Robyn Weintraub’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 12/6/24 – no. 1206
Six and a half minutes for what should be an easier Robyn puzzle? I think I’m extra rusty. Some of the clue and fill skewed a little harder, though.
Fave fill: Klimt or Rodin’s work THE KISS, MEERKATS, SPIRIT ANIMALS (Note: As the University of Wisconsin tells its students, “Non-native people appropriate the term to relate themselves to an animal, inanimate object, or person and draw parallels between the person and object’s characteristics. For example, saying that a sloth is your spirit animal because you are slow, lazy, and/or sleepy. Instead use terms like patronus, kindred spirit, reason for living, muse, guide, or familiar.”), DOXED (acceptable, like vaxxed and vaxed, with one or two X’s), DROPS A HINT, CEDAR PLANKS, STINGRAY (took forever for me to piece together! the classic 1970s Corvette Stingray has such an iconic silhouette), IT TAKES TIME, “THIS IS NOT A DRILL” (took me forever to get the DRILL part, was only thinking of TEST.
Four more things:
- 6d. [Patterned cotton fabric originally from India], MADRAS. I had something madras in 1980s. Here’s some info.
- 22a. [Screenwriter’s way of reintroducing some characters?], PASTE. I think this is just a tricky clue for “writer’s way of copying some text to a later spot in a script” (using the copy/cut and paste commands) rather than some screenwriter-specific technique. If you know it as a writerly term, please explain!
- 13d. [They’re often lying in beds and might be kinky], HOSES. Flower beds, that is.
- 35d. [Chevy sports car named for a boneless fish], STINGRAY. I had the Plymouth Barracuda swimming interference despite bones, and manta ray. Oof!
3.9 stars from me. Didn’t love it as much as most Robyn puzzles, that are solidly in the 4+ range.
Caryn Robbins’s Universal crossword, “Change in the Weather”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases that normally feature the word RAIN, yet these have been changed to various homophones of the word. The revealer is MAKE IT RAIN (58a, [Throw cash in the air … or how to correct one word in 20-, 32- or 43-Across]).
Universal crossword solution · “Change in the Weather” · Caryn Robbins · Fri., 12.6.24
- 20a. [Constitutional restriction placed on King Charles?] REIGN CHECK. This was the point behind the Magna Carta, no? Could’ve just gone there.
- 32a. [Holdup on the set caused by actor Wilson?] RAINN DELAY.
- 43a. [Royal horse’s colorful accessory?] PURPLE REIN.
Enjoyable theme with fun entries and a spot-on revealer. It’s a strange coincidence that causes two of the answers to relate to royalty, but it just so happens purple is the color of kings and queens (and Prince), so there you go.
Nothing particularly exciting in the long fill, but it’s all plenty solid: CARGO NET, ROADMAP, APPEALED, RYE TOAST, RENEWALS. The grid felt smooth throughout with my only real hangup coming from using RYE BREAD instead of RYE TOAST.
Clue of note: 62d. [Step on a scale?]. NOTE. Good clue. It took me a few beats (haha) to get this one.
Smooth puzzle right over the plate. 3.75 stars.
Joseph A Gangi’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 12/6/24 • Fri • Gangi • solution • 20241206
I eventually used gained knowledge of the theme to fill in areas where I hadn’t looked at the clues at all.
- 40aR [Drafting tool, and a feature found four time in this puzzle] T-SQUARE. In the grid there are four 4×4 sections that contain all Ts. Of course, this resembles the drafting tool not at all, but the wordplay checks out just fine. A t-square is a rule with two right angles at one end, resembling the letter T. As opposed to a drafting triangle, which typically features a single 90° angle plus angles of 60° and 30°.
- The T-clusters are formed thusly:
- SET-TO/PATTER×NOT TOO SURE/KITTENS
- SOFT TACO/YTTRIUM×LETTERER/SETTLE
- SMART TV/MEANT TO BE×LATTER/SWEET TEA
- ACT TWO/OTTER×A LITTLE/PERFECT TEN
Aside from these 16 and the revealer, there are no other Ts in the grid, which gives the whole thing a little extra spiffiness.
