Zhouqin Burnikel’s New York Times crossword — Jim’s review
I’m not a speed solver by any stretch of the imagination, so I don’t bother to time myself for most of my posts here. But since I’m filling in for Amy on the NYT puzzle, I figured I’d see what I can do. I must say I impressed myself (although I can’t say that’s very hard to do). Probably my time is mostly due to the smoothness of the fill and cluing in this impressive grid.
Zhouqin is back with a clever little theme which I mostly ignored during the solve. 62a is clued as [Hilton hotel chain…or what 18-, 29- and 49-Across each have]. The answer is DOUBLETREE. Each entry has two distinct types of trees in them if you look hard enough. Did you see the trees for the forest (of letters)?
NYT – Mon, 6.4.18 – Zhouqin Burnikel
- 18a [“Nonsense!”] BALDERDASH. Great find, especially with the five-letter ALDER. I love this entry because BALDERDASH is one of my favorite board games, especially the original version which just had weird words.
- 29a [Boneless cut named for a New York restaurant] DELMONICO STEAK.
- 49a [Jet that evades radar detection] STEALTH FIGHTER.
I for one like the fact the trees are not identified by shading or circles. Finding them feels like a post-solve bonus. That said, I’m having trouble with the third entry. FIG is great, but I’m thinking the other one is TEA. “Tea tree” feels like a bit of a cheat since TEA is contained within TEAK in the entry above. Also, it’s not as recognizable a tree as the others. I’ve heard of “tea tree oil” more than a “tea tree,” but apparently it’s not from around these parts, being native to Australasia.
But aside from that, what a nice, fresh Monday-level theme!
Having only four theme answers lets our constructor show off her trademark command of colorful English phrases. I love “DON’T BLOW IT!” (3d, [Snarky comment after “This is your big chance”]), and AMEN TO THAT (32d, [“So true!”]) is equally fun. DR. DOOM, SARA LEE, and BARISTA round out the shiny long fill goodness.
Oh hey, there’s more in the way of botany: ARBORS, ACAI, IRIS, and GLADS (40a, [Some showy blossoms, informally]). We planted GLADS once. They start out nice, but once they’re done, they just droop over like they’re drunk.
I’m not finding anything to complain about in this grid; it’s super smooth and fresh. So I will close it here. Hopefully, the rest of the week will be just as lovely.
Zhouqin Burnikel’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Clothes-Minded” — Jim’s review
Hey, guess what?! I’m back and so is Zhouqin. (I reviewed her NYT grid above.) As many times as I’ve reviewed one of her puzzles, I need to get my spell-checker to recognize her name.
This one isn’t quite as smooth as her NYT puzzle, but it’s still cute. No revealer is necessary, so let’s jump into the themers.
WSJ – Mon, 6.4.18 – “Clothes-Minded” by Zhouqin Burnikel
- 18a [Favorite outfits for fans of singer Janis?] JOPLIN RAGS. Scott Joplin was known as the “King of Ragtime” in the early 20th century. Click here, press play to start the “Maple Leaf Rag,” then come back here to read on. I’ll wait…
- 28a [Favorite outfits for spam lovers?] EMAIL THREADS. Not loving the clue. There’s more to email than spam. And I don’t know that anyone really ever says “EMAIL THREADS.”
- 48a [Favorite outfits for Godzilla?] COLOSSAL DUDS. Now this is more like it. I’d’ve gone with Paul Bunyan myself as he is actually known to wear clothing. Godzilla is usually one to go starkers.
- 61a [Favorite outfits for duel attendants?] SECOND GEAR. I didn’t know this use of the word “second.” It was also in a clue for DUEL in Friday’s contest puzzle (the clue was [Activity that takes seconds]), but I didn’t understand it there either. Apparently, the “second” was a trusted associate of the dueler who would engage in negotiations in order to avoid bloodshed. If I knew this, I certainly would have liked this entry better.
As I said, it’s cute even though the first two don’t sound like common verbal phrases to my ear.
The long Downs get better and better as you proceed left to right in the grid. They start with TAKES A SIP (fine), then STALLION (nice). In the SE we get “I ADMIT IT” (strong), and finally “EXCUSE YOU” (wonderful). Also good: DOODLE, “HOW SO?,” and “OH, RATS!”
In the negative column, there’s ADEN [Port city of Yemen], which might be tough for a new solver on a Monday (but they might as well learn it now, amirite?) and plural AVAS. Otherwise, it’s pretty smooth sailing.
Fave clue: [Bad thing in a croosword clue] for TYPO. I got a chuckle out of that. But who knows? Maybe that’s not a TYPO in Holland.
Whaddya think? A nice 1-2 from Zhouqin to start our puzzling week (and for all I know at this point, maybe she did the LAT, too). Here’s to more puzzles like these in the days to come.
