Wednesday, April 17, 2024 | (2024)

LAT4:58 (Gareth)

NYT4:34 (Amy)

WSJ5:18 (Jim)

This week’s AV Club Classic crossword is a contest puzzle, so no write-up till the contest ends. Watch for a write-up after the Sunday deadline.

Daniel Bodily’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Double Team”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar two-word verb phrases except the first words have been turned into proper names by virtue of doubling the final letter.

• 17a. [“The Amazing Spider-Man” director Marc catches waves?] WEBB SURFS. Don’t know the name, but hold up. The director of a Spider-Man movie is named Webb?
• 23a. [Comic Roseanne plays leapfrog?] BARR HOPS.
• 32a. [Drummer Ringo uses a crystal ball?] STARR GAZES.
• 42a. [Footballer Lynn explores the coral reef?] SWANN DIVES.
• 52a. [Rocker Joan hits the slopes?] JETT SKIS.
• 61a. [Actor Jamie rides on horseback?] FOXX TROTS. There’s another famous Jamie with a doubled last letter: Farr. But there’s no verb phrase that starts with “far” unless you stretch the theme a little with FARR REACHES.

Good theme with excellent execution. Very consistent all the way through with no questionable stretches (like in my example). Impressive to have six theme answers all in the Across direction.

That does mean the fill lacks an abundance of long sparkle, but what we do have is plenty good like DAYTRIP, ORBITER, “IT’S EASY,” STANZAS, STYMIE, JUMPY crossing HIJAB, and GATSBY. I needed every crossing for TISHRI, but that wasn’t a problem, and I learned something new. The rest of the fill is impressively smooth.

Clue of note: 28a. [Focus of a pitching scout?]. TENT. Lots of potential directions for this clue. Ultimately it came down to camping.

Good theme and a lovely grid. Four stars.

Joseph Gangi’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

One part classics, one part stunt puzzle. We have POLYPHEMUS, aka THE CYCLOPS (“the”?), as encountered in the ODYSSEY. He has ONE EYE, and the grid’s one circled letter (I CAN’T SEE/MAIM) is the one “i” in it. There’s also only one “i” in the clues, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to read through the clue list looking for it.

Favorite clue: 70a. [Wrap for a monarch?], COCOON. I was thinking of ermine and velvet and such.

Fave fill: RAN ERRANDS, but not its opposite in the grid, PASTA SALAD, because I don’t care for pasta salad (nor egg salad, tuna salad, potato salad …).

Not so keen on plural FLORAS and LEVEL A, but given the limitations posed by barring all but one “i” from the grid, it’s pretty smooth overall.

3.5 stars from me.

Prasanna Keshava’s Universal crossword, “Open AI” — pannonica’s write-up

Each of the two-word theme phrases ‘open’ with the letters A and I, respectively.

• 17a. [State park located in the San Francisco Bay] ANGELIS ISLAND.
• 23a. [General concept] ABSTRACT IDEA.
• 36a. [Inherent behaviors] ANIMAL INSTINCTS. I’m reminded of a biography book report I wrote in elementary school, about the British naturalist Gerald Durrell. In it I wrote that, upon meeting his future wife, that “she shared his animal interests”. My mother secretly realized how funny this was and did not have me change the wording.
• 49a. [Long-running singing competition show] AMERICAN IDOL.
• 58a. [Tasks to assign] ACTION ITEMS.

These are fine.

• 27d [Rad, in ’90s slang] PHAT. Unrelated etymologically, but I’ve recently been making an effort to use the useful word phatic more often. m-w defines it as “of, relating to, or being speech used for social or emotive purposes rather than for communicating information”. This in my opinion reflects a large slice of people’s media diets. There’s also an enlightening discussion of its history in the ‘did you know‘ section.
• 32d [Carrier of genetic info] DNA. I keyed on the ‘carrier’ part of the clue and first entered RNA, which is sometimes a messenger molecule.
• 48d [Mixers with gin] TONICS. Getting to be that time of year.
• 27a [Pet Shop Boys and Carpenters, for example] POP DUOS. I hadn’t known that the brother-and-sister band officially did not have the definite article in their name.
• 64a [Shout from the crowd] CHANT, not CHEER (which I feel fits the clue better).

Robyn Weintraub’s New Yorker crossword – Kyle’s write-up

Short write-up today as I’m getting to the puzzle on my lunch break. We’re back to an easy themeless from Robyn Weintraub today, with fill highlights like RUN-ON SENTENCE, POTLUCK DINNER, “DON’T GO THERE”, NOT UP TO PAR, STATIC CLING, PASTA SALAD and SPORTS PAGE. I had one error in my completed grid, having enteredACTS for 1D [First of five in “Othello” or “Hamlet”] which called for ACT I. Had I not solved that whole corner Downs-only, I’d have caught my error.

Thanks Robyn!

Emma Oxford’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary

Emma Oxford’s puzzle today feature’s a slight wrinkle on an oft-seen theme type. The revealer is WILDFLOWERS, and flower varietals are scrambled and hidden in long across answers. Today, they are contained within the first word or first two words rather than spanning between two parts:

• [*Be extremely helpful], LIVETOSERVE; violet
• [*Staged a fireworks show], LITUPTHESKY; tulip
• [*Start of an instruction to an automated assistant], SIRISETATIMER. So is SIRI[ANYTHING] a crossword entry now? iris
• [*Sensitive area], SORESUBJECT; rose

There weren’t a lot of tricksy clues and answers today:

• [Adult stage in insects], IMAGO might be new to some…
• [Sault __ Marie], STE as clued I haven’t seen in a while. It’s a small town in Canada.
• [Ger. neighbor], AUS. Except that is non-standard; AUT is usually Austria and Aus Australia.

Gareth

Chandi Deitmer’s USA Today Crossword, “Ham Sandwiches” — Emily’s write-up

Let’s dig right in before this gets cold!

Theme: each themer contains HA—M (aka a “ham sandwich”)

Themers:

• 19a. [SportsCenter anchor who was the first play-by-play announcer for the WNBA],HANNAHSTORM
• 34a. [Techie’s means of promoting social change],HACKTIVISM
• 53a. [Reasonable compromise],HAPPYMEDIUM

What a delightful feast of a puzzle! HANNAHSTORM was new to me so tricker to fill until a had several crossings. Had a kept the title in mind, which had the perfect hint, I would have gotten HACKTIVISM soon since I’m used to thinking of “code hacks” or “hackathons”. HAPPYMEDIUM fit in nicely, especially given that it was the third and the theme became overtly apparent even without me thinking about it. Tasty!

Favorite fill: EVENSO, ONEMORE, and MINIME

Stumpers: REST (every other notation came to mind before this: “note”, “staff”, “clef”), FETE (could only think of “gala”), and SITTERS (try to put “pet” or “baby” before it but clearly it didn’t need either)

Fun grid, loved the theme and themer set, enjoyed the overall and lengthy bonus fill! Cluing was a bit trickier for me today, which is a good workout sometimes—everything fairly crossed though so not too hard which is nice. Enjoyed every BITE and I hope we get another helping soon of these excellent puzzles!

4.0 stars

~Emily