Stacey Yaruss McCullough’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 8/21/24 – no. 0821
Another brief post, as I solved to the soundtrack of Doug Emhoff and Michelle Obama at the DNC party.
The theme is made-up phrases that combine a phrase like “rope-a-dope” with an extra rhyme, and the clues feature additional rhymes:
- 17a. [Gathering for lathering?], RUB-A-DUB CLUB.
- 26a. [Jewels for fools?], DING-A-LING BLING.
- 42a. [Fryer piled higher?], CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOK.
- 56a. [Cup to drink up?], CHUG-A-LUG MUG. This one’s my favorite. I assume you can buy mugs that have “chug-a-lug” printed on them!
Did not know NOVAK is the [Most common Czech surname]. I wonder where it ranks among Serbian given names?
Fave entry: ICEBOX CAKE. Got a recipe to share? It’s about to be too hot to turn the oven on again.
3.5 stars from me.
Brian Callahan’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Chicago Blues”—Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword, 8/21/24 – “Chicago Blues”
Hey! A theme that anticipates what I’m doing while solving the puzzle. “Chicago Blues” references the Democratic (blue) National Convention in Chicago. The revealer is the DNC venue, the UNITED / CENTER, [With 38-Across, arena hosting this week’s Democratic National Convention, and what this puzzle’s theme answers each have]. Theme entries “HELLO, NEWMAN,” IPHONE APP, TIP O’NEILL, and “WHAT ON EARTH” all have a united ONE in their center.
Funny clue: 44d. [Undeserved notoriety (or how one might describe Vanilla Ice’s discography)], BAD RAP.
Four stars from me. Lots of fresh fill here.
Alexander Liebeskind’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Head of the Table”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar names and phrases whose final words can also be both a food item and a slangy word for brain or head. The revealer is FOOD FOR / THOUGHT (40a, [With 42-Across, something to consider, and a hint to the double meaning of the ends of 17-, 21-, 57- and 66-Across]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Head of the Table” · Alexander Liebeskind · Wed., 8.21.24
- 17a. [Recreational flotation device] POOL NOODLE.
- 21a. [Ned Stark’s portrayer on “Game of Thrones”] SEAN BEAN.
- 57a. [Problem that’s difficult to deal with] TOUGH NUT.
- 66a. [Band with the 1993 hit “No Rain”] BLIND MELON.
This is one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” themes. Lots of enjoyable wordplay in use here and everything flowed smoothly. Great title, too.
DELEGATE is timely given the DNC is going on as we speak. The other long entry, SHIBA INU, was difficult for me to parse and contributed to that NE corner being a TOUGH NUT for me to crack, but I got there eventually.
Clue of note: 12d. [Side by side?]. AREA. This clue also contributed to my difficulties in the NE, but I like it very much.
3.75 stars.
Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword—Kyle’s write-up
The New Yorker solution grid – Patrick Berry – Wednesday 08/21/2024
Writing this up on my commute so I’ll keep it short. Patrick Berry treats us to another super-smooth, beginner-friendly grid with a range of trivia touchpoints. My favorite entry here is WHEN DO WE EAT, because it always reminds me of the sentence demonstrating the importance of the comma: “When do we eat, Grandma?” Thanks Patrick!
Desiree Penner and Jeff Sinnock’s Universal crossword, “Jersey Numbers” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 8/21/24 • Wed • “Jersey Numbers” • Penner, Sinnock • solution • 20240821
The theme answers are the full names of the professional athletes whose jersey numbers correspond to their clue numbers. The conceit (probably?) doesn’t require that these entries be downs, so my assumption is that they’re meant to evoke banners with retired numbers hung from the rafters or other supports of stadiums—am I correct in thinking that each of these athletes has had their number retired?
- 8d. [<— for the Oakland Athletics] REGGIE JACKSON.
- 11d. [<— for the New York Rangers] MARK MESSIER.
- 18d. [<— for the Denver Broncos] PEYTON MANNING.
- 23d. [<— for the Cleveland Cavaliers] LEBRON JAMES. He’s still an active player, but not for that team.
Note also that there’s one athlete apiece from the the Big 4 US sports.
This can’t have been an easy construction.
- 1a [“Kiss me, I’m __”] IRISH. I’ve never really understood why this is a thing. What sets Irish people apart in the kissing game? Maybe it developed from the facetious notion that “everyone is Irish” on St Patrick’s Day? Kind of dupey that this is crossed by 1d [Answer to “Who is?”] I AM.