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s themeless Monday crossword — Laura’s Review
BEQ – 6.4.18 – Solution
Five things:
- [36a: “___ howdy”]: BOY was the motto of the late, great rock magazine Creem, founded in Detroit in 1971 by some rejects from that other rock magazine, including the late, great Lester Bangs. The beer bottle dude in the logo was designed by great underground comix artist Robert Crumb. Perhaps the term punk rock sounds familiar? Originated in Creem.
Here’s a story on [1a: Band whose original name was Mookie Blaylock]: PEARL JAM that ran in Creem in 1992. Here’s an article by Lester Bangs about [15a: “Crazy Train” singer]: Ozzy OSBOURNE touring with Black Sabbath; it’s from 1972 but it could’ve been written yesterday. You can have your Pitchfork, your Fader, your Vibe, even your Maximum Rocknroll; I’ll stick with Creem. -
[6d: Cavaliers shooting guard who famously could have won the game at the end of regulation of Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals, instead dribbled out the clock]: JR SMITH. He made LeBron sad. Perhaps you’ve seen the meme?
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[16a: Like deciduous trees]: LEAVED. I’m glad we have this word as the counterpart of leafs, in the category of “words derived from the word for vegetative plant organ that do not look correct but actually are.”
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[12a: Bettor’s reference number]: OVER-UNDER. Today in Laura Learns a Thing: This is the number that the gambling place will establish as the total combination score (or total of a set of stats generated by the game) in a match between two parties, so you can place a bet that the total will be either over or under that number.
ESPN 2: Spelling Boogaloo #spellingbee pic.twitter.com/lyrrbbUZnh
— Neville Fogarty (@flyingelevator) May 31, 2018
Roland Huget’s Los Angeles Times crossword—Nate’s write-up
Instead of the student becoming the master, the master becomes the stream, the amster, and the estmar. ?!
6.4.18 LAT Puzzle
- 17a: JET STREAM [Wind current that affects weather patterns]
- 27a: HAMSTER WHEEL [Pet rodent’s exercise gadget]
- 45a: STREET SMARTS [Good survival skills]
- 60a: MIX MASTER [Sunbeam brand … and a literal hint to the circled letters]
I … have never heard of a MIX MASTER. It seems to be the lesser known step cousin of the KitchenAid stand mixer that my husband and I got as a wedding present a few years ago. A quick Google search comes up with as many (if not more) references to an anime series as that appliance – it’s never good when your revealer is the least well-known bit of the theme set and it didn’t do much for me when I finally filled it in from the crossings. I think a stronger application of this theme (though much more challenge to execute, clearly) would have been to take phrases containing the word master, anagram that word to make a new standalone word in the phrase, and then reclue the newly-wacky phrases. [Show featuring Aziz Ansari and others as out-of-work lion wranglers?] for TAMERS OF NONE could work nicely!
The fill was mostly accessible for a Monday puzzle, though there certainly were many outdated references and bits of crosswordese, including LELANNE, EOE, ALAI, ESSE, OLAV, REESE, EMAG, and ILA. Also, one quibble about the clue for 43d: it’s not the NEON GAS itself that illuminates a neon sign, but the electrification of that gas and subsequent emission of light that causes the glow. Otherwise, pretty standard fill/cluing.
CLARA Barton
#includemorewomen watch: CLARA Barton founded the Red Cross, people! She was a Civil War nurse, suffragette, and absolute pioneer for her time. Did you know (via her Wikipedia page)?: “In 1855, she moved to Washington D.C. and began work as a clerk in the US Patent Office; this was the first time a woman had received a substantial clerkship in the federal government and at a salary equal to a man’s salary. ” Hard core! <3
Anna Shechtman’s New Yorker crossword—Laura’s review
New Yorker – 6.4.18 – Shechtman – Solution
We’re rotating coverage of the new New Yorker puzzles; I’m up this week. And what a theme: women writers on each other! Anna herself has spoken out about gender disparities among crossword constructors, so it’s an honor to review her work.
I’ll just share my favorite quotation from a woman writer about another, Mary McCarthy on The Dick Cavett Show in 1979, about Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.'” Dick Cavett wrote about it in — where else? — The New Yorker. Oh wait, no — my favorite is when Dorothy Parker and Claire Booth Luce both approached the door of a nightclub at the same time. Luce demurred, “Age before beauty.” Parker strode through the entrance and said, “Pearls before swine.”
- [4a: Her “mind is analytical and her style ebullient,” per Muriel Spark]: RENATA ADLER. Novelist, essayist, former film critic for the New Yorker and the New York Times. Muriel Spark is a Scottish novelist and playwright most famous for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; the quotation is from a 1983 review of Adler’s novel Pitch Dark.
- [54a: She “mistakes lack of civility for vitality,” according to 4-Across]: PAULINE KAEL. Legendary film critic for the New Yorker; considered by some, including Adler, to be an iconoclast and somewhat vulgar, which is why I liked her. Here’s the source of the quotation, from ADLER’s review of KAEL’s memoir in the New York Review of Books (not every publication is from New York, if you’re wondering).
