Sid Sivakumar’s New York Times crossword, “Can I Have a Raise?” — Nate’s write-up
11.03.2024 Sunday New York Times Crossword
As soon as I saw Sid Sivakumar’s byline on this puzzle, I knew we were in for a rich, enjoyable experience. Let’s check it out!
23A: ALASKA PENINSULA [Land inhabited by the Alutiiq people]
— Circled letters (with the L above the P in EL PASO) spell KALE
39A: GODDAUGHTER [Zoe Kravitz, to Marisa Tomei]
— Circled letters (with the O above the A in OAST) spell DOUGH
46A: FREQUENCY SHIFT [Doppler effect phenomenon]
— Circled letters (with the A above the Y in AYE) spell CASH
69A: GUTENBERG [Inventor of the printing press]
— Circled letters (with the D above the B in IMDB) spell TENDER
86A: MOOD CONGRUENCE [Psychological effect whereby memories are recalled more easily when they match one’s current emotional state]
— Circled letters (with the E above the U in EURO) spell GREEN
93A: CIVIC–MINDED [Conscientiousness of one’s community]
— Circled letters (with the O above the M in OMG) spell COIN
115A: SWITCHED PARTIES [Moved across the aisle]
— Circled letters (with the D above the P in OLD PAL) spell CHEDDAR
Flavortext: “When this puzzle is done, read the shaded letters from top to bottom to get an appropriate phrase.”
Wow! What a neat idea that’s simple in theory, but tough to pull off cleanly and executed here to perfection. Each of the theme entries mostly hides a slang term for money, except that to get one of the letters for that hidden slang word, you have to “get a raise” above the shaded letter in the theme entry to the letter directly above it. Those shaded letters (that bumped you each time), when read from top down, smartly spell PAY BUMP. No one’s going to turn down a pay bump in real life, and we certainly won’t turn down this one either!
Aside from the theme, the rest of the puzzle felt largely smooth, with fun clues and very little crosswordese. Color me satisfied all around. What did you think of the puzzle? Has it made you all the richer for the time invested in it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section and have a great weekend!
And! If you’re in the US: Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour tonight and don’t forget to vote on or before Tuesday!
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword, “Political Football” — Matt’s write-up
A timely one from Evan – in the midst of both football and election season, we’re bridging the two. Themers are football terms clued humourously as if they described campaign happenings, and it ties together towards the end:
- 27a [Politician’s lies at the beginnings of speeches?] FALSE STARTS
- 36a [With 40 Across, the welcome on the tarmac after a politician’s plane lands?] TOUCHDOWN / RECEPTION
- 55a [Disgusting comment that may get a politician in trouble?] OFFENSIVE LINE
- 75a [Ideas presented by a politician after the mic gets cut at a debate?] EXTRA POINTS
- 95a [Politician’s felonious proposal in Congress?] ILLEGAL MOTION
- 104a [Societal improvement that a politician claims to support?] FORWARD PROGRESS
- 120a [Group associated with this puzzle’s bonus word below the grid] CANDIDATES
- 123a [Group associated with this puzzle’s bonus word below the grid] NFL PLAYERS
Below the grid, a bonus entry is indicated acrostic-style – pull the letters from their corresponding squares and we’ve got RUNNING – another entry that has meaning in both worlds.
A smooth enough solve. I appreciated that the clues didn’t feel overly wrought – these are things that happen during campaign season – and the entries plenty familiar – things that happen during a football game. Gotta keep it short this week, but I hope you enjoyed this one!
Please make a plan to vote on Tuesday if you’re eligible and haven’t already! Thank you!
Ilana Levene’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Animal Crackers”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases where one of the words is a homophone of an animal. Clues are written as if the real word was replaced with the animal. The revealer is GOING BEAST MODE (122a, [Putting on a stellar performance, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Animal Crackers” · Ilana Levene · 11.3.24
- 23a. [*Flip the bird?] TURN UPSIDE DOWN. Tern.
- 33a. [*Divine being who’s a little fishy?] IMMORTAL SOUL. Sole.
- 43a. [*One hogging the stand?] BORE WITNESS. Boar.
- 73a. [*Fawn in a surly manner?] SOURDOUGH. Doe.
