Saturday, July 20, 2024 | (2024)

LAT2:30 (Stella)

NYT8:46 (Sophia)

WSJuntimed (pannonica)

Ricky J. Sirois’s New York Times crossword—Sophia’s recap

Happy Saturday everyone! Sophia here covering for Amy.

I loved all six answers included in today’s triple stacks. BUCKET LIST, IN HOT WATER, and STARS ON ICE start things off strong up top. I liked the juxtaposition of the HOT WATER and the ICE specifically. And then on the bottom, we’ve got BABY BOOMER on STREET TACO on THAT TRACKS. I thought the STREET TACO clue of [Popular choice for un antojito (“little craving”)] is a great example of a “definition” clue that didn’t have to be boring while still being straightforward.

The top right corner was the hardest for me, mostly because I had “last stop” instead of LAST EXIT for [The end of the road, say], which made it super hard to see EXXON and THE EYE. I also wasn’t familiar with LANA Wood, so that also increased the difficulty.

Quick hits on the rest of the puzzle:

• Things that I knew quickly that will probably hold up other people: David GUETTA (a 2010s staple), NEZ PERCE (I’m from the Pacific Northwest)
• Things I didn’t know that held me up: [Spanish province whose capital is Bilbao] for BISCAY, [Punish like Montresor does Fortunato in “The Cask of Amontillado”] for ENTOMB
• Some great tricky clues today: [Supreme leader?] for Diana ROSS was my favorite, followed by [Gal of note] for GADOT and [Reward for staying] for TREAT (like you would give a dog).
• The fill is overall very clean, with the exceptions of EELY and plural COREYS. Some people might include LOTR on that list, but I am not one of those people.
• There are only 10 three letter words in this puzzle and no words over 10 letters. This layout means there are a bunch of midlength answers that can be hard to make shine, but Ricky did a great job choosing answers and writing clues to make everything Saturday-appropriate-tricky while still being interesting.

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Heads of State” — pannonica’s write-up

The way this one works is that the capital city mentioned in each clue signals that its two-letter state abbreviation is to be prefixed to a familiar phrase, yielding the wackified one defined.

• 21a. [Aids for sewing dirndls in Montgomery?] ALPINE NEEDLES (AL {Alabama} +pine needles).
• 31a. [Group of deep-cleaning experts from Columbia?] SCRUBBER BAND (SC +rubber band).
• 49a. [Not making the best of peak sunbathing hours in Olympia?] WASTING RAYS (WA + stingrays).
• 55a. [Training somebody to be less fickle in Sacramento?] CAPRICE FIXING (CA +price fixing).
• 78a. [Centuriones Romani in Baton Rouge?] LATIN SOLDIERS (LA +tin soldiers).
• 87a. [Eccentric folks with the most money in Providence?] RICHEST NUTS (RI +chestnuts).
• 100a. [Latest art-house movies in Lincoln?] NEWEST INDIES (NE +West Indies).
• 116a. [Study of the War of the Roses in Tallahassee?] FLORAL HISTORY (FL +oral history). Um, the War of the Roses wasn’t really a floral affair.

This was a fun workout. Not super-innovative, but enough of a twist to keep things engaging for the full 21×21 solve.

• 1a [Get informed] READ UP.
  
• 20a [Magic bullet] PANACEA. I was on a roll with other semi-guesses in the grid, so I felt my luck would validate CURE-ALL here. Nope.
• 37a [Turophobe’s bane] CHEESE. Not seeing a lot of dictionary support for this presumably rare condition (OneLook links only to Urban Dictionary), but Dictionary.com featured it as their word of the day back in November 2019. Derivation is ultimately from Greek tȳrós (cheese).
• 40a [Site of France’s largest Gothic cathedral] AMIENS. Some ancient memory from college art history classes must have survived, because I instantly knew this with about 70% confidence.
• 52a [Dojo degree] DAN. Appears right below 43a [Birds that didn’t know to fear humans] DODO, so it might function as a gentle nudge.
• 106a [Ordinal number suffix] -ETH. As intwentieth, thirtieth, etc.
• 1d [Paper package] REAM. Twentyquires comprise a ream.
• 18d [Disinterested chooser’s choice] NEITHER. I feel the clue better suggests EITHER.
• 32d [Miscreant] BAD ACTOR, not BAD APPLE, which would have duped 23a [Device that can serve as a HomeKit hub] APPLETV.
• 79d [Headquarters for the Manhattan Project] OAK RIDGE. I guess Los Alamos was just the testing site.
• 88d [Doughy item in a dinner basket] HOT ROLL. Hot?

