Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, sparks for me no joy. Partly a lack of patience, partly a matter of too many factoids and too much trivia. Just too many, just too much: I had to look up four answers to finish, each of which I will note below.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-A, eight letters, “Gestural exasperation.” Fun.
8-D, ten letters, “Element #109.” I had to look it up.
9-A, four letters, “What DDE and JFK were members of.” Trivia I was able to suss out.
10-D, seven letters, “Prof’s pursuit, perhaps.” Well, an academic’s pursuit, perhaps.
15-A, ten letters, “2024 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show walker.” Trivia I had to look up.
17-A, six letters, “Opry sponsor in the Fortune 500.” Trivia I was able to suss out. But who thinks of 17-A in light of this description?
30-A, seven letters, “Fabric favored by Marie Antoinette.” Trivia I had to look up.
30-A, ten letters, “They’re cutting down.” Kinda odd to rely on singular they here. The clue reads as inviting a plural.
33-A, seven letters, “Richar Pryor, birthwise.” TAURIAN? No. I had to look it up.
35-D, seven letters, “Eggplant cousins.” Slightly strained but still fun.
52-D, three letters, “DJIA.” How timely.
55-A, four letters, “Performer in Camden Yards.” This bit of crosswordese is not redeemed by the clue. Maybe it is, sort of.
My favorite in this puzzle: 23-D, four letters, “Contronymic look.”
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
comments: 6
FACEPALM. MEITNERIUM. BPOE.
POSTDOC. (I’d think of a postdoc as a position for someone not yet a prof.)
CARLABRUNI. HUMANA. ALENCON. LUMBERJACK.
PEORIAN. VIOLETS. LOW. ENYA. SCAN.
As pannonica at Crossword Fiend observes, ENYA is embedded in CamdEN YArds.
Hey! I’m here at the American Crossword Tournament and asked Stan himself the same question about LUMBERJACK. He said it was used in the sense of recognizing in-binary gender and being respectful of that. And he was amusingly mock offended that I would not expect him to be up on matters of that nature. I thought it was pretty cool to see.
Stan also received an award in recognition of all he’s done in the crossword community. It was all very nice.
Thanks for sharing that, jocab. If singular they becomes commonplace in clues, it’ll make puzzles a lot trickier, at least until it’s recognized as a standard possibility.
I was not happy about not being happy with today’s puzzle. Stan’s a good guy (I know him only from a few e-mails), and i always want to like the Stumper.
Oh and I gave a friend of mine who's a top competitor at the tournament a copy of that puzzle to solve because I always enjoy those Saturday Stumpers. He put it down after about 15 minutes because he was not enjoying it at all, and all his criticisms mirrored yours. Stan told me he went harder on the trivia and stuff on this one because people at ACPT would be solving it too, but I guess that doesn't necessarily translate to fun for everyone else.
Thanks, joecab — that’s interesting to know. I think what I find the least fun is trivia that seems to be generated by looking things up (like lists of famous Elks and famous people born in Peoria).
Post a Comment