Christopher Youngs’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Urban Wildlife”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases (which all happen to be food or drink items) consisting of a world city and an animal.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Urban Wildlife” · Christopher Youngs · Wed., 1.29.25
- 17a. [It’s topped with yellow mustard, onions, tomatoes, sport peppers, relish, celery salt and a pickle] CHICAGO DOG.
- 30a. [Cocktail traditionally served in a copper mug] MOSCOW MULE.
- 47a. [Cockle’s cousin] MANILA CLAM.
- 62a. [Dish that earned its name during the Ming dynasty] PEKING DUCK. Not to be confused with the pekin duck breed.
Pretty nice. I would have liked it just a little bit more if something other than MANILA CLAM could’ve been used since that’s the common name of the species whereas all the others are concoctions for consumption. But I’d say it’s close enough. I do like the international flair, and the title is well chosen.
I think I loved the fill even more: MS. PAC-MAN, “WHAT’S UP DOC?,” SLIP ‘N SLIDE, BEAUTIES, FOOD PORN, and SHIH TZUS. I was quite tripped up on the left when for some reason I thought Tom Sawyer was an OMAHAN even though it didn’t seem right. That took me a long time to untangle. That SW corner is pretty thorny as well.
Clue of note: 50a. [God in the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity]. SHIVA, the Destroyer. The other two are Brahma, the Creator, and Vishnu, the Preserver.
Good theme and even nicer fill. 3.75 stars.
Sophia Maymudes’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 1/29/25 – no. 0129
The puzzle’s revealer is BOTTOMLESS BRUNCH, [Event that might feature unlimited mimosas … or a literal description of the answers to the starred clues]. The theme answers highlighted in the solution grid are all missing their final letter. BAD EG(G) gets your egg(s). COUGH SYRU(P) has maple syrup for your pancakes. PROPOSE A TOAS(T), SAVE ONE’S BACO(N), RAGAMUFFI(N), and REHAS(H) round out the theme. You hungry now?
Fave fill: TRUE NORTH (I want one of those globes that place south at the top and have the names printed accordingly), EMPANADA, KNOCKOFFS, VINTAGE. On the “meh” side: LAA, Y SHAPE, OLEO, SSR, ODO-.
Did not know: 14A. [Author Novik of the “Scholomance” trilogy], NAOMI. You can read a bit about her work here.
That four hours of sleep last night is catching up to you. 3.75 stars from me, and good night!
Matthew Stock’s Universal crossword, “Stretching Exercises” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 1/29/25 • Wed • “Stretching Exercises” • Stock • solution • 20250129
Kind of a silly stunt puzzle, but it was fun and cute.
- 17a. [“It’s in the net!!”] GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL.
- 28a. [“C’mon, can I? Can I??”] PLEEEEEEEEEEASE.
- 44a. [“That is the worst news ever!!”] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
- 57a. [“This ride is so fun!!”] WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Just so you know, I double-checked my vowel counts by cutting and pasting the answers into Notepad, which I have set up with a fixed-width font. Mildly interesting: each theme entry has a different length for its same-vowel string: 12 for goal, 10 in please, 14 in no, and 13 for whee.
- 30d [Old MacDonald Had a Farm” refrain] EIEIO. Our theme goes OEOE.
- 53d [“Desus & __” (former late-night talk show)] MERO. One of several short names unfamiliar to me. Others: 15a [Olympic bobsledder Jones] LOLO, 38a [“The Thundermans” actress Kosarin] KIRA, 40a [Former NBA All-Star Luol] DENG.
Sala Wanetick & Greg Snitkin’s AV Club Classic crossword, “We Saw You From Across the Bar”–Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 1/29/25 – “We Saw You From Across the Bar”
Our revealer here is SWINGERS CLUB, and the three themers involve swinging in different ways. A JAZZ MUSICIAN‘s got that swing. In baseball, a HOME RUN HITTER (Does this phrase feel as green-painty to you as it does to me?) has swung a bat. And a TRAPEZE ARTIST swings through the air.
There were lots of trouble spots for me in this grid. ELIAS is clued 34a [“Sports Bureau” that is the official statistician for the NFL, MLB, and NBA], and I sure didn’t know that, so the 29d crossing, [Miami electronic music festival] was slow to come (it’s ULTRA and I’d never heard of it). I was also unfamiliar with the AURA sense in the clue, [Modern points system, for social capital]. No idea if this is a proper noun or common noun, nor how it’s used.
