Oscar season is upon us and so are our version of the awards for crossword puzzles, the ORCAS. Check out the nominated puzzles and vote for your favorites here on this page. Voting closes on Monday, February 17th with winners announced in a livestream a week later.
Derrick Niederman’s New York Times crossword, “Two-For-One Special”–Dave’s recap
Dave here again, subbing for Nate this week. Nate will be off blogging duty for weeks or months after losing his home to the California wildfires. There’s a GoFundMe raising money to help Nate and Ben rebuild their lives in the aftermath.
So we have a rebus puzzle today, two word phrases are clued in italics where the first word in the phrase clues a word that is just one letter different from the word clued by the second word. (Hope that makes sense!) Perhaps it’s better to list them out:
- 18D: [Skinny/dip] clues SLIM and SWIM, the LW appearing in the crossing 22A: RACHE[L W]EISZ
- 24A: [Fast/car] clues QUICK and BUICK, the QB appearing in the crossing 8D: PD[Q B]ACH
- 25A: [Wild/bunch] clues ZANY and MANY – and – 48A: [Holland/tunnel] clues DUTCH and DITCH, the ZM and UI appearing in the crossing 13D: HA[ZM]AT S[UI]TS
- 31D: [Horse/power] clues COLT and VOLT (I would claim WATT instead of VOLT is a unit of power), the CV appearing in MMMD[CV] (rather hard to find entries that end in CV without resorting to Roman numerals, eh?)
- 61A: [Stadium/timekeeper] (granted I imagine there is such a person, but as a standalone phrase it doesn’t ring true to me) clues METRODOME and METRONOME, the DN appearing in ROA[D N]OISE
- 74A: [Average/income] clues PAR and PAY, the RY appearing in FLATTE[RY]
- 77A: [Denver/Colorado] clues STAGE NAME (John Denver?) and STATE NAME, the GT appearing in YOUN[G T]URK
- 102D: [Slumber/party] clues SIESTA and FIESTA (my favorite of the set), the SF appearing in U[S F]LAG
- 105D: [Trail/head] clues PATH and PATE, the HE appearing in [HE]RNIA
- 111D: [Promise/keeper] (I’ll just leave you a link to their Wikipedia entry and have you make your own judgement) clues WORD and WARD, the OA appearing T[OA]STMASTER
- 116A: [Dino/expedition] (this is a phrase?, perhaps in Jurassic Park but not elsewhere) clues T-REX and TREK the XK appearing in JAGUAR [XK]ES (another hard letter sequence to find a crossing entry for!), and finally…
- 117A: [Card/game] clues JOKER and POKER, the JP appearing in [JP]EG
I’m afraid this theme just wasn’t for me–I’m not confident that all of the italicized phrases really work on their own, and it’s just hard to look at entries where the rebus works as 2 letters in one direction and as a choice between 2 letters in the other. And further, these choice letters tend to both be consonants limiting what the crossing entries can be. I wonder too if the theme is too dense, was there really a need for 12 13 of them in the grid, leading to entries like YESM, LETTER A, AGIO crossing DOGEs and the vaguely sexist BE A DOLL?
Hope you enjoyed this one more than I did, and have a great rest of your weekend!
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Either You See It or You Don’t”–Matt’s recap

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Either You See It or You Don’t” solution, 2/2/2025
This week’s puzzle from Evan is apt, considering the date. Our longest entries are theme-adjacent, with the entire middle row joining in the fun:
- 26a [Predictions about snowy or fair conditions, perhaps] WEATHER FORECASTS
- 45a [Pennsylvania setting of a Feb. 2 festival] GOBBLERS KNOB
- 68a [Season predicted to be extended, depending on what 116 Across sees] WINTER
- 70a [Either one of two things that 116 Across might see, represented as a word you will either see or you won’t, depending on your answers to the six starred clues] SHADOW
- 72a [Season predicted to come early, depending on what 116 Across sees] SPRING
- 97a [1993 film where a meteorologist relives Feb. 2 over and over again] GROUNDHOG DAY
- 116a [Beast renowned for its sight?] PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL
None of these clues are the starred ones references in 70a, though. Let’s run through those:
- 55d [*Gardening tool] HOSE
- 65d [*The ___ Man (1930s film character)] THIN
- 71d [*Fix] AMEND
- 47d [*Fuzzy thing that can follow “Black”] BEARD
- 57d [*Cat’s sound] MEOW
- 67d [*Influence] SWAY
So what’s going on here? Well, these are the six crossing entries for 70A SHADOW, and it turns out all of them work if the letters of SHADOW are omitted, if “we don’t see it,” we might say: Gardening tool HOE; The Wizard of Oz character The TIN Man; fixing by MENDing; black BEAR instead of Blackbeard; MEW instead of meow from a cat, and influence as having a SAY rather than having sway. If you solve on the Post’s website, after the puzzle is complete, the entry SHADOW blinks in and out to illustrate the concept. Nice touch.
I quite like this take on the yes/no of the SHADOW: this is a mechanism we see from time to time but I still had to revisit post-solve to fully grok what Evan pulled off. And while I’ll prefer wordplay throughout the grid on a Sunday, this theme just didn’t necessitate it and the long answers helped set the tone and keep my interest up through the solve.
