Karen Steinberg’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Dig Deep!”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar(ish) words/names/phrases in the Down direction with circled letters that spell out names and words that can precede “rabbit”. The revealer is RABBIT HOLES (24d, [You can get sucked into them online (and a hint to this puzzle’s theme)]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Dig Deep!” · Karen Steinberg · Wed., 4.16.25
- 3d. [Ralphs, Fred Meyer or Harris Teeter, e.g.] KROGER STORE. Not a smooth, colloquial entry like the others.
- 9d. [Swan species] TRUMPETER.
- 15d. [“The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies” author] BEATRIX POTTER.
- 32d. [Mariachi singers’ toppers] SOMBREROS.
I love the revealer which makes a great basis for a theme. And I wasn’t so sure at first, but now I’m digging (haha) the rabbit names in circles resembling holes with everything going in the Down direction. Works for me.
I am going to grumble about CATALPA [Tree with heart-shaped leaves and beanlike seedpods]. I have no problem with something I’ve never heard of before being in a puzzle, but to cross it with two proper names (CARL Orff and James ARNESS, French LES, and ambiguously clued PRE) is unkind to solvers. I knew ARNESS and I was 90% sure CARL was with a C, but I’m sure some solvers put a K there. LES is a fill-in-the-blank and the L seemed likely but certainly not 100%. My error was with PRE clued [Before, as a beginning]. In hindsight, yes I see it’s correct, but it sure looked like it wanted to be ERE during the solve, so that’s what I went with and never gave it a second glance. CATALEA seemed just as feasible as an answer to me.
Conversely, that SW corner is very nice with BUM A RIDE, The Beatles’ “I’M A LOSER“, and NATASHA.
Clues of note:
- 1a. [What to do before being successful?]. FAKE IT. From the phrase, “Fake it ’til you make it.” Before I realized that, I went with FACE IT.
- 27d. [Beginner’s push-up routine, say]. ONE REP. Can you really call one thing a “rep”?
- 35d. [Canal type]. ROOT. Ugh. Next time someone asks me what a ROOT is, I’ll tell them it’s a type of canal and see what kind of reaction I get.
Good theme but the NE corner was a little rough (at least in my experience). Three stars.
Kathy Bloomer’s New York Times cossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 4/16/25 – no. 0416
It’s hard when the grid highlighting points you towards the theme revealer, whose clue refers to the ends of the three Down theme answers. I haven’t gotten to the bottom yet! Probably would have solved faster if I’d worked the bottom Acrosses first.
The revealer is CEREAL AISLES, and the theme answer are made by changing a -CKS word into an -X word that’s a brand of breakfast cereal.
- 4D. [Came out in favor of a certain breakfast product?], ENDORSED CHEX. There’s no plain CHEX, mind you; each Chex cereal’s name starts with a grain or flavor or other descriptor.
- 14D. [Doing some shopping for breakfast?], GETTING ONE’S KIX. I used to love Kix but it just palled on me somehow.
- 8D. [Sugary bulk breakfast purchase?], WHOLE BAG OF TRIX. Not 100% sure that “whole bag of tricks” is a phrase unto itself.
Fun, especially for those of you who are morning solvers.
Fave fill: EGGNOG (and not the too-frequent entry NOG), FROG LEGS (did not know they ate frog legs in China too). Less keen on IS LATE, which is IS + {adjective}, there could be a thousand such entries if we open the gates to that.
3.75 stars from me.
Zhouqin Burnikel’s Universal crossword, “Wraps Around” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 4/16/25 • Wed • “Wraps Around” • Burnikel • solution • 20250416
CLOTHing (18d) that is wrapped around the body—colloquially called a wrap—here wraps around the grid, off the right edge and back onto the left edge.
- 17a. [From time to time] ON OCCASION.
19a. [Read over quickly] SKIM.
(kimono) - 27a. [Flat-screen set] OLED TV, organic light-emitting diode.
30a. [Gather crops] HARVEST.
(stole) - 47a. [In progress] ONGOING.
49a. [Salad type] CAESAR.
(sarong) - 62a. [Scoring attempt] SHOT.
63a. [Fruity chip dip] MANGO SALSA.
(sash)
Nifty stuff. The two six-letter wraps are more impressive than the shorter ones.
- 33d [Taro or nagaimo] TUBER.
- 43d [Raincoat fabric] GORE-TEX. The Gore part is an eponym from the father-son team that developed the material.
- 61d [Enjoys a mochi donut, say] EATS. Oddly specific, but that’s the kind of thing that helps give a crossword personality. See also, 1a [Tea in a kulhar cup] CHAI.
- 10a [Hotel room cover-up] ROBE, which might be considered a type of wrap, not too dissimilar from a KIMONO. Further, a robe can be secured with a belt (like a raincoat) or a SASH, but a different kind than is suggested by the thematic element in Row 13.
- 25a [Pre-1917 Russian ruler] TSAR, tracing its etymology to CAESAR (49a).
