Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crossword, “Themeless 175” – Jenni’s write-up
I think I’m over the jet lag, which means this was one of the hardest FB themelesses I’ve seen in a while. It was a fun challenge with one “ouch.”
Highlights:
Fireball, February 19, 2025, Peter Gordon, “Themeless 175,” solution grid
- Peter often connects the first and last entries. 1a [Blackberry in the ‘20s White House, for example] is CHOW–CHOW, referring to Calvin Coolidge’s dog from the last century. 60a [“On the double!”] is CHOP–CHOP, which is unfortunate because the expression has racist roots. That was the “ouch.”
- 16a [Busts, for example] is neither statuary nor anatomy. It’s LOSES A BET.
- 34a [Seat of Washington’s Snohomish County] is EVERETT, which I knew because I watch an HGTV show that takes place in Snohomish.
- 37a [They might get licked while working] are DOG GROOMERS.
- 55a [Julius Caesar’s Gaius] is his PRAENOMEN, or first name. I’d rather have that than Roman numerals any day.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: I’d never heard of MANDAN or ROAD AMERICA.
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Unbreakable”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are words and phrases that start with F and end with E (the chemical symbol for iron), but the clues ignore these letters and focus on the words hidden within. The revealer is IRONCLAD (57a, [Unbreakable, and a hint to making sense of seven answers in this puzzle]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Unbreakable” · Mike Shenk · Thu., 2.20.25
- 16a. [Crater Lake setting] FOREGONE. Oregon.
- 18a. [Epitome of innocence] FLAMBE. Lamb.
- 26a. [Mail, e.g.] FAR MORE. Armor.
- 31a. [Sch. for recruits] FACADE. Acad.
- 42a. [Fight site] FRINGE. Ring.
- 46a. [Starter for a British auto?] FAST ONE. Aston (Martin).
- 55a. [Still having a chance to win] FINITE. In it.
I caught on to the gist of the theme with the first entry which helped quite a bit, but the iron angle eluded me until I hit the revealer. Making that connection would’ve helped me identify which entries were theme answers since they’re not asterisked or marked in any other way. But it was enjoyable sorting it out as it was. If I were to pick a nit, it would be the presence of an abbreviation (acad.) and the short “in it”, but otherwise, a nice theme.
COCA COLA tops the fill along with FLIP OUT, DIOCESE, and “MOVE IT!” That northeast corner is on fire though (and not in a good way). We have a mash-up of AFLARE (is that even a word?) stacked with AFLAME both of which cross theme answer FLAMBE. That’s too hot to handle. 🔥🔥🔥
Clues of note:
- 5d. [See]. DIOCESE. Tough, but good Thursdayish clue. Needed every crossing before I could see it (haha).
- 56d. [“Was ___ los?”]. IST. I was thrown by “los” which I didn’t know had a German meaning. The phrase means, “What happened?” or “What is happening?”
Good theme and grid, but those near-dupes in the NE stick out. 3.5 stars.
Peter Gorman’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Easy (8m24s)
Today’s theme: ONE / OFF (With 43-Across, something never to be repeated … or a hint to the answers to the italicized clues)
- TWENTY ONE ACROSS (This clue)
- FOURTEEN LETTERS (This answer)
- WEDNESDAY PUZZLE (This puzzle)
Missed the premise for a moment, because my brain legitimately thought 20a was TWENTY ONE ACROSS (my eyes aint so great in the morning [or afternoon][[or evening]]]), and it wasn’t until I unsuccessfully tried to plunk FIFTEEN LETTERS at 37a that I realized everything was ONE / OFF. I will say, ironically, this did feel more like a WEDNESDAY PUZZLE, so 51A ends up being spot on anyhow!
Cracking: hotel, motel, HOLIDAY INN
Slacking: ACOW, ACOW, my kingdom for ACOW
Sidetracking: YAO
Taylor Johnson’s USA Today Crossword, “False Starts” — Emily’s write-up
Watch yourself today—not everything is as it seems!
USA Today, February 20, 2025, “False Starts” by Taylor Johnson
Theme: each themer can be prepended with FALSE— to create a new phrase
Themers:
- 20a. [“Fingers crossed my advice serves you well!”], HOPETHISHELPS
- 41a. [Generally optimistic attItude], POSITIVEOUTLOOK
- 59a. [“Just tell me what it’ll cost”], NAMEYOURPRICE
What a themer set today with HOPETHISHELPS, POSITIVEOUTLOOK, and NAMEYOURPRICE. With the theme, we also get FALSE HOPE, FALSE POSITIVE, and FALSE NAME.
Favorite fill: STEPONIT, MOCHI, and MAUI
Stumpers: AUG (need crossings), NANO (new cluing to me), and FLATIRON (only “straightener” and “hair straightener” came to mind)
A fun theme today! I enjoyed the grid and it was a smooth solve though some cluing took me a bit longer but everything was fairly crossed. Also loved the lengthy bonus fill.
4.25 stars
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1759 “Letters from the “Heart” — Eric’s review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1759 — 2/20/25
I missed the theme while I was solving it, though it might have helped in a few places if I’d gotten stuck.
Brendan’s using HEART as a letter bank, giving us six theme answers:
- 17A [“I Just Want to Celebrate” band] RARE EARTH I can hear this 1971 song in my head, but I needed a few crosses to remember the band’s name.
- 37A [Roadside restaurant’s invitation] EAT HERE
- 39A [First president of The Ninety-Nines: International Organization of Women Pilots] EARHART That seemed pretty obvious even without picking up on the letter bank trick.
