Boaz Moser’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 9/13/24 – no. 0913
Bit on the tough side for a Friday, yeah?
Fave fill: SIX FIGURES, “DON’T ANSWER THAT,” PARASAILS, XENOMORPH from ALIEN, “CITATION NEEDED,” ACTION POSE, SALMON RUN, SUN TEA, LINE DANCE.
I didn’t notice a single reference to women in this entire puzzle, though there were men in the grid and a bunch of clues. Come on, Joel and the NYT team! This is something to pay attention to. You might argue that the XENOMORPH was female, but fictional non-humans don’t count. (Constructors are also advised to include diverse references in their puzzles. Representation matters!)
Liked this clue: 45d. [Eyed food, informally], TATER. Food with eyes, not food that you eyeball.
Did not know: 39d. [“Old ___,” country standard performed by Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley], SHEP. My husband’s a Johnny Cash fan but this was new to him, too.
3.5 stars from me.
David Tuffs’s Universal crossword, “Again and Again”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are made-up two-word phrases where the first word includes a 3-letter abbreviation for a day of the week, and the second word is that same word without the abbreviation. The revealer is DAY IN, DAY OUT (62a, [Regularly … and a hint to both parts of the starred clues’ answers]).
Universal crossword solution · “Again and Again” · David Tuffs · Fri., 9.13.24
- 17a. [*Article opening in a French newspaper?] LE MONDE LEDE. Remove MON from LE MONDE to get LEDE. In case you didn’t know, LEDE is newspaperese for the opening lines or paragraph of an article.
- 24a. [*Bell sound during a marriage celebration?] WEDDING DING. Wednesday.
- 38a. [*Possible headline after the finale of a sitcom starring Jennifer Aniston?] FRIENDS ENDS. Friday.
- 53a. [*Volkswagen sedans speed by?] PASSATS PASS. Saturday.
Didn’t see that one coming. The two entries I resolved first were WEDDING DING and FRIENDS ENDS, so the theme looked like the second word was a duplication of the end of the first word. Of course, the other two entries didn’t play by that rule, so I had to stare at the revealer for half a minute post-solve to make sense of it all. Finally, the penny dropped and I got to enjoy a belated aha moment. Nice little trick.
Top bits of fill: TORONTO, CHEAPO, “FOR SHAME“, DEADPAN, IMPASSE, DIG DEEP, and WIZARDS.
New to me is SZA [“Kill Bill” singer]. This was very confusing to me because I knew that rapper RZA did the music for both Kill Bill films, but I didn’t know there was a song with that title. Turns out SZA is unrelated to RZA (though her choice of stage name was influenced by his), and her song only came out last year though it was heavily influenced by the films. If you enjoy the over-the-top bloody campiness of the films as I do, you might like the video for the song which is an homage to the films, but it’s probably NSFW.
Clue of note: 25d. [Investigate thoroughly]. DIG DEEP. I tried DIG INTO first, then DIG DOWN. I like the phrase DIG DEEP best of all, but I associate it more with determination and stamina than investigation.
3.75 stars.
Joe Deeney’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 9/13/24 • Fri • Deeney • solution • 20240913
- 65aR [Banal, or a three-part hint for the answers to the starred clues] TRITE, to be parsed as tri- TE. That is, the bigram TE appears in each of the theme answers three times. The revealer here is ambiguous because the hint itself consists of only two parts; the “three-part” bit refers to its application to the theme entries.
- 17a. [*Asked for trouble] TEMPTED FATE.
- 24a. [*Nickname for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio where Bugs Bunny was developed] TERMITE TERRACE. Took a few crossings for my memory to click in here. I’m suspecting this name is unfamiliar to most solvers.
34a. [*Van Gogh painting also known as “Sorrowing Old Man”] AT ETERNITY’S GATE. Probably more widely known now because of the recent biopic with that title.- 47a. [*GPS offering, maybe] ALTERNATE ROUTE.
- 56a. [*One who might leave bite marks?] TASTE TESTER.
Can’t spell tripartite without trite!
- 4d [Ballpark figure] UMP. 41a [Ballpark figure] OUTS.
- 31d [Does one’s om work?] MEDITATES. Aha, so the TE bigram isn’t restricted to the theme entries. Understandable, as two of the most common letters comprise it. I spy a few others in the grid.
