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.
Rich Katz and Jeff Chen’s New York Times crossword, “What’s It All About?”–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.
NYT Crossword Solution – Sunday, February 9, 2025
A pretty straightforward theme in today’s NYT: take two word phrases where the second word begins with RE- and clue it as something referring to the word that remains after removing RE. Let’s see if craziness ensues….
- 23A: [TV’s “Search for the Titanic,” for one?] – SPECIAL RE:QUEST
- 35A: [Instructions for slaying Dracula?] – MANUAL RE:COUNT
- 51A: [Broadway offering titled with dots and dashes?] – SHOW RE:MORSE – missed opportunity here for a shout-out to Robert Morse who starred on Broadway in the play “Tru.”
- 70A: [TED Talk about neuropsychology?] – SPEECH RE:COGNITION
- 86A: [U-Haul ad?] – SPOT RE:MOVER
- 101A: [Email thread with a “Donate now!” message?] – CHAIN RE:ACTION – “chain” on its own is a bit awkward without the email identifier but close enough
- And the best for last…116A: [Giddiness at completing this crossword puzzle?] – HIGH RE:SOLUTION
Nicely done with some clever entries. Some random notes:
- For 33D, I had [Living ___] WILL for WAGE
- Very long clue at 12D [Something that if you cut a hole in it, actually has fewer holes] for NET
- Guessed the wrong champagne at 29A: ASTI for MOET
- Very cute clue for 18A’s NOAH – [Head of a noted animal rescue project]
- I just had 67A’s ALOO GOBI earlier this week!
- Nice seeing the full name of 30D ERNO RUBIK
- Had NAPE before EDEN at 77D [Adam’s apple location]
- Un peu de français avec LES près ÊTRE
- 44D DEERSKIN for MOLESKIN
- And a timely clue for 43D “Like THAT,” as Kendrik Lamar won the Grammy for Song of the Year for “Not Like Us” (he must like the word like in song titles!)
I’ll leave you with the great Dionne Warwick singing “Alfie”:
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Little League”–Matt’s recap
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Little League” solution, 2/9/2025
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and we’ve got a handful of NFL teams in this week’s grid even as only two are playing in tonight’s game. Five rebus squares and two revealers help us put it all together:
- 21a [The process of sending invoices online] ELECTRONIC (BILL)ING – crossing CYBILL
- 30a [What happy people might feel like, or what they might get if they win the lottery] A MIL(LION) BUCKS – crossing HELLION
- 55a [Wise, elderly gentleman who sounds like he has facial hair] GRAY(BEAR)D – crossing ILL BE AROUND
- 82a [HP printer] LASER(JET) – crossing ELROY JETSON
- 107a [Like some affairs] EXT(RAM)ARITAL – crossing FRAMEUPS
Revealers at:
- 71a [Event that could feature any of the athletes found in five squares in this puzzle … and a Feb. 9, 2025, event featuring the athletes spelled out in th efirst letters of five Across entries and then five Down entries] SUPER BOWL
- 120a [Activity for young quarterbacks, and an alternate title for this puzzle] PEE WEE FOOTBALL
A cleverly-constructed grid. I didn’t read the SUPER BOWL clue closely at first, and wondered if this puzzle was timely for any reason other than being football-related, since none of the teams used for rebuses are playing today. But they are in the grid, as annotated in the solution image and that clue for SUPER BOWL. That’s a nifty extra constraint that I was glad to spot, as CYBILL Shepherd, used for the C- in CHIEF, is well off my radar. (The nearby DANA Delany is, as well, so that area was a slow start for me.)
Other notes: [A very long time in Lake Ontario?] refers literally to the letters EON appearing across the word break of “Lake Ontario.” I’m not 100% of the definition of EON to say whether the Great Lakes have been around for a full one // Jinja, in the clue for NILE, is new to me. It is a Ugandan city on the north shore of Lake Victoria // It took me a long time to lock down the spelling of Mr. Malek’s first name, and now I need to commit his character in “Mr. Robot” – ELLIOT – to memory
Zachary Gallardo’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Hindquarters”—Jim’s review
This is a debut puzzle. Congrats to our constructor for a very nice puzzle!
Theme answers are familiar(ish) names of famous people or fictional characters whose surnames are homophones for buildings in which people might live. The revealer is HOUSEHOLD NAMES (118a, [Well-known people, and a hint to the homophones at the end of the starred clues’ answers]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Hindquarters” · Zachary Gallardo · 2.9.25
- 24a. [*Literary detective in “A Study in Scarlet”] SHERLOCK HOLMES. Homes. Well, not quite a homophone for me. That L is definitely in there though it is subtle.
- 38a. [*Sluglike crime lord in the “Star Wars” universe] JABBA THE HUTT. Hut.
- 50a. [*Pseudonym for American columnist Judith Martin] MISS MANNERS. Manors.
- 67a. [*Former judge and scorekeeper on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”] CARL KASSELL. Castle. Ha! I loved seeing Carl in here. He was a great straight man on that show. Bill Kurtis is good, but he’s no Carl.
- 72a. [*Organizing consultant who asks “Does it spark joy?”] MARIE KONDO. Condo.
- 88a. [*Portrayer of Lafayette and Jefferson in Broadway’s “Hamilton”] DAVEED DIGGS. Digs.
- 103a. [*Star of the 1923 film “Anna Christie”] BLANCHE SWEET. Suite.
