Sunday, December 31, 2023, Matt Linzer and Rafael Musa

Happy NEWYEARSEVE to all of our devoted readers! Hope you've got fun plans for the evening. For myself, Horace and Frannie are coming to Albany to usher in the New Year. Looking forward to baked brie in brioche. Mmmmmm...

Thanks to Philbo for a great week of reviews! Keeping up the theme of New Year's celebration (see yesterday's confetti filled puzzle), today we are focusing on the classic BALLDROP that takes place in TIMESSQUARE (and other places around the world, I imagine). Here, we get branching answers clued with "Before midnight" and "After midnight," each connected by the letter string BALL in a down clue. I appreciate that the constructors eschewed cluing all five of those repeated "ball"s with a deflating "-" clue, and instead came up with five different clues.

So, a lot of explaining. Here're some examples:

23A: Before midnight: Sloth, e.g. (HERBIVORE) + 36A: After midnight: Ointments infused with cottonwood or calundula, e.g. ([HER][BAL]LOTIONS), with 24D: Event for Cinderella (BALL).

68A: Before midnight: Some household expenses (WATERBILLS) + 85A: After midnight: Synchronized swimming ([WATER][BAL]LET), with 69D: Wad (up) (BALL).

I prefer the pairs where the "ball" is not actually a ball, as in the above examples, to [FOOT][BAL]LGAME. So that's four out of five. I also liked how 28A: Sloth, e.g. (SIN) echoed the first theme clue. It also made me very confused about the theme for a while!

A favorite around our house

Other fun clues include: 120A: Star sign? (AUTOGRAPH) and 58A: Hookup that might get kinky? (HOSE). 9D: Device placed under a tongue (SHOETREE) was tricky. 

This was a fun and moderately challenging puzzle. Hope you enjoyed it also!

- Colum

Saturday, 30 December 2023, Simeon Seigel

Hello!  Philbo here, back with a vengeance today after a lukewarm performance yesterday - a friendly offering for a Saturday that took me just over 6 minutes to solve.  

A peripheral New Year's theme, perhaps added as an afterthought - eight circled letters around the edges of the grid read CONFETTI, and when you complete the puzzle, the black squares transform into festively colourful shapes.  So that was a nice surprise and a fun way to wrap up my week of blogging.  On second thought (and look), maybe it wasn't such an afterthought after all:  the black squares are all separate from one another - no two are adjacent - an impressive feat of setting and also distributes the confetti nice and evenly.  

Anchoring the puzzle are 6 grid-spanning clues - 3 across and 3 down - all of which took fairly few crossers to figure out; of course, that was a tremendous help to the solve.  I suspect that was the price paid for the unique layout - a bit of an easier shade to the clues.  Hidden within was one of my all-time favourites : "Strips in a club", which, belying its racy overtones, is BACON.  (Yes!!)  And crossing that one is "Craft at camp" (CANOE).  For me, these were the highlights in what was otherwise a fairly straightforward solve. 

A few other seasonal hints - "Hour at which to sing Auld Lang Syne" (XII, which works); and I learned that "Just Another New Year's Eve" contains the lyric "Tonight's another chance to start AGAIN", which smacks of rarely-kept New Year's resolutions.  Didn't know that Tolkein contributed "Waggle" and "Wild" to the OED - can that be right?  (Calls for some additional research.)

For those regular readers among you - the Eastern Townships has transformed itself overnight into a winter wonderland, with a dusting of snow covering the landscape.  Very pretty and finally Christmassy!  

I now pass you on to the esteemed Colum, who will usher in 2024.  I wish you all well in the new year!

