Sunday, January 22, 2023 | (2023)

Latno time (gareth)

NOW12:56 (Nate)

wapo5:48 (Mateo)

Garrett Chalfins' New York Times Crossword, "With Ease" – essay by Nate

Hello people! Write it down quickly today, as the weekend is never enough time to do something that the work week won't allow you. I hope everybody is fine!

– 23A: PEPPER FACTORY [Cook on a spit?]- Cooling Factor

– 28A: HIPPIE LOOT [The result of a shopping spree in Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s?]- hip boots

– 38A: POINTY OUTIE [¿Ombligo claramente visible?]- clues

– 48A: NOSY BEAST [Good friend who can't stop sniffing?]- you know better

– 66A: TREATY OF THE SWEET [Ehevertrag?]- Caramel sauce

– 85A: CRYING STORY [Long anecdote of a crybaby?]- Wine store

– 91A: FAIRY CRAFT [¿Craft Bell o Puck?]- Craft fair

– 104A: PHONY BOOKIE [Bad person for a player to bet on?]- Telephone list

– 110A: TESTY GROUPIE [Acolyte in a bad mood?]– test group

Each subject is a base sentence with the "E" sound added to the end of each word. My favorite might have been the first.PEPPER FACTORY(especially since it crossed TLC, whose C member was named Chilli). She wishes some of the themes had a little more morphing between the base sentence and the subject, but overall the puzzle is pretty impressive for a designer still in high school. Very good!

new for me:FANTODS [shaking, informal]No93D. I had to look this up after staring at it for a while trying to figure it out!

Well, first of all. Let us know what you think in the comments, and have a great Sunday!

Evan Birnholz Washington Post Crossword "Captain Obvious Goes to the Art Museum" - communication from Matthew

The email Evan sent me this week, providing me with the puzzle, just said "He's back." I'm a fan of Evans Captain Obvious themes that repurpose stock phrases with Merl-Reagle charm. It's a nice change of pace from the pun themes.

• 23a ["____? So it wasn't photographed"]OUT OF THE PHOTO
• 37a ["____? Is when an artist is ripped off a drawing board"]BACK TO THE WHITE DRAWING
• 56a ["____? It must have been used by a famous painter”]BRUSH WITH GLORY
• 68a ["____? That's what keeps a painting in your mind"]MIND STRUCTURE
• 78a ["____? There, the villains can see works of art"]VILLAINS GALLERY
• 96a ["____? So you turned on the box at 12 in the morning."]OVERNIGHT
• 116a ["____? So we won't find wall sculptures here"]NO RELIEF IN SIGHT

A nice journey through the grid: The central area is a bit bulkier with short stuff, as the three central themes are only separated by a single line, so we find more open areas in the corners.EMAIL SCHEME,SEX EXPERT, miA STRONG WINDThey are featured specials in the filling.

Comments:

• 9a [Small color piece] STAIN. Perfectly cromulant advice, but I have to say lately I've seen some advice for BELA and rarely FLECK from banjo virtuosos.
• 19a [word exchange] CHAT. I couldn't get my brain to parse "exchange" as a verb instead of a noun! Sometimes there is disorientation.
• 63rd [author of Phyo raw food cookbook] ANI. Phyo is new to me but has a lot of presence and a welcome signal angle for the bird. Adding more raw foods (read: vegetables) to my life doesn't seem like a bad idea either.
• 83a [J.R.R. Tolkien characters?] THE PERIOD. This approach of using punctuation in Tolkien's name has always stuck with me over the years, but I hadn't seen it for some time until today.
• 25th [Apple products discontinued as of 2022] IPODS. This is common advice lately, and every time I fill up IPADS for the first time, I think, "This can't be right," wonder if I missed a message, and then feel silly. Maybe next time.
• 110d [number of pitches in an earned inning] NINE. This may be less familiar to non-sports fans than many sports angles on puzzles. An "earn inning" in baseball is one in which a pitcher hits three batters with the minimum number of pitches: nine. Of course, you can complete a half inning in just three pitches, but for some reason, strikeouts are valued more.
• 111d ["Young Frankenstein" character analogous to "Frankenstein" character Fritz] IGOR. 1) Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite sitcoms, but I haven't seen it in a long time, and considering how much other Mel Brooks works have aged, I'm not sure what I'll find when I do. 2) It's been a while since I last read Frankenstein and I'm a little embarrassed that IGOR in this stereotype isn't taken directly from Shelley's work.

Seth Bisen-Hersh's Universal Sunday Crossword 'Change the Game' - revisión de Jim P

Thematic responses are familiar phrases with circled letters that are anagrams of familiar games.

