Maddy Ziegler’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Ladies First”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are famous fictional male/female duos except they’re listed with the lady first (as per the title). Note that this puzzle is a debut for our constructor. Congrats!
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Ladies First” · Maddy Ziegler · Wed., 9.11.24
- 17a. [Classic cartoon spy duo] NATASHA AND BORIS.
- 25a. [Nursery rhyme duo] JILL AND JACK.
- 43a. [Whodunit duo] NORA AND NICK.
- 55a. [Fairy tale duo] GRETEL AND HANSEL.
Seems like the themes are getting more and more straightforward as the week goes on, which isn’t the norm. I’m not really complaining because this was an enjoyable puzzle, but if you’re looking for a meatier theme you’ll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.
As I said, I enjoyed uncovering the familiar duos in their switcheroo’d forms, especially the first pair since Rocky and Bullwinkle was one of my fave shows as a kid. The others fell easily since the theme was simple to grasp.
Lots to like in the fill as well from KISSCAM and ODD DUCKS to FROG’S LEG (I wanted FROG LEGS) and ADAM ANT (er, ADAMANT). I did need every single crossing for JIDDA [Port on the Red Sea], and it was the last entry I filled in.
Clues of note:
- 1a. [Part of a wizard’s wardrobe]. CLOAK. I generally hear the term “wizard’s robe” more than “wizard’s cloak”, but it’s certainly a reasonable answer.
- 58a. [Noble above a viscount]. EARL. We also would have accepted [James ___ Jones] (rest in peace).
- 46d. [Boxer’s goal]. TITLE. I briefly considered TREAT here.
Nice puzzle. 3.75 stars.
Barbara Lin’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 9/11/24 – no. 0911
Familiar “X of Y” phrases get flipped and the new phrases are clued accordingly:
- 17a. [Swim around, scare some people, ram a boat …?], LIFE OF JAWS. Shark!
- 22a. [Good quality for a midwife?], LOVE OF LABORS. I like this one!
- 37a. [What the world’s largest piggy bank holds?], FORTUNE OF CHANGE.
- 51a. [Heroes in L.G.B.T.Q.+ history?], LIONS OF PRIDE. Lovely!
- 59a. [Jacket sleeves?], ARMS OF COAT.
Solid theme.
Fave fill: KINETIC ART. Did you know that crossworder and Connections puzzle editor Wyna Liu makes some kinetic art? It’s so cool (which is what I tried first for the “OH, COOL” answer that feels less enthusiastic than SO COOL would have been). I don’t usually enjoy the entry “I LOST” but then I watched the debate tonight.
A couple entries kinda felt like long partials: NONE BUT and NEED BE.
It’s getting late, so I’ll sign off with 3.5 stars. Good night!
Stella Zawistowski’s Universal crossword, “Fashion Not-So-Forward” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 9/11/24 • Wed • “Fashion Not-So-Forward” • Zawistowski • solution • 20240911
No letter reversals here. Instead, the title refers to how synonyms for apparel appear at the ends of (mostly) familiar phrases.
- 19a. [“Observe carefully!”] TAKE A GOOD LOOK (look).
- 25a. [Duke Ellington’s orchestra, for one] JAZZ ENSEMBLE (ensemble).
- 47a. [Weighted lying-to-standing exercise] TURKISH GET UP (get-up). This was new to me.
- 56a. [Al Capone’s crime organization] CHICAGO OUTFIT (outfit).
Nice set of theme answers.
- 8d [It’s a blast!] KABOOM. Is it, or is it just the sound of a blast?
- 10d [Peeve] ANNOY. I forgot that peeve can be a verb as well as a noun.
- 33d [“So sorry, gotta run!”] I HATE TO GO. Site of my lone mis-fill, where I entered HAVE here.
- 35d [Sound made with two fingers] SNAP. The clue is technically correct in that two fingers are involved, but the sound of course occurs when the non-thumb finger strikes the thenar eminence.
- 31a [Low in fat] LEAN. I almost put in LITE, thinking the clue would have been better if it read ‘Lo in fat’.
- 41a [Question of timing?] WHEN. 67a [“And after that …”] THEN.