- 29d [Sauced up, to a pitmaster] WET.
yes it’s a song about a wet t-shirt contest
- Row 2: 14a [How zeppole are fried] IN OIL, 15a [Classified charge] AD FEE, 16a [Fútbol cheer] OLÉ. For a moment I thought all the clues would feature a pair of doubled letters. That’d be crazy.
- 20a [Glib pitch] PATTER. Such as that of a conman, politician, or one who is both.
- 34a [Western band?] POSSE. Nice, wasn’t sure where the clue was directed until crossings.
- 39a [Part of a valedictorian’s address] EDU. A good version of this wordplay, and surprisingly I don’t recall seeing one evoking a valedictorian, which seems a natural.
- 49a [Cactus bump] AREOLE. Not to be confused with an areola, aureole, or oriole. An AREOLE can also be a depression on the cactus’ surface. The critical thing is that something—spine, flower, root, stem—grows out of it.
- 67a [Swimming mammal in Native American totems] OTTER. I found this nice image of a Tlingit bowl on an auction site:
- 71a [Natural __ ] GAS. “Natural gas” is a deceptive greenwashing misnomer for a fossil fuel that is primarily extracted from the earth via fracking.
- 19d [Strong suit?] ARMOR. Okay, that works, sure.
- 25d [Najaf native] IRAQI. Najaf a new locale to me. Had the first I in place, so I went ahead and filled in IRA–I.
- 26d [Writer/producer who frequently collaborates with David Simon] ED BURNS. There was also conman “Big Ed” Burns and blues musician Eddie “Guitar” Burns.
- 35d [Distinctive feature of a corpse flower] ODOR. I’ll allow it.
- 37d [Ecosystem susceptible to eutrophication] BAYOU. Definition of eutrophication: “the process by which a body of water becomes enriched in dissolved nutrients (such as phosphates) that stimulate the growth of aquatic plant life usually resulting in the depletion of dissolved oxygen” (m-w). See the link for a discussion of why it’s an environmental concern.
- 57d [Like some gods] NORSE. 58d [Like some gods] SMUG. Unusual choice for pairing.
A breezy and well-made crossword.
NYT: Just a smooth and fun Friday puzzle from Robyn. Always appreciate a shoutout to Grace KELLY!
The theme in today’s Universal crossword seems to have been semi-abandoned?
The revealer “Throw cash in the air … or how to correct one word in 20-, 32- or 43-Across.” is “Make it rain”. Which would suggest that you should replace a homonym for rain in each of the named fill. But one of the answers – 32 across – is “rain check”. So…you don’t need to replace rain with rain.
Plus, it totally looks to me like the constructors was trying to get another theme entry in there with “renewals” at 51 across, but said “ah never mind”.
I think I see what you’re saying. The theme has an awkwardness about it in that the revealer says that to “correct” the other three themers, RAIN must replace its three homophones; but the clues pertain to the un”correct”ed entries, so the “correct”ions result in entries that are In The Language but have no cluing foothold. But it seems like the way they did it would be the only way, because first and foremost you’re gonna want to avoid having a nonsense phrase like REIGN CHECK be unclued.
I would say RENEWALS would definitely not be an abandoned theme-inclusion attempt simply because the supply of RAIN homophones has already herein been exhausted.
Things seem to be a little discombobulated here.
The answer to 20-A is REIGN CHECK (rain check) – works with the theme.
The answer to 32-A is RAINN DELAY (rain delay) – works with the theme, but I have only vague awareness of the actor RAINN Wilson, so that’s tough.
NYT: Felt nice and easy for a Friday and I needed something easy these days. Liked the opening and the cluing was fun.
Also, I don’t know how many of you do the Strands puzzle on the NYT games page, but I loved today’s. In general, I think it’s a great addition to the NYT collection.
I really enjoy the games! Strands is a lot of fun, it is like “word search” (which usually go in straight lines) in hyper mode ;D.
Today’s purple Connection is giving me a headache (only got by default), I cannot figure out what two of the four in that group even mean, and google is no help at all. I’ve never heard those two in real life.
Vs vg’f -PBER naq -CVYYRQ, gubfr yrna zber bayvar. V pna guvax bs abezpber, areqpber, qnqpber sbe gur sbezre, naq erqcvyyrq be oynpxcvyyrq sbe gur ynggre, juvpu unf hafnibel pbaabgngvbaf.
rot13
gunaxf… gung’f vg
I don’t participate much in social media so that must be why those are a mystery to me. Thanks!
