Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Jumping Ship”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are common English words that feature the trigram PER. Mentally remove those letters to make sense of the clues. The revealer is SKIPPER (65a, [Ship’s captain, informally, and a hint to help you to understand five answers in this puzzle]). (Alternate clue for Gen X or older: [Gilligan’s exclamation]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Jumping Ship” · Mike Shenk · Thu., 3.20.25
- 17a. [Delivery cart] DRA
PERY. Dray. - 18a. [There are seven in una semana] DIA
PERS. Dias. - 26a. [Broken, in a way] TAM
PERED. Tamed. - 50a. [Hall partner] O
PERATES. Oates. - 63a. [Duplicate] COP
PERY. Copy.
That works, though I didn’t find it to be a particularly engaging theme. There’s just not a lot to get excited about when your theme elements are words like dray, dias, and coppery. Maybe if a theme answer was something like BUENOS DIAPERS I’d find it more interesting.
I did love “AND I QUOTE” down the middle of the grid. Other grid assets: a MID-LIFE crisis, a balancing ACROBAT, and a MALTESE doggo.
Three stars.
Daniel Grinberg’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Easy (6h59s)
Daniel Grinberg’s New York Times crossword, 3/20/25, 0320
Today’s theme: Schrödinger squares
- JO(H/A)N CUSACK with H OR A
- (S/T)HE HULK with S OR T
- SI(M/N) CITY with M OR N
- (P/E)LASTICITY with P OR E
Full disclosure — tore through the puzzle without noticing the theme (just plunked down JOHN and THE and SIM and PLAS-), and it wasn’t until the online version automatically displayed the alternatives in the circled squares at the end of the solve that I realized this was a Schrödinger puzzle. I did see the reference clues, but decided I’d address them when I hit a snag, which never ended up happening.
Fun fact: KYO means capital, TO means east. TO KYO— east of the old capital, now the new capital.
Cracking: “Synchronize SWATCHES“
Slacking: NTHS
Sidetracking: High Fidelity
Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crossword, “Themeless 176” – Jenni’s write-up
Another smooth yet knotty Peter Gordon themeless. I didn’t see a pair of answers in this one until I started the write-up. Lots of interesting fill and clues!
Fireball Crossword, March 19, 2025, Peter Gordon, “Themeless 176,” solution grid
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- The pair of answers are 12d [Westernmost county seat in Florida], PENSACOLA and 31d [What Brad’s Drink was renamed], PEPSI–COLA. I guess Peter figured putting them at the beginning and the end made them too easy to spot.
- [Black zucchetto wearers] are PRIESTS. “Zucchetto” is apparently Italian for “yarmulke.”
- We also have French. [“Sacré bleu!”] is MON DIEU and [Blanche ou Violette, e.g.] is NOM. I would have preferred “par exemple” to “e.g.” because I’m picky that way.
- [1989 novel whose protagonist is ex-cop Jake Cardigan] is TEK WAR. The ostensible author is William Shatner.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: oh, so many things. I didn’t know that Michael STIPE sang “Radio Song.” Full disclosure: never heard of the song, either. I didn’t know that Barrow has been renamed UTQIAGVIK. Never heard of the HARTS-tongue evergreen fern, either.
Olivia Mitra Framke & Sally Hoelscher’s USA Today Crossword, “Bumpy Landing” — Emily’s write-up
Hold on!
USA Today, March 20, 2025, “Bumpy Landing” by Olivia Mitra Framke & Sally Hoelscher
Theme: each downs themer ends (aka “lands”) in a word that can combined with —BUMP to form a new phrase
Themers:
- 20d. [Quickly and in large amounts], HANDOVERFIST
- 26d. [Get faster and faster], PICKUPSPEED
- 31d. [“You goofball!”], SILLYGOOSE
A fun set of themers today: HANDOVERFIST, PICKUPSPEED, and SILLYGOOSE. With the theme, we get FIST BUMP, SPEED BUMP, and GOOSE BUMP.