Other notes: My mother, a retired biology teacher, would lament “blue” in the clue for VEIN. It seems many students learn that deoxygenated blood is blue rather than a less-bright red. But of course, veins do look blue under our skin // A bit of late-00s nostalgia here for [Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja, e.g.] for APP // Do I know Elizabeth PENA, apparently an actor in “Rush Hour”? No, but I know that the four-letter actor Elisabeth SHUE spells her name with an -s- and wasn’t correct here
Always glad to see Jennifer GREY in grids, as that’s the way my brain wants to spell the color // ROBOSIGN [Endorse, as a document, without reviewing it first] was new to me, though decently clear with a few crossings. I wanted “rubber stamp”
With Groundhog Day falling on a weekend this year, it’s the topic of a few more puzzles than normal. Crossword Fiend doesn’t cover the puzzles over at Vox, but Andrew Ries’ grid from yesterday (2/1) would be well worth your time.
Alan Levin’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Latin Roots”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases that hide Latin (the language) phrases within, as indicated by the circled letters. The meanings of the Latin phrases are given as parenthetical hints in the clues.
- 24a. [*The Met and La Scala (in essence)] OPERA HOUSES.
- 26a. [*Is allowed to go first (before the fact)] HAS PRIORITY.
- 41a. [*Off!, for one (concerning)] INSECT REPELLENT.
- 66a. [*Boston-based financial services company (in other words)] FIDELITY INVESTMENTS.
- 89a. [*Important considerations when making a choice (in practice)] DECIDING FACTORS.
- 108a. [*New York Harbor sight (without preparation)] LADY LIBERTY.
- 113a. [*Longtime lead singer of the rock band Chicago (and so on)] PETER CETERA.
Very impressed with this! Of course we’ve all seen hidden word themes, but I don’t recall seeing a theme that hides whole phrases. Sure, some of these are abbreviated and short Latin phrases, but they’re all recognizable to us as regular solvers.
What I love most about this is that each Latin word is kept together as one circled grouping. That is, the circles could’ve been spread out more (non-contiguously) and that would’ve probably made it easier to construct. But to find in-the-language phrases that still hide Latin phrases while keeping each Latin word intact is very impressive. I’m mainly looking at those longer Latin words here: PRIORI, FACTO, and CETERA.
Speaking of that last one, I’ve long known that singer PETER CETERA’s last name was the Latin word (meaning “the rest”), but I never noticed ET was hidden in his first name. Very cool!
I solved this without really paying attention to the theme and was rewarded with probably my fastest time for a 21x grid. Very smooth fill all around. Highlights include UKULELE, RICE COOKER, EASY STREET, PINE NUT, TOSS A COIN, STEVEDORE, and DEBILITATE. Did not know BAKU [Azerbaijan’s capital], but that’s probably one worth remembering.
Clue of note: 81d. [___ II Atreides (“Dune” character)]. LETO. I had wondered if we’d ever see this name clued with respect to this character (as opposed to the actor Jared), and here we are. But now that I look into it, this character is not the father of Paul Atreides, but rather one of Paul’s sons, both of whom had the same name. I’ve never read the books, only seen the movies, and Paul has no children in any of the films to date.
Excellent puzzle. 4.25 stars.
it was tedious
+1
NYT: The Times has gotten lenient with dupes, but 94A and 15D has to be the most egregious I’ve ever seen.
62D and 118A are two different kinds of toasts, and the two racks are even worse.
There’s arguable history intermingling those two senses of ‘toast’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_(honor)#History
NYT: It may be worth mentioning just in case others didn’t notice that the 13 rebus pairs represent all 26 letters of the alphabet, once each.
When I noticed that, guess who it reminded me of?
If I had counted them correctly as 13, that may have occurred to me!
Gosh, I didn’t notice. I’m not sure it would help entertained me more as a solver, but I very much enjoyed the theme I did find. It was a decent challenge to figure out and then to work out in pratice.
I did find the fill tedious. AGIO came eventually out of distant memory, but a lot else had to come that way or out of crossings as well. A halfway difficult fill will always feel extra long and difficult on a Sunday, I suppose, so I should be grateful for it.
As I suspect most solvers will miss this aspect, I’d rather have seen fewer stronger theme phrases (along the lines of [Slumber/party] and [Card/game]) and less awkward crossing entries.
Very cool! I think I liked this one more than most here; felt pretty fun to puzzle out.
I’m with you Dallas! (Though as an Eagles fan I find that hard to type in :).
This puzzle grew on me as I solved. I think the themers were not an easy thing to imagine, and the fact that the entire alphabet was used: Splendid!
WaPo: This is a tour de force. Thematically excellent. Clues and fills are fair.
Puzzle is sooo cute.
Great puzzle from Evan—full fill, great theme, really nice.
NYT: Nice idea, but many of the pairings didn’t work, IMO. DUTCH doesn’t mean ‘Holland,’ VOLT is not ‘power’ (as the review says), and WARD is the keepee, surely, not the ‘keeper.’
WaPo: Very ingenious. I didn’t get it — I was looking for other letters that could go in place of SHADOW to spell something meaningful.
NYT: Clever but tedious. But … I liked seeing that each of the “—/—” clues described [more or less] the alternative entries considered as a whole. Did that make sense? Examples: “Fast car” is a quick Buick and “Dino expedition” is a T-Rex trek. And siesta fiesta for “slumber party” made me laugh out loud.
Some of the doubles worked better than others. DUTCH/DITCH (for example) would be a great answer for “Holland/tunnel” if a ditch and a tunnel were the same thing…but they’re not. And as @David L has noted, VOLT is not a measure of power. Close, but no cigar. I agree it was clever, but for me, there was not enough cleverness to outweigh the tedium.
Yeah, thinking back now after several hours, I mostly dismissed qualms like this to make the theme work. But they’re real.