Saturday, November 2, 2024

LAT 3:31 (Stella) 

 


Newsday tk (pannonica) 

 


NYT 11:48 (Eric) 

 


Universal tk (Matthew)  

 


USA Today tk (Matthew) 

 


WSJ tk (pannonica) 

 


Blake Slonecker’s New York Times crossword #1102—Eric’s review

NYT Solution 11-2-24

If you were hoping for a challenging Saturday puzzle after a fun but easy Friday, I hope you weren’t disappointed. This one definitely fell on the easy end of the scale, despite my taking a bunch of false steps along the way.

There are six grid-spanning answers, all of them pretty nice in different ways:

  • 17A [Sub’s reference] CLASSROOM ROSTER
  • 32A [They’re not afraid to take charge] FEARLESS LEADERS
  • 48A [Spin right round] ROTATE CLOCKWISE
  • 3D [Andrés Segovia won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for it] CLASSICAL GUITAR
  • 8D [Kitchen flippers] SLOTTED SPATULAS
  • 12D [Juicy stuff] INTIMATE DETAILS

ROTATE CLOCKWISE is the only one of those answers to have been in a previous NYT crossword. With two other NYT debut answers (35A [Media-based learning sites, informally] AV LABS and 7D [P, B, D, T, K and G] PLOSIVES), the grid felt very fresh.

I put in CLASSICAL GUITAR almost immediately, but then wondered if it was really that simple. But then I realized that 1A [Early electric lights] could be CARBON ARCS (I’d earlier tried ARC LIGHTS, which obviously didn’t fit).

Until I had a few crosses for PLOSIVES, I thought the letters in the clue were atomic symbols. And I blanked for a few minutes on the word SPATULA (and now I’m blanking on the new-to-me word I encountered a few days ago that means the inability to remember a word or name).

Joel Fagliano and his team made it a bit easy with 45A [Record company behind (and inside) Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play”] EMI. (Isn’t a three-letter British record label always EMI, at least in a crossword?

There’s a nice bit of misdirection with 28D [Certain Thanksgiving dish] BOAT. (Admit it: You wanted YAMS or CORN or something similar, right?)

 

Evan Mulvihill’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 11/2/24 by Evan Mulvihill

Los Angeles Times 11/2/24 by Evan Mulvihill

I don’t have a ton of time to write this one up, so I’ll say that my favorite section was the sorta-stack in the center of ROOKIE MISTAKESBOSTON POPS, and TECH STARTUPS. A few more points of interest:

  • 27A [Finale of “The Sopranos,” maybe] is MOB HIT. My husband and I recently finished watching the show for the first time (yes, I know, welcome to the early 2000s, Stella) and he firmly believes it wasn’t Tony getting shot, whereas I think he very much might have been.
  • 3D [Place to enjoy krioyo cuisine] is CURACAO, but it’s easy to fill in CARACAS if you don’t know the origin of “krioyo,” even with several crossings in place. This adds a little difficulty in this section.
  • 19D [Pre-wedding trials] is CAKE TASTINGS, and it’s also easy to think this is something MAKEUP-related if you have the AKE crossings. Ask me how I know.
  • 50D [Residue used to make pan sauces] This meaning of FOND was totally new to me, even though I’ve been cooking for years.
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