Wednesday, August 14, 2024 | (2024)

LAT5:06 (Gareth)

NYT5:23 (Amy)

WSJuntimed (Jim)

Sam Donaldson’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

Welcome to the Math Salon! 48a. [With 56-Across, hairstylist’s observation (that also applies to 17-, 25- and 34-Across?)] clues YOUR ROOTS / ARE SHOWING. Those other three themers are phrases with numbers, but the numbers shown are the square roots of what’s in the familiar phrase:

• 17a. [Seventh heaven], CLOUD THREE. Three squared is nine.
• 25a. [March Madness round], SWEET FOUR. 4² = 16.
• 34a. [Beatles hit written by a teenage Paul McCartney], WHEN I’M EIGHT. 8 × 8 = 64, and last Thursday would’ve been my parents’ 60th anniversary, they having gotten married on 8/8/64. Yes, they had a little bit of the times table engraved inside their wedding rings.

The revealer is the dad joke angle that sells the theme. Sam, we expect no less from you!

Fave fill: COLOR IN (touch up your roots, eh?), TOOK A BOW, “OH, LOOK,” STODGY.

Three more things:

• 14a. [“High” time], NOON. Ah! But today, “high” time was about 11:30 for whoever was smoking weed not far from my windows. Isn’t that like morning drinking on a weekday?
• 39a. [Major league?], ARMY. Tricky clue or dad joke? There’s a fine line.
• 32a. [Gym rep], CURL. Shoot, I forgot to do my PT exercises today. I’d better sign off and do them now!

Didn’t love all the fill here. Bits like ODO-, GIAN, ACT I, CDT, and ho*r are meh.

3.75 stars from me.

Adam Vincent’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “At-Will Employment”—Jim’s re-cap

I’m still taking some time off, so I didn’t solve this puzzle, but here’s a re-cap. Theme answers describe people or organizations who employ famous people named Bill as identified by the clues. The revealer is PAY THE BILLS (57a, [Make ends meet, and a hint to what four answers in this puzzle do]).

• 16a. [Clinton] WE THE PEOPLE.
• 20a. [Murray] FILM EXECS.
• 34a. [Cody] WILD WEST SHOWS.
• 52a. [Gates] MICROSOFT.

It took me a few minutes to make sense of the theme, but it works for me. What do you think?

The fill looks quite nice, especially WINNIPEG, WIIMOTE, HONEYBEE, and OPEN MIND.

Sala Wanetick and Emily Biegas’ Universal crossword, “Autonomous Government” — pannonica’s write-up

As of this moment, I don’t feel I fully grasp the theme here. Perhaps I’ll be more enlightened after working through the entries in the write-up.

• 55a^R [Scenario where computers gain world domination, and what caused the starred clues not to match their answers?] AI TAKEOVER. It’s obvious that the bigram AI has replaced a pair of consecutive letters in each of the theme entries, but I can’t make sense of the previously-present letters, nor do I detect any connection among those answers in either their before or after versions.
• 17a. [*Apollo Lunar Module, for one] MAINLANDER (moon lander).
• 34a. [*Asiago and Romano] CHAISES (cheeses).
• 3d. [*”How strange”] THAT SAID (that’s odd).
• 36d. [*Reveres] AIRSHIPS (worships)

Still not seeing any commonalities. Let’s put them in grid order: OO, OD, EE, WO. Nope, nothing—and it doesn’t look promising at all. I have to conclude that it’s just a one-part theme.

Okay, let’s move on to my peeve. 4d [“Council,” for “counsel”] hom*oNYM. More specifically, these are hom*ophones (as opposed to hom*ographs). m-w’s discussion of the various terms here.

• 26a [Modest dress worn in Muslim communities] ABAYA. Seems like a useful word for crosswords; surprised we don’t see it more often.
• 33a [Inapt rhyme of “glad”] SAD. 63a [Apt rhyme of “shriek”] EEK.
• 48a [FX franchise whose middle letter stands for “horror”] AHS, American Horror Story, which I have not seen any episodes of.
• 44d [Certain spray bottle] MISTER. I use one for myFittonia, which is what it needs, as a tropical rain forest plant close to the ground.

Jess Rucks’ USA Today Crossword, “Don’t Move a Muscle! (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up

Hold it right there!

Favorite fill: CATSCRADLE, CAREBEARS, EGRETS, and STRUGGLEBUS

Stumpers: NADACOLADA (new to me), NERDALERT (cluing threw me off with what seemed like a positive slant), and SPLEEN (forgot about this organ!)

This puzzle took me longer than usual, as today the cluing just didn’t click as well for me. How’d you all do? A great mix of fill, especially the lengthy entries. A solid puzzle with a lovely grid!

3.75 stars

~Emily

Robyn Weintraub’s New Yorker crossword – solution grid

Emma Oxford & Hannah Binney’s AV Club Classic crossword, “For the Heads”–Amy’s recap

The theme’s tied together by BRAIN FOOD, and all the themers are foods whose names contain a slang term for the brain or head: MUSKMELON, CORN NUT, CUP NOODLE(a brand of instant noodles), and JELLY BEAN. Can’t say I really know NUT in that sense, though. You could also argue that a singular CORN NUT is bogus, but I can’t really object to a single Cheeto, Frito, or Dorito, so the Corn Nut is allowed in.

The puzzle’s title doesn’t work for me, because what inherent meaning does “For the Heads” have? If I’m missing something obvious, please hit me over the head with it!

Fave fill: “YOU WISH!”, HELLION, SCIMITAR, and GROUCHO.

3.5 stars from me.

P.S. Ben T’s email with the puzzle notes, “Hannah Binney and Emma Oxford are both particle physics PhDs and crossword enthusiasts.” Conceivably, this is the first ever crossword co-constructed by particle physics PhDs!

Wendy L. Brandes’ LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

Wendy L. Brandes’s puzzle features a competently designed, if fairly well-worn theme. The explaining answer is TURNINGPALE, and the tetragram PALE is scrambled and spans across the middles of three other entries:

• [*Reacting to a “d’oh” moment], FAC(EPAL)MING
• [*Reimbursem*nt on the go], MOBI(LEPA)YMENT
• [*Last few in a series], FIN(ALEP)ISODES

Gareth