call those three dots an ellipsis, but I prefer this “. . .” to this “…” when I let my petty thoughts trail off into . . .
• 54A [# Believes] BUYS BY THE POUND That’s not as common a phrase as some of the other, though it’s certainly one I’m familiar with. The bigger issue here is that 20 year or so of social media have caused me to interpret “#” as a hashtag. I suspect that many younger solvers aren’t familiar with this as a pound sign.
• 62A [* Composed *] WRITTEN IN THE STARS A solid entry.
• 70A [Feasts – – -] DINES AND DASHES The phrase is one I know only from crosswords, and I’m not entirely sure if it means walking out on the tab in a restaurant or being a rude dinner guest. And I would call the marks in the clue hyphens, not dashes.
• 87A [Alumnus º] POST-GRADUATE DEGREE Another solid entry.
• 99A [— Peruse —] READ BETWEEN THE LINES Also solid. This was the first theme answer I filled in completely, and it wasn’t until that point that I understood the theme.

I like the theme, especially because I was able to use it to crack some of the theretofore opaque clues. I don’t like that it took me over 20 minutes to solve it, but that could just be because I have to admit publicly that I wasn’t very fast with this one. I had more “I don’t know what that might be” moments and more answers that I had to change than I typically do:

• 22A [Architectural projection] ORIEL I know the word, but needed two or three crosses.
• 24A [Stiletto feature] BLADE I knew this wasn’t about high-heeled shoes.
• 32A [The Emmy statuette depicts a winged woman holding one] ATOM I could picture the woman, but not what she is holding.

• • 33A [Jordan’s most-visited tourist site] PETRA A welcome gimme. If I had a bucket list, this would be on it.
  • 45A [Sch. whose student newspaper is The Reveille] LSU My first thought was the United States Military Academy, but that wouldn’t fit.
  • 81A [Target for a Mighty Patch] ACNE I’d never heard of that product.
  • 93A [Leader who wrote “The Discovery of [96-Down]”/96D [Country once led by 93-Across] NEHRU/INDIA Somehow, just the N was enough to get me those two answers. I expect I encountered this somewhere before, but I’ve certainly never read the book.

• 3D [Weasel family member] STOAT I plunked in the correct answer immediately, and the almost as quickly took it out because 23A [Hit the ____] ROOF just had to be ROAD, right? (Two things that strike me now: I’m glad the clue wasn’t “Weasley family member.” And it’s a bit of an editing fail to use this and other fill-in-the-blank clues in a puzzle where the theme clues rely on punctuation marks. How does the solver know that the line is an ordinary blank and not the word “line”? It’s not as if there are not other ways to clue ROOF, ANNA or TALE.)
• 7D [Eight-time Grand Slam tournament winner from 1992 to 2003] Andre AGASSI I don’t really follow tennis, but this seems like the kind of trivia I ought to have known. Instead, I needed those esses to get that one.
• 72D [First to the finish line] SPEEDIEST Why did I originally put GREEDIEST?
• 101D [Genesis brother] ESAU Five years of overindulging in crosswords have taught me that it’s not always Cain or Abel.

Desiree Penner and Jeff Sinnock’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Bracketology”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases repurposed as if having to do with basketball. The title alludes to the ongoing March Madness tournament as well as to the fact that the theme clues are in brackets.

• 23a. [Lax ref’s response to a rule violation?] TRAVEL ALLOWANCE.
• 45a. [Responsibility for Magic Johnson?] GUARD DUTY.
• 53a. [Steph Curry, Larry Bird, etc.?] SHOOTING STARS.
• 76a. [“Grab the rebound!,” e.g.?] COURT ORDER.
• 79a. [Certain blocking drill?] SCREEN TEST.
• 96a. [“Keep your knees bent and your hands out!,” e.g.?] LINE OF DEFENSE.
• 105a. [“We should turn on one foot as we make plays!”?] “LET’S PIVOT.” I’m not familiar with this as a colloquial phrase. Maybe it’s business-speak for changing direction?
• 131a. [“I won’t let this alley-oop happen!”?] “YOU SHALL NOT PASS.”

Nice theme, and a fun set of theme answers. Only the one made me pause, and maybe that’s just my own problem. Otherwise, I especially liked the last one.

