Rebecca Goldstein and Will Nediger’s New York Times crossword, “For Your Amusement” — Nate’s write-up
You know when you see either of these constructor bylines, it’s going to be a solid puzzle. But seeing them together? Epic!
08.18.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword
4D: DROP TOWER [Amusement park attraction depicted to the right of this answer]
– Indeed, in STOW (7D) going down into ERROLL (37D), we see a TOWER dropping through a black square barrier.
25A: BUMPER CARS [Amusement park attraction depicted above and below this answer]
– Nearby, we see three CARs – in OSCAR (21A), RACE (22A), and RACY (26D) – about to bump into each other.
65A: ROLLER COASTER [Amusement park attraction depicted weaving through this answer]
– Through the center section of the puzzle (starting and ending at the end Rs in the theme answer), we indeed see a ROLLER COASTER artfully rising and falling through circled squares.
111A: WATER SLIDE [Amusement park attraction depicted above this answer]
– Going diagonally down through five circled squares above this theme entry, we indeed have a WATER slide.
79D: WHAC-A-MOLE [Amusement park attraction depicted in and around this answer]
– Hilariously, in nearby down entries – BISMOL (94D), TRAM (107D), NEMO (109D), and WHAC-A-MOLE (79D) itself – we indeed see MOLEs in various states of popping up from the bottom of the grid.
For me, this was a joyful solve. It felt like it replicated the feeling of wandering around a theme park, bumping into fun attractions as you go. The executions of the attractions themselves felt really successful, and the WHAC-A-MOLE execution in particular was a fun surprise that made me laugh.
It’s pretty impressive to fit all the theme entries and attractions into the same puzzle without too much sacrifice on the other grid entries. Sure, there was a SOU here and an ENE there, but I felt that the constructors made up for it with fun bonus entries like CHEST HAIR, HATERADE, BURN SAGE, and HAPPY NEW YEAR. There were some really clever clues, too, like [Quick second?] for ASST at 15A and [Sour grapes drink?] for HATERADE at 89A. There was a lot of constructor personality that shined through in this puzzle, which I really enjoy.
All in all, a super fun solve for me. What did you think? Are there any other attractions you could have imagined being represented in a puzzle like this? Let us know what you think in the comments – and have a lovely weekend!
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword, “Ring Tones” — Matt’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword solution, “Ring Tones,” 8/18/2024
A note accompanying this puzzles shares that today is Evan’s 12th wedding anniversary with his wife, Vicki. Congrats to them!
I may be more aware of their anniversary than anyone’s other than my own, because it so often falls near Lollapuzzoola, and I end up chatting with Evan while Vicki is halfway out the door trying to get him to a dinner reservation. I won’t be at the tournament this year, but if you’re going next weekend, I hope you have a great time.
In this puzzle, theme entries are a variety of music-minded things; some songs and some not, each with a single letter circled. Two central revealers bring it together.
- 23a [*Show featuring judges and numbers] AMERICAN IDOL
- 31a [*Lyric from a Ray Parker Jr. song about “bustin'” scary spirits] I AINT FRAID OF NO GHOST
- 51a [*Boz Scaggs song with the lyric “One more job oughta get it”] LIDO SHUFFLE
- 58a [*Actress who sang “Ah, Paris!” in the 1971 production of “Follies”] FIFI DORSAY
- 62d [Marriage ceremony words that are hidden in each starred answer] I DO
- 66a [Event where one may hear the song colloquially known as “Here Comes the Bride,” the melody of which is shown in the circled notes when played in F major] WEDDING
- 81a [*Iggy Azalea song with a music video featuring a spider] BLACK WIDOW
- 90a [*Wind instruments often made from eucalyptus wood] DIDGERIDOOS
- 103a [*1970 King Crimson album whose title might make you imagine a sea god making waves] IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON
- 118a [*Handel opera whose title means “The Faithful Shepherd”] IL PASTOR FIDO
I didn’t see the revealer or notice the I DO aspect of the theme until compiling this writeup, when the entry lit up on the WaPo applet. I hope solvers see it, because without it the theme entries felt arbitrary and a bit tough, and the Wagner melody thin. But seeing now that it’s eight music-related entries with IDO has me really appreciating the constraint.
Notes:
- 1a [Wrestle a Bear to the ground, say] TACKLE. Even with ‘Bear’ capitalized, I couldn’t unravel this until I had all the crossings. It’s TACKLE as in a football play involving a member of the Chicago Bears.
- 60a [Ward of “Batman”] BURT. The Adam West Batman is well before my time. I did multiple crossing checks to confirm it wasn’t crosswordese standby Sela Ward.
- 86a [“The ___ Cracks the Liberty Bell” (episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”)] GANG. Every (I think) episode of IASIP is titled in “The Gang…” format.
