Saturday, June 22, 2024 | (2024)

LAT2:59 (Stella)

NYT6:25 (Amy)

WSJuntimed (pannonica)

Hoang-Kim Vu’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

Dang, there were a lot of things I didn’t know in this puzzle!

First up, fave fill: MISO PASTE, SPOON REST, DEATH SPIRAL, BROACHES, PLANT-SITTER (the clue perplexed me: [Temporary water provider] sounded like some sort of hose), the TROPICANA, SWEET PEAS, clothing STEAMERS, BOBA TEA, HOT DATE.

Wasn’t wild about ENTR’ACTES (which I mainly know from the formerly overused entry ENTR), ATRA (the clue, [___ Plus (pharmacy brand)], is misleading, as you don’t need to go to a drugstore to buy razors), “HERE’S A TIP,” TESTEES, BESTREW, SEA MAPS.

In the “unfamiliar to me” category:

• 36d. [Ballet exercises done at a barre], FRAPPES. Here are the various things this word can mean.
• 52a. [Cuban instrument that ironically has six strings], TRES. Here’s the Wikipedia article, and here’s a video with people playing the tres cubano.
• 45d. [All ___ (phrase in some nondenominational church names)], FAITHS. Never heard of this, nope. Many of the Google hits for “all faiths” church are for a single congregation in Fort Myers.
• 21d. [Handheld object used to release excess energy], STIM TOY. I’ll assume this is something made for folks on the autism spectrum … yep. Here’s a website with stim toys for adults. Fidget cubes, among other things.
• I think this is about American football: 44a. [One in the last line of defense, typically], SAFETY. Clue feels a tad oblique for those of us not fully fluent in football.

Another thing: 29a. [A migraine sufferer might take one, for short], EEG? I think that’s pretty uncommon. “Might” is doing a lot of work here.

Interesting clue: 6d. [Historically, it corresponded with how much a farmer could plow in one day], ACRE. Not sure I’d ever heard that before.

3.5 stars from me. The clunkier bits of fill left me wanting more in the DEATH SPIRAL vein, less in the TESTEES direction.

Wendy L. Brandes & John Lieb’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Easter egg I didn’t notice until well after I had finished solving: the stack of CRISS-CROSS on top ofAPPLESAUCE, which I’m guessing was the seed for this puzzle. Cute!

Notes and highlights:

• 26A [Letters that end a fight] is a nice angle for the ubiquitousTKO.
• 31A [Spotted] is a tough way to clueCALICO and I’m here for the toughness!
• 44A [One who may taunt “Mom loves me best”] feels like it might be triggering for some people, ha. (There’s a 13-year age gap between me and my brother and he didn’t come to this country until I was 10, so we didn’t really do this to each other!)
• 64A [Big name in salad dressing] isKEN’S,but something tells me the constructors originally clued this with reference to the multipleKENS in the Barbie movie.
• 1D [Boardwalk business] isARCADE, which was very pleasantly evocative of Silverball, which is probably the coolest place in New Jersey.
• 7D [Places with stacks of silver dollars] isIHOPS. Normally I don’t love entries that pluralize things you’re not likely to encounter in groups in real life, but the clue is clever enough that I can forgive that.
• 11D [Begin to open up?] is a clever angle onUNBUTTON.
• 30D [Furious and then some] isAPOPLECTIC, a word that’s just fun to say out loud.
• 32D [Help in turning a double into a triple] isCOT, and I gotta say this one fooled me for a while into thinking it was about baseball, especially since Patti Varol ❤️❤️❤️ baseball. In fact, it’s about turning a double hotel room into having space for three. Nice deception!

Laura Effinger-Dean’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Express Elevator” — pannonica’s write-up

I didn’t observe the title until starting this write-up, but it’s a perfect choice.

• 42d^R [Mentally agile, and a hint to the circled letters] QUICK ON THE UPTAKE. Those circled letters (in vertical entries) constitute synonyms for speed. They’re travelling up, as they’re in reverse order.
• 3d. [Utterance upon entering a garage] NOW WHERE DID I PARK (rapid).
• 6d. [“Don’t look at this in front of your boss!”] NOT SAFE FOR WORK (fast).
• 12d. [They’re used for reinforcing concrete] STEEL FIBERS (fleet).
• 55d. [TV segment whose first selection was “The Deep End of the Ocean”] OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB. Okay, maybe I was wrong about these being synonyms for speed, because this one (and the next) exemplify the whole shebang: ‘quick on the uptake’.
• 70d. [Any of more than 1,700 in Melbourne] TRAM STATION (smart).

Okay, reassessment time. I guessfast works in place of ‘quick on the uptake’ (as do smart andsharp), but I feelrapid only works as a synonym connoting speed. So I’m having trouble holding this theme together in my mind. Am I missing something?

• 13a [Olympians, e.g.] GODS. Yes, but check out these electric vehicles.
  
