Tuesday, April 23, 2024 | (2024)

LATuntimed (Jenni)

NYTuntimed (Amy)

WSJ4:30 (Jim)

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Four Cheers” — the long answers point to a common goal. – Erin’s write-up

Hello lovelies! This week’s Jonesin’ puzzle should leave the crowd aroar, because each theme entry hides a celebratoryOLE!

• 17a. [Instruction at a bench]PIANO LESSON
• 27a. [NHL #1 draft pick of 1984 and Pittsburgh Penguins superstar]MARIO LEMIEUX
• 48a. [Partier who bails early, maybe]FIRST TO LEAVE
• 64a. [Bad dancer’s excuse]TWO LEFT FEET

Other things:

• 15a. [Pavlovian response]SALIVA. It’s a correct entry. The word just gives me the icks for some reason.
• 8d. [1099-___ (IRS form)]MISC. I’m guessing most of us don’t want to be reminded of the IRS the week after Tax Day. *shudders*
• 18d. [Only “Sesame Street” character whose name is in the NATO phonetic alphabet (until Tango showed up)]OSCAR. Tango is Elmo’s puppy, and she was introduced in 2021.

Until next week!

Tim Schenck’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Reconstruction”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are pairs of entries that spell out a type of domicile in circled letters between them but separated by a black square. The revealer is A HOUSE DIVIDED (37a, [Lincoln topic, and the theme of this puzzle]). I’m not sure what kind of home our constructor lives in, but based on the choices provided, it must be pretty nice.

• Row 1: 1a [Church with roots in the Church of England] / 10a [Aspire laptops, e.g.] EPISCOPAL / ACERS. Palace.
• Row 3: 17a [Show on television] / 18a [Detectives follow them] BROADCAST / LEADS. Castle.
• Row 13: 56a [Provide with a new staff] / 60a [Some hand-woven rugs] REMAN / ORIENTALS. Manor.
• Row 15: 66a [Barista’s concoction] / 67a [Admitting] MOCHA / LETTING IN . Chalet.

Solid theme, but I have to admit, it just doesn’t excite me very much. Especially when you have weird entries like ACERS and REMAN as part of your theme. That last one is easily changed to HE-MAN (crossing HAM) as well. And I’m not keen on ORIENTALS even clued as rugs. Do people call multiple oriental rugs “ORIENTALS”? I would call them “oriental rugs.” When all you need is the OR, why not find something that doesn’t look so racist in the grid? You could even keep most of the entry the same with ORIENTING or ORIENTEER.

Other bits of clunky fill stuck out as well like SDS, ONEL, OTTOS, ALL TO, ANSI, ILO, MIS (clued as plural musical notes) and MONTI. Highlights include BALLERINA, TARHEEL, ENDEMIC, and ANCESTOR.

Clues of note:

• 51d. [Peaks, in Pisa]. MONTI. I had to look up whether there are indeed mountains near Pisa. There are. “Mount Pisano, also known as MONTI Pisani, is a mountain range that divides Pisa and Lucca. The mountains of the Monte Pisano are all shorter than 1000 m, with some resembling hills. The highest mountain is Mount Serra (917 m).”
• 62d. [“Fantasy Island” prop]. LEI. I don’t recall seeing this cluing angle before. Nice.

Three stars.

Judy Bowers’s New York Times crossword solution–Amy’s recap

The theme revealer is TWO, [Number of letters in every word of the answers to the starred clues]. The theme answers are “OH NO! EW! HE IS MY EX,” “SO IS IT / UP TO ME” (awkwardly split far apart), “DO AS WE DO,” “HI, MA. I’M UP,” and my favorite, the most natural-sounding one, “OK IF WE GO IN ON IT?”

It’s a fresh theme, but I didn’t love the stilted nature of that first seven-word phrase with its two-letter EW (I’m an EWW aficionado).