Favorite fill: GUESTROOM, NEWGAME, TEESHIRT, and DIORAMA
Stumpers: SHOPVAC (needed crossings), NEUTERS (misdirected to troubleshooting), and PELT https://thebazaar.wiki.gg/wiki/Pelt (new cluing https://thebazaar.wiki.gg to me)
What a delightful puzzle today! Loved the flow and grid design. A quick solve for me, thanks for great cluing and entries. Lots of fresh and lengthy bonus fill as well. Nicely done!
4.5 stars
~Emily
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1767: “Is This Thing On?” — Eric’s Review
Happy First Day of Spring (Northern Hemisphere Only)! I can’t say that I’m excited that winter is over, but (1) I lived the last 50+ years in Texas, where winter hardly exists and summer is guaranteed to be awful and about eight months long; and (2) the end of winter marks the approaching end of ski season here. (BEQ fans: I’ll be more likely to be posting my reviews in a timely fashion once ski season is over.)
Today’s theme is the time-worn one of a joke that plays out over four or five answers. I’ll be honest: Such themes have never appealed to me and, having gotten in the habit the last several years of solving three or more crosswords almost every day, the less appealing those themes are. It’s less that the jokes are often bad than the fact that in joke-telling, timing is critical. But that’s lost in the sporadic nature of solving crossword puzzle answers, where you might solve the punchline before solving the setup. Also, the size and symmetry conventions in crossword puzzles do not do any favors for the rhythm of joke-telling.
All that said, this is a perfectly fine Dad joke, with a pun I would be smugly smiling about if I had made it:
- 17A [Start of a joke] I KNOW A GREEK
- 24A [Part 2] GUY WHO RUNS
- 39A [Part 3] SOUND
- 50A [Part 4] I ALSO KNOW A
- 61A [Part 5] CZECH ONE TOO
For once, the rhythm of those five lines fits the joke well, with “Check One Two” on its own line. (Is this a familiar joke among musicians? I hadn’t heard it before.)
My solving experience was very smooth, possibly because the two composers in the puzzle — 15A Gustav MAHLER [“Das Lied von der Erde” composer] and 12D ERIK SATIE [“Gnossiennes” composer] were gimmes for me with those clues. Together, those were a lot of squares filled in almost immediately.
I was slowed a little by not remembering 5A [Kazakhstan’s capital] ASTANA, 65A [High-profile lawyer Gloria] ALLRED or 40D [Keene detective] Nancy DREW. But with a few crosses, the first one became apparent; at some point, Ms Allred’s last name popped into my brain; and at some other point, I remembered which the Nancy Drew series was written by “Carolyn Keene.” (I was a devoted reader of the Hardy Boys series, and it’s only been in the last few years that I learned that both the Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys books were written by multiple authors sharing a pseudonym.)
Also:
- 16A [“Catch-22” pilot] ORR Catch-22 is one of my favorite novels, so I gotta love a clue that refers to Yossarian’s tent mate over one referring to the Boston Bruins player (no disrespect to Bobby Orr intended, but I’m not a hockey fan).
- 28D [In a pungent fashion] ZESTILY That’s not a connection I would have made, but it works.
- 36D [Month in which Pitbull and Lin Manuel Miranda were born] ENERO If I ever knew that Pitbull’s birth name was Armando Christian Pérez, I’d forgotten it. I should have more quickly realized that the answer was in Spanish, but I first tried April before remembering that March is also five letters.
- 53D [Tennessee athlete] TITAN Until I had a few letters, I was trying to think of whatever Tennessee college team I know other than the University of Tennessee Volunteers. After that one and Vanderbilt, I’m not sure I can name another Tennessee university. But we’re talking NFL here anyway.
