Monday, June 3, 2024 | (2024)

BEQtk (Matthew)

LAT2:50 (Stella)

NYT3:39 (Sophia)

WSJ4:24 (Jim)

Alana Platt’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s write-up

Theme: ON THE BOARD – things that are found on various literal boards.

• 17a [*King or queen, but not prince] – CHESS PIECE
• 35a [*Artfully arranged meats] – CHARCUTERIE
• 10d [*Texture in a cross section of timber] – WOOD GRAIN
• 32d [*Cousin of a pushpin] – THUMBTACK
• 56a [Helping to manage a nonprofit, say … or where to find the answers to the starred clues?] – ON THE BOARD
• and also: 61a [Skater Tony who is also 56-Across?] – HAWK (skateboard!)

Nice theme! I liked all of the different “boards” mentioned. CHARCUTERIE and CHESS PIECE are the standouts for me. I kind of wish that ON THE BOARD was clued in its more “in the language” usage as getting points in a game, but I like how this clue introduces yet another “board” meaning.

Also, three of the answers interlock! That’s really cool given how tight the theme set manages to be. The NW and the SE are very segmented off (note how a single black square would completely separate them). I personally prefer to make grids that are a little more interconnected since they give solvers more ways to get into an area, but given the amount of thematic material here I’m not surprised this was the best layout.

The puzzle overall has a pretty fresh feeling for a Monday, where sometimes clues/answers can seem generic for the sake of being “easy”. COLD BREW, WALMART, HARD TIME, STIR FRY are all standouts. Even some of the shorter fill shines, like GO OFF, TAMALE, and REVERB. Some of my fave clues were [“___ the Man” (2006 rom-com)] for SHE’S and [One of two for a female kangaroo, surprisingly] for UTERUS, which I did not know before solving this puzzle.

Congrats to Alana on a great debut!

Gary Cee’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Passing Comments”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases that end in words that can also end the phrase, “Give me a ___.” The revealer is “GIVE IT TO ME!” (63a, [“I’ll take that!”…and what one can do with the ends of 17-, 25-, 39- and 54-Across]).

• 17a. [13 cards, in a trick-taking game] BRIDGE HAND. Give me a hand.
• 25a. [Con quest, maybe?] PRISON BREAK. Give me a break.
• 39a. [Shape of each streetlight in downtown Hershey, Pennsylvania] CHOCOLATE KISS. Give me a kiss.
• 54a. [Time to take a bow] CURTAIN CALL. Give me a call.

Nice. I needed the revealer to make it all make sense, but I enjoyed the aha moment. My only nit is that BRIDGE HAND feels like green paint. SECOND HAND or MINUTE HAND would’ve been a stronger choice, IMO.

Another green painty entry is HAIR WAVE [Job for a curling iron], but it’s next to the lovely CLOUSEAU, so I wonder if the latter would’ve had to be sacrificed to get rid of the former. That section might also be tough due to proper names SWANN [Proust’s “___ in Love”] crossing MCKEAN [Michael of “A Mighty Wind”].

Clue of note: 10d. [Bear the expense of]. AFFORD. This clue bothered me at first, because it reads as if payment has already occurred whereas being able to AFFORD something makes no implication that actual payment has taken place yet. But saying “I can ‘AFFORD'” a thing, is completely replaceable with the phrase “I can ‘bear the expense of'” that thing.

Enjoyable theme but maybe a few little speed bumps in the fill. 3.5 stars.

Ryan Mathiason’s Universal crossword, “Initial Descent” — pannonica’s write-up

A breeze this early Monday morning.

• 22d^R [Piece of smack talk … or, read differently, a description of the starred clues’ answers] IT’S GOING DOWN. Id est, phrases with the initials IT appearing vertically.
• 4d. [*Dog breed whose first club was formed in Dublin] IRISH TERRIER.
• 8d. [*Bad spot to land on in Monopoly] INCOME TAX.
• 33d. [*Lazy river inflatable] INNER TUBE.

Only three theme answers (plus the revealer) makes for a smooth grid and a clean puzzle.

• The long, non-theme acrosses are quite nice: 17a [Anxiety episode] PANIC ATTACK, 62a [Gentle runs?] BUNNY SLOPES.
• 13a [They start in January] YEARS. 7d [They fall in the fall] LEAVES.
• 33a [Light-colored beer, briefly] IPA. Right there in the name: Indiapale ale.
• 57a [Most experienced in life] OLDEST. I’d prefer a ‘probably’ modifier in the clue.
• 2d [In need of charging] DEAD. 25a [Cleaned out] EMPTIED.
• 18d [Colony member?] ANT. The question mark usage is generous in this Monday offering; see also 62-across (above) and others.
• 31d [Jolly fella] SANTA. Not sure why the clue opted forfella instead offellow, except perhaps to subconsciously telegraph the -a ending? In the famous poem, his elfin belly shook like jelly (which puts me in mind of Jell-O …).
• 40d [Kind of bug also called a May beetle] JUNE. Good timing.
• 47d [Wake-up call?] MORNIN‘.
  
• 49d [Soap opera genre] DRAMA, or more specifically, melodrama.
• 50d [Lime green or peach] COLOR. The clue could have been more difficult by eliding ‘green’ but that isn’t what this puzzle is about.
• 63d [“__-haw!”] YEE. Site of my only mis-fill, as I opted for HEE.

Renee Thomason & Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Wow, this is a Monday puzzle? Could’ve fooled me; my solve time was closer to what I often post for LAT on Saturdays. It’s not the fill; it’s the clues, at least with a first backward glance. Anyway, the theme is things that sound like they have physical, geometric shapes, but they don’t:

• 18A [What sounds like a disk, but isn’t a disk?] is a FACT CHECKER, because a CHECKER is also a disk-shaped game piece.
• 28A [What sounds like a cube, but isn’t a cube?] is WRITER’S BLOCK.
• 49A [What sounds like a circle, but isn’t a circle?] is FAMILIAR RING. This one felt a bit green paint-y to me: Does one ever hear FAMILIAR RING by itself, and not as part of a longer phrase like “that has a FAMILIAR RING to it”?
• 63A [What sounds like a sphere, but isn’t a sphere?] is CHARITY BALL.

Anyway, I can appreciate trying something different on Monday theme-wise, even if this one didn’t 100% land for me.

Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

Markedly easier for me than expected for a Monday New Yorker puzzle. Except for VIRTUAL TOWN HALL and Christina AGUILERA, there was an overall vibe of the crosswords I did three decades ago. Things I learned from crosswords include Longfellow’s “The Bell of ATRI,” biblical ENOS, LESE-majeste, INRI, ALAMEDAS being [Tree-lined promenades], ROCS, ST. LEO, and the YSER River. Lots of proper nouns overall.

New to me: 56a. [Beat poet Kandel who wrote “The Love Book”], LENORE. Her pamphletThe Love Book was deemed obscene by the authorities because of the poem “To f*ck With Love.” The usual poetry sites don’t include her poems (possibly by her choice), but here are a few of them.

PLODDERS is awkward, no? Not a form of the word we encounter often. Plural REALTIES ([Lots to build on?]) also feels odd.

Where are (or were) SINGING WAITERS a thing? Is this an NYC, aspiring-Broadway-performers thing?

2.5 stars from me.