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Rena Cohen’s New York Times crossword— Sophia’s write-up
Happy Monday everyone! A slightly usual theme today for a Monday. The first theme
New York Times, 02 23 2025, By Rena Cohen
answer, WASHES DISHES, contains four S’s, each separated by two letters. The next, FIELD EXPERIENCE, contains the same pattern but with E’s. And the final answer, TAUGHT TO THE TEST, is again the same pattern but with the letter T. Each of these theme answers are aligned to the right side, so the S, E, and T’s are lined up in a vertical line. Thus, we get the revealer SETS STRAIGHT, because of the placement of the circled letters in straight vertical lines spelling out the word “set”.
Given that I needed a whole paragraph to explain the theme, I’d say it’s a little high concept for a Monday – when I first looked at the puzzle, I saw the repeating letters and thought “S, E, T… ok, it spells out SET, but is the ‘straight’ part just that they appear in sequence?” It took me until writing this recap to fully understand the theme, so I hope it is appropriately appreciated by other folks! It is hard to find words with a repeating letter pattern on their own, so having to be locked into particular placements of said words is a real constructing challenge. Rena did a great job today!
Fill highlights: GETS REAL, PETER PAN, ME THREE, EEYORE (and I found the clue of [Donkey friend of Roo and Pooh] very sonically satisfying)
Clue highlights: EPEE cross-referencing EN GARDE, [Prefix with way or wife] for MID, [Cartoon dog whose name sounds like a bird] for REN, [Bread machine?] for ATM.
Jackson Matz’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Look Ahead”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases whose first words can precede “eye” in other phrases. The revealer is EYE OPENER (58a, [Revelation, or what can be found at the starts of the starred answers]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Look Ahead” · Jackson Matz · Mon., 2.24.25
- 17a. [*It might be a setup] BLIND DATE. Blind eye.
- 24a. [*Start of the Christmas shopping rush] BLACK FRIDAY. Black eye.
- 36a. [*Play really badly] STINK UP THE JOINT. Stink-eye.
- 46a. [*Eagles and hawks, e.g.] BIRDS OF PREY. Birds-eye.
Classic example of this style of theme. I enjoyed the lively phrases, especially that middle grid-spanner.
I also enjoyed those two anchoring long Down entries: FIRST SNOW and CLICKBAIT. Most of the rest of the fill is smooth and solid, with the exception of AOKS.
Clues of note:
- 20a. [Head-scratchers?]. LICE. Well, they aren’t so much scratching as biting.
- 16d. [Lord’s wife]. LADY. This clue caused me to wonder whether the husband of a lord (or a knight) gets a title. Answer: No.
Good start to the week. 3.5 stars.
Malaika Handa & Stephen Lurie’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 2/24/25 by Malaika Handa & Stephen Lurie
Gotta keep this one quick today. This theme is pretty straightforward: various ways a pop song can be reworked. The revealer at 63A [Adopted a new attitude, or what music producers did to create the answers to the starred clues?] is CHANGED ONE’S TUNE, which ties things up in a punny way (although I dislike ONE’S phrases on principle, because they sound stilted to me).
- 17A [*Song that’s been modified to have an intimate sound] is ACOUSTIC VERSION.
- 27A [*Song that’s been modified to be family-friendly] is RADIO EDIT.
- 49A [*Song that’s been modified to have a dance beat] is CLUB REMIX.
Fun!
Zachary Edward-Brown’s Universal crossword, “Live in the Moment” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 2/24/25 • Mon • “Live in the Moment” • Edward-Brown • solution • 20250224
- 50aR [“Finally!” … or a hint to 25-, 33- or 42-Across] IT’S ABOUT TIME.
- 25a. [Response to someone saying”it’s 3:00″ when you can see it’s 4:00?] NOT ON MY WATCH.
- 33a. [Place to buy a thin part of a chronograph?] SECOND HAND STORE.
- 42a. [Dusts a face?] CLEANS ONE’S CLOCK.
Timely, I guess, right? Very smooth crossword, great as an early-in-the-week warmup.
- 6d [Place to get the ball rolling?] ALLEY, of the bowling kind.
- 9d [Makes a hole in] PIERCES. 30a [Use a needle and thread] SEW.
- 23a [Central Plains tribe] PAWNEE. etymology: of Siouan origin; akin to Osage ppáį Pawnee, Omaha ppáðį (m-w). Their endonym is Chatiks si chatiks, “men of men” (Wikipedia).