Fill highlights include CALL DIBS, “OH REALLY?,” EATS DIRT, and the facetious-or-not OSMOSING. Honorable mentions go to MARRIAGE and NUPTIAL.

Clues of note:

• 1d. [Driven creatures?]. CATTLE. I started out with BEETLE here thinking of the iconic VW car, but obviously that’s not a plural noun.
• 50d. [Durum, shawarma, etc.]. WRAPS. This one stymied me for a long time as I’m only familiar with durum wheat and the shawarma spice blend. Today I learned “shawarma” refers to the layered-meat wrap originating from the Middle East and “dürüm” refers to the similar dish from Turkey. Both are related to the Greek gyro and all stem from the Ottoman Empire.
• 112d. [“We’re actually both capable of that!”]. “SO CAN I!” This one really confused me. The way I read the clue, it was being spoken by one person representing themselves and another person who were both capable of whatever the thing is. So I really wanted the answer to be SO DO WE. It took me a long time to get to the point where the “we” is the speaker and the person they’re speaking to.

Good puzzle. 3.75 stars.

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Schoolbooks”— Matt’s Review

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Schoolbooks,” 3/30/2025

Our themers this week are books, which with the help of circled letters, contain schools in them. Thus the title “Schoolbooks.” A nice thing about themes like this is we see very similar 4-to-6-letter school names often in puzzles, which was helpful to me for the books I don’t recognize.

• 20a [Philip Roth novel about an alternative history where fascists take over the United States in the 1940s, featuring a North Carolina university] THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA (ELON). A little on the nose, huh.
• 28a [Harlan Coben novel about a sports agent investigating the disappearance of his star client’s ex-girlfriend, featuring an Iowa university] DEAL BREAKER (DRAKE)
• 37a [Mark Twain novel about a Northern lawyer who moves to the Deep South, featuring a New York college] PUDDNHEAD WILSON (UNION)
• 60a [With 62 Across, Charles Dickens novel about a man trying to support his sister and widowed mother, featuring a Maine college] NICHOLAS NICKLEBY (COLBY)
• 72a [Stephen King and Peter Straub novel about a boy seeking a magical artifact that can heal his sick mother, featuring a Michigan college] THE TALISMAN (ALMA)
• 85a [Alexandre Dumas novel about Edmund Dantes’s journey from wrongful imprisonment to becoming a rich nobleman, featuring a Massachusetts university] THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (TUFTS)
• 111a [Jasmine Guillory novel about a Napa Valley winery co-owner who has a one-night stand with the winery’s newest hire, featuring a North Carolina university] DRUNK ON LOVE (DUKE)

In typical Evan fashion, we’ve got another layer given to us in the revealer:

• 124a [Author Westover whose memoir is spelled out in the first letters of this puzzle’s eight circled schools] TARA

I’ve read a few excerpts of Westover’s “Educated,” and some of her other writing, and it’s excellent, excellent stuff. A deft little find that got a smile out of me at the end of my solve. 

I had a mixed experience with this puzzle, but I’m chalking it up to something individual, because the theme clues are consistent and clear. I’m not very well-read (it leaves less time for crosswords) so particularly struggled from DEAL BREAKER through THE TALISMAN, but I can’t say they’re unfair without knowing more.

PUDD’NHEAD WILSON // TRAMMELL Tillman left me guessing at two unknowns, but -L- is pretty clearly the best guess so it didn’t cause much trouble.

Other highlights: I remember having enough hair to worry about HAT HAIR. Not so much anymore, but a fun entry // I’m more familiar with PAPAYA in Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, but I can buy that it shows up in Mexican salads, as well // Hoo boy, Wisconsin-Illinois border town BELOIT held me up, but I recognized it eventually // I haven’t even listened to Chappell Roan’s “The GIVER” yet and here it is showing up in a major puzzle. I’m falling behind // the Chef Boyardee statue in OMAHA is a new one to me, but know what? It fits // I quite liked ARF for [Call from one’s best friend?], playing on dog as “Man’s best friend”

If you’ll be at ACPT next weekend, I hope you’ll say hello. I’ll be the balding fellow in an aloha shirt and shorts.