- 32d [Basket part] RIM. 43d [Basket part] NET.
- 35d [Plan B time] RAIN DATE, not DAY AFTER.
- 45d [Tête toppers] BERETS. The clue reminds us of the theme a little.
- 16a [Sculptor Gillen] ANN.
- 33a [Start at the beginning?] ESS, being the first letter of ‘start’.
- 40a [Intention] AIM. (The below video is titled incorrectly.)
Agree with Amy. The cluing felt like a challenging Saturday.
Same.
NYT: I thought this was a very nice puzzle. My solve time was about average for a Friday, and I got distracted a couple of times while solving – so difficulty seemed about right.
Re: representation – this generally seemed light on “names” for an NYT puzzle. There was SHANE and NOLTE (and I’m guessing SHEP was a male dog). That said, there was no particular reason to use men in the clues for ALAMO and APTLY, and it would have been easy enough to reference Sigourney Weaver in the clue for ALIEN.
It took me a while to get started on the NYT, but I found some footholds in bottom half and worked my way up, finishing in a slightly better than usual Friday time.
But… but… Joel allowed CRAP? O tempora, O mores!
CRAP first appeared in the NYT crossword on August 29, 1943.
This is its 16th appearance overall.
It’ll be noteworthy if CRAP is ever clued as fecal matter. I’m not holding my breath for that (though that’s probably not a bad idea).
NYT: interesting that MERINO, ANGORA and ALPACA all have the same number of letters. Third time’s a charm, I guess.
Happy to see some people are digging my debut puzzle! And if not, no hard feelings, I totally get that the clueing is on the hard side, and there are some tricky bits of fill I couldn’t get rid of.
Re: no female names, I actually don’t enjoy names that much period in crosswords! In the end, there’s only two in the grid (well, I guess three if you count the dog SHEP), and I even tried to grid out SHANE. So, I think it’s mostly the result of a very small sample size. However, you are quite right that the editing team could have referenced one in a clue! Something for me to consider next time I see a proof.
As a ~30 minute Friday solver this felt about right to me, and the lack of proper names was noticeable and fun
I’m with you on proper names in puzzles!
NYT: I thought it was a bit easier than a typical Friday. My biggest nit with the clues is reserved for 49d [A good way to feel] SEEN, which would benefit from a ‘perhaps’ type qualifier, since it can also have the opposite connotation, as in being called out. (“I’m in this picture and I don’t like it”, e.g.)
Same here, I almost PRed actually!
I agree on the difficulty. My only edit was changing ONE to INA at 30d. My nit was 25d for two reasons. ERA is useful for starting pitchers, not closers. Also, a blown save will not necessarily increase a pitcher’s ERA. If a pitcher enters a game with a one run lead and two runners on base and allows only those two runners to score, their ERA is not impacted even though the save is blown. Apologies for being way inside baseball
The starting pitcher’s ERA increases when the closer blows the save. So I thought the clue was pitch-perfect (so to speak).
Agree that the puzzle leaned to the easier side for a Friday. Still a good workout, though, and an impressive debut!
What if the runners reached base due to two errors?
I agree it was not particularly difficult, and I’m surprised that so many people felt it was.
I think my only real slowdown was the same as PJ’s — oNe SECOND before IN A SECOND.
The foam PEANUT reminded me of the bazillion bags of them in our garage, purchased for our recent move. I’ve been trying to give them away via Facebook and Craig’s List, and few of the people who say they would like some actually show up.
I’ve got lots of boxes, too, if anyone needs some.
Took me a little over my average time; the NW and NE were last to fall for me, which I notice can make a puzzle feel harder than it really is… getting deep into the grid before getting enough answers often suggests a hard puzzle, even if the bottom half comes together quickly.
LAT: I know the names of some of the top animation directors from the glory days of Looney Tunes (notably Chuck Jones and Tex Avery), but I don’t remember hearing of TERMITE TERRACE before.
This was one of those that I zipped through without grasping the theme. When I got to the revealer (which interestingly placed in the grid), I had to re-read the theme answers to understand the connection.
Someday, I will stop conflating the purple yam from the Philippines with the “avant- garage” band from Cleveland led by David Thomas. But not today.
Pretty sure that all goes back to the absurdist play Ubu Roi.
Thanks! I remember now that I once read that’s what the band took its name from.
