Saturday, November 9, 2024

Note: For the time being while the NYT Tech Guild is on strike, we will not be covering their puzzles. Please enjoy some of the other fine puzzles we do cover.

John Andrew Agpalo’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 11/9/24 by John Andrew Agpalo

Please tell me how to feel about this puzzle (besides “overall, it was too easy”), because the highs were high and the lows were low. Perhaps if we go line by line I’ll know how I feel by the end:

• 13A [Fast train between Union Station and Back Bay Station] is ACELA. I maintain that people who clue the ACELA like it’s the shinkansen have never actually ridden it. Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat at the Baltimore train station waiting for one that was behind schedule or sat in the train for who knows how long waiting for it to pull into Philadelphia.
• 15A [German city] is STADT. I like this clue because it’s masquerading as one of those old-school clues where an example is clued using the broader group (not allowed in the best standard American puzzles now, but allowed in cryptics). In fact, the clue is not asking for the name of a particular German city, but simply the word for “city” in German.
• 23A [Got completely out of hand] is RAN WILD, but it could also so easily be RAN AMOK or RAN RIOT as clued. I didn’t fall into the trap of filling in the last four letters without any crossings, but I did put in RAN RIOT after I had the I, one of the few (welcome) points of difficulty in this puzzle.
• 30A [Incapable of having a bad hair day, say] is BALD. Heh.
• 32A I also liked [Gives hell?] for DAMNS.
• 45A [Notable name on a case] is SAMSONITE, another welcome point of difficulty because it’s so easy to start filling in SAM SPADE, then realize it can’t be right.
• 47A [Dish that requires one’s level best?] felt to me like a strained clue for LAYER CAKE.
• 53A [Levels a theatre, say] is RASES, as in the British spelling of RAZES. Hated this entry, NGL.
• 3D I liked [Water heater] as a slightly deceptive clue for TEA KETTLE.
• 16D [Some characters in Japanese writing] is HIRAGANA. I suppose this clue-entry pair might be tough for people who don’t know much about written Japanese (to be clear, I don’t know the language at all, but I do know what the three writing systems are called). And depending on which crossings you have, even if you do know the names of the writing systems, you’d have to choose between HIRAGANA and KATAKANA. But I had the G, so this was an easy drop.
• 18D [“Ben-__”] Didn’t love the partial HUR here.
• 21D [Wire diameter measures] is MILS, so it’s a plural of an entry that’s kind of marginal in the first place. Do not love.
• 35D [Capital on the Tyrrhenian Sea] is PALERMO. Didn’t love this clue, as it presumes that solvers know, or makes them look up after the fact, that PALERMO is the capital of Sicily. I think world capital cities and U.S. state capitals are fair game as trivia knowledge in an American puzzle; some Canadian provincial and Mexican state capitals, too; other regional capitals, not so much.

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “So There!” — pannonica’s write-up

WSJ • 11/9/24 • Sat • “So There!” • Shenk • solution • 20241109

For this straightforward theme, the bigram SO- is prefixed to one of the words (or word elements) in the relevant entries.

• 23a. [“I’m really sorry your new sneakers are too tight,” e.g.?] SHOE SOLACE (shoelace).
• 25a. [First spot the massage therapist should treat?] SOREST AREA (rest area).
• 43a. [The remarkably versatile aloe?[ SIGNIFICANT SOOTHER (significant other).
• 60a. [Pelt a philosopher on Halloween?] EGG SOCRATES (egg crates).
• 70a. [Great ocean that must be taken very seriously?] SOBERING SEA (Bering Sea). “Great” seems superfluous in the clue; I think of oceans being more massive than seas.
• 86a. [“Griller Filler” and “Light-Up Lumps”] CHARCOAL SOBRIQUETS (charcoal briquets). I don’t believe those are official names, or even common usage.
• 110a. [Broth flavored with fragrant needles?] SPRUCE SOUP (spruce up).
• 113a. [Wait until after the final frost, don’t put two seeds in the same hole, etc.?] SOWING TIPS (wingtips). Bit of symmetry how the first and last themers are both shoe related and both are originally compound words, unlike the others.

Not part of the theme: 38a [Processes for new students at Hogwarts] SORTINGS (Ugh, and there’s another Harry Potter clue in the puzzle, ugh*). 24d Recital star] SOLOIST. 84d [Beverage brand with logo lizards] SOBE (for South Beach). 107d [“Brave New World” narcotic] SOMA. 19a [Vague amount] SOME.