Those two made no sense to me, either. I used to enjoy Connections, but it seems to me that, increasingly, some of the “connections” require some very specific knowledge (like today’s blue set) or are a bit of a stretch. I often find myself rolling my eyes at the end.
I’m coming to prefer Strands – the theme is often difficult for me to suss out, but not eye-roll inducing.
I don’t do any of the daily games, although I get suckered into the Spelling Bee from the Sunday NYT magazine section. The annual puzzles section last week did tempt me to give the variations on games types it included.
I did skip the kinds that involve placing numbers or letters in a grid according to an overarching rule (typically from Asian American consructors in the Sunday mag), as I’ve no spatial sense, and the kinds that involving recognizing pictures (something about mustaches, close-up details of more familiar images, and opening film shots with logo deleted), which were more culture trivia, not my thing.
Of the games types, I disappointed myself, although I’ve the excuse of not having daily practice. I got the two Connections with word entries, but not the one with picture entries. I got 12 of 14 one-step Wordles (not the one starting with JUICE or POACH). Of the themed Spelling Bees, I’m sorry to say that I missed the longest of the food items (starting with B) and the last puzzle, involving two six-letter words ending the same but not sounding alike. I thought of UNION and NOTION, but the first is too short. Hints welcome.
Fun and quick. I got a little slowed down when I put in MEERCATS instead of MEERKATS… as if they’re “mere cats” or something… anyway :-) Nice Friday puzzle; it didn’t really open up for me until about halfway in, and I ended up more or less filling from the bottom up.
Close, it’s ‘sea cat’ but also a reference to a monkey(?).
“Afrikaans, from Dutch, a kind of monkey, from Middle Dutch meercatte monkey, from meer sea + catte cat” (m-w)
They’re in the herpestid family and fall in the catlike ‘half’ (Feliformia) of the order Carnivora.
TIL that a meerkat is a small mongoose. I did not know they were the same.
NYT: Another wonderful themeless from Robyn! I got the four long down answers right away, and then it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. Amy: nice to have you back! I hope that you are on the mend and that you stay healthy 😎
NYT: I gather that this information doesn’t show up in the online version, but the print version lists Will Shortz as the editor today.
Online only Joe Fagliano is named as editor. The Wordplay column makes no mention of Will editing today’s puzzle.
Odd, my print from pdf of the “newspaper version” has Joel F.
Will is back full-time. Joel is on paternity leave. Mazel tov all around.
NYT: That PASTE was killing me. So thanks, Amy, for explaining the misdirection, seemingly as some kind of reflex you have. It works perfectly. Screenwriter is someone writing on a screen. Characters are not people, but letters and numbers.
Uni … I fell into the same trap as Jim with ‘RYE bread’ instead of RYE TOAST. I’m pretty sure that every Reuben I’ve ever had has been served on what I think of as grilled or fried rye bread, not toasted rye bread. There’s definitely a difference … in my mind, at least.
Also, I cringe a bit every time I see or hear MAKE IT RAIN these days. When I first learned of the phrase (back in the Precambrian Era, I believe), it meant throwing money at dancers in a strip joint. It’s fascinating how language changes, even within one’s own lifetime.
NYT: Amy’s comment “Didn’t love it as much as most Robyn puzzles” pretty much covers it for me. Too many names and not enough sparkle. And very, very easy for a Friday puzzle; my fourth fastest Friday of all time.
LAT: 58d Like some gods = SMUG
I’m not getting this – seems like it confused the commenters on CC’s blog as well
Robyn Weintraub is the best!! We’ve missed you, Robyn, and we’re thrilled to see you back. My wife and I have been solving the NYT crossword together, every night for several years. We skip the Monday puzzle because it is too easy and the Sunday puzzle because it’s too long. But otherwise we rarely miss a day. We finished the Dec. 6 puzzle without looking anything up, and with no mistakes. Robyn’s definitions are stimulating, imaginative, and always right on the money. And almost never esoteric. Bravo, Robyn! Looking forward to the next 50!!
Fantastic NYT Friday!