-philbo

Friday, December 29 2023, Robyn Weintraub

Greetings and Happy Friday from les Cantons de l'Est in Quebec, where today's crossword was solved under the watchful eye of my mother, to whom I owe whatever solving proficiency I possess... Always a treat to see Robyn Weintraub's name up at the top, and today was no exception - a chewy Friday puzzle that yielded reluctantly to steady pressure. The start was a rough one today:  I chose LEONE over MADRE for "Sierra follower" - and it was neither (TANGO, as should have been evident if I'd paid proper attention to the clue!).  I had to abandon the entire NW section and move on.  Things were looking up with "Trashy television character?", which could only be OSCARTHEGROUCH, and I felt like I was back on Ms. Weintraub's wavelength.  But no!  "Acts exceedingly friendly" - I entered OOHSANDAHS without a second thought (it's OOZESCHARM for lord's sake) and poof went the SE corner and any vestigial chance of getting this thing done in a decent time.  (Oh and I'm also on my dad's laptop with its weird keyboard, and I blame that too 🙂 )

After finally straightening these things out, I was better able to appreciate the cleverer clues.  A little gem was GPA for "Calculation that might include calculus.." the 'G' of which led to SNOWBALLFIGHTS for "Cold war aggressions?", which brought a smile.  (Side note: no such thing here today - it's grey grey grey and a little green outside the window here...)  And "It's not long." (LAT) is admirable for its brevity and subtle use of punctuation..

As a final blow to my ego today, I left "Term largely replaced by 'Zoom'" as VIDEOTHAT, with the crosser "Red, white & ___ (2005 metal album)" as TRUE, which led to the dreaded FWOE.  They're VIDEOCHAT of course, and the eponymous-ish CRUE.  My heavy-metal-loving brother would hang his head in shame.

Great crossword, Ms. Weintraub!  I did not do it justice today, but I look forward to our next encounter.  Meanwhile, see y'all tomorrow...

-philbo

Thursday, December 28 2023, Kiran Pandey

Greetings my fellow Crossword Mavens!  Keeping it short and sweet today, as it's Wed pm as I type this and I'll be on the road all day tomorrow, driving to visit my beloved Parental Units in the next province over.  This was a fun one today, with five common words/phrases clued as laudatory Gen-Z film commentary.  (Is Gen-Z right?  I've lost track of my 'Gen's...) They were quite funny for the most part - so I'll list 'em here:

• "That 1978 musical?  Amazing movie!" : GREASEFIRE
• "That 2009 Pixar film?  Incredibly well made!" : UPTIGHT
  
• "That 2013 Disney movie?  Pretty decent!" : FROZENSOLID
• "That 2009 science fiction flick?  Freaking epic!" : MOONLIT (a tiny bit of a stretch, this one)
  
• "That 2011 neo-noir? Insanely good!" : DRIVECRAZY

I'll leave the required re-punctuation in your capable hands.  Pretty sure I've never used any of these adjectives in this way, superannuated fellow that I am.  I did note that my favourite Thai soup - TOMYUM - makes an appearance and could also have been clued as "That English actor Hardy?  Oh, I could just eat him up!".  ha ha ... maybe I should leave the cluing to the pros....

I didn't try too hard to solve these on first encounter, letting the crossers do their work instead.  Had a brief hiccup in the SW corner, entering BOXSET instead of DVDSET for "Complete collection, say", which led to BMINOR as the Baroque "key of glory" (wrong - it's DMAJOR; of course it's a major key).  But no lasting damage done there.  Interesting that Steve Jobs once worked at ATARI, maker of my family's very first video game.  I thought I was tripped up by VIRTU ("Collection of traits necessary for the 'achievement of great things', per Machiavelli) but no, that's the right answer - had to Google it and won't transcribe the details here, but it's basically Italian for "virtue".  And when o when will it finally stick in my head that there's such a cereal as OREOOS??

Liked the factoid about SHIVA and the river Ganga. Liked the reminder that the Beatles' JUDE was a boy.  Didn't like ALOES. 

Gotta run.  Friday's submission will come to you from Quebec's beautiful Eastern Townships.  Until then, mes amis!

-philbo

Wednesday, December 27 2023, Kareem Ayas

The prevailing wisdom is that the demise of the dinosaurs on Earth was brought about by a massive asteroid strike, which disrupted the global climate enough to make the planet inhospitable to the giant creatures - and paved the way for the rise of furry little mammals.  (Meanwhile, the various insects just continued on unperturbed..)  That's the theme of today's puzzle - scattered through the grid are dinosaurs, all split across adjacent clues and missing their tails.  To wit - LEBRON ("'King James'") is next to TOE ("Word before nail or after steel"), and there, hidden within, is BRONTO, split in two and missing its SAURUS tail. There are three other similarly hidden/truncated dinosaurs to be found.  Now, to be terribly pedantic, if the suggestion is that the ASTEROID (one of the revealers at 4D) broke the dinosaurs in half and vaporized their tails, I don't think it worked quite that way..  :)  The missing tails are amusingly revealed toward the bottom of the puzzle, as "Writer's reference...or what the shaded letters are missing?", which of course is THESAURUS.  Nice one!

