Thursday, July 12, 2018

Joe DiPietro’s New York Times crossword—Andy’s review

NY Times crossword solution 7.12.18 by Joe DiPietro

Sorry for the latish review this week! A quick rundown:

Joe DiPietro gives us a Thursday puzzle playing on the phrase HANDS DOWN [Easily … and a hint to four answers in this puzzle], which is our revealer at 34d. Four across entries contain a word that can precede “hand,” but those words are instead contained in an intersecting down entry. Like so:

• 1a, DEFST [Clear of trees]. I knew right away that this was supposed to be DEFOREST, but with only five blanks, I suspected that a rebus was coming. Reader, I was mistaken! Because…
  • 3d was FORENSICS [Field of “CSI”]. The FORE of DEFOREST goes down. Since FOREHAND is a phrase, you might say that the hand goes down.
• 22a, EVALORIA [“Desperate Housewives” co-star]. This is supposed to be EVA LONGORIA, and sure enough…
  • 10d is GO ALONG [Concur]. The LONG of EVA LONGORIA goes down, and LONGHAND is a phrase, so again the hand goes down. (You get the idea, I hope. It’s hard to explain! I’m doing my best!)
• 38a, ENVIS [Surrounding area]. This is supposed to be ENVIRONS, and so we have…
  • 29d, CHIRON [“Wisest and justest of all the centaurs,” in Greek myth]. The IRON of ENVIRONS runs down through CHIRON, and IRON HAND is… a phrase? I know the phrase much better as iron fist, but apparently iron hand is also sometimes used.
• 51a, TREASMAP [It often features an “X”]. This should be TREASURE MAP, and so we get…
  • 41d, CENSURE [Public rebuke]. The SURE of TREASURE MAP runs down through CENSURE, and SURE HAND is a phrase, more or less.

A very cute idea, pretty well executed. An idea this ambitious imposes a ton of grid constraints (eight fairly evenly spread out themers, plus the HANDS DOWN revealer is a lot of theme material!), and with that in mind, the fill is shockingly smooth. Plus, there are some nice long non-thematic entries like I GOT A NAME and LAY RUBBER. A little ding for IRON HAND, which I’m still not entirely convinced is common, but overall I was impressed! I really enjoyed the aha, and I found this harder (in a good way!) than most recent Thursdays.

That’s all I’ve got. Until next time!

David Alfred Bywaters’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Hovercraft” — Jim’s review

We have a puzzle in two halves today with H-donors on the left and H-donees on the right.

WSJ – Thu, 7.12.18 – “Hovercraft” by David Alfred Bywaters

• 17a [Gentler, more welcoming wrestling surface?] FUZZY MAT and 18a [Touring an English town known for its immersive experiences?] AT BATH
• 26a [Pacifist’s request?] NO TANKS and 30a [Narrow outhouse?] THIN CAN
• 47a [Pastoral patrol officer?] LAMB COP and 47a [Result of a boring text conversation?] CHAT NAP
• 59a [Pig breeder’s profession?] SOW BIZ and 61a [Name for a not-very-revealing burlesque joint?] SHIN CITY

Strangely enough, I solved the entire right side of the grid first, and so I thought it was just a simple add-an-H theme. I was underwhelmed, especially considering I generally like the wordplay offered by this constructor. When I got SOW BIZ, the penny dropped.

But I’m still looking for some other connection between the pairs. At first I thought it was letter position. In the first pair, the H was the last letter in FUZZY MAT(H) and it becomes the last letter in AT BATH. In the final pair, the H was the second letter in S(H)OWBIZ and becomes the second letter in SHIN CITY. But the middle two pairs don’t have such a pattern.

One thing that is true is that the H follows the same letter in each pair of entries: a T in the first pair (although there’s an extra T in AT BAT), a T again in the second pair, a C in the third, and an S in the last. But other than a nice bit of consistency, what does that do for us?

And how to make sense of the title? You could re-parse it as “H over craft.” But what does that mean? Sure, the H is moved over, but where does “craft” come in? I looked at the letters between the H positions to see if there were vehicles in there, but no. I guess “craft” is just meant to imply something that is built or created. Thus the puzzle is an “H-over craft.” Meh, seems iffy, but that’s the best I got. Solvers, if you have something better, feel free to shout it out.

The long fill in the grid is relegated to the NW and SE corners with stacked 8s. I like REDIRECT with its clue [Cross follow-up] (I was thinking boxing, not law) and BEE-EATER, though its generic clue [Insectivorous bird] could apply to most birds. I also like LIT CRIT, but its symmetric partner, ACT NICE, doesn’t strike me as something most parents say. (“Be nice” seems more common to me.)

Other less common, less fun entries: NEU and NEUR, AAR, ORT, and USBS [Flash drives, familiarly]. You have USB ports, USB drives, and USB devices. I’ve also heard of USB sticks, but I’ve never heard a flash drive called a “USB.”

More clues of note:

• 18a [Touring an English town known for its immersive experiences?] AT BATH. In case you were wondering, there are actual Roman baths that you can tour around. Definitely worth a visit if you get to England, and it’s not too far from London.
• 23a [Chi baggage code]. ORD. Chicagoans, does calling your city “Chi” seem legit? I’ve heard Chi-Town, but just “Chi” seems hinky.
• 34a [Runs into a hitch?]. ELOPES. Clever.
• 26d [Home of the Annapurna Massif]. NEPAL. I will admit to not knowing what a massif was. I thought it might be some sort of work of art. But Wikipedia tells me it’s “a section of a planet’s crust demarcated by faults and flexures.” Or it’s “a group of mountains formed by such a structure.”
• 31d [Pressed sandwich]. CUBAN. Did not know this either. Apparently it originated in Florida with Cuban immigrant workers. It consists of ham, roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and sometimes salami on Cuban bread. Ugh, I’m hungry.
• 46d [Person who might give you a buzz]. BARBER. Reminds me of our one on-campus BARBER when I was at Notre Dame. ROTC Joe we called him. It was said he didn’t own any scissors.