Fave fill: APRICOT, ICE MACHINE, GEN X (we get overlooked too often!), and “I KNEW IT!” (though ideally maybe we’d have no two-letter words outside of the themers). Not wild about SAYS “PRESTO,” since it doesn’t feel idiomatic to me; it’s just SAYS + {word people say}.

3.5 stars from me.

Universal Crossword Review by Matt F

Title: State Representative
Constructor: Josh M. Kaufmann
Editor: Taylor Johnson

Theme Synopsis:

Each theme answer is a state SYMBOL (60A – Emblem … and what each starred clue’s answer is, vis-à-vis its indicated letters) that contains said state’s postal code abbreviation:

• 17/18A – Official flower of the Aloha State = YELLOW HIBISCUS
• 24A – Official bird of the Hoosier State = CARDINAL
• 36A – Official mammal of the Pelican State = BLACK BEAR
• 53A – Official fish of the Prairie State = BLUEGILL
• 58A – Official appetizer of the Ocean State = CALAMARI

Overall Impressions

Postal code themes can feel a bit thin, since only 2 letters are required to make the theme answers work. What I like about this one is that each state symbol contains the state abbreviation, and that adds a nice constraint to elevate this concept. The grid stays nice and open, which is tough to do with 53 theme squares. I liked NBA FINALS, TALL ONE, ROTELLE, CASH COW, and DEBACLE among the longer stuff. The fill overall is nice and clean. Dupes don’t bother me… not even when ONE NAME and TALL ONEare placed symmetrically in the grid.

Thanks for the puzzle, Josh!

Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 674), “Don’t Forget to Write!”—Ade’s take

Hello there, everyone! Weather has gotten a little bit more springlike in the East, and hopefully that’s the case where you are as well.

Today’s puzzle contains a progression, with a set of four circles contained in five down answers. The word contained in each of the cluster of circles is “line,” which leads to the fifth themed down entry, DROP ME A LINE, which acts as the reveal (26D: [“Write!” … and a hint to the visual puzzle theme]).

• • • LINE PRINTER (3D: [Office machine that produces paper documents])
    • LINE DANCING (20D: [Doing the Madison or the Macarena])
    • EVANGELINE LILLY (7D: [Canadian actress who played Kate Austen on “Lost”])
    • CLOTHESLINE (16D: [Place for a wetsuit?])

We have a stack of 10-letter, non-themed entries in the grid, and they all come with the fire! The two in the Northeast are the highlight for me with TRAVEL TIPS (18D: [Suggestions for a jet-setter]) and CAVALCADES, a word I love using when I get the chance (15A: [Processions of riders]). It just sounds awesome to say, just like DORITOS Cool Ranch or Spicy Nacho chips are awesome to eat — even if those helped to expand my waistline before I started cutting back on too much snacking a while back (38A: [Triangular chips]). Nowadays, my snack of choice is Snyder’s unsalted pretzels. .

“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: ALTMAN (43A: [“Gosford Park” director Robert]) – One of the best college basketball coaches currently, Dana Altman has been at the helm of the University of Oregon men’s basketball team since the 2010-11 season. His biggest achievement with the Ducks was leading them to the 2017 Final Four, and he’s led Oregon to the Sweet 16 five times. Before his time in Eugene, Altman won 327 games at Creighton University between 1994 and 2010, leading the Bluejays to seven NCAA Tournament appearances. After Oregon’s first-round victory in the NCAA Tournament last month against South Carolina, Altman’s teams have won eight consecutive first-round games in the Big Dance.

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

Matthew Stock & Wendy L. Brandes’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

Monitoring the chicken soup so this will be quick. The theme answers are all residential puns.

• 16a [Digs for a member of a string quartet?] is aCELLO SUITE.
• 26a [Digs for a gym rat?] is aMUSCLE BUILDING.
• 42a [Digs for a Greek mythology buff?] is anOEDIPUS COMPLEX. This one doesn’t quite work for me. I don’t thinkOEDIPUS was a mythology buff.
• 56a [Digs for a dancer?] is aBALLET FLAT. My favorite.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that “Liberty and Prosperity” is theSTATE MOTTO of New Jersey.