Fave clue: 38d. [They may catch people getting to first base at baseball games?], KISS-CAMS.
Four stars from me.
Rebecca Goldstein’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary
LAT 290125
Today’s theme by Rebecca Goldstein kind of snuck up on me. I thought entries like FUNK and FOLK were odd four-letter choices, it turns out they’re thematic. As revealed by the central eight MUSICROW (which makes the puzzle one wider), There are four rows of horizontal answers. not explicitly clued as such, that are music genres: SOUL/ALTERNATIVE; BLUES/TRAP/SWING; METAL/FUNK/SALSA; ROCKANDROLLFOLK.
Other clues / answers to note:
- [Personalizable cookie], OREO; Who knew they were personalizable? I’m guessing that’s not a thing here… but we only needed “cookie” in the clue anyway.
- [Bills tracked at WheresGeorge.Com], ONES; why would that be a thing??
- [2024 WNBA champs], LIBS. Short for New York Liberty.
- [Podcast installments, briefly], EPS. News to me, but inferrable.
- [Greige hue], ECRU. Never heard of that portmanteau. I assumed it was a French indicator…
Gareth
Zhouqin Burnikel’s USA Today Crossword, “Year of the Snake” — Emily’s write-up
Happy Lunar New Year!
USA Today, January 29, 2025, “Year of the Snake” by Zhouqin Burnikel
Theme: each themer can be prepended with SNAKE— to form a new phrase
Themers:
- 20a. [Medium-sized, muscular dog], PITBULLTERRIER
- 38a. [One overseeing an assembly line], PLANTMANAGER
- 55a. [“Focus on your goal!”], EYESONTHEPRIZE
A wide variety of themers in this set: PITBULLTERRIER, PLANTMANAGER, and EYESONTHEPRIZE. With the theme, we get SNAKE PIT, SNAKE PLANT, and SNAKE EYES.
Favorite fill: ADAI, MEZCAL, and PINA
Stumpers: CDS (misdirected my “jewel”), TATA (needed crossings), and PEP (also needed crossings)
A great grid with fun lengthy bonus fill. Solid cluing led to a smooth solve. I really enjoyed the theme and the title hint, especially running this puzzle today. Nice!
4.0 stars
~Emily
NYT: Loved this puzzle…
NYT: Quite difficult for a Wed (many long fills) but never unfair. I think there’s only one cross with two names – S(A)RA and K(A)Y – but still very guessable. Very little crosswordese.
Excellent.
Nice puzzle (NYT, I mean) but boy, it made me feel old! So many names and references I didn’t know. ‘Star Wars (boo!) heroine’ could be anything, needed crosses for the RATED? entry, no idea about Flotsam and Jetsam, ASTRID, NAOMI, not sure what a SKIBOARD might be, etc etc. The RPG/REY cross might be a natick for some but both came to mind once I got some letters filled in.
But at least we got Diana RIGG for us oldies…
Ditto. I certainly know Diana RIGG but had no idea she’d been on GoT.
This puzzle featured a better “trick” than some recent Thursdays, so I’m wondering what’s in store for tomorrow. I definitely would’ve enjoyed this one more if I’d known more of the names and trivia.
Best NYT puzzle of the year so far. I’ve seen this trick before but this still catches you off guard, it’s quite apt given the theme and the grid/fill is impressive as well. Nicely done.
NYT: I didn’t particularly enjoy this puzzle. The plethora of names was irritating. And I would have felt better if the missing letters spelled something. I suppose that would be realistically unlikely. I like a good gimmick as well as anyone, but this one didn’t float my proverbial boat.
couldn’t agree with you more! Leaving a letter off at the end is anti- climactic for sure!
And Evan Birnholz has me conditioned to expect the dropped letters to spell something
Great day of crosswords! All the puzzles released today sparkled!
LAT: Gareth, I see that greige is being called a portmanteau these days, but I learned it (“greige goods”) as a term for (I may not get this quite right, but it’s close) fabric that has not yet been dyed or otherwise treated after coming off the loom. I suppose its usual color matches up fairly well with a combination of gray and beige.
I do appreciate the NYT theme, but found more contemporary names than I expected from the NYT and wasn’t comfortable with the fill. I never did get the crossing of REY and EEL. Just me, I suppose, but I also lost time at the end wanting the dropped letters to spell out something, as might be the case in a variety cryptic. I thought it was my fault that I failed and came her to tell me my mistake.