Saturday, August 3, 2024 | (2024)

LAT3:20 (Stella)

NYT6:22 (Amy)

WSJuntimed (pannonica)

Rich Norris’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

Maybe a bit on the hard side for a Saturday and right in line with yesterday’s NYT.

Fave fill: “CARE TO ELABORATE?” (which I had as CAN YOU … for too long because instead of CAREY for [Drew with many lines?], I tried NANCY), ST TROPEZ (sing it with me, Gen Xers: “Bain de Soleil for the St. Tropez tan”), the fog ON LITTLE CAT FEET (in one of Carl Sandburg’s Chicago poems; I know that lakefront fog well), TWIX bars, NO POINT, and IN A STUPOR (the stupor comes on little cat feet too).

A few things:

• Trivia I didn’t know: 51d. [Drinks mistakenly invented by a Dairy Queen owner in 1958], ICEES. Had the fridge too cold, I expect.
• 33d. [Clothing misnomer more aptly replaced by “three-quart”], TEN GALLON. So the ten gallon hat holds 0.75 gallons?
• 53a. [Last syllable of a word], ULTIMA. In what context is this term used? Poetry analysis?

3.5 stars from me.

Katie Hale’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Okay, I never give star ratings because I think they’re such a blunt instrument, but…five freaking stars! I loved this puzzle! Things I loved especially:

• That the NW corner is trickily clued enough that I had to go elsewhere to get a first toehold.
• That the few meh entries(ARON,HOOT AT) were counterbalanced by so much fun that I didn’t remember them until I went clue-by-clue to do this writeup.
• 17A [Event responsible for the northern lights] isSOLAR STORM. I both learned something from and added an entry to my word list because of this clue. Win-win!
• 21A [Takes the cake?] is a clever clue for the ubiquitous (in crosswords and in life)EATS.
• 24ATREACLE. Judging from the score previously assigned to it in my word list, maybe this word isn’t for everyone, but I love it? I think it’s fun to say and is a concept I like to call out when I see it.
• 42A [Important body part in balancing] I put EAR here first and thought I had it. Nope. EYE? Also nope.TOE. Clues like this with multiple plausible possibilities of the correct letter length are what Saturdays are for. (See also: All the damn wading birds whose names are five letters long, but this is more fun than that.)
• 5D [Super Bowl goal] isAD SALE. Hahahahaha that’s a good one!
• 9D [Spiritual that lists body parts] isDEM BONES. Growing up in a mostly white Philadelphia suburb, I was taught a song in church choir calledDEM BONES about Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and did not realize that it was a Black spiritual, as is the song referenced in the clue.
• 11D [Shell stations?] is a very clever clue forPASTA BARS.
• …and we have another couple of bangers in a row with [Signal to start playing] forRECESS BELL and [Digs in canals] forHOUSEBOATS.
• I enjoyed seeing some classical South Asian mythology withRAMA at 52D.

Kevin Christian’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Well, That Took a Funny Turn!” — pannonica’s write-up

The circled squares definitely helped me to figure out the theme mechanic.

• 100a^R [Entertainers found in the circled letters in the grid] STAND-UP COMICS. First names are provided parenthetically in the clues, and they spur upward (‘stand up’) from their entries.
• 29a. [Musician’s semibreves (Jay)] WHOL{E NO}TES (Jay Leno).
  15d [Narrow way] ONE-LANE ROAD.
• 31a. [Beginning with some problems (Chris)] OFF TO A R{OCK}Y START (Chris Rock).
  8d [Part of the Tombstone Historic District] OK CORRAL.
• 63a. [Flavor enhancer (Margaret)] PINC{H O}F SALT (Margaret Cho).
  53d [“You must be kidding me!”] OH COME ON.
• 71a. [Quick drawer (Kevin)] SKETCH {ART}IST (Kevin Hart).
  46d [Like Tabasco’s Scorpion Sauce] EXTRA HOT. The most ridiculously hot thing I’ve tried lately is Wicked Cutz Carolina Killa beef jerky—had a very small piece and it was just needlessly hot, couldn’t taste any flavor at all.
• 104a. [Winery containers (Roseanne)] OAK B{ARR}ELS (Roseanne Barr).
  67d [Brother of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail] PETER RABBIT.