Matthew Sewell’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

Another classic Stumper experience. Just a couple of toeholds to start, then a few more pieces, some weaving, some serious impasses, some insights and breakthroughs, and finally diligence rewarded.

• 5a [Lee alternative] BRAD. Nothing to do with jeans.
• 9a [Make liquid] CASH. As a check, I guess. Anyway, it’s a verb here.
• 16a [Pop icon with an Our Way podcast] ANKA. 14d [Pop icon who lived across the street from Neil Diamond] SEDAKA. Jeez, all of these guys referenced in the same crossword??
• 20a [Defiant non-apology] I SAID WHAT I SAID. Yup.
• 22a [Modern romancee] BAE. 5d [Mac, these days] BRUH.
• 23a [Part of a peak performance] YODELS, not ASCENT.
• 31a [Runner with six toes] EMU. Not on each foot, just to be clear.
• 41a [“Bingo!”] UH-HUH. 44d [“Bingo!”] SURE IS.
• 45a [Stop posting] ETA, not STA.
• 54a [Online source request] CITATION NEEDED. Getting this lengthy entry early on, with relatively few crossings, was very helpful to the solving process.
• 59a [Rude dude] BOZO, not BOOR.
• 60a [Desirable character trait] LEGIBILITY. Whether in handwriting or type design.
• 64a [Frequent filers] CPAS. Easy to misread this clue.
• 3d [Mixologist’s shortening] RITA, formargarita. I do not approve.
• 4d [Native Americans who named a sea] CARIBS. I’m sure they had a name for it, but what did they call it? As it is, they’re the namesake of what we now call the Caribbean Sea.
• 8d [Girl Scout “dancy” cookie] DO-SI-DO. Another linchpin entry, which at long last helped me to complete that upper section of the grid.
• 10d [What Animal Farm has been called] ANTISOVIET. Ya think?
• 24d [Set off] BEGUN, not ANGER.
• 25d [Eastern end of the transcontinental railroad] OMAHA. You’d think it would be, y’know, kind of farther east. >consults Wikipedia< Aha, it seems to be a terminology issue: there have been numerous North American transcontinental railroads.
• 26d [Fusion favorite with salmon-topped slices] SUSHI PIZZA. I’ll take the clue’s word for it. Also, this had better not be a heated foodstuff!
• 29d [Tutta la __ (till dawn)] NOTTE.
  
• 30d [Whom Tiger tied for PGA Tour wins in 2019] SNEAD. The clue isn’t explicit that that’s all-time wins.
• 42d [Miss Piggy welcome] HIYA. Isn’t this also what she says when performing a karate chop? “hiii-YA!”
• 51d [It shares an etymology with “nepotism”] NIECE. Another key entry for my solving process, which I was able to get by provisionally putting in the -ING from 50a [Carrying on] PLYING.
• 54d [Joint venture] CO-OP. 58d [Joint venture] DYAD.
• 55d [Rows of starts on a 5o-state flag] NINE. Deceptively straightforward clue.

Emily Biegas’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Things I liked about this puzzle:

• Learning some new facts like that HENNA is a [Beard dye in some cultures] and that KOI is a [Coldwater breed that originated in Niigata, Japan]
• Good use of fill-in-the-blanks, which are often associated with easy puzzles but can be great in themelesses when there’s more than one word that can go in a blank. Because FITBs are usually done for shorter answers, when this happens in a themeless it can cause a short entry that might otherwise be used as a toehold on the puzzle to force you to move elsewhere to get that toehold. Examples: 25A [Red ___] which could easily be SEA instead of the correct ALE; 28A [Tony Gwynn’s “The ___ of Hitting”], which could plausibly be TAO or who knows what else instead of the correct ART; 20A [___ rock], which has oodles of possibilities that you have to use some crossings to narrow down to YACHT.
• 24D [Eugene or Gary] which totally fooled me into thinking this was a clue asking for two people with the same last name, rather than that each is a CITY.
• 29D [Air drops?] is a cute clue for MIST.

Things I didn’t like about this puzzle:

• The grid design. The black square count is 40, which is awfully high for a themeless. If it’s going to be that high, I’d like it to lead to some pretty great marquee answers and/or some cool grid art. I thought the longer entries were
• Seemed like more one-word clues than usual.

BTW, although the classic [Arnold Palmer ratio] is indeed ONE TO ONE (lemonade to iced tea), may I recommend 1:2 or even 1:3? I’m not into sweet drinks and find that adding more (unsweetened) iced tea when I make one of these leads to a more refreshing beverage.