- 42a [ __ Kong Island] HONG. In the news today.
Aimee Lucido & Ella Dershowitz’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Double Deal”—Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 4/16/25 – “Double Deal”
I solved the puzzle last night but was too tired to blog it then. Let’s see how familiar the puzzle looks this morning!
OK, it’s a rebus puzzle with the revealer TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, and the rebus squares contain IT … but you could also leave those squares blank and the crisscrossing answers would still work with their clues. The “also works without IT” angle was lost on me last night.
- 17a. [Closed, as a webpage, with “out of”], EXED or EXITED / 3d. [Was suggestive, in a way], POSED or POSITED.
- 22a. [It comes before a big day], EVE or EVITE / 14d. [Circles in the sky], ORBS or ORBITS.
- 49a. [Taking another pass at], REVISING or REVISITING / 41d. [Disney movie character], TRON or TRITON. That 14d is a delight.
- 54a. [Not transcendent], FINE or FINITE / 44d. [Spew], SPOUT or SPIT OUT.
I feel like there can’t be a ton of words that work with the same clue with IT included or deleted. Well done!
Fave fill: CRAB CAKES, PELOTON, VERDIGRIS, FALSE FLAG, O. HENRY.
Federal tidbit: 41a. [Short-term investments backed by the US government], T-BILLS. These are the things whose percentage yield plummeted at the same time as the stock market, rather than going up in response. Suddenly nobody much wanted to invest in the United States as an enterprise. Trump “paused” the tariffs (meaning reduced many of them to 10%, which is not zero) when enough people freaked out about T-bills going down.
I would kinda like ONE-K to disappear from crosswords. First, it’s a spelled-out number where a numeral would typically be used. Secondly, where are all these 1-k races?! I asked Google about fun run distances, and most sites seemed to say 5-k (3.1 miles) was the commonest. A Chicago race with kids’ events offers distances from 50 yards to a 1/2 mile for children aged 2 to 12. The Olympics have 800 m and 1500 m events, but not 1000 m. Just say no to ONEK!
3.75 stars from me.
Anna Gundlach’s USA Today Crossword, “Base Coat” — Emily’s write-up
Watch the shades coming your way!
USA Today, April 16, 2025, “Base Coat” by Anna Gundlach
Theme: each downs themer ends (aka “base”) in a color of a horse’s coat
Themers:
- 21d. [Hot-dog-eating world champion], JOEYCHESTNUT
- 25d. [“Slumdog Millionaire” actress], FREIDAPINTO
- 23d. [“Hot To Go!” sinnger-songwriter], CHAPPELLROAN
A star-studded line-up today with the themer set of JOEYCHESTNUT, FREIDAPINTO, and CHAPPELLROAN. I needed some crossings for each of them to get me started but none to too difficult. It’s fun that the set was three celebs.
Favorite fill: HOWCOME, PASTRAMI, and NOSH
Stumpers: PANDA (“zebra” came to mind first), DULYNOTED (needed a few crossings), and SANDALTAN (needed all the crossings)
Overall a smooth solve today though it took me a bit longer. Everything was fairly crossed and I didn’t get stuck anywhere, but some of the cluing was trickier or I didn’t know the entry. Lots of fun and fresh fill today! A groaner of a DADJOKE but who doesn’t enjoy a “good” one? How’d you all do?
4.0 stars
~Emily
Jeffrey Martinovic & Evan Park’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
LAT Apr 17 25
Messrs. Martinovic & Park combined a number of different mid-week theme tropes, as well as a wordbank that provides a rich vein of choices, to create an interesting puzzle diversion. All five theme entries are in the downs, with ROCKCLIMBER explaining the other four. They each conceal, written backwards (down to up, or climbing), a (semi-)precious gem (or ROCK) . These are RUBY, OPAL, AGATE and ONYX. So:
- [Meatless barbecue patties], SOYBURGERS. What’s with Americans and braai-ing patties?
- [Light punishment], ASLAPONTHEWRIST.
- [Au revoir], TILLWEMEETAGAIN
- [Former Samsung phone with a stylus], GALAXYNOTE
Gareth
NYT: STU (name) crosses IS LATE (phrase against crossword common practice), XTERRA (brand name), and US TEN (phrasal proper noun).
HIRT (name) crosses HOWD (uncommon contraction), INHD (phrase), REOS (brand name), and TOTAL (clued as brand name). TOTAL itself crosses two theme entries and OSTER (brand name).
PTUI crossing GRU looks like excellent fills compared to all that crap above. Not.
I never even saw USTEN. I do not care for spelled-out numbers that should be numerals. Nobody is taking I-Ninety-Four.
+1
NYT: Theme is clever, but having it in downs is disorienting and the revealer doesn’t help for the reasons Amy described. But when I was done, I was pleased by the common X ending for all the cereal phrases.
But the fill with the crosses, as described above, felt like a big price to pay especially around the middle. The corners felt smoother.