- 11d [Mixtures at some bars] SALADS. I had to unravel some crossings with a mistaken SALSAS here for a bit
- 83d [Settle a dispute] ARBITRATE. I didn’t necessarily doubt this one, but I think “arbitration” and “arbitrator” are much more common.
Daniel Hrynick’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Doing the Splits”—Jim’s review
Circled squares spell out synonyms of the revealer UP AND LEFT (past tense) (125a, [Skedaddled … and directions for reading the circled letters]). In addition, said circled squares should be read from the bottom right upwards and leftwards.
The synonymous circled words and phrases are STORMED OFF, FLEW THE COOP, GOT OUT OF DODGE, HIT THE ROAD, and BAILED. Clues for these entries are found at the top-most Across square:
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Doing the Splits” · Daniel Hrynick · 8.18.24
- 18a. [*Wows / Sick of the Seattle winter, the WNBA team …] FLOORS / STORMED OFF
- 25a. [*Nosh / Sick of the beat-up Caravan, the family …] EAT / GOT OUT OF DODGE
- 58a. [*Reject / Sick of a long shift, the street sweeper …] DENY / HIT THE ROAD
- 61a. [*Pretend / Sick of being pigeonholed, the bird keeper …] PLAY / FLEW THE COOP
- 96a. [*Banned insecticide (Abbr.) / Sick of the sinking ship, the captain …] DDT / BAILED
I solved most of the grid without paying attention to the theme once I realized the first part of each themed clue satisfied the pertinent Across entry. Upon hitting the revealer, I went back and made sense of the circled squares. However, I still nearly failed in that SW corner. Some opaque cluing and proper names nearly did me in.
The long fill is strong and some interesting cluing kept me on my toes. 3.5 stars.
I had no idea of SACHAR crossing HATERADE, but otherwise a fine, nicely varies theme puzzle.
I should add a drawback, how some circled letters just repeat the themer exactly, although suggestively positioned. To my mind, the only real standout were the bumper cars, with the whac-a-mole illustration a decent second.
No Universal (Sunday) puz today. Does anyone know where to find it?
It’s up now.
NYT: Pretty easy Sunday. I’m not an amusement park guy, so not especially excited about the theme, but I thought the circles did a good job of evoking each of the “attractions.” The WHAC-A-MOLE representation was the most entertaining of the five to me, but also seemed a little out of place, as the other four are all rides, where WHAC-A-MOLE is an arcade game. Do they typically have arcade games at amusement parks?
I think a lot of amusement parks do have arcades, though I haven’t been to one in over 40 years.
The theme didn’t wow me, though the roller coaster is technically impressive because each letter is triple-checked.
The bumper cars are pretty clever, though I wonder now why they didn’t clue 21A and 22A together as OSCAR RACE. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the way it was clued, if you know a few of the major Muppets.)
For a bit, I thought I was going to finish in under 10 minutes, which would be a first for me. Then I made some typos that took a while to find.
I used to watch the original Batman series growing up in the 1960’s. A few decades later, when I returned to school to get my masters degree in computer animation and vfx, Burt Ward appeared on a few industry discussion forums. He founded “Boy Wonder VFX” studio; it took me a while to believe it was the same Burt Ward. Holy pixels, Batman!
Re: WP – I got the circled notes right away, but didn’t see the “IDOs” until reading the reviews. One raised eyebrow – while “PLO” does appear in the word “Diplomacy”, I don’t see much connection between the two beyond that.
WaPo: The circled letters, when played on a keyboard, are Here Comes the Bride.
LAT: I was half expecting “Mouth of the Orinoco?” to be Enya. Also interesting seeing TYSM in both the LAT and Universal (non-sunday); I don’t recall seeing it as an answer recently.
RATINGS: If we presume that most puzzles are typical in difficulty for that day of the week and deserve 3 stars, maybe nobody should bother with voting that number, or that number should be removed.
Too many “threes” keep the ratings in the middle of the road, and we don’t see the breadth in the comparative scores like we should.
As it is now, almost every puzzle rates between a 3.9 and a 2.1, which doesn’t provide enough of an insight to how good or bad the solvers feel about a specific puzzle.
(Just tossing this idea out there to evoke responses from everyone.)
I’m of the opinion that most solvers are over 50 years old and that most constructors and editors are under 50 years old. Some of us “oldies” are starting to feel like we’re “aging out” of the crossword world, which is a total shame.
Constructors like Evan Birnholz (my current favorite) create puzzles that will last for decades and more — quite like how Merl Reagle’s puzzles are still on my playlist.
(This is a thought that I hope younger constructors will keep in mind.)
UNI-SUN: the editor missed a chance to give credit to Joni Mitchell instead of Counting Crows on 16D for “Big Yellow Taxi”, because she wrote and had a hit song with it.