Tuesday, February 7, 2023, Ellen Leuschner

Today's theme clues list a set of things that literalize a common expression. So to make a DAISYCHAIN, the clue is a set of people named Daisy ("Buchanan-Duck-Duke"). We have a PILE up of trucks ("Silverado-Ram-Tundra") that form a PICKUPLINE (my favorite), and a trio of axes, if I may, ("Fender-Gibson-Yamaha"), that make up a GUITARSTRING - too bad there weren't six of those! We also have SUBWAYSERIES ("Paris Métro-BART-London Underground"), but I missed the boat on that one. I don't know what a subway series is. 

I was briefly puzzled by the five-letter answer for "Snack-motivated Great Dane of toons" because I couldn't cram Scooby-Doo in there, but thanks to some meddling Down answers, the mystery was eventually cleared up, and all we needed was SCOOB. 

Horace and I recently started watching a performance of Sondheim's "Into the Woods" so MAGICBEAN ("One of several traded for Jack's family cow, in a fairy tale") was fresh in my mind. I enjoyed the clue "One getting shorter throughout the morning" for SHADOW. I thought "Third degree?" for PHD was amusing. I accepted REBUFF as some fine, rarely-seen fill.

I'll LEAF you with a final thought: as I reviewed the completed grid, it crossed my mind that with ARIA, SONG, and SACRE, you could almost have an AIRSUPPLY. :)

~Frannie.

Monday, February 6, 2023, Taylor Johnson

OHHI everyone, Frannie here. OMAN does it feel like a long time since I last wrote a review. I am a little late with it this morning - it's not that I want to OVOID it, it's just that some times the daily GRINDR gets in the way. You know how it is.

As I assume I'll never see an EARTHRISE IRL - I fear my chances of going into outer space at this point in my life are vanishingly small -  I'll enjoy it via this puzzle, where we see the word EARTH appear in shaded squares HIRE and HIRE in the puzzle from left to right.

I very much enjoyed the C/APs "Not yet found, as a criminal" (ATLARGE), "Maximum allowed" (LIMIT), and "Courage, metaphorically" (GUTS). Fill-wise, I liked SQUIRM, STASHED, and PEPITA. I also like REMIT, which probably surprises no one who knows me. 

I liked the auditory pairing of PURR and PER. Neatly, the Down answer off of PURR is PERM. Also, HEARTHEALTHY is followed by KALE in the Down clues. Coincidence or consequence. :)

Not my fastest Monday ever (6:19), even though I hit only one tiny trouble spot. Even as I typed in 'hon' for "Sweetie" at 41A one half of my brain thought, "could be BAE," the other half eventually said, "IHEARTHAT."

~Frannie.

Sunday, February 5, 2023, Jeremy Newton

HOLLYWOOD REMAKES

Wow. Just wow. 

Can that be my entire review of this puzzle? No? OK, I'll show my work...

"You there, hoarding the Quattro razor! Scram! [2002]" clues SCHICKHOGGO, which sounds like "Chicago," a movie that came out in 2002.

And here's another one: "Why the Devil was forced to pay 'The Greatest' [1969]" clues HELLOWEDALI. Or, "Hell owed Ali," which sounds like, well, you get it.

My favorite is AHMIDDAYYES (Cry after remembering to meet at noon [1984]) (Amadeus).

I mean. You kind of have to just sit back and appreciate the effort with these. And the revealer is spot on - OSCARWINNER SOUNDMIXING. That's really quite good.

In other news, I enjoyed the triple-S of CHESSSET, and under that DARKHUMOR (It may produce both a cringe and a laugh) was good. "Therein lies the rubbed" was a fun clue for SPA. I loved both sides of "Skedaddle, with 'it'" (HIGHTAIL), but I'm not familiar with the term NODSOUT (Dozes after a dose, say), and WALLHUNG (On display, as a painting) was surprising. And "Travel through time?," although a clever clue for AGE, is still too soon. :) And speaking of clever - "End of a flight, in two senses" (LANDING) was quite good.

There's a lot of theme, and so we end up with a little HONG (Part of H.K.), CDT, and XOO (Losing line in tic-tac-toe), but, well, that theme. It's worth the price of admission. I mean how can you read THUMBMADETRICKS (Some optical illusions created with one's fingers [1999]) and not say "Wow"?

- Horace

Saturday, February 4, 2023, Kate Hawkins

This one was a struggle! Just about perfect for a Saturday. 

Lots of good stuff. Where to start? How about with the paired clues, like the sort-of-symmetrical "Booty" clues for HAUL and SEAT? Or "Dazzling" (GORGEOUS) and its neighbor "Dazzle" (ENCHANT). Or "Be that as it may ..." cluing the connected HOWEVER and EVENSO. Am I missing any?

The command to GOOUTSIDE would probably get a GOSHNO today here in Massachusetts. It was 11 below zero when I woke up!

Loved MOONSHOT (Ambitious goal or innovation), BENEVOLENT (Given to giving), and TRUELOVE (Unconditional condition?) (lovely clue). And the long conversational answers were all good, too: IGNORETHAT ("Actually, never mind"), CUTTOTHECHASE (Make a long story short), and LETSSEESOMEID (Line at the door of a bar), PICKMEUP (Mood booster), and HITSANERVE (Gets too personal with zingers, say). And then there's STEERCLEAR (Keep away), BEACHREAD (Summer novel, typically), and ARTHOUSE (Fine film forum). It's all so good. Everywhere you look!

Not much to do as a reviewer in situations like this except just say that Ms. Hawkins is a DEFT constructor. She will not be BOOED by me. :)

- Horace

Friday, February 3, 2023, Barbara Lin

This was a satisfying solve. I broke in quickly with ALEC (Guinness with an Oscar), QUAD (Thigh muscle, informally), and BELLCURVE (Result of a normal distribution), then pretty much the whole right side fell down from that. The exotic ELKHOUNDS beside the beautiful CLEMATIS, running through the more commonplace BUTTSOUT (Minds one's own business), MUNIS, and WEEDS. And while I, myself, have enjoyed riding centuries, the clue "Long ones can be measured in centuries" does not sound quite right. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when bikers talk about a century they are talking about a specific ride of 100-miles. I suppose it is possible that, if, say, you were in the Tour de France on a particularly long day, you could say "That was like doing two centuries!" but again... not at all common. Not least because for most riders, that would be the equivalent of 8-10 hours in the saddle.

My driver's license includes the words ORGANDONOR, because I believe that life-saving pieces should not be as hard to get as UNOBTANIUM (dumb word, but whatever). 

I was fooled by both hidden capitals in the SW - "Crush cans, maybe" (GRAPESODAS) and "Perseverance, e.g." (MARSROVER). And yes, I was also fooled again by "Edges of a diamond?" (DEES). Gah! When will I learn!?

"Nurses" was good for SIPSON, NOTEWORTHY was "Striking," and I was expecting a plural when I read "Some striped strips," but no, it's everybody's favorite - BACON! Hey, have I mentioned that I was in two separate BACON-eating contests? Well, I was. And the great thing about that was that everybody was a winner going in - it was free, and we got to eat all the bacon we possibly could! Good times... And speaking of BACON, I grew up in Worcester, the birthplace of DINERS! I'd try the Miss Worcester someday IFIWEREYOU - it's my favorite. :)

Overall, a lovely grid. I have no complaints AVEC ceci.

- Horace

Thursday, February 2, 2023, Elise Corbin

Earlier this week I learned a little about heterogeneous catalysis at a bar, and now here I am reading about gravitational lensing, modified Newtonian dynamics, and entropic gravity because I did a Thursday crossword puzzle ... What is to become of me?

But seriously, it's all too rare that science works its way into a crossword, and today's [DARKMATTER] PHYSICS theme seems tailor-made for such a crossover. The missing letters do not account for 85% of the puzzle (thank goodness), as it is supposed dark matter does in the universe, but certain answers cannot be explained by currently accepted theories of spelling, and therefore imply the presence of missing elements. WORDED differently, the ten letters that spell DARK MATTER are missing, in order, from the beginning of ten Across answers. Some are left of the left edge, some are hidden in black squares. None have anything to do with Down answers. Also, elegantly, the grid appears to be complete without them, just as the universe appears to mostly make sense, but the clues - like the behavior of some galaxies - cause us to look more deeply for answers. Tidy.

OK, maybe I'll drop the whole "working from the Dark Matter Wikipedia page" thing now and just talk about the rest of the puzzle...

There's a lot to like here. DECKCHAIR (Seat on a ship) puts me in mind of summer, which is nice, as we in Massachusetts have some low temperatures INSTORE over the next day or so, and that will put some people into HYSTERICS. Me, I'm not too bothered by cold weather INGENERAL, but prolonged cold will EATAWAY at anyone's warmth, right?

AROUSER (One giving a wake-up call) is rough, and SARD (Orangish-brown gem) is decidedly "late-week," but the crosses were fair.

This was a fun one. Big thumbs up.

- Horace

p.s. Congratulations on the NYTX debut, Elise Corbin. What a way to break in! And for all of you who want more science-y crosswords, Elise has a blog for you.

Wednesday, February 1, 2023, Dan Caprera

Is it a coincidence that this theme runs at the same time that a "green-hued comet from the outer solar system" will ARC through our sky for the first time in 50,000 years? Not to me it isn't. I can see right through this whole charade. But I'll play along and just review it as if nothing is happening. Because really, what choice do I have?

So... today we witness three SPACECRAFT picking up three-letter earthly objects using TRACTORBEAMS, with each abductee crying out in their own way as they are dragged up. It's a fun theme, and it looks great. Why the aliens want a car, I don't know. As if they needed combustion engine technology. Hah.

And because I like the theme so much, today I smile UNABASHEDLY at entries like SMILERS (Some cheerful folks) and KLEPTOCRATIC (Like a government led by thieving politicians), which are, um, pushing it. 

We just rode the ACELA last month, and although it was very nice, and I highly recommend it as a way to avoid being IRKED by traffic, I wish there were a true BARCAR. Wouldn't that be fun? 

There's a bit of alphabet soup (FSU, CCL, ETO, SRS, CGI, TBS), but, well, I don't much care today. It all went along pretty smoothly, and it was a goofy, fun theme. Thumbs up. Now go get your life in order, because the aliens will be here soon.

Peace out.

- Horace