• 23 [Deluxe Wallet Item (Circled letters are an anagram for a "brain" game]]PRATONO CARSD.skull. I'm not sure how familiar people are with this game, but when my kids were younger, we had a lot of family fun with it.
• 34a. [Uncredited author ("Green Left Foot" game)]GHOLETRA STR.Tornado.
• 50th. ["Everyone thinks they're so funny!" (...word association game)]"ALLNOT A COMEIAN.“code names. It's fitting that you couldn't discover this anagram without looking it up. It's ironic that I couldn't because we just bought it for our house this Christmas (although we haven't played it yet).
• 69a. [Taunting music from "Grease" (...decoding game)]"LOOK INI am SANDRUN DEE.“thought leader. Wow! What a find!
• 84a. [Extreme effort is needed (...battlefield game)]YIS VERY LARGELONGITUDES.a strategist.
• 103rd. ["Paper Roses" (...matching game) singer]DAMAGEIE OSMOND.Domino. I couldn't get mahjong out of my head for this one, so I had to look up the anagram to find the solution.
• 120a. [Author of "Unheard of Feats and Common Rebellions" (... Solo Card Game)]GRAMSLORIA STEINO.Lonely.

Some very impressive anagrams here. This means that if an anagram has 8, 9, or 10 letters, I probably won't recognize it. So the thread was of limited use in actually populating the grid. Funny thread responses though.

I also like the variety of games, some traditional, some newer, some party games and some board games.

The padding is heavy with reflections"HI MOM!“, „oh rats!"LUCY LIU, It's inBEES.

An advert:

• 9a. [Good way of referring to oneself?].MOI. Nice, as in the French city.
• 116a. [gesture of "whatever"].TO WITHDRAW. We would also have accepted [¯\_(ツ)_/¯].
• 33d. ["¡Ups, mi error!"].SORRY. I just realized that this popular game has fallen on the grid by itself.
• 49d. [gardener?].FILTER. Good track. I have no idea why I chose FOLGERS in the first place.
• 105d. [The comedian Gervais].Ricky. We would have taken [comedian and 25-Across fame Gervais] as well. (Where 25a isATHEIST.)

Well constructed puzzle. 3.75 stars.

The LA Times Crossword by Alan Massengill and Doug Peterson, "Play It Again" - Gareth's Summary

The Play It Again puzzle by Alan Massengill and Doug Peterson is really clever! Contains pairs of song titles, one in the track and one in the response, which are synonymous. So:

• [¿Lizzo "Remake" de "I Feel Fine" de los Beatles?], GOODASHELL
• [Dua Lipa „Remake“ de „Walking on Sunshine“ de Katrina and the Waves?], LEVITANDO
• [¿Taylor Swift "Remake" de "Take It Easy" de Eagles?], NECESITAS CALMARTE
• [¿Marvin Gaye „Remake“ de Glenn Millers „In the Mood“?], LETSGETITON
  [Steve Miller Band „Remake“ de Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ „I Put a Spell on You“?], ABRACADABRA
• [Jay-Z/Alicia Keys „Remake“ of Frank Sinatras „New York, New York“?], EMPIRESTATEOFMIND
• [¿Ed Sheeran "Remake" de "Silhouettes" de Rays?], SHAPEOFYOU
• [¿Lady Gaga "Remake" del "Love Stinks" the J. Geils Band?], BADROMANCE

Other interesting answers:

• [Superficie de Wimbledon], Ryegrass.You mostly know it as fodder.
• [teen feeling maybe] FEAR.Concise, the best kind of track error.
• [Place for a pedicure], PETSPA.I've never heard of it, but we have beauty salons here, not PETSPA...
• [1941 Bogart-Rolle], SAMSPADE. There aren't many characters you can put into full name styling like that!
• [group photo], WEFIE. Isn't it just most selfies?

Gareth

USA Today Crossword by Zhouqin Burnikel, Year of the Rabbit - Darby Essay

Editor:erik agard

He:The first word of each thread response can be added to RABBIT.

answer thread

• 17a ["Toy in an Egg"] STUPID SPATULA
• 64a ["Sound in some apps to sleep"] WHITE noise
• 10d ["'message received'"] ROGER DAS
• 35d [“Music recorded by Audrey Hepburn and Frank Ocean”] MOON RIVER

Obviously coinciding with the start of the Year of the Rabbit today, this puzzle was a lot of fun. I love the combination of top-down and cross answers here. It was very easy to identify the topic after filling it outbleeding mass, but it didn't change much in my solution. I needed crosses to getCOURAGE OF THE MOUTH, but the others were quickly accommodated. i really like itUNDERSTOOD, but the funny "Oh!" I was usingbleeding massit was my favorite piece of the puzzle.

The downside of doing a mix of Across and Down themes here was my confusion.41d ["'Wait a minute... are you serious?'"] WAIT WHATT, which is just one letter less thanCOURAGE OF THE MOUTHIt almost seemed like it had to fit. However, it clearly wasn't a rabbit rule either.

Otherwise I had a pretty smooth solution. I love that we will never let that happen.14a ["Disney Princess combing her hair with a fork"] ARIELLive it too I really liked LET ME SEE andIN A SECOND. The center of the lattice made me hungry, with itsLEMONS, 40a [„Wie Tong Sui“] DULCET, mi47a ["Kyaraben, por ejemplo"] ​​BENTO. also like whereFORBIDDENmiCOMEcrossed not SE edge.

Other favorite filler includedOUIJA,NUMBER, miLAMAS.

Have a great week!