Nicely done. The grid was easily filled, as there wasn’t anything too difficult or tricky.

• 27a [Clapton classic] COCAINE, written and first recorded by JJ Cale. I was casting about for something more directly associated with Clapton, even though yes he had a big hit with it.
• 52a [Chaotic place] ZOO. Idiomatically.
• 76a [Ice planet in “The Empire Strikes Back”] HOTH.
  
• 94a [Word repeated by Danny in “The Shining”] RED RUM. Isn’t that a phrase? Or is it stylized as one word in the film?
• 112a [Senators’ home] OTTAWA. 120a [Oilers’ home] EDMONTON.
• 114a [Together] IN UNISON.
  
• 12d [Its capital is Monrovia] LIBERIA.
  
• 28d [Partner of magenta, yellow and black] CYAN. In CMYK printing.
• Favorite clues, and they’re next to each other: 33d [Try for bronze?] TAN. 34d [At first, maybe] ON BASE. You’d think I’d also like 58d [Chow line?] for LEASH, but no.
• 95d [Funny Brooks] MEL. Not part of the theme. If it were my decision, I’d have chosen a MEL from a different sphere, even old Mr OTT.
• 104d [Gem with fire and water varieties] OPAL. 122a [Cars advertised with the slogan “Wir leben Autos”] OPELS. Not a duplication.

Anna Stiga’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

I wasn’t really in the mood—or right frame of mind—to be solving this crossword, so I’m pleased that it didn’t take too long.

By a fair margin the upper left section was the most difficult for me. Those first three down entries all have tough clues: 1d [Name at noxing weigh-ins] DETECTO, 2d [Line on a plane] EXIT ROW, 3d [Outer space measure] ACREAGE.

6d [Elder ender] -BERRY certainly fooled me. 27a [Welsh Eugene] OWEN kept pushing me toward EWAN, but I knew that that’s the cognate to Ian/John. My initial encroachments to the area were the radial threes: 4d [Would prefer to undo] RUE, 18a [50-Across’ shape] ARC, and finally a somewhat educated guess for 17a [“L’heure d’__ (daylight saving time)] ÉTÉ.

I was going to call this a surprising fact—5d [22 Peace Prize winners, through 2023] ASIANS, but oops I had somehow misinterpreted it as Nobel Prize winners.

• 28a [Monthly opening, maybe] ART EDITOR. I see this has already been discussed in the comments. I concur with those who say it suggests a magazine or other periodical.
• 37a [What Twitter was in ’23] REBRANDED. To say the very least.
• 38a [Fencing choice] CEDAR. Insidious clue for when we’re in the midst of the summer Olympic games (see 17a), but I was half-expecting such a misdirection.
• 42a [What Scrooge did] DREAMED. Really vague clue.
• 51a [Consequently] THEN, not THUS.
• 52a [What’s said for a spoken-for seat] IT’S TAKEN. Didn’t put this in for a long while because I suspected it would be something less obvious.
• 9d [Needing a car wash, say] BESPATTERED. Not a word you see every day, and certainly not in crosswords.
• 14d [Bean or brain] BOP. Verbs.
• 21d [China replacer in ’81] NANCY REAGAN. In her capacity as first lady, in the White House. Tricky.
• 22d [Surmount] GET OVER.
  
• 31d [In a selling mood] BEARISH. You’d think I’d be able to easily recall which is BullISH and which is BEARISH, but I have to stop and consider deeply every time I’m confronted with the choices. At least I was able to fill in more than half the letters, which was helpful.
• 35d [Whom Picasso first met in Paris] MATISSE. Another wildly vague clue, despite the two long-lived giants of 20th-century art often being paired in histories and analyses.
• 36d [Different all the time] PROTEAN, named for the Greek mythological figure Proteus.
• 38d [One of only four elements with a unique last letter] COBALT. Who knows what the other three are?
• 44d [Become] SUIT. As in, “that outfit becomes you.”
• 48d [Brooklyn is part of it] NBA. Obvious misdirect for NYC, but wow this is a bad clue, in my opinion. 47a [48-Down retiree Manute Bol, e.g.] SUDANESE confirms that the answer is indeed the National Basketball Association and not some little-known group like ‘North Brooklyn Artisans’.

Whew!