Favorite entry: FROG LEGS! Grew up eating and liking them. Haven’t had them in ages. Not sure how I feel about them now.
Frog legs! Yummy. I haven’t had them in years, either. I remember ordering them in the South and they were the size of chicken legs. Along with another favorite, lamb chops, difficult to find these days.
I agree that the theme concept is clever, and Wednesday-appropriate.
But the execution of the theme has some serious problems. “Endorsed checks” is just two words, not a phrase; it’s “green paint” in that it could just as easily be “endorsed candidates” or “endorsed products”. “Getting one’s kicks” might, at a stretch, be a phrase one could imagine someone using, but the actual colloquial phrase is “get your kicks” (on Route 66). “Bag of tricks” is a colloquial phrase, as is “whole ball of wax,” but “whole bag of tricks” is not.
I got ENDORSED CHEX first, but had KIX and TRIX in place for a while before I figured out what went before them, because the phrases just didn’t seem to make sense. And even after I saw what they had to be, they still didn’t.
With my disordered solving, I first stumbled on EGGNOG before I ran into any of the long theme entries (or TOTAL going across) apart from the letters in AISLE. Between that, the run-up to EASTER (and SEDER lent a seasonal dining accent), and egg prices perpetually in the news, I figured it was about that. Oops.
I had my share of sweetened cereal as a kid, but I’m not proud of it and not delighted to be reminded of it. Still, it’s legit fill and gave very long themers, a plus. I have no objection at all to their being down entries. I also knew HIRT right off (mostly from past puzzles) and don’t object to HOW’D. In sum, perfectly OK puzzle, but I don’t have to like it.
NYT: This one was definitely “not for me.”
A few missteps along the way slowed me down – “tram” before T-BAR, “chalets” before A-FRAMES, “gist” before CRUX. Took a while to notice that the long downs seemed to be ending with “X,” then a little longer to see that they were ending in cereal brand names.
By the time I finished solving, I didn’t even bother to go back to the themers and grok the “X-for-CKS” aspect of the theme.
The clue for US-TEN (the dreaded spelled-out numeral entry) is one of those “straight-out-of-Wikipedia” bits of trivia.
I don’t rate puzzles, but this one would be far below Amy’s generous 3.75 for me.
I found the NYT unusually tough for a Wednesday, not helped by getting two phone calls mid-solve. I had MAN before MAC, so had trouble seeing ACESUP, which is new to me anyway, and put PFUI before PTUI. That little section slowed me down.
Plus, as a non-eater of cereal, I’m not at all familiar with the goods on the CEREALAISLES.
I forgot to mention that PTUI should win out over PFUI in this era, after the “Hawk Tuah girl” spitter lent support to a T sound in there.
And who can forget the Hawk Tuah girl?
I do agree that PTUI works much better as the onomatopoeia for spitting.
The problem is that this describes the sound the spitter makes, and not (as the clue implies) a sound that the spittoon makes.
I’m not familiar with “pfui” as opposed to PTUI, although I’ve never myself used either one.
IS LATE?! Wtf? Come on, NYT. Seriously? IS LATE has traumatized me, and as I’m trying to work I find myself mantrically repeating it the way Dave’s car salesman father in “Breaking Away” kept compulsively, incomprehendingly blurting out, “Refund?!… Refund?!!!”… IS LATE?!… IS LATE?!!!
IS LATE elicits a mentor’s dutiful and boilerplate-by-now assertion that “Crossword construction need be not about the joy of construction alone, but also, if not more so, about the solver’s enjoyment.”
Just looking at that corner, you could go SCI, cheater square, ISLAND. I guess it’s easy to be a critic. The reality may actually be that this iteration of that corner was, ultimately, the most viable, but that’s hard to believe. If I were making this puzzle and IS LATE was the best I could do there, I would start changing all kinds of shit, whatever I had to change to get rid of IS LATE, because there’s just no way in hell the editor is gonna let that fly, and, plus, that corner is really gonna suck for the solver. But, similar to my reluctance to take the time to reacquaint myself with basic HTML so that I can put a movie title in italics, as is proper, rather than quotes, I’m neither willing to open up Compiler and start exploring alternate grids. Still, though, even as I’m closing this paragraph and post with a modicum of Acceptance and serenity, Dave’s dad is me right now.
WSJ – I had the exact same problems in that NE corner that Jim had. Otherwise, a fun timely puzzle!
Thanks for correcting the error in your comment. If you didn’t I was going to have to ask to see your manager.
Re that NE corner: CATALPA is quite a common tree in the SE United States. But if you’re not from there, I can definitely see that entry being a problem. And if you didn’t know it, crossing it with unfamiliar proper nouns makes it particularly tough.
We have catalpas in the Upper Midwest, too. I wouldn’t call them “common,” not unfamiliar, either.
No catalpas around me in Northern California, but I miss the string bean trees of New York. Handsome leaves, interesting seed pods, georgeous flower sprays, and shade. I’ve always loved them and that entry was a gimme.