The 2025 edition of the Muller Monthly Music Meta has begun, and there’s still time to try your hand at the January puzzle (deadline is Sunday night). Visit Pete Muller’s site to get the puzzle. At the end of the year, there’s a mega-meta that connects the 12 monthly puzzles, too.
Willa Angel Chen Miller’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 1/17/25 – no. 0117
Fun puzzle! Maybe a little on the challenging side for a Friday?
Fave fill: UBER RATING, SEA MONSTER (raise your hand if you filled in SEAMSTRESS and slowed down your progess. no? just me?), NO GREAT SHAKES, DIRECT DEPOSIT, GOOD ENOUGH, SHAVED HEADS, and BOARD SEATS.
Did not know: 38a. [Playwright/screenwriter Douglas Carter ___], BEANE. I have heard of some of his Broadway and movie work, it turns out.
Three things:
- 1a. [Introductory course], SALAD. You weren’t beating your head against the wall trying to think of a word for an intro class in college, were you? Just the first course of the menu.
- 39a. First capital of Alaska], SITKA. A gimme especially today, after FaceTiming with my sister-in-law who was wearing a Sitka hoodie.
- 3d. [Shakespearean counterpart to Logan on “Succession”], LEAR. Never watched the show, so I don’t necessarily always remember that Logan Roy (and not Roy Logan) is the patriarch on the show. So he’s the King Lear figure (but with some sons in the mix). At first, I tried IAGO here.
Four stars from me.
Amanda Cook and Katie Hale’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 1/17/25 • Fri • Cook, Hale • solution • 20250117
Joshing with noshing:
- 15a. [Internet cafe snacks?] BROWSER COOKIES.
- 22a. [Billiard hall snacks?] POOL NOODLES.
- 34a. [Arbitration snacks?] BARGAINING CHIPS.
- 44a. [Travel snacks?] AIRPORT BARS.
- 53a. [Moving day snacks?] PACKING PEANUTS.
NOODLES feels like the odd one out here. The only way I can explain it would be those fried noodle strips that you get in many Chinese restaurants, which anyway seems more specific than the others.
The theme is similar to a 21×21 Randolph Ross Wall Street Journal offering from June 2016, but the only shared entry is BROWSER COOKIES. It seems that it would be a common idea, but my quick search yielded only the one other crossword.
- 2d [Six-pack producers] AB ROLLERS. It seems these devices are more commonly called ab wheels. It’s simply a wheel whose axle has a handle on either side.
- 5d [1990s workout fad] TAE BO. Almost all clues for this useful entry read exactly the same, so it’s a gimme.
- 23d [Peas and carrots] NOUNS. Really not a fan of these ha-ha-I-fooled-you clues where the answer is much more generic than normal. cf 39a [Mercury and Neptune] GODS (which could also be PLANETS or maybe even ORBS for the right length. And also, depressingly, NOUNS).
- 30d [Played sardines, perhaps] HID. Going to have to look this one up … Okay, it’s a variant “in which only one person hides and the others must find them, hiding with them when they do so. The hiding places become progressively more cramped, like sardines in a tin. The last person to find the hiding group is the loser, and becomes the hider for the next round.” (Wikipedia)
- 32d [“Better safe than sorry” and “Actions speak louder than words”] APHORISMS. etymology: Middle French aphorisme, from Late Latin aphorismus, from Greek aphorismos definition, aphorism, from aphorizein to define, from apo- + horizein to bound — more at HORIZON. (m-w)
- 41d [Sudden surge] SPIKE, not SPATE.
- 42d [Celebration on the last full moon of Phalguna] HOLI. Phalguna is a month in the Hindu calendar.
- 25a [Lecture without caring if one’s words are heard] TALK AT.
- 31a [Cricket gear] BAT, crossing 31d [Silver Slugger awardee] BIG HITTER, which is … kind of bland, right?