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

I’ve ultimately decided not to fret about calibrating New Yorker crosswords’ difficulty level with their stated values. So—this was a relatively smooth and easygoing puzzle, in my opinion. Not much in the way of tricksiness, and any unfamiliar entries were fairly crossed.

• 1a [Class rife with division?] MATH. The question mark gave it away. 21a [Make sense] ADD UP.
• 10a [Org. whose first president was Martin Luther King, Jr.] SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference).
• 15a [Big city person?] MAYOR. Again, the question mark made it a gimme. Or perhaps I was just operating on ea’s wavelength.
• 17a “I’m so happy for you!”] THAT’S GREAT. Both can sound milquetoast, depending on delivery.
• 19a [Early film star __ May Wong] ANNA. I’ve only seen her inShanghai Express, and wouldn’t mind screening other films of hers.
• 20a [“Switched-On-Bach” instrument] SYNTH, specifically a Moog synthesizer. Not a fan of that record.
• 24a [Isfahan’s country] IRAN. I feel contractually obligated to post Duke Ellington’s gorgeous melody by that name, but since I’ve already done it so often in these pages, I’ll just link to it remotely.
• 28a [TV spinoff?] WHEEL OF FORTUNE. Cute clue. Needed some crossings, so it wasn’t totally obvious.
• 35a [Source of much modern slang: Abbr.] AAVE, African-American Vernacular English.
• 39a [Bánh mì ingredient, often] PÂTÉ, not (necessarily) PORK.
• 45a [Actress who starred in the stage and screen versions of the musical “The Color Purple”] DANIELLE BROOKS. Musicals, not my thing.
• 60a [Loaded with a disgusting amount of cheese?] FILTHY RICH. I have never in real life heard anyone call money or wealth ‘cheese’.
• 66a [Curvy shape approximated by either two hands or an index finger and thumb] HEART. Don’t know how the latter version works. Is it simply forming one-half of the figure as synecdoche?
• 67a [Lend a little money to] SPOT. 27d [“Cut it out!”] STOP (or maybe STAHP).
• 9d [Historian __ Alfonso Schomburg] ARTURO, he of Harlem’s famous Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
• 12d [Record writings] LINER NOTES. I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading them with new acquisitions. I should address that.
• 28d [Question elicited by an overly high-concept Halloween costume] WHAT ARE YOU? Nicely turned.
• 30d [Bichon __ ] FRISE. Not to be confused with the similar-looking Coton de Tulear.
• 31d [What Mitch McConnell used to block his own bill, in 2012] FILIBUSTER. Grr, politicians (in general, and that one in particular).
• 52d [First name in the rhyming name of a peg toy] LITE-Brite.

Michael Berg’s USA Today Crossword, “Breaking Free” — Sophia’s recap

Editor: Anna Gundlach
Theme: Each theme answer is contained inside the string FREE.

• 20a [Nail treatment with a white tip] – FRENCH MANICURE
• 37a [“So stinking amazing!”] – FREAKING AWESOME
• 51a [Caveman on a box of Fruity Pebbles] – FRED FLINTSTONE

Top notch theme set – I absolutely love all three theme answers Michael chose. I don’t mind the “free” being “broken” in the same place in each of the answers; it honestly might have been weird if it was the same in two and then different in just one. 14 letter answers can be tough to put into grids, so I’m always happy to see them get some love.

Fill highlights: AMARETTO, I’M GAME, ME TIME

Clue highlights: [2024 Super Bowl halftime performer] for USHER (how have I already forgotten this?), [Like some pasts and picnic blankets] for CHECKERED

New to me: “Doppelganger” author NAOMI Klein

All I was thinking about during my solve: