Thursday, August 1, 2024 | (2024)

BEQtk (Darby)

LAT4:47 (Gareth)

NYT16:47 (ZDL)

WSJ9:57 (Jim)

Alan Siegel’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Horsing Around”—Jim’s review

Theme answers consist of pairs of entries separated by a black square which spell out horse GAITs (53d, [Horse’s pace, which can be found jumping across black squares in rows 3, 6, 10 and 14 of this grid]).

• WALK. 17a/18a: SAVE NOW / ALKALIS.
• TROT. 23a/27a: MAESTRO / TOPICAL.
• CANTER. 42a/44a: ITHACAN / TERABIT.
• GALLOP. 57a/58a: CHAGALL / OPEN MIC.

Probably like most of you, I couldn’t see the theme until I hit the revealer. The title had me looking for horse-related content around the edges of the grid, but that was a red herring (as it were). Along the way I kept running into grumble-worthy entries that made me hope the theme was going to be worth it.

Unfortunately, I felt underwhelmed when I finally grokked the theme. Neither the title nor the revealer adequately explained why the GAITs were broken up by black squares. I would have been more inclined to like the theme if the title alluded to horse competitions. Perhaps “Equestrian Event” or “Show Jumping” would’ve fit the bill. Envisioning horses jumping over the central black bars at the various paces is probably what the constructor intended, but the title and simple revealer didn’t quite do the trick.

Furthermore, the theme did not seem intricate enough to account for so much rough fill like: AGIN, MALO, ASE, A DIET, A NAP, BCD, ATMO, ENCS, RELS, E FOR, and proper names BON AIRE and ROHE crossing at the O (it did seem the most logical choice, but still). ASIA MAP and RED DOTS felt too generic. I did like highlights SOLID OAK, EYELASH, FAKE TAN, EAST END, and SEA WORLD, but the negatives outweighed the positives.

Clue of note: 44a. [Ultrafast data transfer unit]. TERABIT. A TERABIT is a trillion bits of binary data, ergo it’s a unit of storage capacity, not data transfer speed.

2.75 stars.

Rajeswari Rajamani’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Hard (16m47s)

Today’s theme: RIPPED ABS (Many a gymgoer’s goal … or what the starred clues in this puzzle must have for their answers to make sense?)

• EXPONENTS(..next to carets)
• PONZI SCHEME(vile investment..)
• EMAILS(..marked as sent)
• ORALLY(..by talk)
• BELOW THE BELT(..nasty hits)

Slowest Thursday of the year, probably because it took me so long to divine the theme. Was trying to add unseen “ab”s to the starred answers, and then, duh, it’s in the clues — to quote Douglas Adams, “We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere, and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!”

Cracking: “Am I even good enough to have IMPOSTERsyndrome?”

Slacking:RIDGY, not to be confused with any other adjective, because it’s the worst one

Sidetracking: it occurs to me that this might be RIDGY adjacent, but anyway, here’s the best of MIDGE Maisel

Renee Thomason & Zhouqin Burnikel’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

I feel like the theme of Renee Thomason & Zhouqin Burnikel’s puzzle today struggled to tie itself off in an interesting way. The core of it is five answers with newspaper comics as their final part: PICKLES, PEANUTS, SHOE, GARFIELD and CATHY. To try and make it into a theme the clues are made to be about the comic even though the base phrase is not normally, but it felt kind of forced:

• [Popular comic strip at a deli?], DILLPICKLES
• [Popular comic strip on an ocean liner], SALTEDPEANUTS
• [Popular comic strip at a pub?], TAPSHOE
• [Popular comic strip at the White House?], JAMESGARFIELD
• [Popular comic strip at a talk show?], CHATTYCATHY

Other musings?

• Is the other meaning of [Future ENT’s course], PREMED common in the US? As in sedatives given before a GA?
• [Brand that makes Froot Loops waffles], EGGO. That sounds disgusting. Our local Kelloggs rival, Bokomo, has just released Strawberry Weet-bix and I feel like that is similarly horrific.
• [Bird that stands on cattle], EGRET. But cattle egrets are not true egrets…

Gareth

Chandi Deitmer’s USA Today Crossword, “Green Initiatives” — Emily’s write-up

I be Kermit would love this puzzle!

alt=”Completed USA Today crossword for Thursday August 01, 2024”
USA Today, August 01, 2024, “Green Initiatives” by Chandi Deitmer[/caption]

Theme: each themer starts with a type of green

Themers:

• 15a. [Symbolic peace offering],OLIVEBRANCH
• 37a. [Perfect shape, for collectibles],MINTCONDITION
• 58a. [Wise words of counsel],SAGEADVICE

Envious of this themer set? OLIVEBRANCH MINTCONDITION SAGEADVICE

Favorite fill: ITSSOSAD, POURITON, SOBEIT, and SOLIKE

Stumpers: ODOR (“trademark” made me think logo), DYE (new to me), and DETECTS (I kept thinking about the noun form for the cluing)

I’m really feeling the phrases today, as many ended up in my favorites list. Overall the cluing was more challenging for me so this was a longer solve for me, though once done none of the fill is super tricky, I just got stumped more than usual. Fair crossings helped so I got there in the end—DONTMINDME. Fun theme and themer set though and I enjoyed the hind in the title. How did you all do?

3.5 stars

~Emily

Michael Weinerman’s Fireball Crossword, “Hidden Traps” – Jenni’s write-up

This is the last Fireball of the summer as Peter is taking a well-deserved vacation in August. It was a fun one! I caught on to part of the trick early on and it helped me solve the puzzle. This is quite a feat of construction; I didn’t see the whole thing clearly until I started to write this and it isgreat. A feat of construction that was a pleasure to solve and gives two separate aha! moments? A rare thing. Thanks, Peter and Michael!

I’m giving you Peter’s grid because it’s easy to see what’s going on.

• 1a is [Hanging curveballs, perhaps] and you can follow the green toFAT PITCHES. I knew the answer and thought maybe it was a rebus until I filled inTHATCHES at 17a and all became clear.
• 20a [Guillotines] is the yellow path:DECAPITATES.
• 33a [How you might put eyes in the back of your head?] is a really fun clue. The answer isOCCIPTALLY, seen in aqua. It’s a wacky word and the clue makes it work.
• 46a [Induldging one’s misfortunes] travels the fuschia path and it’sSELF–PITYING.

And the revealer at 65a [Hidden traps found four times in this puzzle] isPITFALLS. Each of the theme answers drops down with the string PIT. So good.

A few other things:

• 5a [Safari destination] isURL. The browser, not the journey.
• 26d [In a sorry state] isMANGY. Took me a while to get that one for some reason.
• 37d [Conspiring] isIN LEAGUE. I think the clue needed a (with).
• 38a [Nicklodeon verb] isSLIME. That’s also a verb around here, or it was when had dogs and they liked to lick us…
• 48a [Palindromic elemento] isORO. For some reason I thought we were looking for a number.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: thatADRIAN VI was the only Dutch pope.