Monday, April 21, 2025

Thomas van Geel’s New York Times crossword—Sophia’s write-up

Happy Monday everyone! Today’s theme is a simple sound pun. The ends of each of the theme answers sound like someone sneezing:

New York Times, 04 21 2025, By Thomas van Geel

• 17a[Coming-of-age ceremony] – BAR MITZVAH
• 25a [Place “rocked” in a Clash song] – THE CASBAH
• 34a [Animal that can go 0-60 in three seconds] – CHEETAH
• 48a [Famed shoe designer] – JIMMY CHOO

AH-AH-AH-CHOO, get it? And then the revealer, [Polite response to the ends of 17-, 25-, 34- and 48-Across] is GESUNDHEIT. Pretty cute. Now to make it more realistic, Thomas would need to make the grid Sunday sized and repeat the process multiple times over (at least this is more realistic for folks dealing with allergy season this spring!). I like the variety of phrases chosen here – given that the only constraint on half of these answers is just “ending in the letters AH”, there should be a fair amount of interesting theme answer options.

This grid has such a wacky shape! The first answer that breaks out of the NW corner is all the way over at 8-Down. The whole puzzle kind of feels like a maze. I’m hesitant to do this with easier puzzles that I write, because segmentation can make it harder for solvers to break into different areas and can overall make the flow of the puzzle feel choppy. But it’s fun to switch it up every once in a while. Plus, this grid shape afforded a ton of interesting 7 letter answers – TABASCO, GOOD BET, DOG TEAM, DOJA CAT, NEMESIS – although there were also a few pieces of old-school crosswordese that I hadn’t seen in a while (AMIN, ADAS, AGAR, to name a few).  But overall, an interesting change of pace for a Monday.

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Key Changes”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases which feature the letters BAR which seem to spread apart is the solver goes down the grid. The revealer is SPACE BAR (64, [Keyboard key, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Key Changes” · Mike Shenk · Mon., 4.21.25

• 1a. [Nightclubs] CABARETS.
• 17a. [They may be marked with x’s] ALGEBRA PROBLEMS.
• 28a. [Burden for an ant] BREADCRUMB.
• 44a. [Witnesses to an event] BYSTANDERS.
• 55a. [AND, OR or NOT, in mathematical logic] BOOLEAN OPERATOR.

Apt theme for a Monday, consistently executed with lively theme answers. Maybe not the most compelling theme for longtime solvers, but it works well and should aid newer solvers in completing the grid.

Not much in the way of long sparkly fill, but I LOVE YOU and TERI GARR make for highlights in the corners. ESME and EBRO will be challenges for a lot of solvers, especially new ones, but the crossings are fair enough.

3.25 stars.

Hannah Slovut-Einertson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 4/21/25 by Hannah Slovut-Einertson

We’ve got some hinky pinky going on — the theme, which lacks a revealer, is simply rhyming adjectives:

• 17A [Haphazard, haphazardly] is WILLY-NILLY.
• 27A [Casual, casually] is LOOSEY-GOOSEY.
• 44A [Nonsensical, nonsensically] is PHONY-BALONEY. I don’t buy this definition, which feels like it was chosen so that all the theme answers could be clued in [Adjective, adverb] fashion; M-W defines PHONY-BALONEY simply as “phony,” which to me is more “false” or “artificial” than “nonsensical.”
• 57A [Mushy, mushily] is LOVEY-DOVEY.

The cluing mechanic feels forced to me; is WILLY-NILLY really a “haphazard” way of saying “haphazard”? (And see above re: PHONY-BALONEY.) I think it would’ve been fine not to try to unify the theme entries with the clues quite so much.

I also thought the cluing throughout the grid was unusually hard for a Monday (my 2:24 time, which is like 20% longer than normal, as evidence). For example, 22A [Olympians’ predecessors] feels like a Tuesday or Wednesday clue for TITANS; likewise 65A [Spotify Wrapped figures], which requires a bit of trivia knowledge, for STATS. Also, there were a decent number of clues that you needed crossings to nail down, like 6D [Some musical intervals] for THIRDS (could also be FIFTHS, SIXTHS, or NINTHS) or 28D [Slack alternative] for EMAIL (more easily leads to Microsoft TEAMS as clued, IMO).

None of which is to say this is a bad puzzle — just that I think the cluing should’ve been a little more unambiguous for Monday (which is the day of the week a theme like this lends itself to).

Noelle Griskey’s Universal crossword, “High Note” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 4/21/25 • Mon • “High Note” • Griskey • solution •

Things are often said to end on a high note, but the opposite is the case here.

• 36d^R [Maximum amount being paid, and a hint to 3-, 9- and 25-Down] TOP DOLLAR.
• 3d. [Give special attention to] SINGLE OUT.
• 9d. [Unexpectedly overcome adversity] BUCK THE ODDS. Beat the odds, buck the trend? Ngram!
• 25d. [All-inclusive store] ONE-STOP SHOP. I used to live not far from a place that called itself a ONE-STOP, and let me tell you, every time we were working on a home improvement project it required at least three visits.

So: single, buck, and one. Not so exciting per se, but the containing phrases are lively enough.

• 18a [Totes absurd] RIDICulous. Totally.
• 23a [Scholarship factor] NEED. I would have added “, often”.
• 28a [Cold country home to the Blue Lagoon] ICELAND. It’s a geothermal spa.
• 39a [Stretched like guitar strings] TAUT.
  