- [2a: She teaches the “sweet if dangerous fun of self-love,” per Alice Walker]: AUDRE LORDE. One of the greatest of all American poets, Lorde’s work challenged feminists (particularly white middle-class women) and championed social justice. The quotation is from Walker’s essay “Audre’s Voice,” in the 1997 collection Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism.
- [28d: She writes with “computer lyricism,” according to Elizabeth Hardwick]: JOAN DIDION. Literary journalist and novelist; in 2005 she published The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir about her husband and daughter both dying in the span of a few months. Hardwick is also a novelist and reviewer; the quotation is from her 1996 review of Didion’s The Last Thing He Wanted, in the New York Review of Books.
NYT: What Jim said. Very smooth, very clever. TEA tree was a bit of head scratcher, but I guess it exists.
It’s a Monday I’d use to introduce someone to the NYT crossword. Brava!
As we get ready for the running of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, Zhouqin (C.C.) has another daily double for the second week in a row. As Jim suggested, maybe one day she will also have the LAT an accomplish an unprecedented puzzling trifecta.
What’s the OVER-UNDER on Burnikel puzzles this week?
A NYT/WSJ/LAT trifecta seems like such an impossible feat, but if anyone does it, it’ll probably be ZB. Seems like we oughta have a proper name for just such an accomplishment. Trifecta, Triple Crown, Hat Trick, Grand Slam. Seems like we need something more puzzly. Tam Trick? Grid Slam? Oreo Trick? Perhaps it comes with a prize of three Oreos (supplied by the constructor). Or name it after the first constructor to accomplish it? Or anagram the newspaper acronyms?
i’ll propose “triple stack”
I’m fairly sure someone had a NYT/LAT/NYS triple when the NYS was extant.
Please. No.
That was a super smooth Monday. As Huda said, a perfect puzzle to introduce a new solver too.
The New Yorker was hard! I kept writing things in that seemed right but were not, such as TENON instead of MITRE, PANNING instead of SIEVING, BAT instead of GAT, and HATH instead of HAST. Most of the women I had not heard of, and I still don’t get the answer THES for the clue [Alternative to cafes].
I liked this clue: [Fast cars?], for ACELA
Not sure I get TEL for the clue [Lofty line: Abbr.]. Is this a reference to telephone lines? In my neighborhood there are no visible telephone lines — everything (including power) is underground.
These New Yorker puzzles are feeling like Friday or Saturday in difficulty. I’ve learned something from each one I’ve done!
Thé is French for Tea, and Cafe was being used as the French for Coffee.
This one felt like a college English final or something. Survivable but not pleasant.
What does this non-original version have? The most perplexing thing about Balderdash for me was the number of not that esoteric words like “cassowary” in it.
In addition to unusual words, the categories are: Movies (describe the plot given just the movie title), Initials (describe what a particular acronym stands for), Laws (describe the purpose of a particular law given its title), and People (identify what a person was famous for given just their name).
No clue on MIXMASTER here either. We do have Sunbeam as an appliance brand here. I mostly associate them with snackwich machines and toasters. I think I had a fondue machine of theirs I never used (passed on from one brother, who never used it either, and I palmed it off on another of my brothers…)
I recognize only one MIX MASTER, and his name is MIKE.
NYT is the best Monday fill in the past 6 months or so (I won’t use hyperboles like “ever” ever again in order to avoid misunderstandings). The theme didn’t do it for me (I guess I’m a city boy who has never heard of neither alder nor teak trees) but I still appreciate the effort behind it in retrospect. That being said, I agree with Jeff Chen that this is a rare case where shaded squares would have actually helped with the execution. Some unusually good clues for a Monday too. Ms. Burnikel rarely disappoints, and this one is a very good puzzle as usual.
3.75 stars.
The NewYorker puzzles seem to me to be Saturday level. Although there were several things I didn’t know, I might have been OK had “Indian royal” (35D) been MAHARAJA instead of MAHARANI. I’d never heard of the latter, and the JA kept me from recognizing the across entries in the last two lines. Oh well, I enjoyed the challenge.
I agree that Monday’s NYT was impressively well done.
The Tea tree, Melaleuca alternifolia, is an invasive in Florida. Very well known here for that reason. Google on these terms “Melaleuca alternifolia site:ifas.ufl.edu”.
This will give you information filtered by the University of Florida, one of the two land grant schools here.
Love the theme of the New Yorker, but a couple of clue/answers struck me as not quite on target. 39A, “Mansplainers have two” … of course, threw in BALLS to start with … CENTS, I get it, but it’s not particularly specific to mansplainers, in my opinion. And 50A … again, I can trace a connection from LIBERAL ARTS to “core curriculum,” I suppose, but it doesn’t hit the mark for me. And what’s with 55A having the word “disorder” in the clue, and then a letter standing for that same word in the answer? Picking nits, maybe, but this crew has set a pretty high bar…
I’ve found this excellent online https://anagramsolver.pro
Anagram Solver Pro can be used for the word games, such as Scrabble or Jumble. This online helper use few databases which allows to find a huge amount of possible anagrams.
Anagram Solver And Scrabble Word Finder