Friday, March 21, 2025

Boaz Moser & Jacob Reed’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 3/21/25 – no. 0321

Lots of SLANG shortenings in the mix here: “Who DAT?”, “How you DOIN‘?”, and GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL. Three is a lot, right?

I like the flower blossom grid, the overlapping petals of letters. Good flow throughout.

Fave fill: FIRST BASE, the BIG LEAD you don’t want to blow, a MO CAP SUIT (that’s a motion capture suit, basically a body suit covered with sensors so that Gollum can be inhabited by Andy Serkis’s movements), GATORADE, SPARKLES, “ADMIT IT,” “TOO CUTE!”, ARTISTIC LICENSE, MEDIA DARLINGS, Ralph (or Anne!) ELLISON.

Fun puzzle overall. Four stars from me.

Tracy Gray’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

LAT • 3/21/25 • Fri • Gray • solution • 20250321

Today we have some cornering action.

• 41d^R [With 69-Across, change quickly, and a hint to completing three other long answers in this puzzle] TURN ON A | DIME.
• 1d (19a) [“Happy our paths crossed!”] GLAD | I MET YOU.
• 5a (8d) [Collection of matching cruets] CON|DIMENT SET.
• 32a (33d) [Violinist recognized at the Kennedy Centers honors in 1986] YEHU|DI MENUHIN. Long before The Tarnishing.

Nicely … er … turned.

• 12a [Like some handwriting] LOOPY.
  
• 21a [Lasting memory of an old flame?] EMBER. Some poesy.
• 24a [Pharyngeal tissue] ADENOID. Anatomically correct.
• 40a [Eventually, with “in”] DUE TIME. Has DIME as a containing element, for whatever that may be worth.
• 46a [London district that includes Shaftesbury Avenue] WEST END. Is that where most of the theaters are? Is this a street that many non-Britons know?
• 48a [Home facelift, informally] RENOvation. This is an updating of the house, not a medical procedure performed at home. 37a [Collector’s item?] REPOssession.
• 53a [High-priced Japanese beef] WAGYU. etymology: borrowed from Japanese wagyū, from wa “Japan, Japanese” + gyū “cattle, cow” (m-w.com)
• 9d [Story backed up by a witness, hopefully] ALIBI. partial etymology: borrowed from Latin alibī “in another place, elsewhere,” from alius “other” + -bī (m-w.com)
• 26d [Caesarean delivery?] ET TU. The ides have just passed.
• 46d [Like some humor] WRY, 47d [Like some humor] DRY.
  
• 56d [Amex rival] CITI. Is this correct? One is primarily a credit card company and the other is primarily a bank, right?
• 57d [Bohr model subject] ATOM.

Owen Bergstein’s Universal crossword, “First Things First”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases of the form x IN y where x represents the two initial letters of a somewhat famous person (from the clue) and y is the arena in which they are famous. The revealer is INITIALLY (53a, [To start with … or how to parse the first two letters of 17-, 22-, 33- and 47-Across?]).

Universal crossword solution · “First Things First” · Owen Bergstein · Fri., 3.21.25

• 17a. [Calvin Harris?] C.H. IN MUSIC.
• 22a. [Todd Woodbridge?] T.W. IN SETS.
• 33a. [Sandy Koufax?] S.K. IN GAMES.
• 47a. [Tippi Hedren?] T.H. IN FILM.

I like the wordplay and had an enjoyable aha moment. That said, I struggled for a while mainly from not knowing these names (well, the first two). And frankly, it’s all a bit awkward, referring to these people by their initials as well as referring to the sports of tennis as “sets” and baseball as “games”. But it’s an extremely tight theme, and there’s not a lot of wiggle room for our constructor, so some leeway should definitely be allowed.

In the fill, I loved OM NOM NOM, CAT GIRL, IS IT CAKE?, and MILANOS cookies. On the tougher side: Frederick OLMSTED, DEIB (I never knew there was a B there), actress T’NIA Miller, and MAN-APE (which seems redundant if you ask me).

Clue of note: 57a. [Tennis legend Gauff]. COCO. Nothing against her championship-caliber abilities, but can you be a legend after playing professionally for only a few years? I’d argue that adjective is a bit premature at this point; you need some longevity in the game to be a legend.

3.25 stars.