- 19a [Column crosser] ROW. In a crossword, or a spreadsheet.
- 33a [Like a white rat] ALBINO. Only the ones that also exhibit pink eyes.
- 70a [Settle a debt] REPAY. 7d [Have a tab] OWE.
- 2d [Abbr. on a food label] RDA (recommended daily allowance). Hasn’t that been subsumed by Daily Value (as part of Dietary Reference Intake)?
- 45d [Score such as 40-40] TIE. Looks like tennis. No jersey numbers to retire there!
- 51a [Loo] JOHN.
Brian Callahan & Will Eisenberg’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary
LA Times
240821
At its core, today’s puzzle by Brian Callahan & Will Eisenberg is just another jumble words and conceal them in longer answers gimmick. However, I really enjoyed both the final answer of TERRIERMIX, and the fun of unscrambling each terrier: WELSH, BOSTON, SKYE and IRISH. So:
- [*Skeptical response to an ultimatum], ORELSEWHAT
- [*Swashbuckling feline voiced by Antonio Banderas], PUSSINBOOTS
- [*”Absitively posolutely!”], HECKYES
- [*Common side with chiles rellenos], SPANISHRICE
Add to that, two of the long answers have total zingers for clues: [When school is full of posers?], PICTUREDAY and [What Zoomers are up to these days?], VIDEOCALLS.
Gareth
Matthew Luter’s USA Today Crossword, “…er…er” — Emily’s write-up
Keep going—you’ve got this!
USA Today, August 21, 2024, “…er…er” by Matthew Luter
Theme: each two word themer contains —ER—ER
Themers:
- 19a. [Cookie shaped like a leguime], NUTTERBUTTER
- 30a. [White-collar employee doing boring work], PAPERPUSHER
- 39a. [Office gossip site], WATERCOOLER
- 51a. [Light entertainment for a cat], LASERPOINTER
There’s almost a secondary theme with today’s themer set, as long as NUTTERBUTTER is considered a work snack. The rest certainly relate to an office: PAPERPUSHER, WATERCOOLER, and LASERPOINTER. I needed a few crossings to get each started but they all filled in smoothly after that, especially once I realized the commonality of the theme.
Favorite fill: COUNSELED, ATTENDEE, CLEVER, and NORI
Stumpers: SHARON (new to me), INGROUP (needed crossings), and PALES (“wanes” first came to mind)
I found cluing a bit trickier today, needing more crossings than usual to begin to fill in the grid. The NW and SE quadrants took me the longest to complete, though nothing is particularly difficult once it was complete and I saw all the fill. Loved the grid design!
3.75 stars
~Emily
NYT: Not my cup of tea, for several reasons. The ungrammatical clue at 6D (“off of” is not standard English). The website version that I solved has the 40dD clue “Sus” for SKETCHY.
This is either an unfortunate typo or a clue/answer ccmbo so obscure that it does not belong in a crossword.
And the eastern section of the puzzle crossed ultra-trivia like the most common Czech surname with a kids’ game I never heard of and one of King Tut’s toys, almost creating a natick-filled area.
I do not find this puzzle’s editing to show much effort or competence.
“Sus” might have emerged via the game “Among Us,” shorthand for “suspicious.” Its use has expanded well beyond the original context.
Thanks, Amy (in fact I was just now beginning to suspect that).
But apparently no one within lightyears of my personal sociogram has ever heard it used that way.
(Plus CHOCKABLOCK WOK unlike the other theme entries, breaks its own spelling pattern since “wok” has no C. A small flaw, but it adds to the other problems.)
Dan – My daughter and I agree with the different rhyming pattern nit.
‘Sus’ — or more typically ‘suss’ — was common in British English a long time ago. It was often a verb — to suss out something meant to figure it out — but it was also an adjective for something SKETCHY.
I thought the puzzle was silly in an enjoyable way.
To suss something out is quite familiar to me.
Sus as an adjective meaning sketchy, not at all.
I’m not sure “suss” as a verb and “sus” as an informal adjective are related. I think “sus” as meaning “suspicious” or “suspect” is pretty common among the young’uns and has been around for several years, but I don’t know if it’s made its way into common use. When you google it, things like, “My child just called me sus. What does this mean?” come up.
I’m a little on the fence as to whether it’s a good NYT clue for a Wednesday.
I tend to use suss when I mean to figure something out, and sus to describe something suspicious or sketchy. Of course this is only in writing since they both come out sounding the same pretty much
As the usage note points out, idioms often are “ungrammatical.”
