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Karen Steinberg’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up
NY Times crossword solution, 4/4/25 – no. 0404
I appreciate having a second consecutive Friday puzzle with a woman in the byline. The puzzle felt harder than the standard Friday, though. The 15-letter answers were interesting choices, and the clues left me hanging for a while on most of them. ODDS-ON FAVORITES was the most straightforward. The idiomatic USING THE OLD BEAN and SAY THE MAGIC WORD worked me over. I spaced on the first word in the term KEYBOARD WARRIOR ([One getting in online debates, colloquially]) … so unlike my online self. “I CALL ’EM AS I SEE ’EM” wasn’t too tough. Now, I don’t care for [Anti-jaywalking directive], CROSS AT THE GREEN. In these parts, it’s “cross with the light.” If you’re at the corner of an intersection, you’re “at” the red light in one direction and green in the other. And much of the jaywalking around these parts is in the middle of the block, not at an intersection with traffic lights. Hmph!
Clue that I think my generation needs to let go of: [Training ___], BRA. Such a weird term to begin with, no? What they sell for girls now are, judging from one major retailer, just called “bras,” and they mostly take the same form as adults’ bralettes and sports bras and bras. It’s a golden age! Much nicer than the weird “training bras” that were around when Gen X was young.
Fave fill: AI WEIWEI (just in the news; in M. Gessen’s piece on the U.S. becoming a secret-police state, a Columbia professor who reposted an Ai Weiwei Instagram post ended up on a list of faculty to purge), MARINATE.
Clue I learned something from: 46A. [The moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, e.g.], CRATER.
Toughest fill: 6D. [Roman guardian spirit], LAR. I had the LA from crossings and still struggled to remember the third letter of this old-school crosswordese.
3.75 stars from me.
Katie Hale’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 4/4/25 • Fri • Hale • solution • 20250404
As best as I can put it, the theme takes portmanteau words and treats the first partial as if it were a whole word, while the overall entry remains a portmanteau.
- 17a. [The ever-increasing size of deer antlers?] STAGFLATION (stag + inflation, orig. stagnation + inflation). This would be the story of Megaloceros giganteus.
- 36a. [Adversaries from Avignon?] FRENEMIES. Oh dang, forgot about this one, and it puts a hole in my explanation. Have to modify it to be, more simply: alternative portmanteau breakdowns. Here, instead of friends + enemies it’s French + enemies. >crumples up theory<
- 59a. [Opinion piece with too many qualifiers?] ADVERTORIAL (adverb + editorial, orig. advertisement + editorial. More evidence against my first characterization. I will note that advert can also be a verb meaning “to turn the mind or attention” which would almost be redundant if combined with editorial. >tosses theory to the side<
- 11d. [Symposium focused on spider silk?] WEBINAR (web + seminar, orig. Web (world wide web) + seminar). This confounds my original idea in a different way. >walks over and grinds theory into the ground<
- 40d. [Radio program that plays only whale song?] PODCAST (pod + broadcast, orig. iPod + broadcast) >”what theory?”<
Okay, let’s move on!
- 1d [Docs sent to potential employers] CVS. Documents, not doctors.
- 3d [Where to find some Cirque du Soleil performers] ON A WIRE.
- 8d [Glinda performer, to fans] ARIana Grande, in the recent film of the stage musical Wicked.
- 10d [North African flower] THE NILE. Was not fooled for a moment.
- 15d [ __ and for all] ONCE, followed by 18d [Final] LAST.
- 24d [Head inside a bar?] FOAM. Flummoxed me until the crossings revealed the answer.
- 43d [Trees also known as wattles] ACACIAS. Did not know this.
- 60d [Pester] DOG, not NAG.
- 62d [ __ down the law] LAY.
- 13a [P-A-G-E turner, maybe] VANNA White, from Wheel of Fortune. I haven’t watched the show in decades—is she still on it? Also, even I know they haven’t had turning letters in many years.
- 30a [Exclamation with a hand clap] BLAM. Okay, I guess so.
- 39a [Dessert that may be topped with cheddar cheese] APPLE PIE. This is a New England thing, possibly restricted to Vermont?
- 42a [Bangladesh’s capital] DHAKA. Not to be confused with DAKAR, the capital of Senegal.
- 57a [Put back] REPLACE.
Kiran Pandey’s Universal crossword, “Initial Conditions”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases where the first word sounds like two letters. These letters are taken to be the initials of a famous person thus giving rise to wackified clues.
Universal crossword solution · “Initial Conditions” · Kiran Pandey · Fri., 4.4.25
- 17a. [Nora Ephron’s estimates?] ANY GUESSES.
- 24a. [Margaret Thatcher’s pledges?] EMPTY PROMISES. Just finished reading a book with a character named Michael Terence Balls with a nickname that matches this theme.
- 38a. [Steve Austin’s championship trophies?] ESSAY COLLECTION.
- 47a. [Quentin Tarantino’s butt?] CUTIE PATOOTIE.
- 58a. [Emile Zola’s exit?] EASY WAY OUT.
Lovely theme that was easy to grok but provided solid entertainment throughout. Nice, lively choices of theme answers and solid cluing. The really nice thing about this theme filled with proper names is that you don’t have to know who any of the people are.
Just as lovely are those stacks in the NE/SW: MASS EMAIL, “PRAISE GOD!,” ISOSCELES, and “AS YOU WISH.” Haven’t seen “DAYUM!” in a puzzle before, but it gave me a chuckle. Quite smooth fill elsewhere throughout the grid.
Clues of note:
- 55a. [Beats by ___]. DRE. I really wanted A MILE here.
- 57a. [“Search Party” actress Shawkat]. ALIA. We would all do well to remember this name.
