Sunday, May 5, 2024 | (2024)

LATuntimed (Jack)

NYT12:18 (Nate)

WaPo5:58 (Matthew)

Daniel Bodily’s New York Times crossword, “From the Astronaut’s Logbook” — Nate’s write-up

3D: HAVING A BLAST [Woo-hoo! The engines are firing, all systems are go, and we are feeling good!]
13D: OUT OF THE BLUE [And just like that, sky and clouds are behind us!]
18D: LOST IN SPACE [Oops, zoned out for a sec. Houston, can you retransmit our coordinates?]
20D: OVER THE MOON [Thrilled to report that we’ve made it to lunar orbit!]
32D: GATHERING DUST [Our lunar rover is collecting samples at long last. It’s been sitting in storage for months!]
34D: FLOATING ON AIR [Moving in zero-G is just blissful!]
70D: SEEING STARS [Ouch! Drifted too far and bonked my head on that darn window … but wow, would you look at that view!]
74D: DOWN TO EARTH [Re-entry time – let’s make sure we do this simply and practically!]

77D: ROCKET MAN [Who’s on a mission in today’s puzzle?]
78D: ELTON JOHN [Musician who sang about a 77-Down]

121A: NIXON [He placed a call to Armstrong and Aldrin minutes after their landing]

Things I enjoyed about this puzzle and it’s theme:
– The puzzle felt quite theme dense, with ten(!) theme answers of at least nine letters. The fill didn’t seem to suffer from all the theme fill, which was a lovely bonus.
– The theme entries and their clues were in chronological order of a hypothetical space flight, which was a nice touch.
– The rocket grid art in the middle was neat!

Things I didn’t enjoy as much:
– The themer clues felt like they were trying too hard, both by defining the theme answer idiomatically and through space pun. Many of the “puns” also felt quite expected (LOST IN SPACE, OVER THE MOON, SEEING STARS, DOWN TO EARTH) in a way that made me hope for more interesting transformations.
– This puzzle’s theme is mostly space puns, but then we randomly have the ROCKET MAN / ELTON JOHN pairing and NIXON clued via the moon landing at the bottom? It felt like the constructor was trying to do too much under the general umbrella of “space,” which took away from the puzzle for me.

That’s all from me for now. I hope you’re all well and enjoying May! Have a great weekend and keep us posted on your thoughts in the comments section below.

LA Times crossword “Name That Tune” by Katy Steinmetz & Rich Katz — Jack’s write-up

Theme: Different types of “lines” clue famous lyrics from famous songs.

• 23A. [Power line?] = WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS
• 33A. [Life line?] = I WILL SURVIVE
• 49A. [Party line?] = LETS GET IT STARTED
• 68A. [Opening line?] = I’VE GOT A BLANK SPACE BABY
• 91A. [Time line?] = YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE
• 107A. [Dividing line?] = GO YOUR OWN WAY
• 119A. [Shore line?] = UNDER THE BOARDWALK

I was pleased that all of thematic lyrics were quite famous, so I suspect even solvers with weak music knowledge could recognize these. I’VE GOT A BLANK SPACE BABY as a central spanner was fun to uncover. None of the line times are stretches either, so I’d call this a pretty tight theme.

Some solid bonus entries in ROAD TESTS, APHRODITE, NO HIT GAME, TREE POSE although I may have parted with some of these in exchange for tidying up the OPPO, AODAI, ELIA, RV LOT, SERGE, LOIRE, EIRE, RRS, OSSA, plus a lot of proper nouns in the grid.

Notable clues: 47D. [Piece of cake?] = LONG A was really tough! Well-concealed, good hard clue. I also liked the clue 48D. [Square peg in a social circle?] = DWEEB. Nice observation that you could naturally reference two shapes when discussing popularity (or the lack of it).

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — Matt’s write-up

It’s a meta this week from Evan. We’re told the meta answer is “a ten-letter word.”

There’s not much in the way of a theme set, but around the middle of the puzzle I started to notice there are a lot of Us in the grid, and the center across entry makes clear that’s intentional:

• 68a [1990 MC Hammer hit whose title is a hint to solving the meta] U CANT TOUCH THIS

Finishing up the grid, there Us all over the grid, and very few squares not adjacent to at least one U (or a U themselves). Those squares in grid order spell INTANGIBLE.

This was a particularly fun meta for me: no step was too hard but each took a moment to set in, from the lack of a traditional theme, to the many Us, to starting to mark up my solution grid, before finally seeing that my rabbit hole was plausible and finishing up.

While I’m sure I could find tougher spots of fill on a close review now, I also felt during my solve that it was a pretty enjoyable grid for such a strong theme constraint. (Without taking the time to look it up, I’m pretty sure U is the least common vowel in crossword entries generally). Thanks, Evan!

Dylan Schiff’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Trace Elements”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar(ish) phrases that contain both a metal and the chemical symbol for said metal. The revealer is METAL DETECTORS. Clues simulate a metal detector with a little “bip” indicating the rough location of the chemical symbol in the phrase, and a big “BIP” simulation the common name of the metal.

• 24a. [“Are *bip!* you as psyched as I *BIP!* am?”] “ISN‘T IT EXCITING?!”
• 31a. [Concern *BIP!* surrounding oil spills and *bip!* pollution] ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECT.
• 49a. [*BIP! bip!* When some cinema classics were produced] SILVER AGE OF HOLLYWOOD. I knew there was a Golden Age; I’m not sure I was a aware there was a Silver Age.
• 64a. [*bip!* Surfing mecca near *Bip!* Brisbane] AUSTRALIAN GOLD COAST.
• 76a. [*BIP!* Studio that produced “Doug” *bip!* and “Rugrats”] NICKELODEON ANIMATION.
• 94a. [*BIP!* Morning networking opportunity *bip!* for bigwigs] LEADERSHIP BREAKFAST. Is this a thing people do? Maybe that’s why I’m not a bigwig.

Very tight theme. It could not have been easy to find a suitable theme set for this. There are some nice finds here, but given the tightness of the theme and the need to get everything to fit symmetrically, a little leeway is warranted for those entries that aren’t quite as common.

That said, once I realized I could ignore the “bip”s, I certainly did so.

Seven long theme answers fill up the grid, so there’s not much room for long fill. I did like TRI-TIP, “I’M EASY,” and ICE FLOES. Did not know SKIP BO [Game whose cards go up to 12].

Clues of note:

• Really, the puzzle won me over at 1a with TRI-TIP [Cut of beef often cooked Santa Maria-style]. I spent some formative years growing up in Santa Maria in Central California, and TRI-TIP barbecues were a common sight around town on weekends when the weather was nice. These were often fundraisers for local organizations. (This was back in the ’70s. I have no idea if they still do this, but I expect the do.) As the years went by and we moved away, the TRI-TIP cut eventually became a common sight in grocery stores around the country, and yet the connection with Santa Maria stuck. All that said, when the Peredo Family gets together and we opt for a TRI-TIP or two, we opt for a Chamorro-style marinade (soy sauce and lemon juice) instead of the Santa Maria-style rub.
• 74d. [Tours’ the globe?]. MONDE. What’s this Stumper-level clue doing here? “Tours'” is referring to the city in France, so the answer is the French word for “globe” (or “world”). Tricksy. Needed every crossing.

Gotta go! 3.75 stars.