Sure, but there is no reason to insert an idiom in the clue for RACK.
Plus (barring theme-relatedness) clues are supposed to follow NYT writing style.
Editing! Editing! Editing!
This is one of my least favorite type of puzzles. The theme fill is just nonsense.
Agree
NYT: Hands-down one of the worst puzzles in this year. It irks me so much that I have to vent here.
CHUG-A-LUG MUG is the only fun theme entry. The clues are boring (in contrast with today’s WSJ). And seriously, how can you cross trivia entries like DINAH or NOVAK with two theme entries, in a Wednesday?
I wonder if anyone else was in trouble in the WSJ with the confluence of the Game of Throne actor, Miami athlete, and Japanese dog. Didn’t help that I first guessed “dovve” for “took the plunge” and “aura” for “bright flash,” but then I have had retinal exams.
Couldn’t agree more. I happened to guess correctly, but between the obscure actor and the non-Akita Japanese dog, this was a rather Natickian crossing.
What makes an actor obscure?
To me, virtually all actors are obscure. But someone appearing on, I surmise, a premium cable channel that I don’t receive, for a show I’ve never seen, fits the description.
So a prominent character in two blockbuster movies doesn’t qualify as non-obscure? Or was it simply a reaction to Game of Thrones?
The last movie I attended was “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” in 1989. I’m sure I have never heard of the movies you are asserting as blockbusters. I am personally rather contemptuous of what I call the Product Placement Industry.
Still, it was satisfying to guess correctly on that crossing.
I’m trying to envision any product placements popping up in Middle-Earth in “The Lord of the Rings” and being amused … and then remembering that one scene in “Game of Thrones” where a crew member’s lidded coffee cup was seen on a table.
So it’s safe to say that movies are outside your bailiwick and anything about them from the last 35 years would be obscure to you
Sean Bean has also been in the “Lord of the Rings” movies and played a Bond villain, to name a couple very mainstream credits. “Game of Thrones” was awfully popular, too, though he was only in the first season.
Shiba Inu dogs were introduced to many via the “Doge” memes of the previous decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(meme). They’re very cute and I know someone who had two of them.
Art, I appreciate your use of “rather Natickian” rather than declaring it an outright Natick, which is a wildly subjective thing most of the time people use the term. The term was introduced when NATICK crossed N.C. WYETH at the N, and hey, some of us either knew the artist’s initials or knew the town and thus experienced no “natick” there.
Thank you, Amy, as the wording was carefully chosen. (How many of you reading this were familiar with the dog? Thought I was reasonably well-versed in this area.)
It’s easy to dislike the movie industry. Out here in Southern California, they would interrupt coverage of World War III and have multiple news helicopters overhead if some actor was involved in a fender-bender. If you think I’m blathering, I’m sure any residents of the general area will speak up to confirm.
Over and out – this has gone on long enough!
He also played Richard Sharpe in the British TV series based on Bernard Cornwell’s books, which is how I knew of him even before Lord of the Rings.
Shiba Inus have become a lot more popular lately due to being good social media subjects. They can jump very high and have big personalities. I always spell it “Shibu” though which gave me some trouble at first.
That corner reduced my ranking by 1.5 points
Pannonica, Messier and Reggie have had their numbers retired by the teams mentioned in the puzzle. LeBron is still active and hasn’t had his jersey retired by any team yet. Manning is interesting. The Colts retired his #18. The Broncos had previously retired #18 for an earlier player. He was allowed to use #18 for the four years he played in Denver. After he left Denver, #18 was re-retired by the Broncos and the organization considers Manning as part of this re-retirement. At least that’s what I gathered from denverbroncos.com.
Universal: For me, the title of this puzzle could have been, “How many crossing letters do you need before you recognize the name of a famous athlete?” The only two numbers I know are “12” for the 1960’s New York Jet Joe Namath (I have no idea why I know that), and “17” for the current Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen. Even though I’m a fan myself, I know the number mostly because it’s worn by a HUGE number of people in upstate NY. After paying for my groceries at Wegmans (another upstate institution) I walk past the “Josh Allen Sports Memorabilia” section, which has “17” on shirts, socks, backpacks, mugs, keychains, posters …
I hope the puzzle was fun for sports fans. My own “gamification” of the clues was also fun. A nod to Jenni’s reviews: “What I didn’t know before” is “Any of the theme answers”, which could also probably be rephrased as “what I am unlikely to retain”
Desiree and Jeff. Wonderful puzzle, but Peyton will always be a COLT!