Unusual theme that still has me wondering. Maybe I’m over-thinking it. Anyway, a solid grid despite some gluey bits here and there. 3.6 stars from me.

Alan Arbesfeld’s Fireball crossword, “Threesomes” — Jenni’s write-up

I didn’t feel well last evening. That’s my story for both the long solving time and my inability to grok the theme. Thanks to my Fiend teammates for helping me out with the latter.

Each theme answer is a wacky answer to a wacky question, which can then be re-parsed to give us three of a kind.

FB 7/12, solution grid

• 17a [Question to somebody who has to choose among Marshall, Baldwin, and Carter?] is PENNY, ALEC, OR NELL? or PENN, YALE, CORNELL. Three Ivy League schools {inappropriate Ivy League snark redacted}
• 25a [“That Newman title character sulks all the time”?] HUDS ONE BROODER.  This was the most difficult for me to figure out, even once I got the conceit. It’s rivers: HUDSON EBRO ODER.
• 46a [Headline for a story telling how a famous cellist came across intestinal discomfort?] is MA LIT ON GAS PAIN, or MALI TONGA SPAIN. Countries.
• 59a [“Nana, there’s an injured strumpet at the back of the ship!”?] GRAN, TART HURT AFT. I prefer this in its presidential “threesome” form: GRANT ARTHUR TAFT. Come on, boys. “Strumpet?” “Tart?” Seriously? All we’re missing is “scarlet woman.” And yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that “strumpet” is in there to tell us it’s an outdated word and we’re all supposed to be sophisticated enough to laugh and I’m just a humorless PC feminist trying to spoil everyone else’s sexy fun. Oy.

I have to say that even leaving aside my annoyance at the last clue/answer set, I am underwhelmed by this theme. It was less of an “aha” moment than a “is that all?”

A few other things:

• 1a [Jobs for long relievers] are MOP-UPS. This is baseball talk. We would also have accepted “What Sonny Gray usually requires but did not need last night.”
• 5d [Relic on a street corner] is PAY PHONE. I treated myself to the boxed set of all 20 seasons of Law&Order, and it’s amusing to watch the technology evolve from tracing calls and getting fingerprints off coins in pay phones to cellphone towers and EZPass.
• 24d [Hot chocolate topping] is the delicious Mexican savory sauce known as MOLE. Mmm.
• 36a [“Up” talker?] is my favorite clue in this puzzle. The answer is ED ASNER. {feminist rant about the wordless prologue to this movie deleted}
• 53d [Fleming forte] is talking about Renée, not Ian. The answer is ARIA.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that OREO and Cadbury have the same parent company.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Hoover” — Laura’s review

BEQ – 7.12.18 – Solution

The title does not refer to the 31st President of the United States, immortalized in the Broadway musical Annie, but to the movement of the letters H and O in each vertical theme entry — from wherever they are in the base phrases, they rise to the top; namely, H-O, over.

• [3d: Place where a rowdy crowd might be exiled?]: HORDE ISLAND. Our base phrase is Rhode Island
• [9d: Wash off one’s palate?]: HOSE TONGUE. Shoe tongue. Not sure I’ve seen that thing in a laced-up shoe that goes over your arch referred to as a shoe tongue or just a tongue. Also it is hard to remember how to spell tongue. It feels like it should be tounge? tongeu? tonuge?
• [15d: Anchor who has no idea what he’s talking about?]: HOST IN THE DARK. Shot in the dark. Obligatory joke about Fox News.
• [27d: What one does in a sack race?]: HOP TO FINISH. Photo finish. Of all the races in which one might participate at the county fair/carnival/ice cream social, I prefer the egg-and-spoon race.
• [31d: Put some goose feathers in a pawn shop?]: HOCKED DOWN. Choked down.

Random association: A Shot in the Dark (1964) is the second Pink Panther film, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and frequent crossword denizen ELKE Sommer as his love interest-slash-murder-suspect. As a kid I had only ever seen the Pink Panther cartoons, which were at bottom a thinly disguised Road Runner knock-off (with “The Inspector” in the role of Wile E. Coyote), so imagine my dismay when I was taken to see Return of the Pink Panther (1975) as a very tiny child and there was a cartoon pink panther only in the credits.

Randomer association: There have several LGBTQ advocacy and civilian patrol groups that have been sued by MGM for using the name “Pink Panthers.”

Frank Virzi’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s review

LA Times
180712

CHOPPEDLIVER is interpreted to mean the letters LIVER are scrambled and buried somewhere in four other phrases: SUPERVILLAIN, BURLIVES, ONCEOVERLIGHTLY (can’t say that’s familiar; it’s in the dictionary?), and WERELIVE.

The design, with a 12-letter revealer meaning there is only a row gap between each of five themers, and a grid-spanning central 15, is under a huge amount of strain. NOEYE is one of the more desperate partial answers I’ve seen. YSAYE is not going to be familiar to many, but in isolation wouldn’t bug me.

On the other hand, there is no valid reason the top-right is filled like it is. AVANTI was forced by ???N?I and the fact so many other answers cross two or more themers. It’s a foreign word that is also the title of a flop comedy film in the 70’s. But that 4×3 area could be filled by just about anything, so why go with three abbreviations down, one across, a difficult name, and a bit of Latin that is typically encountered as part of a longer phrase. My first pass was AHOY/VINE/AMEN.

If I were running a puzzle with this theme, I’d have sent the grid back asking for something cleaner, and if necessary a different set of theme answers that were more amenable to an acceptable grid.

Gareth