• 44a [Kahlo or Cassatt] ARTIST. Both notable women.
• 10d [Cost-efficient] ECONOMIC. One sense of the word is synonymous with the less ambiguous economical.
• 13d [Drops in the mail] SENDS. I dropped in SENDS, at the time knowing the answer could also be POSTS, but I was fortunate as it turned out. On the other hand, my hastiness was errant, for 53d [Secret stockpile] was STASH and not CACHE.
• 27d [Bunch of bills] WAD. Mildly theme-adjacent.
• 56d [South Asian country known for dal bhat] NEPAL.
• 62d [Worry and worry] STEW, 70a [Reduce, as anxiety] EASE.

That’s all I’ve got for this tardy write-up. Smooth grid, quick solve.

Natan Last’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

Fun to have a breezy offering from Natan—breezy if you know the (pop) cultural references I do. I didn’t know the D’Angelo album title, BLACK MESSIAH, but I remember Black Twitter being all atwitter when it came out in 2014, since his fans had been waiting since 2000 for another album. BAY CITY ROLLERS, pop song when I was a girl. PREMIER LEAGUE, husband loves it. SISTER, SISTER, I didn’t watch but don’t we all know it from TIA Mowry clues? When you have 12- to 14-letter gimmes, things move fast.

Fave fill: SEASIDE COTTAGE, BIRD DOGS, PEPITA, coffee REDEYES, OB/GYNS, and the other long Acrosses.

Did not know, glad to learn: 48a. [Political slogan with origins in the suffragist movement], BREAD AND ROSES. Also new to me: [Sean Wang film that won the 2025 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature], DIDI. Tough crossing with MINARI if you don’t know that movie; I know about MINARI but still haven’t seen it.

Could do without: OASTS!

Four stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1776 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1776 — 4/21/25

This one lived up to Brendan’s description of “Hard.” The grid has two sets of five black squares on a diagonal, each with a row of three black squares on one end. Those break the grid up into five sections. There are answers connecting all five, so it flows fairly well despite that.

I got slowed down in a few areas, particularly the SE corner. It was a good lesson in some vital crossword strategies, such as working off what you already have and being sure to read every clue. I was well into the puzzle before I noticed gimmes like 32D [___ Fring (“Breaking Bad” drug lord)] GUSTAVO (Giancarlo Esposito is fantastic in that role) and 38D [“Horses” punk rocker Smith] PATTI.

What I like about proper names is that when I know them, I can be confident that I have the right answer. That gives me something to work off of. The downside, of course, is that there are names I don’t know or don’t fully remember. In this puzzle, I had trouble with some of those:

• 40A [Italian fashion deisgner (sic) Pietro with an eponymous cycling clothing company] SANTINI Although I ride a bike a lot, I’ve never heard of this brand. But I don’t buy clothing that’s specifically designed for cycling. On the other hand, it’s nice to see SANTINI clued as something other than the movie The Great Santini.
• 41A [___ Sinclair (Wednesday Addams’s roommate)] ENID I still haven’t seen that show. I appreciate that the clue that isn’t a gimme like “Author Bagnold” or “City in Oklahoma.”
• 44A [Author of the “Earth’s Children” series] Jean M. AUEL I’ve only really heard of her novel The Clan of the Cave Bear, which is the first book in that series. I needed the A and the L to get that one.
• 47A [Soccer player who won a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022] Megan RAPINOE The date should have been a big hint, but I have a bad tendency to think only of male athletes when the clue isn’t explicit about the person’s sex. It’s something I’m slowly overcoming.
• 9D [Actress Cotillard] MARION I knew her first name was some variation of “Marianne,” but I needed 21D LIMIT ONE to remember the O in the second syllable.
• 43D [Oklahoma city where the Chickasaw Nation is headquartered] ADA Sometimes, Oklahoma just wants into the grid.

Other stuff:

• 17A [Bic stain] INK MARK INK BLOT slowed me down for a long time.
• 18A [“___ Girl” (1981 #1 hit by Rick Springfield)] JESSIE’S Thanks for the ear worm, Brendan.
• 23A [Chic products] HOT BRANDS I expected “Chic” to be some brand that I didn’t know.
• 24A [Subjects. of many H.G. yearbook photos] ORGS I have no idea what “H.G. yearbook” means, but now that I think about it, maybe it’s a typo and the clue should read “H.S. yearbook”?
• 33A [Round figures?]/27D [Dwarf planet named after a Roman goddess] BAR ORDERS/CERES This crossing was my last letter and I was surprised it was correct. I was somewhat sure about CERES, but wasn’t parsing BAR ORDERS as two words.
• 2D [Cold sheet] ICE MASS The ICE part was easy enough to guess, but BERG made no sense and FLOE didn’t work with the crosses.
• 5D [Yorkshire cry] OINK Yep, I thought of dogs before getting this from the crosses. Just skimming the Wikipedia article on the English area of Yorkshire, I don’t see that it’s particularly known as a pork-raising area.
• 7D [Uncomfortableness]/13D [Shakes in one’s boots] THE JITTERS/TREMBLES I like that juxtaposition.
• 33D [Take from the top?] BEHEAD An amusing if gruesome clue.