As an extra cataclysmic reference, "Something possibly triggered during a mass extension event" is SEISM, which an asteroid strike would undoubtedly have caused, resulting in huge tidal waves o'er the land.  Also - in a nod to the creatures whose names don't lend themselves to the theme - "Features of many ceratopsians" is HORNS of course.

Outside of this apocalyptic theme, lots of nice cluing is to be found.  It *is* still the Yuletide season, so ADESTE Fidelis fit right in.  I remember doing the encryption thing as a kid, where you wrap a strip of paper around a pencil and write your message on it, but I never knew it was called SCYTALE.  Never heard of the PRITZKER architecture award - you don't see that in a crossword every day.  But of course the real treat for me was seeing my own name - PHIL - the father on Modern Family!  I shall cherish this moment.  (IKID of course)

I shall leave you with that.  I hope wherever you are is more Christmassy than the view outside our window here in Toronto right now, which is: pelting, angry rain...  >sigh<

-philbo

Tuesday, December 26 2023, Neil Shook

It's a Boxing Day theme today, with six different four-letter toys rolled up into 2x2 squares, scattered around the grid and revealed by "Places for playthings" (TOYBOXES).  I found this neat in a few different ways; first, there are so many of them (six is a lot, in a 15x15 grid); second, they're all rolled the same way, clockwise from the upper left (although there's some ambiguity there, if you care to look for it); and third, one of them (YOYO) is attached to the revealer answer, which is an added bonus.  

A nice Tuesday puzzle forms the substrate.  I found the layout today made the connections between grid sections somewhat tenuous, which led to slower-than-usual progress.  LEGOSET made me smile - I got one for Xmas (the Mars Rover) - a nice Zen-ish activity in the lazy days before the New Year.  Raised my eyebrows at OPTIMUMS ("OPTIMA", surely?  Well, ok...)  MTDOOM formed a LOTR connection to yesterday's puzzle, which featured Samwise Gamgee.  A near-Natick for me at the intersection of NORMA ("Fashion designer Kamali") and PADMA ("Author Lakshmi.."), but the crossing letter could only really have been an 'A'.  And the prize today for oblique cluing was for TEN ("What's rolled to get from Free Parking to Go to Jail") - love it!

Not much else to report.  Fun puzzle and nice debut by Mr. Shook!  CYA tomorrow..

-philbo

Monday, December 25 2023, Amie Walker

Merry Christmas/Seasons Greetings all!  Whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope there is warmth and joy in your hearts.  I am typing this on an Xmas gift from my son - a brand new Bluetooth mechanical keyboard - a major step up from my klunky dirty old one.  I thought the NYT crossword, and this review, would be the ideal way to put it through its paces!   Today's effort bore fruit - the theme being three pop songs with fruit in their titles.  I love the way these were clued - by artist and excerpts from the songs themselves - so the answers weren't apparent (not to me anyway - my wife would probably have identified all three immediately) and required help from the crossers. The revealer was clever too - 'THATSMYJAM' with its doubly apt musical and fruity connotation!  Very nicely done.

Outside the theme, it was nice breezy Monday fare.  I am unsure about WADE ("Walk in water up to one's ankles, say") - I think of wading as being in deeper water.  And NEWB ("Novice, informally") gets me every time - I entered NOOB (which I think is actually spelled with zeros, not 'O's) and had to backtrack.  I had never heard of the  vitamin BIOTIN, so there's my Christmas learnin' right there.  (Looked it up.  It's one of the 'B' vitamins of course.  Neat!)  And a special inventiveness shoutout for the cluing of ONE ("Number of times Rose tells Jack she loves him, in 'Titanic'")!!

That's all the REVIEW you get today; you'll have to take this ASIS. I'm going to DASH, or TEAR, off now to be with my family.  PEACE!

-philbo