• 32a [English article] THE. Yes, well.
• 39a [Spooky crafts] UFOS. Yep, I was thinking of Halloween-type projects.
• 54a [Tree whose trunk may be more than 40 feet in diameter] BAOBAB, but I reflexively put in BANYAN, even though they can be significantly larger (depending on how you qualify the trunk).
• 65a [Like blue-green, colorwise] TERTIARY. The primary (reflective) colors are red, yellow, and blue, Green is a secondary hue, and combining it again generates a TERTIARY.
• 71a [“You in?”] WANNA / 72a [“So are we!”] US TOO.
• 86a [It’s a “theocratic republic,” according to the CIA] IRAN. And some influential people want the same for the US.
• 89a [One might be passed on the track] BATON. Nice clue.
• 102a [Intro to art?] THOU. Also good.
• 119a [Four letters, perhaps] MAIL. Uh, ok? But why four, or is the answer “why not”?
• 127a [Dissenting chorus] NOS. 78d [Russian refusal] NYET, also the word I use to chastise my cat, on the theory that it’s more distinctive than ‘no’. 90d [Informal refusal] NAH.
• 1d [Big supporter?] D-CUP. A little surprised to see this in the WSJ.
• 23d [Knight’s title, on “Game of Thrones”] SER. Fine, but I guess I’d prefer presenting it as the more universal Spanish infinitive.
• 28d [Belgian brew] SOUR ALE, such as the copper-colored Rodenbach Red. Yum!
• 30d [Made hole?] DUG. Ohhhh, I’m just now seeing the pun onwhole. During the solve I thought the play was on the phrase at face value, something akin tomade bank.
• 48d [Some bottled waters] DASANIS. The name seems to a purely marketing creation with no intentional etymology.
• 74d [Trio of Greek myth personifying the seasons] HORAE. That’s a reference I haven’t encountered in a long while indeed. In some accounts, the HORAE guarded the gates of Olympus, so we get a callback to 13-across.
• 75d [Flowing cirrus clouds] MARE’S TAILS. Not sure that I’ve heard this before. Wikipedia informs me that the particular subcategory iscirrus uncinus, whereuncinus means ‘hook’. (4d [Lengthens, as a fishing line] UNREELS.)
• 76d [Former third-biggest lake in the world] ARAL SEA. Shed a tear.

Stella Zawistowski’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

In the constellation of Saturday Stumpers, this one rates as rather easy, but of course none of these are a walk in the park.

My solve this time was characterized by a lot of entries I got on a second attempt.

• 1a [Grant for good] ENDOW. This should have been a gimme, but I needed some crossings to jog my mind.
• 6a [Alternative to 9] SEPT. This flummoxed me well and good, inexplicably.
• 10a [Four-year-old program] PRE-K. Once I got rid of SOLO at 11d [Aviation challenge] ROLL, I was able to derive the correct answer. Thanks also to 17a [Solo profession] I’M ALL ALONE and duplications not being much of a thing in Newman-edited crosswords. (3d [Aviation challenge] DRAG.)
• 14a [Filler of notebooks now stored in lead-lined boxes] MARIE CURIE. Great clue, in that it takes just the right amount of brainpower to reason it out.
• 19a [Abbr. on Del Monte labels] REG. Uh, ok?
• 34a [Street with Handy’s Blues Hall] BEALE.
  
• 37a [Early retirement vehicles] BASSINETS. Seeing through this one (eventually) broke open a lot of the grid for me.
• 40a [Breakup music?] ARPEGGIO, which is the “production of the tones of a chord in succession and not simultaneously” (m-w.com).
• 42a [Tadpole-shaped small things] RHOS.>side-eye<
• 44a [It preceded a Sam Walton premiere by six months] KMART. Another clue that rewarded some considered historical reasoning.
  
• 50a [Lubricant source of OPEC unconcern] EMU. 56a [Lubricant source of OPEC concern] OMAN. 1d [Address associated with OPEC] EMIR. 4d [ __ drum] OIL. Just what the hell is going on here.
• 59a [News __ ] FEED, not REEL.
• 60a [Audible kicks] MOANS. Huh?
• 5d [Taekwondo class] WELTERWEIGHT. Thanks once again to the “dupe rule” I was able to move away fromsomethingCLASS in 21d [Where dogs are often led around] BAGGAGE CLAIM. (Presumably these are drug-sniffing dogs employed by customs agents and the like.)
• 8d [Tavern serving] PINT GLASS. No idea why my mind first went to WINE GLASS.
• 24d [Article that sounds like a literary alias] EIN, for AYN Rand. Whatever.
• 25d [Playful poetic pattern] AABBA, aka a limerick.
• 27d [Postal service metallic concern] CLASP. “Concern”? Do we just mean item or feature here? Concern in that sense?
• 29d [Wishing-well verb] BLESS. Note significant hyphenation.
• 44d [Grinding It Out memoirist] KROC. That’s dark.
• 46d [Off by a lot] AFAR. One of my first bits of fill here.