Thursday, November 14, 2024

Cheryl Liu’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “What the What?”—Jim’s review

Debut grid today. Congratulations to our newest constructor!

Theme answers are phrases of the form A THE B, and they’re all stacked and crossing in the center of the grid.

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “What the What?” · Cheryl Liu · Thu., 11.14.24

• 28a. [Joined a union?] TIED THE KNOT.
• 31a. [Be disruptively noisy] WAKE THE DEAD.
• 32a. [Act on an implicit suggestion] TAKE THE HINT.
• 14d. [Do some culling] THIN THE HERD.
• 16d. [Does what’s expected] TOES THE LINE.
• 19d. [Stack some boxes?] LOAD THE DICE.

Novel theme! I don’t think I’ve seen a theme like this before with six theme answers stacked and crossing in the middle. It wasn’t until late in myself that I figured it out; mostly I was working in the corners, I guess. But it was a nice aha moment to see the theme revealed. A lot of repetition, sure, and there’s not really a why or wherefore, but those center stacks impress me enough to give it a thumbs up.

If I want to be picky I’d ask for all the phrases to be in the first person present tense, and INTAKES crossing TAKE isn’t great, but a unique theme earns some leeway.

Fill highlights: CUBIC FEET, FIREWOOD, ANNE RICE, TITANIC, STAND FAST. Really those corner sections almost as nice as the center of the grid. BLIND AS is less nice, but I’ll close my eyes to it.

Clues of note:

• 40a. [“And Then There Were None” director Clair]. RENE. Going back to 1945 for this clue. I thought maybe there was a recent remake, but nope.
• 46a. [Author born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien]. ANNE RICE. Wow. Didn’t know this factoid. You’d think Irish Catholic parents would name her after a saint. She took it upon herself to adopt the name Anne on the first day of school and it stuck.
• 43d. [Wagons-___ (sleeping cars, abroad)]. LITS. Whoa. Never knew this one despite traveling around Europe for a bit.

Unique theme impressively constructed. Four stars.

Elly Zupko’s Fireball Crossword, “Excalibur” – Jenni’s write-up

Don’t let it be forgot/that once there was a spot/for one brief shining moment….

While the solve wasn’t all that challenging, it took me a while to figure out the complexity of the theme. Here’s Peter’s grid to make it clear.

Fireball, November 13, 2024, Elly Zupko, “Excalibur,” solution grid

• 17a [Creator of Patrick Bateman] is BRET EASTON ELLIS.
• 31a [Piper power source] is a PISTON ENGINE. Piper as the plane, I guess.
• 48a [Succeed in an act of deception] is PULL A FAST ONE.

And the revealer: 65a [Arthurian theme of this puzzle] is SWORD IN THE STONE. Each of the long theme answers contains STONE and a type of SWORD crosses each STONE. Tricky and fun.

What I didn’t know before I solved this puzzle: never heard of the book “The Catalyst” by Chemistry Nobelist Thomas Cech and so did not know it was about RNA.

And of course

Matthew Faiella’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Easy (9m47s)

Matthew Faiella’s New York Times crossword, 11/14/24, 1114

Today’s theme: BACK IN BLACK (Hit rock album of 1980 depicted three times by this puzzle)

• SET / OUT / KICK / DIDN’T HOLD / STAND / FULL (BACK)
• (BACK) SEAT DRIVERS / PEDAL / BONE / TRACK / LESS DRESS / FLIP

Saw SET / OUT (BACK) right away, jumped to the revealer, and was off to the races.  Would have finished in the 7s but it took me absolutely forever to notice that I had SANK instead of TANK.

Cracking: Tim TEBOWs game-winning 80-yard OT touchdown pass to lead the Broncos over the Steelers in the 2011 AFC Wild Card game.  He is about as diametrically opposed to me in every social-political-religious-etc context as a person could be, but he always seemed like a nice guy, and his funky delivery (part of the reason why his NFL career was so short) was fun to watch.

Slacking: VEAU, which is veal, you’re eating a baby animal, everything about this entry makes me angry and sad.

Sidetracking: MANIaC Mansion

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1731: Side Connection — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1731: Side Connection

There’s a two-part revealer/explanation for today’s theme:

• 57A [Secret hookup, or an explanation to this puzzle’s theme] SNEAKY LINK
• 63A [Forwarded address that is used by the answers at 15-, 24- and 42-Across] URL

The three theme answers are all in two parts and include the letter string URL. The “sneaky” aspect is that the R is hidden in the black square between each part found in the square below the black square where it belongs (thanks to commenter Charlie for correcting my oversight):

• 15A & 17A [. . . one’s sweetheart] LIGHT OF YOUR LIFE
• 24A & 27A [. . . markings on some topographical maps signifying elevation] CONTOUR LINES
• 42A & 43A [. . . economist with an eponymous curve in supply-side economics] ARTHUR LAFFER

I enjoyed this theme in part because I like letters or words that are hidden in the black squares and in part because it took a bit to figure out. CONTOUR LINES had to be correct, but CONTOUR was too long. Given the letters I already had in 12D [Greek island off of Albania], that was obviously CORFU, so the last square in CONTOUR couldn’t be a rebus of UR.

So I did what I usually do in this type of situation: I filled in Across answers that worked with the Down answers and trusted that eventually, everything would make sense.

All three theme answers are solid, though having never studied economics, I needed a few crosses to remember ARTHUR LAFFER.

Some clue and answer pairs I liked:

• 18A [Mexican fritters] CHURROS Yum. I had dinner last night at a Mexican restaurant with the Light of My Life, and we were sorely tempted when our server asked if we wanted dessert: “Flan? Churros?” We plan to go back sometime soon for churros and hot chocolate if they have it.
• 61A [Every movie has one] TITLE I originally put THEME, all the while thinking it was probably wrong. But 53D [Test version of software] had to be BETA, which allowed me to see TITLE.
• 47D [Wisdom tooth, e.g.] MOLAR OK, there’s nothing remarkable about this pair, except that it gives me an excuse to mention that my wisdom teeth never came in — and neither did one of my 13-year-molars.
• 59D [Necessity for an opening act?] KEY Nice little misdirection there.

I had never heard of the Handel opera RODELINDA (30A). I knew he wrote operas, but I think of orchestral pieces like “Water Music” when I think of Handel.

Lynn Lempel’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary

LA Times
241114

Today’s puzzle by Lynn Lempel features letter addition, a common enough theme trope. However, the execution here is immaculate. The revealer is ITSAFIRST – A is added to the beginnings of four phrases. I loved all four of the phrases created that way. They were:

• [Reason for copyright suits filed by Atari?], APINGPONG
• [Where squirrels stash treats?], ACORNHOLE
• [Shenanigans in the physics lab?], ATOMFOOLERY
• [Rueful remark after losing on the Strip?], ALASVEGAS

Gareth