- 36d [“Yippee!”] HOORAH. My only mis-fill, short-lived. Of course I’d tried HOORAY.
- 1a [“Paper or plastic?” item] BAG. Paper is more easily recyclable. Your own reusable bags are even better.
- 15a [Syllables repeated in Rihanna’s “Umbrella”] -ELLA, echolalic. Pretty sure it’s clued this way rather than as a name in order to somewhat distance it from 34d [“Legally Blonde” protagonist Woods] ELLE.
- 19a [ __ Belova, aka Black Widow] YELENA. More than one Marvel character claims that mantle. The original is Natasha Romanova.
- 20a [Apple product that can be red or green] IMAC. Have they reduced the offered colors, or only those two mentioned to provide some misdirection in the clue? § I just checked, and it’s the latter.
- Theme-adjacent: 70a [Now and __ ] THEN.
Erik Agard’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap
New Yorker crossword solution, 2/24/25 – Agard
A bit easier than I was expecting for an Erik Monday.
Themelesses with 7-filled corners have never been my favorite, because too many of the 7s tend to be blah. RENTS TO, AS A TEAM, SAT HOME, HAD SOME?
Fave fill: BEATS ME, OSTRICH EGGS ([They might be part of a big scramble]), DUCATIS, PECANS, GATTACA.
I wanted SCRATCH-OFF for SCRATCH CARD. If we’re talking instant lottery tickets, they’re scratch-offs here in the Midwest. Are they called SCRATCH CARDs where you live?
Did not know: [Country in the 2024 documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” for short], DRC. It’s up for an Oscar this weekend, and here’s the story. Lots of noted jazz musicians took part in protesting.
3.5 stars from me.
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1760 — Eric’s review
My apologies for the late review. I spent most of the day driving to Big Cottonwood Canyon outside Salt Lake City, where I’m hoping the skiing is better than it is at home in Colorado.
I had a bit more trouble with this one than I have had with other BEQ puzzles lately. That’s probably a combination of being tired from the drive and more answers than usual that needed several crosses before I could see them. Some of those I flat-out didn’t know; some I only sort of knew.
Notable stuff:
- 15A [Sourdough starter, e.g.] LEAVEN I had never before seen LEAVEN as a noun.
- 26A [Premeditated killing, legally] MURDER ONE I used to work for the Texas Legislature, so I’m pretty familiar with the Texas Penal Code. In Texas, this would be “capital murder.” The bigger problem was that I somehow interpreted “premeditated” as “justified” (as in self-defense). But too many hours spent watching TV cops made this relatively easy to get.
- 31A [Footwear savers BOOT TREES I call them SHOE TREES regardless of the type of footwear.
- 37A [Sired, biblically] BEGOT Not BEGAT, which I always thought it was.
- 41A [Hasbro board game where female players are given an advantage over the male players] MS MONOPOLY Monopoly is one of the most tedious games I know. I had never heard of this variant. And does saying it’s made by Hasbro make it any easier to get the answer?
- 45A [Self-satisfied appearance] SMUG LOOK That’s basically my default expression.
- 33D [They’re spotted in zoos] OCELOTS Because their coats have spots, of course.
- 34D [Set of components that are installed on a car] BODY KITS I assume this is fender flares and spoilers — what my husband calls “pasties.”
No complaints about any of the fill. The stuff that’s not exciting is perfectly acceptable. And I don’t expect every entry in a crossword to “spark joy.”
NYT Spelling Bee for Sunday, February 23, 2025:
This was one of the toughest ones so far for getting to g. (55 words found), ever since its inception (except for a few times I forgot to finish it). Yeow, that took a long time, with multiple sessions of staring at it.
Anyone else have a similar experience?
Yeah, it was tough. Finally found all 70 about an hour ago.
I’m impressed you guys are getting to Genius or Queen Bee every day. I get to Genius once or twice a week. It’s probably a bit of a vicious circle, where I’m not good enough to get to Genius on most days without spending more time than I want to spend on Spelling Bee, so I’m also not spending the time to get really good at it so I get to Genius more easily!
I try to get a pangram every day, though.
I rarely get to Queen Bee, maybe once or twice a month, and often don’t even try unless the letters seem especially fertile or especially barren.
I didn’t find the fourth pangram (capellini, a word I did not know), but did find panicle, which wasn’t accepted. (And I bet Martin found panicle, too.
PS I don’t want any hints, but: I think the people in charge of Spelling Bee are trying to break my streak (not that I’m into streaks, but I have my pride).