• 38d [Ko-Ko’s knife, in “The Mikado”] SNEE. Snickersnee!
• 42d [Small bomb, in a familiar idiom] PETARD. I always forget what it means.
• 44d [Film role for Marty] IGOR. Feldman, Young Frankenstein.
• 56d [Garnish for sharing, e.g.: Abbr.] ANAGram.
• 65d [Soul great Franklin] ARETHA. 109d [Soul great Redding] OTIS. Although they apparently never dueted, I found this decent mash-up of a Redding song that was a significant hit for each of them:
  
• 90d [Word before chair or horse] ROCKING. Sometimes this sort of clue is tricky, involving lateral thinking, but this one was very obvious.
• *112d [“That’s terrible”] UGH.
• 14a [An arm and a leg, e.g.] LIMBS. The correct answer was my reflexive thought, but it just didn’t seem right, so I held off for crossings.
• 41a [Burma’s first prime minister] UNU. There’s some vintage crosswordese.
• 78a [Small streams] RILLETS. I did an Ngram survey for ria, rill, rillet, and rivulet. All have minimal contemporary use, but were more common in the 19th century.
• 97d [Filibuster feature] SPEECH. That stipulation, as seen memorably in Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), is no longer a mandatory feature of the tactic. And incidentally, I fully expect the filibuster to be casually jettisoned this coming Congress session.

Solid crossword, but not a particularly exciting theme. briquet/sobriquet was my favorite of the transformations.

Stella Zawistowski’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

Newsday • 11/9/24 • Saturday Stumper • Zawistowski • solution • 20241109

Ended up with a decent time after a very daunting first pass.

Solving sequence: lower right, middle left, lower left, upper right, middle right, upper left.

Were it not for a couple key entries that I just knew, it would have taken much longer, or I might not have finished at all.

Key entries:

• 54a. [Stephen King’s “best film ever made out of anything I’ve written”] STAND BY ME, based on the short story The Body. I haven’t read any Stephen King at all, but I knew this fact.
• 31d. [“__ a tavola a mangiare!” (Italian “Eat!”)]. TUTTI. Okay, I didn’t know this outright, but it was a strong educated guess.

Mis-fills:

• 52a [Experimental fiction] ANTINOVEL, not META NOVEL.
• 21d [Pop group] COLAS, not SODAS.

Entries that popped with a just a crossing or two:

• 30a [Shoe that sounds like an apartment number] ASICS (A-6). At first I was thinking of styles, not brands.
• 31a [Bond bed-mate in Dr. No] TARANTULA.
• 27a [Source of ethereal sounds] CELESTA. Once SODAS was corrected to COLAS, I had it.
  

First instinct correct, but not confirmed until much later:

• 6d [Took by truck] HAULED.
• 10d [Shell contents of a sort] ALBUMEN.
• 45a [Fuse] WED.
• 51a [It’s north of the Libyan Sea] CRETE.
• special case: 33a [France’s capital] EUROS, but held off in case of PARIS.

The rest:

• 15a [“When plants dance!”] FAT CHANCE. I’ve often heard the latter but never the former.
• 18a [Tack together] BASTE. Sewing.
• 20a [Accented acclaim] OLÉS, though I briefly flirted with ÉLAN, which doesn’t quite correspond to the clue.
• 24a [Got a ticket for] PAWNED. Tough clue.
• 34a [Grandiose verse] EPOS. I was hesitant about this because the similar-looking and -sounding ethos was in a nearby clue: 32a [Ethos] CODE.
• 35a [Beat] ENERVATED. Another key clue for making progress through the grid.
• 40a [Botanical barrels] CACTI. There are barrel CACTI, but I was racking my brain considering anatomical features.
• 2d [“Tater of the equator”] TARO. Never heard that phrase and was initially nonplussed by the clue.
• 3d [College that’s not a college] ETON. Novel clue for a common crossword entry.
• 11d [What you’re asked to sight before a flight] NEAREST EXIT. Again I was moderately confused by the clue but it eventually made sense.
• 13d [Biker jacket] MOTO. Not understanding how this signifies. Obviously it has to do with motorcycling, but beyond that …
• 27d [Troubles] CARES.
  
• 28d [Play way?] ALONG. So this is the phrase ‘play along’, but even with the question mark I don’t see how the clue works.
• 36d [Renders inoperative] VACATES. Quasi-legal term.
• 39d [Shipped out] SENT IN. Out, in. Little tricky.
• 41d [It’s named for its cloak shape] MANTA. Must be mantle; I’d not known this.
• 43d [Soil starter] AGRO-. 33d [Ground] EARTH. The terminal H in the latter helped me see 42a [Favorite opposite] as PARIAH, which was very helpful for that southwest corner.
• 46d [B, C, P, or V] ELEM. Boron, carbon, phosphorus, vanadium.
• 49d [Saw around] WAS. A cryptic style reversal clue. I’d been considering the answer might be MET.