Caitlin Reid’s New Yorker puzzle – Kyle’s write-up
The New Yorker solution grid – Caitlin Reid – Wednesday 09/11/2024
Right off the bat I want to acknowledge 36D: [Package-free product at a toy store?] for KEN DOLL took me a moment to get (I was trying to come up with a seven-letter word that started with K) but when the light bulb came on, I audibly laughed. Perhaps the clue is slightly trickier for a New Yorker Wednesday but I think the entertainment factor tips the scales here. There were a couple other nice and gentle pun clues like 15A [Something that comes with a price?] for DOLLAR SIGN and 9D [Obstacles to bar admission?] for BOUNCERS.
A very nice puzzle for a Wednesday morning. Thanks Caitlin!
Owen Bergstein’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Hidden in Plane Sight”–Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 9/11/24 – “Hidden in Plane Sight”
I feel like I’m not the target audience for this puzzle. Most of the entries of 6+ letters are made by combining two entries into one space (e.g., SIA and B-TEAM, OTTOMAN and “I HATE IT“). The grid is 14×14. The circled squares spell out PARABOLA, SINUSOIDAL WAVE, and LINEAR (but the zigzag path of LI-NE-AR feels non-linear to me!), and some of the clues contain the formulas for graphing the things in the circled squares. For example, 4a’s clue is [Some heads of state: Abbr. | Erstwhile electronics giant (y = 3/4 x^2 + 3)], so you get PMS RCA which includes the first and last letters of PARABOLA. 25a. [Longtime cohost with Keys on “The Voice” | Hold, as a table (y = 2 cos(x + 0.5))] is Gwen STEFANI/RESERVE and the formula, I presume, for a sinusoidal wave. 44a. [Tupperware top | Bit of BS (y = 1/2 x – 4.5, x e [-3, 3])] gets you LID LIE and the start of LINEAR.
I’m not mathy enough to find any delight in this, and the wide-open grid (just 20 black squares) is achieved by the “cheat” of wedging two separate entries into one. The grid remains symmetrical (a 7/3 entry appears opposite from a 3/7, for example), but if there’s an overlying reason for the doubling up, it’s entirely lost on me. Maybe you draw lines where the entries split and make something else mathy? No idea. I won’t give the puzzle a star rating because I don’t fully understand what I’d be rating.
Edited Wednesday afternoon to add part of the PDF of the puzzle (above) that shows the X and Y axes and spotlights the formula clues.
Taylor Johnson’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary
Taylor Johnson’s puzzle today has an unusual left/right symmetry and theme answer arrangement. The revealing entry is STEPONIT, and all the entries are things you can step on: a BATHROOMSCALE, a LEGOBLOCK (thank you! The phrase “a lego” is like nails on a chalkboard), a WELCOMEMAT and a PIANOPEDAL. The placement of two themers on top of each other is an ambitious touch.
Others:
- [Go from site to site, say], NETSURF. Has anyone said that since 1996?
- [From South Asia, perhaps], DESI. Pretty much anyone from the Indian subcontinent. Nice to see the term getting some air time.
- [First name of bassists Gordon and Deal], KIM. Of Sonic Youth and Pixies, both ca. 1990 indie bands.
Gareth
Darby Ratliff’s USA Today Crossword, “Hash Out” — Emily’s write-up
Don’t worry, this puzzle already has things settled for you!
USA Today, September 11, 2024, “Hash Out” by Darby Ratliff
Theme: each themer contains H—ASH Themers:
- 20a. [Orange winter gourd you might roast], HONEYNUTSQU ASH
- 25a. [Destructive catchphrase for a shapeshifting Avenger], HULKSM ASH
- 47a. [First Black woman to work at Washington University School], HELENN ASH
- 55a. [Texan NWSL team], HOUSTOND ASH
Today was a day of firsts for me with this themer set! Clearly I don’t know my squashes as well as I think since I’ve not heard about HONEYNUTSQUASH; it’s apparently a smaller, sweeter version of butternut so I’ve got watch for this veggie as we head into fall. Yes, HULKSMASH is new to me as I was never hooked on comics or superheroes—I’m a fantasy/sci-fi nerd. HELENNASH sounds like she was extraordinary so I’ll be reading up more about her. And to round this out was the sports team HOUSTONDASH. Days like this remind me of the plethora of knowledge, fandoms, people, and hobbies/passions in the world. Thankfully everything was fairly crossed so I didn’t get stuck on these but certainly needed many crossings to complete them. In addition to today’s theme with the title hint, I also enjoyed that everything was a bold and an emphatic action! Favorite fill: UBE, TERRA, NODEAL, and AREPA Stumpers: ICANTGO (third word held me up for a while), HEAVES (“pitch”, “toss”, “wails” came to mind instead), and PIN (cluing stumped me as I kept thinking of “halves” but it’s actually a bowling clue that I didn’t pick up on) Fun bonus fill, especially the lengthy ones. We also got IPADS and IMACS, plus many foods which I always love. Another delight was BANANA crossing with PIN since they had a related cluing commonality. Smooth solve overall, so not sure what took so long for me today to finish—it certainly didn’t feel as long while solving which is good. Did it go quicker for you all?