New to my vocabulary: 47D [Wash by splashing] SOZZLE
How I Spent the March Equinox
Ricky J Sirois’ LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
Ricky J Sirois’ Thursday theme is a common enough trope. MIXINGBOWLS explains it, each of four long across answers has the letters of BLOW arranged in some pattern in some part of their answers… LEAF(BLOW)ER, SN(OWBL)IND, YEL(LOWB)RICKROAD and RUBE(LBOW)S.
Gareth
i love a good Schrödinger puzzle and this was i thought a very nice example.
MOSSED (ugh) was what kept it from a straight 5 for me. but a small wart ln a sparkling puzzle.
MOSSED is truly ugly. And surely ZDK should note that the single-letter ambiguity extends to the down entry, too. That makes it an even nicer theme.
Embarrassing, but I’d long since forgotten that a word processor can sort, too. For too long I thought it was a mistake, when a spreadsheet was meant. Oh, well.
MOSSED (ugh) +1
If MOSSED is used as a verb, who or what is doing the ‘mossing’?
The moss is mossing the ground.
I visited the Saihoji Temple in Kyoto. It’s called the Moss Temple because the gardens are immaculately tended acres of moss. Dozens of kinds, like tapestries on hills, trees and rocks.
You have to apply for a visiting appointment well in advance and agree to a “study session” preceding your tour. You sit, squatting under a tiny desk and have to trace out Japanese characters in a book while monks chant. It’s a very odd experience for a non-Japanese person but when you’re finished you get to enter a beautiful, alien world of extreme mossing.
I found online (but not in any dictionary) a definition of ‘moss’ as a verb: to make a jaw-dropping, defender-humiliating catch, typically of the jump-ball variety.
Nothing to do with shade-loving greenery, however. It’s what Randy Moss was famous for.
It’s in the M-W.
Really? I don’t see it there
Hit page down?
I scrolled all the way down. Still don’t see it.
transitive verb
: to cover or overgrow with moss
I thought you were referring to the football definition I cited in my comment.
I couldn’t think of any other word for [Covered with a green growth], so entered MOSSED immediately.
Not ALGAED? ;-)
Together, it’s likened to lichening.
NYT, I didn’t grok it until finished. I was in the NW and finally noticed H OR A and the CUSACKs. At which point I said AHA (not AHH)!
I didn’t pay attention to the circled squares and was surprised to see that I got a correct solution without doing anything with them. Seems to undermine the trickery.
I didn’t pay attention to the circles either, but when I finished, no Happy Pencil from AcrossLite. Spent a while looking for an error and finally asked AL to show my incorrect letters – all four of the circled squares!
So I switched JOAN to JOHN and AL liked that. That led me to take another look at HORA, and the light went on. AL seems to accept either the first letter from each “OR” phrase or both the first and last letters entered as a rebus. Interesting that I chose the “wrong” letter for all four circles on my first pass.
I did the puzzle on the NYT website. Maybe I just got lucky choosing the right set of letters. I didn’t recall that JOANCUSACK was in that movie, but I put in AHA first and didn’t contemplate any alternatives.
I put in JOAN CUSACK at first, thinking that because it was a Thursday, it would probably be the less obvious actor… and then with HORA I was off to the races. Super fast; just 20 seconds short of a PR.
Interestingly, I already knew the PLASTICITY / ELASTICITY one from teaching… I teach materials science, and this semester I teach two hands-on computational labs: Modeling Elasticity, and Modeling Plasticity. And the first time I set up the syllabi, I copied from one to the other and realized the one letter difference.
Great Thursday, super fun. My wife enjoyed it too, and noted that it seemed easier than most Thursdays.
Very good NYT. Even though this has been done before, this was a very good angle and very solid execution. Some colorful clues as well.
NYT: 38D, RECEIPTS, is clued as “Gate”
Can someone explain this one for me?
E: answering my own question.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gate_receipts
Wow… I got that down entirely from the crossings and didn’t even notice the clue!
I noticed that the first “hint” HORA could be parsed “h or a”, and thought maybe the others followed through similarly but thought that really would be asking too much … but it wasn’t! Great Thursday puzzle all around!