Tuesday, August 13, 2024 | (2024)

LATuntimed (Jenni)

NYT3:30 (Amy)

WSJ2:38 (Matt G)

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Hassle-Free” — it’s themeless time. – Erin’s write-up

Hello lovelies! We’ve been gifted with a themeless this week, so 1-Across(LET’S BEGIN)!

• 62a. [Pop star who recently tweeted “kamala IS brat”]CHARLI XCX. “Brat” is the English singer’s album released in June 2024, and it refers to someone with a more rebellious and hedonistic attitude compared to the “clean girl TikTok aesthetic. Or something.
• 26d. [Meathead’s real name]MIKE STIVIC. Meathead was the son-in-law of Archie Bunker in the 1970s show “All in the Family.”
• 6d. [It’s not “esto” or “eso”]EL OTRO. It’s not “this” or “that” so it’s “the other” in Spanish.
• 10d. [Nachos and sandwiches, for example]EPONYMS. I knew about the Earl of Sandwich, but I didn’t know that Ignacio Anaya was the maître d’ of a restaurant in Mexico and heated some cheese and jalapeños on tortilla chips because the chef wasn’t around and folks were hungry. He called it “Nacho’s Especiales” and the name stuck.

Until next week!

Benjamin Panico’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

Oh! Look at that. TONI MORRISON‘s name and the titles of her first six novels (for which she received the Nobel Prize in Literature) fit into a symmetrical theme. There’s JAZZ (which is still the only Morrison novel I’ve read, somehow), THE BLUEST EYE, TAR BABY, SONG OF SOLOMON, BELOVED, and SULA. Which of these should I read next? (Also, if you haven’t read Percival Everett’s James, a retelling of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective, check it out. It’s as propulsive a read as Twain’s book, but without the cringe factor.)

Quick puzzle with an easy theme if you know Morrison’s oeuvre, a bit more checking the crossings if you don’t.

Three things:

• 25d. [Black, poetically], EBON. Crosswordese vibes here. Could also be clued as The Bear actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, but that could be a tough crossing for a solver who doesn’t know of Morrison’s TAR BABY.
• 28a. [Like Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” key-wise], IN G. I personally hate music clues like this. For a Tuesday puzzle, a nice and easy verb ending clue would work just fine!
• 43d. [YouTube journals, essentially], VLOGS. A question: Is every person who has a YouTube channel that features themselves on camera a vlogger? Or is this a particular subset of YouTuber? The last person I encountered specifically identified as a vlogger was a Dutch creep who travels the world “helping” people with his sperm and has something like 1,000 biological children, per a Netflix documentary.

Four stars from me. If this is a debut puzzle, the constructor’s off to a good start!

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 690), “Fasten-ating Rhythm!”—Ade’s take

Hello there, everyone! I am already suffering withdrawal symptoms from the Summer Olympics being over, and they don’t feel good. What a fun two-plus weeks that was, and hope you were able to enjoy some of the events and the pageantry of Paris that shot through everyone’s screens.

Today’s hook for the puzzle deals with answers that are synonyms to hooks, if you will. And by hooks, I mean objects used to fasten articles of clothing, and each of the theme answers has a word contained that is also a type of fastener.

• • • RHUBARB BUCKLE (15A: [Tart fruit dessert with a streusel topping])
    • SNAP DECISION (27A: [Spur-of-the-moment verdict])
    • ZIPPER SPIDER (42A: [Web-spinning creature named for the zigzag patterns it makes])
    • CUTE AS A BUTTON (55A: [Utterly adorable])

I’m sure a younger generation of solvers would have a few NITS with this puzzle given the number of answers that referenced things that were popular in a previous generation or two, but I was more than OK going down memory lane (52D: [Minor quibbles]). Not bad to have an earworm after seeing RHONDA (63A: [Girl in a Beach Boys classic]) or PETULA, as “Downtown” is now the song that’s chiming in in my head as I type this (43D: [Singer Clark]). KOTO (40A: [Japanese stringed instrument]) was new to me, and thank goodness the crossings on that weren’t too hard, while it has been a good while since I’ve come across EOLITH in a grid (31D: [Crude stone artifact]).

“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: SASH (19A: [Obi, for instance]) – A somber post this week as we remember former Super Bowl champion safety Tyler Sash. The University of Iowa product was a All-Big Ten First Team selection in both 2009 and 2010, setting the school record for career interception return yards (392). Sash was drafted by the New York Giants in the sixth round in 2011 and was part of the 2011 Super Bowl team. Sash passed away in 2015 at the age of 27.

Thank you so much for the time, everybody! Have a wonderful and safe rest of your day and, as always, keep solving!

Take care!

Ade/AOK

Jamey Smith’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Dog Days”—Matt’s recap

Themers are of the form “X in (Y city)”:

• 16a [*TV Land sitcom with Betty White and Valerie Bertinelli] HOT IN CLEVELAND
• 23a [*With 55-Across, rom-com that ends atop the Empire State Building] SLEEPLESS / IN SEATTLE
• 62a [*Classic album featuring “Son of a Preacher Man”] DUSTY IN MEMPHIS

A central revealer ties it together:

• 37a [Hit for the Lovin’ Spoonful, and a hint to the starred answers] SUMMER IN THE CITY.

This lands a little flat for me – sure, summer is HOT. Is it necessarily DUSTY? In some places, perhaps. SLEEPLESS? Eh. I think this is a neat set that doesn’t quite tie fully together.