- 40a [Slangy “OK”] A’IGHT, which has appeared in crosswords several times previously, including the 15 Sept 2019 Universal and the 31 Oct 2022 New Yorker.
- 52a [Eyeliner perfector] Q-TIP. I would say that a cone tip cotton swab is a more apt choice, but Q-TIP is essentially generic for any kind of cotton swab.
- 61a [Classical closing] CODA.
Joe Allison’s Universal crossword, “Seafood”—Jim’s review
C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me. But if it’s not good enough for you, Joe Allison presents this puzzle with two-word food items where each word starts with C.
Universal crossword solution · “Seafood” · Joe Allison · Fri., 1.17.25
- 17a. [New England seafood soup] CLAM CHOWDER.
- 26a. [Dessert that may be full of “lava”] CHOCOLATE CAKE.
- 43a. [Fruity dessert with a top crust] CHERRY COBBLER.
- 57a. [Kernels in a rich sauce] CREAMED CORN.
Simple yet elegant theme. I solved without catching on and needed to glance at the title for the aha moment. Reminded me of the old joke: “I’m on a seafood diet. I see food; I eat it.”
Oddly enough, there are no cookies in this batch! But we do find OREO COOKIE at 28d. Maybe that will placate Cookie Monster.
Other highlights: IMMATERIAL, CB RADIO, and INCHEON. If you ever get the chance to fly through the Incheon International Airport, don’t hesitate. It is amazing in its cleanliness and amenities, and it occasionally garners the award for top airport in the world. If your layover is long enough, don’t miss the opportunity to go on one of the free city tours they offer.
Smooth, clean puzzle. 3.75 stars. Note this is a debut puzzle for our constructor. Nice job on this one!
NYT: Interesting puzzle! Definitely on the challenging side for me. But I enjoyed it and it sent me reading about a couple of people. I had heard of ANITA Borg but it was somehow buried in some sulcus, and it was good to learn about her. Never heard of BEANE.
I got stuck early on- I thought of TAPAS before thinking of SALAD -in my defense, I grew up eating meze as appetizer, and I think of meze and tapas interchangeably (Don’t shoot me, Martin :).
I had ABET (wonderful clue) and LEAR but kept second guessing myself about them. Navigated away, got IPO and, off that I, plunked: IM IN NO HURRY instead of ITS NOT A RACE.
It was not pretty.
But I somehow sorted myself out and once I got a foothold, some parts fell easily. And there was TAHINI, after all.
Well done!
Tapas and mezzes have lots of parallels. I wouldn’t object at all.
Thank you, Martin.
One of the many things I like about Chef José Andrés is how he blends classical tapas and mezze dishes in his restaurants.
A shout out to his World Central Kitchen (WCK) for providing food in so many places in crisis, including these days for the California fires.
I tried SEA GODDESS first, but then saw the final S wouldn’t work with the down… and I had ITS NOT A RUSH instead of RACE trip me up a little. Good Friday puzzle!
Nice NYT, though too many names. NW was last bit to fall— fell into every trap there but worked my way out eventually.
I agree with “too many names” (although I notice the names more when I don’t know them). But the “in the language” phrases all filled in quickly for me once I had a few crosses, so it went fairly fast for me – faster than yesterday’s puzzle, in fact.
I think this is the case for me, as well. Melissa Joan HART sounded vaguely familiar after I got it from crosses. And LEAR of course, is familiar (but I have no idea who Logan is). Other than LEAR, all the person names required all the crosses (and for LEAR, I had the LE in place before I read the clue).
I did well on company names – EBAY, ALAMO, SEGA and HPS. And I got lucky on SITKA because a former girlfriend grew up there.
Overall, a nice puzzle. But it felt like a Monday TNY to me.
I liked the NYT and moved quickly for a Friday, but yes there are name crossings I would rather not have faced. And there are lots of halfway plausible alternative letters. The crossings include SONAR BEHR and the more massive BEANE BRAVE GRAHAME and even the sound word BEEPING.