Maybe I just need to eat some UBE something to cement the word in my head.
just remember it’s the middle letters of “tuber” (but also, definitely eat some ube! one of the best ice creams i ever had was ube-flavored)
Eric H: Look for Filipino bakeries or restaurants in your area, or a Filipino grocery store. Ube ice cream is yummy (sort of a nutty vanilla fruity vibe). So are ube cakes and such.
At my son’s wedding reception, there were four flavors of cupcakes, including ube and pandan (which is green). Predictably, most of my relatives shied away from ube and pandan, while my husband’s family pounced on them.
omg i had never heard of pandan until a few months ago when my friends brought me some pandan cookies from malaysia – transcendent, could have eaten a thousand
There are dozens of species in genus Pandanus. Pandan is Pandanus amaryllifolius and its yummy leaf is used in Thai, Malaysian and other cuisines as well as Filipino. Muslim Indian and Pakistani cooking uses kewra water, an extract of the male flower of Pandanus odorifer. It has a suble aroma, very different from pandan, that is essential in North Indian biryani.
The screwpine of Hawaii, with many uses, is Pandanus tectorius. It, and pandan, provides leaves used for making baskets, ropes and other domestic goods.
Another species, Pandanus julianettii, is cultivated in Papua New Guinea for its nut, which has been husbanded with about 50 cultivars. It is so important that a special language is spoken when harvesting karuka nuts to avoid offending the gods accidentally with bad speech.
The economic importance of Pandanus to Oceania is considerable.
Thanks, Erik and Amy, for the suggestions.
NYT: Definitely on the tough side for a Friday, but extremely fun to solve.
I never heard of XENOMORPH, so at first I had XENOMORtH crossing SmARtEN, which definitely looked wrong, so smarten became SHARPEN.
It is important to me that crosswords show no prejudice against any group of people (other than bad people). But it doesn’t matter to me whether each individual puzzle is evenly distributed — and this may be imposing one too many constraints on constructors. I care only that over time they be well-balanced statistically.
Wednesday’s puzzle by Barbara Lin had DIANE Sawyer, SADE, STELLA Parks, Yoko ONO, ODAMAE and EMMA Lazarus, plus bonus mentions of Alexa and GRAN.
The two male entries were clued with women, OTELLO with Aida and OLAF with Angela.
I also think it would be fairer to measure diversity by averaging. It seems harsh to not mention lots of fine women references one day and ding Joel for the opposite a couple of days later.
This is kinda reading like “you should thank him for giving you some representation sometimes, you ingrate.” Diverse references shouldn’t have to be called out as good, not this many years into the issue having been raised. It should be the default that the references in each puzzle are inclusive.
NYT: The “Easy Mode” clues version has Sigourney Weaver in the ALIEN clue, for whatever that’s worth.
I agree with Dan and Martin that if you’re going to look at crosswords for representation of frequently marginalized groups, you ought to look at more than one day’s puzzle. It’s a valid concern, but making a conclusion based on one puzzle seems unfair.
Ah, but the editor could have found a way. It should be a step in the process for each puzzle: Is this one weighted too much in the male (or white, or straight/cis) direction? It’s not as if the puzzle would have played like a Monday with Sigourney Weaver included in the ALIEN clue.
I also have been feeling like NYT bylines for women have been on the decline this year, though I don’t keep counts. I blog the Tues-Wed-Fri-Sat NYT and it feels like many weeks there aren’t any women in the mix.
LAT: Solved like a fun themeless for me, with the bonus of a revealer. Very little crosswordese and the fill more than made up for that. Impressive to get so much theme material in a 72-worder, too. Loved it!
I found found the NYT a hard Shortz Friday, but not a hard new editor’s Friday, which is to say really hard. In the NW, say, I had CONK out and was rather taken aback when it turned out to be CRAP out. SALMON RUN would never occurred to me in a million years, and I had never seen XENOMORPH. (With the crossings I had, which led me into deeper trouble, I had “ectomorph.”)
Sill challenges are good, and I liked the puzzle. Just that the dissenters who found it easy suggest that we’re getting awfully close to “you know it or you don’t” territory. Hey, it was easy for them.
17A: “What’s often made by doctors”
Alas, SACRIFICES was not the right answer.
I think don’t answer that is not something people would say. The clue does not suggest that response. Otherwise good puzzle.