Excellent theme even though the last two gave me trouble. I would not have guessed one could find enough names to make a 21x-sized theme set, but I’m proven wrong. I love the consistency in that each one is a homophone (or near enough), with no homonyms in sight. Great wordplay in the title, too.
Looking at fill, I’m focusing on STONEWARE, LATE TEENS, EMERALDS, SCAVENGE, EAST TIMOR, and NU METAL (though I had a hard time parsing the beginning) as highlights. The top half flowed more quickly for me, mainly because it actually contains for-real HOUSEHOLD NAMES, but it didn’t take too long to put the bottom half together.
Clues of note:
- 1a. [Where bagels originated]. POLAND. Neat factoid. And tricksy since ISRAEL fits right in there. A good start to the grid.
- 126a. [Ferocious]. FIERCE. Hmm. These two words both come from the Latin ferus. Some might consider this a dupe.
- 63d. [Like many a flannel shirt]. PLAID. Why is that? Is there some unwritten (or written for that matter) that says they have to be PLAID?
- 77d. [Tool that needs a bit to work]. DRILL. Nice clue. Could’ve even made it “a little bit”.
Lovely puzzle! Four stars.
NYT: Am reminded of the venerable RE/SEARCH publications.
NYT: It was pretty easy to grasp the theme, and the puzzle was kinda dull once I got it. IMO, of course.
I object to STEEPLE as “belfry locale.” Church bells are in the bell tower, duh, and the steeple is the thin pointy bit on top of that. And I don’t understand DUCTS for “cable channels?” What kind of cable has ducts, or alternatively, what kind of cables go through ducts?
WaPo: It took me a while to find CHIEF and EAGLE, but when I did find them I was very impressed with the construction. One puzzle: I don’t get STORES for “Counter points?”
But interestingly, belfry isn’t etymologically related to bell.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belfry#did-you-know
I don’t object to STEEPLE, if for no other reason than I grew up thinking of it as meaning a bell tower and have since run into no other usage, even for such a common word. But the usual resource dictionaries seem to agree. RHUD starts with the spire and then, for definition 2, has the tower supporting this.
MW doesn’t have even a passing reference to the pointed end, simply “a tall structure usually having a small spire at the top,” which would be enough if it didn’t also add “more broadly, a whole church tower.”
I’m just guessing, but maybe steeples on churches were originally made very high so that the church bells could be heard far and wide.
Then as the need for church bells largely disappeared, the tradition of high steeples continued. Sometimes bolstered by the idea of its getting closer to the deity.
But I’ve always thought of a steeple as a spire atop a building, usually a church — but without any assumption about bells.
WaPo – good thing it’s not the Bills-Commanders today! That would have been a tricky one to make it work.
Really fun one today. CYBILL Shepherd was the first giveaway that something was up. I got a little tied up trying to get BUC into A MILLION BUCKS to work before realizing it was LION. I don’t really follow football at all, but was surprised to learn that my son (who also doesn’t) knew who was playing, because his school did a “vote for who you think will win” thing.
Great job, Evan!
Cable ducts are the tubes that protect and organize electrical wires and cables. They can be made from materials like PVC, aluminum or steel and come in many shapes and sizes. I googled it.
Oh, thanks. I would call those conduits, I think.
NYT Old school type theme. IMO don’t see those often enough.
I loved this pleasant bit of silliness on a Sunday morning. It was a nice change of pace, both figuratively and literally (my fourth fastest Sunday since I started doing these puzzles online). It did, indeed, provide a HIGH RE SOLUTION for me.
It was a pretty fun theme and played *super* fast; set a Sunday PR. Was faster than both Friday and Saturday of this week.
Took me a few entries to get the theme, and I found it pretty enjoyable.
Congrats to Dallas. :-)
Re: Doing old-school themes…
Either it sparks joy, or not — which is in some part a personal preference.
I (too) am open to a mix of old-school, along with the new.
Reworking old ideas and/or styles is just fine, by me.
This is my first post although I visit this site on an almost daily basis. Anyway, I was just wondering why I can never seem to view Gareth’s Sunday LAT reviews. Thank you in advance to anyone who can answer my question. And also, thank you to all involved with this site. I enjoy reading all the reviews and comments every day.
Hi Mark. I join you in being grateful for the time and effort that goes into the Fiend. That said, you’re not the first person to wonder what’s up with the LAT puzzles. A large number of them typically go unreviewed, and at the risk of sounding peevish, I can’t even recall the last time a Sunday was written up.
It’s surprising, given Amy’s commitment to championing women in crosswords, that the one major daily puzzle under exclusive female editorship is so often neglected here. Even more of a head scratcher given the many women constructors in the LAT.
Hi! I’m the guy that made “Hindquarters”. I’m glad you folks enjoyed the crossword I made!!! I’d like to thank all the people on Crosscord that helped make this puzzle happen and gave me some great options on other names that would fit. :) I was this close to including RASCAL FLATTS, lol
Any crossword that requires numbers, or multiple letters in a single box should require a note next to the title that suggests that you might have to go that route. Give us some sort of indication that it is NOT A TRADITIONAL PUZZLE so we don’t spend a lot of time on something without knowing what approach to take. Difficult is fine, but this type of puzzle is garbage, and I honestly look at it as laziness on behalf of the author. If you planned it that way, warn us.
Or, you could keep an open mind and accept that some crosswords force you to think outside the box. Just because you weren’t able to figure that trick out doesn’t mean it should be spoiled for everyone else before they’ve even started the puzzle.