Highlights in the fill: the easy-but-takes-a-sec [Paper with a blue circle logo] for USA TODAY and DOT BOMB.

Some mustiness on the other end of the spectrum that reminds me it’s been a bit since I’ve reviewed a WSJ puzzle: SOT [Rehab candidate] isn’t great vibes, nor is CECIL Rhodes, even if he is clued to the eponymous scholarship. PEOPLE by Barbra Streisand was released in 1964 and, uh, it’s not like that’s the only clue available for the entry. Do FIVESPOT, ‘fin’, or ‘Abe’ exist anywhere outside of crosswords anymore?

Seth Weitberg’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

The revealer on this one made me giggle. I recognized the pattern in the theme answers. I wasn’t expecting the joke.

• 20a [Be too afraid to] isCHICKEN OUT OF. A bit awkward. Not incorrect.
• 28a [Add extra protection] isBEEF UP SECURITY.
• 43a [Ask leading questions] isFISH FOR ANSWERS.

My giggle came at 48a [Noncash corporate benefits, or what a cook would call the starts of 20-, 28-, and 43-Across?] isSTOCK OPTIONS. Fun!

A few other things:

• Sushi withNORI at 3d and ROE at 11d. PlusDOMO arigato at 40d.
• 26a [Rears, at sea] isSTERNS. For a minute I was thinking of breaching whales rearing up. Don’t know why.
• I haven’t read any BERTIE Wooster books in years. I hope they’re still as funny as I remember.
• I filled in 53d from crossings and was surprised to see the clue [Win shares in basketball, e.g.]. I was, of course, expecting the medical definition. I don’t follow basketball and had to look up that particularSTAT. I didn’t understand it, but I did look it up.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: see above re: win shares. I also had never heard of EgoNWODIM.

Jay Silverman’s Universal Crossword, “That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles” — Matt F’s Review

This puzzle was created by Jay Silverman, and polished in the editing room by Taylor Johnson. Thank you both!

No revealer today, so let’s grab our favorite crossword cookies from the shelf and get right into it. We have an erosion theme today, in which a letter is taken out of the “theme word” in each successive answer. The “theme word” today is OREO! Here’s how it breaks down:

• 17A – [Blended drink with cookies and ice cream] = OREO SHAKE
• 30A – [Miner’s lode] = ORE DEPOSIT
• 49A – [“That’s what was said to me”] = OR SO I’M TOLD
• 66A – [Most common blood type in the U.S.] = O POSITIVE

This is a rare case wherenothiding the theme word adds a constraint to the puzzle. You’ll notice that each starting word consists only of the theme content – from OREO to O – instead of a broader hidden word theme that might allow, say, OREGON DUCK in place of ORE DEPOSIT. This is a small detail, but it really elevates the puzzle by forcing an extra constraint on the theme.

The 4 (four!) bonus words are fun, too. TREAD WATER, TRACK SUIT, RIPS APART, and IMPRESSIVE bring joy to every corner, without requiring any crossword-y gunk to hold the grid together. There’s a fun animal fact at 43A, and a cute little BOP/BOOP cross you can’t help but smile at. Nice and smooth puzzle all around!

Erik Agard’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

A decent workout. I’d say it was pretty much ‘moderately challenging’. For me, it was due to several unknowns/half-knowns rather than overly tricky cluing.

There’s a mini-theme—or at least a rationale—to the stepped stack in the center: 33a [People from Adamsville or Bankhead] ATLANTANS. 35a [H.B.C.U. portmanteau] SPELHOUSE; both Spelman and Morehouse Colleges are in Atlanta. 36a [OutKast’s follow-up to “Aquemini”] STANKONIA; OutKast was formed in Atlanta. “Aquemini” is a portmanteau of Aquarius and Gemini.

• 3d [Tends to need cooling] RUNS HOT. Much better than GUNSHOT, right?
• 8d [Fans’ imagined versions of stories] HEADCANON. Or lore. I suspect this is something quite a few of you might not be familiar with. Agard used it last year in a USA Today crossword.
• 9d [Assistance from a spotter?] LOAN. Nothing to do with weightlifting. 58a [Spotted] SEEN.
• 11d [First person?] WINNER. Nice misdirect.
• 33d [IDGAF feeling] APATHY. ‘I don’t give a f*ck’.
• 34d [Term paper?] TUITION. Too much of a stretch?
• 41d [“Ciao!:] BYE-BYE. 27a [“Ciao!”] TA-TA.
• 50d [Esfahān’s country] IRAN. Obviously this is the contemporary transliteration for Isfahan.
• 51d [ __ visualization (infographics, etc.)] DATA. Edward Tufte is the gold standard here.
• 26a [Very frequently] A TON. For a while I had A LOT, which entailed changing 4d [Absorb] from the correct TAKE IN to the incorrect TAKE IT.
• 37a [Actress Pounder] C.C.H. I remember her from ER.
• 47a [Compound with the same atoms in a different arrangement] ISOMER. Knowing this one allowed me to quickly correct 38d [Defeated by a large margin] to CREAMED from CRUSHED. There are many types of ISOMERs. For instance, if it involves chirality (‘handedness’) they’re called enantiomers. ISOMERs are also a very common source of cis-trans terminology.
• 49a [People also known as the Cree] NEHIYAW. Totally unfamiliar to me.
• 51a [Marvel superhero whose body is a portal] DOORMAN. Ditto.
• 56a [In-__ laundry] UNIT. Not a new concept to me, but I haven’t seen it with UNIT before. The sort of thing you’d see in a real estate listing.