Yesterday was almost impossible to reach g., and today I’m 14 points away with no new words in sight, 11 hours after I woke up today.
Oh, well, my pride probably benefits by taking a hit now and then.
Update: Somehow, I “tried harder” this time (I don’t know how that works) and found two 8-letter words that had been eluding me, one of which I didn’t know before … so now I can relax. (I always try anything that seems conceivably plausible.)
Sometimes I just enter what I think is a “nonsense” word, and Joel likes it. Today it was NATALITY. Oh yeah, that’s definitely “in the language!”
I had a much harder time getting to Genius than I usually do. I’m mildly annoyed that there’s a fourth pangram that I can’t find.
One of them (and a similar word) were among my last.
Three count’em three words I had not heard before, or if I heard them I didn’t know the definition until now (white beans, asexual, thin skin)… really tough day it was. I do go to the “community” clues/hints when I get stuck like that. SteveG is pretty funny on his first set of hints.
EPICENE is the one I’d call a bit obscure. PELLICLE is a word I use, mainly when making lox. After you cure fish and before you smoke it, you air-dry it for a few hours to form a pellicle. Another word for think skin is “film,” and the Spanish word for movie is pelicula.
True head-slap story. One of my last words last night was CAPELLINI. We had some for dinner and it still didn’t help! In fairness, we called it “angel hair.”
Though I didn’t get either one, I knew the word epicene but not pellicle.
PELLICLE. I never would have thought of that, even though it’s not wholly unfamiliar.
Thanks.
Absolutely!
Same here. I think it took 42 words, including 3 of the pangrams, just to get to “Amazing.” Not a good sign! Had to return to the puzzle several times to get to “Genius.” That’s the point when I typically look at the hints to see how many more words/points I need to get to the Queen Bee. If there’s more than 10 more words, I usually bag it. Next day, I look at the answers, and there is almost always at least one word I was never going to come up with.
“[T]here is almost always at least one word I was never going to come up with.”
That’s exactly my experience. I’d be interested to see how many of the Spelling Bees where I stopped at Genius included words I would not have likely found. I expect it’s more than half.
I have started keeping a list of words that are new or newish to me. I don’t think I will miss CALLALOO or LANAI ever again.
Spelling Bee is a hoot in terms of words deemed acceptable or unacceptable. The puzzle from last Friday included HOLT (a word marked as “archaic” on m-w.com) and TILTH (a word meaning “cultivated land” which has appeared once – in 1994 – in a NYT crossword).
And while AROAR is famously not permitted, ATILT, ABLOOM, and ABOIL are all okay.
Sam’s choices often leave me bemused, but I try to think of them as lovably quirky rather than irritating ;)
I stopped playing Spelling Bee for over a year because I was too frustrated by Sam Ezersky’s capriciousness in deciding which words to accept and which to reject. Since coming back to the game about a year ago, I’ve successfully become more tolerant of the list.
The one hard line I would draw is that once a word is on the accepted list, it should stay there. To have words coming on the list and then off it just frustrates players.
Sam’s randomness is the main thing that keeps me from spending more time on Spelling Bee. Last week, I spent a ton of time to find I was missing NUNHOOD. Um, okay. I don’t feel bad about missing NUNHOOD. I feel bad about wasting so much time looking for NUNHOOD.
And the whole randomness about which -ing and -ed and un- and non- words get accepted and don’t get accepted… yeah, I think I’ll keep my Spelling Bee time fairly light.
I generally get lanai, because I remember a line from the movie Fletch.
TNY: Cool looking grid. A little faster than a normal Monday time for me, but a satisfying challenge. Felt like a minimum of proper names for an e.a. puzzle – I wonder if that was an intentional effort?
Not a lot of tricky cluing. Liked the clues for UPDATES and PEER EDITING.
In Boston we just call them scratch tickets. Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call them scratch cards or scratch offs.
Scratch offs I’ve definitely heard (Midwest), but also from people who are from the northeast too. Never heard scratch cards.
TNY: I found the NW section toughest, but still not that tough by Monday/Agard standards. My older brother raced motorbikes long ago, and he had a DUCATI, so that was a gimme.
SCRATCHCARD sounded odd to me too. I just call them ‘scratchers.’
I found the interesting grid layout, with four isolated quadrants and four longer entries, brought it up to a Monday. And DLC crossing one of the long ones new to me was just a guess.
I vote for scratch-off.