4.75 stars
~Emily
Weird occurrence of the day: The NYT 18D and LAT 58D are the same person. Coincidence? I sure hope so!
“ I don’t usually enjoy the entry “I LOST” but then I watched the debate tonight.”
A phrase never uttered by one debater, despite being true countless times.
NYT: The shark from the movie is not actually named Jaws, is he? Will nixed a similar theme entry I sent in a few years ago on the grounds that his name was actually Bruce.
Bruce isn’t what his mother called him, so that’s bogus too.
Bruce was the nickname the crew used for the mechanical model used in the film. It wasn’t applied to the fictional shark.
I think LIFE OF JAWS is ok because it’s punny and acceptable in a way that an explicit reference to the name of the “character” wouldn’t be since it was never named.
Carcharodon carcharias character is kinda catchy.
Bruce was also the name of the great white shark in Finding Nemo. The wiki for that film features this tidbit: “Bruce is named after the villainous great white shark from the 1975 film Jaws. In said film, the shark has no given name, but the shark models used in the film were all named “Bruce”, the name of director Steven Spielberg’s lawyer at the time.”
I started out with ROT at 1A in the NYT and got no further with that corner so moved on, only to discover another ROT at 46A. The STELLA at 1D seems pretty obscure. I finished that corner last. I liked FORTUNEOFCHANGE and LIONSOFPRIDE, but the other themers were only so-so.
I for one have never met someone named RTELLA
The NW was last to go for me. I had no foothold, but the ending for 3d the school teacher was ORAL so I thought it was some kind of exam. I did not know Stella so I had to guess the others, finally getting some right to get to sob and behavioral.
I enjoyed all the themers. I like wordplay. Yes, the shark in Jaws was named Bruce but he wasn’t a real shark (met “him” at Universal Studios years ago), but the word Jaws is certainly associated with sharks ever since.
..and besides which, Bruce was the “actor’s” name, I don’t recall any name given to the predator in the movie, other than the movie name. (speaking to Milo above)
I was hoping Amy’s review would explain Jaws of Life, but no, and I still can’t make sense of it. More generally, lots of the puzzle today just weren’t right for my ear. I’m sure it’s me.
The Jaws of Life is a mechanical device firefighters/EMTs sometimes use to pry open a mangled automobile after an accident, so they can extract a trapped driver or passenger. I thought it was pretty well-known, but perhaps not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_rescue_tool
Thank you both.
the lines made at the splits between the entries in the avcx looks like they would be where axis lines on a plotted graph would be
I play the AV Club crosswords through a phone app and I appreciate the description of the theme given here. The .puz file version made available didn’t include clues for the dozen two-word Across answers, nor any description of the circled function answers.
It wasn’t until I read this blog that I realised that wasn’t intentional.
It wasn’t a pleasant solve, but if Owen doesn’t understand the puzzle well enough to understand what he’s rating, have a thought for those who thought the construction was trying to be even more obscure.
I’d recommend crosswordr.com for the AV Club crosswords. It’s similar to the LAT and TNY sites and NYT app on mobile.
Thanks! I’ll give it a look.
New Yorker: The clue for 36D KEN DOLL got the puzzle an extra half a star.
I laughed so hard that I gave the puzzle a one-point bonus just for the “Ken Doll” being “Package free”.
It’s one of my favorite clues in months.
LAT: LEGOBLOCK was nails-on-chalkboard to me. Brick, not block.
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but as someone who long ago spent a lot of time building things with Legos*, I agree.
*I know The Lego Group insists that the plural of Lego is Lego, but almost nobody talks like that.
About the AVCX puzzle, I thought the “plane” in the title referred to 9/11 and also the circled letters formed figures on a plane. Think so?