wooingly
Double-posting since Sorb is too busy writing our CSS to do crosswords.
Lil AVCX, May 4th by Madison Shultz
14-Across: Malcolm in the Middle cooking prodigy sibling
Me: “Oh yeah, I think I vaguely remember that being a thing I guess. Who was that? Dewey and REESE both fit. REESE seems right to me for some reason. What about the older brother who was in the military, what was his name? Right, Francis. That doesn’t fit. …Hold on, why the hell do I even remember all these names?”
Puzzmo Cross|word, May 5th by Henry Lin-David
Clue for 24-Across was These numbers are pointless!. I got INTEGERS on the crosses, but it took a few moments to click for me. It’s referring to the lack of decimal point. Smart!
Lil AVCX, May 5th by Adryel W. Robles Ojeda
34-Across, Nice vegetable dish? Not only did I get RATATOUILLE without any crosses, but I even spelled it correctly on the first try. I mostly have Pixar to thank. (The misdirect is that Nice is a city in France)
Puzzmo Mini, May 6th by Leo Tsai
The clue for 2-Down plays so well off of 1-Down (Small cutesily is followed by Small amount, Greekily). Together they form half of the theme, which is enormously clever. A must-play mini, which isn’t something I say often.
AVCX, May 6th by Greg Snitkins
35-Across: Arab nation whose top-selling drink is Mountain Dew – OMAN. What??? Really? Don’t give into our ridiculous American ways, you folks are smarter than this! Crazy fact.
Brendan Emmett Quigley, May 7th
“The sixth-most published constructor in The New York Times under Will Shortz’s editorship” is such a pedantically specific claim to fame. Are you keeping count, buddy? Trying to hit number 5?
Not with this puzzle, you’re not. Shame, too, because it’s so close to being amazing, with a very fun theme integrating both down and across answers and some great cluing:
- 3-Down, Burning passion? – ARSON
- 20-Across, Afghan rights grp. – SPCA
- 32-Across, Chic clubs? – DISCOS
- 33-Down, Sheep-ish? – OVINE
- 58-Down, First person to work at IKEA, likely – SWEDE
But MAN are there a lot of real duds in this one, too. The overambition left us with answers like ADIN, WRT, PHIZ, LBAR, AWNAW, and WOOINGLY. I was still able to finish with the crosses and a couple lucky guesses, but it’s clear why this one ended up on the personal blog.