- 60A [Flowering evergreen plant] TREE HEATH Wikipedia says it’s also known as Erica arborea or tree heather and that it’s cultivated mainly in the Mediterranean Basin and East Africa.
Erica arborea
- 12D [Proceeding thus] AT THAT RATE I got this entirely from the crosses and just now noticed it was a theme answer.
- 28D [Place that puts on some avant-garde productions] ART THEATER Isn’t there a rule that such a place would use the “theatre” spelling?
Some other things that caught my eye:
- 31A [Talk down to] BERATE I don’t fully buy this clue. “Berate” means “to scold.” “Talk down to” implies condescension, at least to me.
- 44A [Kinda blue] SMUTTY Nice clue. I read somewhere that “blue” was used to describe pornographic material because it was sometimes mailed wrapped in blue paper. I don’t know if that’s correct.
- 54A [Slash’s band?] AC/DC Cute clue that will be lost on anyone who’s never heard of Guns N’ Roses. But I expect most people solving BEQ’s puzzles know a bit about rock music.
- 65A [Breath mint brand] CERTS This answer showed up in the NYT puzzle just a few days ago; the “Two mints in one!” brand was discontinued in 2018. I wonder how long it will live on in crossword puzzles.
- 7D [Persian bakery, perhaps] CAT CAFÉ The misdirection got me.
- 30D [“Coffee and Cigarettes” director Jim] JARMUSCH I saw a lot of indie movies in the 1990s, so this was a gimme. If you’re not familiar with his work, you might try Night on Earth.
Amie Walker & Geoffrey Schorkopf’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s Summary
Today’s puzzle by Amie Walker & Geoffrey Schorkopf is explained at “MAKECONCESSIONS“, although really just CONCESSIONS explains what is going on. Each of four inedible long entries begins with a snack/fast food item:
- [Menu icon…], HAMBURGERBUTTON. The who knows what we’ll find button…
- [Red-and-white pattern], CANDYSTRIPE
- [Textured features…], POPCORNCEILINGS
- [Intricate inversion…], PRETZELLOOP
Mystery letters… [Style manual org.], MLA: apparently Modern Language Association; [Collision repair franchise], MAACO, though I’m sure Americans knew this.
Gareth
NYT: I’m afraid I’ll have to read a blog post to understand the theme.
TWENTY-ONE ACROSS is 20 across, FOURTEEN LETTERS has 15 letters, and it’s actually a Thursday, not a WEDNESDAY PUZZLE.
I checked the date and, sure enough, it is *not* April 1.
Aha! Just remembered the strange ONE … OFF answer in two spaces, and that explains everything.! (It’s a bit unusual for its not to be tagged as a hint to the theme, but that is fine with me.)
Cute! (Now that it makes sense.)
but it was tagged? The clues to the “This answer” entries are italicized (at least in the iPhone app where i’m solving) and ONE…OFF is clued as something something .. and a hint to the italicized entries. (paraphrasing)
Aha, thanks. In my usual rush to finish the puzzle asap I overlooked that that answer was a revealer. (I suspect it would have taken longer had I thought much about the theme.)
NYT: I really liked this puzzle, but when solving it, I was my own worst enemy. I solved it on Wednesday night, so when WEDNESDAY PUZZLE came up, I thought, “Oh, it’s a self-referential theme.” And when I had —–EENLETTERS, I confidently started typing FIFTEEN LETTERS (since I had proudly figured out the theme was self-referential — insert rolling eyes emoji here), not noticing that I actually ended up with FIFTEEEN LETTERS.
It took me a lot longer than it should have to correct FIFTEEEN to FOURTEEN because I was so sure that FIFTEEEN was correct that I couldn’t see the extra E or let FIFTEEN go. I learned a good lesson for future puzzles from my experience with this one!
NYT: I think you have the wrong constructor credited with this one.
Thanks, it’s been corrected now.
WSJ: Agreeing with Jim’s assessment, but he was almost too lenient. AFLARE crossing AFRAME crossing AFLAME crossing FLAMBE. I know you need some of those Fs and Es for the theme, but holy moly that was a messy NE corner.
I sort of skimmed your comment before doing the WSJ puzzle, so I wasn’t surprised by the near-duplicates in the NE. But that kind of thing bothers me much less than it seems to bother a lot of people.
And in any case, I’m willing to cut Mike Shenk some slack for having come up with the brilliant clue [Strips of fabric] for UNDRAPES. (I’m assuming it’s an original clue.)
NYT is on a streak of creative and well-executed themes. This was another one. Nicely done.
Yea, clever and fun. Even an appropriate bit of a challenge. Now I’ll go look up the difference between OLMEC and AZTEC.
NYT: I liked the theme. But never heard ONE OFF used in that context. Always heard it used as a slightly related topic to the one being addressed.
Or am I missing something?!?
I have heard one-off or one off used to describe something not part of a series, but I think it was originally a British thang that’s been slowly osmosing to the U.S.
PS Just saw David L’s post below that agrees.
I used “one-off” often at work, as when designing a quick-and-dirty application that was meant for internal use and not to be developed for sale.
It’s a Briticism, dating to the 1930s. Ben Zimmer wrote about it in 2010, in response to a puzzled reader of the NYT.
RE: Fireball
“Ouch” indeed re: “CHOP-CHOP”. Could easily have been changed to CHOP SHOP (with NEC changing to NES, which can be clued a number of ways, including re: the Nintendo console).
I’m not loving CHOP CHOP either.