- 34d. [“Indeed, I can do that”]. “AS YOU WISH.” But we all know what it really means is “I love you.”
Smooth, fun puzzle. Four stars.
If you’re not solving the Muller Monthly Meta Music puzzles, this might be your last chance to start while they’re still relative easy. I enjoy lots of different music and have found the puzzles to be fun.
April’s meta was easier for me than March’s. The deadline for submitting this month’s meta answer is Sunday, April 6, at 11 PM EDT.
https://pmxwords.com
Fun Friday NYT. liked the visual “huh?” of seeing the consecutive Es in I CALL EM LIKE i SEE EM.
I got the end of that entry before I had any of the I CALL ’EM letters and man did those the consecutive E’s look wrong.
NYT: I liked this Friday puzzle a lot. The six 15-letter entries were interesting, as was the assortment of answer words and the interesting diagram with more symmetry than usual.
I’m a bit unsure about USING THE OLD BEAN, which sounded only faintly familiar (and googling this phrase led to only nine hits that don’t mention this puzzle).
Also, I had never heard of Jethro Tull the agriculturist — only the band with this name. (Can we assume the band was named after the agriculturist?)
“use the old bean” garners more results
Here’s an ngram with various conjugations.
Yes, the band was named for the agriculturist. At the beginning they changed the band’s name often. From Wikipedia –
The names were often supplied by their booking agent’s staff, one of whom, a history enthusiast, gave them the alias Jethro Tull after the 18th-century agriculturist. The name stuck because they were using it when the manager of the Marquee Club liked their show enough to give them a weekly residency. In an interview in 2006, Anderson said that he had not realised it was the name of “a dead guy who invented the seed drill – I thought our agent had made it up”. He said if he could change one thing in his life, he would go back and change the name of the band to something less historical.
Thanks, PJ. (I checked that Wikipedia article, but in my haste was unable to find the passage you quote.)
Such a great band name story :-) I like the story behind the band Gomez: for their first gig, they hadn’t yet decided on a name. But they had a friend who they were trying to direct to the venue, so they put up a bunch of signs with arrows to the gig so he wouldn’t get lost. The friend? Gomez. So then everyone else thought that was the name of the band :-)
The Green Bay Packers are a community owned team with over a half million shareholders, so I’m gonna call that clue as I see it – technically incorrect
I’d agree with that!
I had the same thought My one share is framed and hangs on my office wall.
Good point — I didn’t catch that as I was solving.
I’d call it technically correct. The team is owned by Green Bay Packers, Inc.
What Gary R and half a million others own are shares of stock in the corporation. It’s a big difference legally.
NYT: NW took me a long time. I wanted internet WARRIOR at 17-A. Haven’t heard KEYBOARD WARRIOR. Didn’t know OMBRE, and “Place” as a clue for LIEU throws me every time.
Didn’t care for CROSS AT THE GREEN at all. But the other long entries were nice.
“Cross at the green but not in between” cleverly describes the safe and legal way to cross a street both spatially (only at a corner) and temporally (only during a green light) in one succinct sentence.
I had no end of trouble with the top (especially N and NE) because I didn’t recognize KEYBOARD WARRIOR, although of course it makes sense.
I’ll definitely defend CROSS AT THE GREEN, though. There was a public service ad slogan years ago in NYC: cross at the green, not in between.
Gary R, I had similar struggles to you. Didn’t know OMBRE, hadn’t heard of KEYBOARD WARRIOR, didn’t know LAR, took a long time to come up with SIAM. I spent a very long time in the NW. I had much more like a Saturday time than a Friday time for me.
I had some trouble getting into the NYT but finished in a reasonable time. USINGTHEOLDBEAN is straight out of a Bertie Wooster story, and as others have said, CROSSATTHEGREEN seems not at all idiomatic.
Why is it that crossword constructors are the only English speakers for whom OAR is primarily a verb?
I remember learning about JETHRO Tull in school, but I can’t remember what it was he invented – *checks Wikipedia* – oh, a horse-drawn seed drill.
I had both Training DAY and IPod MINI first before fixing both of them … fun Friday puzzle!
NYT – LAR was new to me. I had BOOBS for shape-shifters, which I find hilarious.
And totally agree with you on TRAINING BRA. This is such an outdated and frankly ridiculous concept that really needs to be forgotten.
Nobody wears togas anymore, but it’s commonly used in puzzles. I might add that togas were a ridiculous concept.
I wore a toga — kind of — to a Halloween party once. I found it quite agreeable, and thought it would be very practical in a warm climate.
Zipped through the NYT with a couple of stumbles. 28D could have been IST or ISM— either one fit the long entry that crossed it. Knew LAR from ‘LARS and penates’ being Roman household gods. A pretty good puzzle with lots of long entries.
Yes, Vanna White is still at “Wheel.” Incredibly, I believe she started working on the show BEFORE Pat Sajak!
LAT: I haven’t solved it yet, but “Shoot Out the Lights” *and* “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”? You’re hard to keep up with, pannonica!
I just go where the puzzles take me, Eric!
So do I, but your choices make me want to do better with my own.
(I do try to avoid something obvious, unless the obvious choice is a killer song.)
same!
LAT: “Apple pie without the cheese
Is like a kiss without the squeeze”
WSJ: This is a great puzzle for anyone who is interested in but perhaps a bit intimidated by meta puzzles.
The mechanism is as straightforward as I can remember seeing. People might get a little hung up if the movie title isn’t familiar, but that’s what post-solving research is for. (I did a little research myself, just to verify that my answer fit the prompt, but I would have been confident submitting my answer even without the research.)
UNI: Two demerits for putting “Dayum” in a puzzle, and the other for suggesting that the initials “MT” are pronounced like “Empty”.
Where I come from, the “p” in empty is pronounced like the “p” in pneumonia.