- 97a. [*One of the big bucks?] HEART OF GOLD. Hart.
- 104a. [*Cat out of the bag?] MISSING LINKS. Lynx.
An enjoyable theme though I’m not really sure why the entries are the original phrases and not the homophonic counterparts. Seems like it would work just fine with the animals in place (other than having to deal with differences in word lengths). I’m also not enamored of the GOING in GOING BEAST MODE. BEAST MODE by itself seems like a sufficient revealer. Or maybe make that the title and give us another theme entry?
But these aren’t dealbreakers, and as I said, I enjoyed the theme.
Fill highlights include EPIC WINS, GOES POOF (though it dupes the revealer), “I REALIZE,” LOW KEY, FOIBLE, and WAINSCOT(ting) (“We’ve been mentioned on telly!”). SUNTRAP is completely new to me, but it checks out.
Clues of note:
- 61a. [Altar boy, perhaps]. GROOM. Eh? “Boy” in the general sense, I guess, not in age.
- 63a. [“Rad!”]. NEATO. To kids these days, both of these are dated and therefore probably equivalent. To us olds, they’re from different eras.
3.5 stars.
Californians normally get the new Spelling Bee at midnight. One night a year it’s 1:00 AM. Time to do away with the insanity of DST.
Since you mentioned Spelling Bee…
I looked at today’s letters and thought POLARITY. It doesn’t work because there’s no ‘I’ today. But I noticed that the word is eight letters long and each letter is used once.
Now I want to know the longest word(s) containing no repeat letters.
From Wikipedia:
The longest words with no repeated letters are subdermatoglyphic, dermatoglyphics, and uncopyrightable. The longest word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops, a grass genus.
Thank you! Seventeen letters is more than I would have thought
No “u”
Don’t think the “u” is required – it’s just that all of the letters in the word are in alphabetical order.
And GUNPOWDERY BLACKSMITH appears to have the largest number of letters with no repeats between two words.
NYT: Felt like a pretty fast fill, even if there were some sections that took more puzzling out (the NE seemed a bit hard at first, but then came together after I got FRENCH PRESS, with PRESS coming from the crossings). I feel like KALE as slang for money is something I only ever see in crosswords, but I’m used to it now :-)
Here’s some KALE for you:
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/co2onwi
Like you, I’ve never heard or seen KALE used that way outside of a crossword puzzle.
I’d put CHEDDAR in that category, too. Overall a very crosswordese theme in a very crosswordese puzzle. Nothing wrong with it really, and I can’t fairly complain, but I can’t say I took pleasure in it either.
Actually, now that I bother to look, KALE in the sense of money is in both my usual dictionaries, RHUD and MW, while CHEDDAR isn’t in either one.
It’s in the OED, though, as U.S. slang, and examples in sources that have it all run to hip-hop, with also the Black English pronunciation “chedda.”
Interesting that the OED thinks “cheddar” is American slang for money, while RHUD and MW do not.
I’m one more American who only knows this sense of “cheddar” and “kale” from crosswords. Never heard either IRL. And I don’t think of “cash”, “coin” or “tender” as slang, although I suppose that could depend on the context.
In the end, I thought the puzzle was a rather elaborate construction without much payoff for the solver. I finished a bit faster than usual.
I knew cheddar from rap lyrics… and some googling sent me here: https://www.bethanyboenker.com/case-study-cheddar
I’m eager for the resurgence of spondulix.
I found the puzzle a tad harder than the typical Sunday, but agree it was not very exciting.
NYT – Essentially an excellent themeless. Some great fill. Altho, heavy on the 3 letter words (38 by my count). IMO the theme itself was just OK
WaPo: In a puzzle about politics, I took 132A as an Easter egg. (Clue: “Forget it, ______, you’re out of your element!” Answer: DONNY.)
Are you suggesting that Evan Birnholz made the endorsement his bosses should have?
Good one!
Donny is definitely out of his element… but anyway, a very fun WaPo and smooth solve.
WaPo: Theme construction is loose but the humor is good.
NYT: Theme construction is tight but the theme itself is old and tired. It’s also quite easy; I can’t finish many Thursdays without help but I finish this Sunday without help in half an hour,