Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Jesse Guzman’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Dipping for Honey”—Jim’s review

The puzzle is an homage to WINNIE THE POOH (found in the circled diagonal letters).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Dipping for Honey” · Jesse Guzman · Wed., 3.12.25

• 18a. [Elephantine creatures feared by the circled character] HEFFALUMPS.
• 60a. [Mall workshop, and a hint to filling in this puzzle’s circles] BUILD-A-BEAR. I guess this serves as the revealer.
• 10d. [Like the circled character and his friends] STUFFED.
• 43d. [Creator of the circled character] A. A. MILNE.

Cute theme. I like the design and the wordplay with the revealer, as well as the idea of “building” the bear’s name as you progress through the solve.

That said, I filled in the circled letters immediately after getting HEFFALUMPS so the building idea didn’t quite work for me. And while A.A. MILNE crossing BUILD-A-BEAR is excellent, the other two theme answers (HEFFALUMPS and STUFFED) feel more like filler (as it were). And isn’t it a law that if you have HEFFALUMPS, you have to have Woozles?

So while I like the theme and enjoyed the puzzle, I just wanted it to be a bit tighter.

We get some lovely fill, especially LUTEFISK (though I needed a bunch of crossings). Not sure I’ve heard of OLD IRISH, but it was inferable. Also good: PICARD, ANT NEST, and GAS BAG.

Cute puzzle. 3.5 stars.

Now, enjoy the HEFFALUMPS and Woozles song, courtesy of a WINNIE THE POOH trippin’ on some bad hunny, I guess.

Chandi Deitmer & Kate Hawkins’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 3/12/25 – no. 0312

It’s an elegant theme. A magician might appear to SAW A WOMAN IN HALF, and there are three rough synonyms for “woman” in the shaded squares that are cut in half by black squares: MISSUS, BABE, and DAME. The elegant bit is that the MIS/SUS, BA/BE, and DA/ME fragments come from other women’s names (real, fictional, or mythological: ARTEMIS and “Oh! SUSANNA,”, ELPHABA and BEYONCE, MATILDA and MELANIE. (I sccarcely know of this MELANIE, [“Brand New Key” singer, 1971].)

I started out cranky at 1-Across because I’m not convinced people are actually shouting “IT’S A TIE!” when a baseball game goes into extra innings. Also rather doubt anyone goes around saying “I LOSE” with any regularity. At least we’re spared I RULE in this one.

A couple more things:

• 34D. [“Drink up!”], PROST. Is this German toast a bit hard for a Wednesday puzzle?
• Entirely new to me: 29D. [Sprinkled with seasoning, in Italian], SALATA. Do you folks encounter this word out and about?

Three stars from me.

Desiree Penner and Jeff Sinnock’s Universal crossword, “Deep Blue” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 3/12/25 • Wed • “Deep Blue” • Penner, Sinnock • solution • 20250312

Vertically-oriented theme today, as the idea is that theme entries end with a word that can precede ‘blue’ to make a variety of that color. Since they’re at the bottom of the grid, they’re ‘deep’.

• 2d. [*Traffic helicopter, say] EYE IN THE SKY (sky blue).
• 7d. [*When a New Year’s Eve party typically ends] AFTER MIDNIGHT (midnight blue).
• 16d. [*1968 horror film starring Mia Farrow] ROSEMARY’S BABY (baby blue).
• 26d. [*Spice made from peppers] CHILI POWDER (powder blue).

All works. Nice theme, nice crossword.

whew, right?

• 1d [Emperor who fiddled] NERO. Of course that apocryphal. It was probably a lyre, if anything. 12a [Fiddled (with)] TOYED.
• 17a [“We gotta go!“] LET’S ROLL.
• 20a [Mo. with a Back to the Future Day] OCT. It’s at the point where I pretty much always enter OCT for abbreviated-month clues until dissuaded by crossings.
• 23a [Lion’s lairs] DENS. Maybe in historical times when their distribution was more widespread.
• 29a [Sewer line?] THREAD. The question mark gives away the game.
• 66a [Six-legged insects] ANTS. Uh, all insects are hexapods.
• 12d [Spot on the small screen] TV AD. Many modern TVs are quite large indeed—as big as some shoebox movie theater screens—but we still colloquially call the technology ‘small screen’.
• 18d [Check into] SEE ABOUT.
• 30d [They no longer work] RETIREES. Not always! They’re just done with their main careers. Many work or volunteer in other ways after they’ve retired.
• 32d [Feet in a meter?] IAMBS. Question mark not really necessary, since it isn’t really possible to get 3.280839895 into 5 crossword squares.
• 33d [Jack who eschewed fat] SPRAT. Little bit of visual wordplay in the clue with chew/fat.
• 59d [Bird-watcher, maybe] CAT. Often! But if you have cats, be careful if you let them outside. They can catch bird flu. In fact, be sure you don’t have, for instance, bird poop on your shoes or clothing when you come inside.