Victor Schmitt and Tracy Bennett’s New York Time Crossword “Double Vision” — Eric’s review
Victor Schmitt and Tracy Bennett’s New York Times Crossword “Double Vision” — 4/20/25
My start was so quick that I thought I would finish with a new personal best for the NYT Sunday puzzle, but I got bogged down somewhere after the halfway mark and ended with a slowish time. Any dissatisfaction you detect in my write-up is just me feeling slightly bitter over my dashed expectations.
The theme answers are all wacky phrases in which three-, four- or five-letter sequences are repeated, with the middle being a single word:
- 25A [Group that Tiger hires to install wall art?] WOODS WOODSCREW CREW
- 41A [Send fan mail en masse to a Monty Python production?] SPAM SPAMALOT A LOT
- 60A [Angry early president can be seen now in TV footage?] MAD MADISON IS ON
- 85A [Hotheaded liberal politico who’s eager to hear?] DEM DEMAGOG AGOG Are Democrat and liberal equivalent enough for this to work?
- 104A [Pharmacist comes through for customers?] PRO PROCURES CURES This might be the weakest theme answer. Yes, pharmacists are professionals, but so are doctors, lawyers, engineers, et al.
- 122A [Editor’s strike?] RED REDACTION ACTION I like this one, either because of the wordplay with the different meanings of “strike” or because of the way the answer rolls off my tongue. Or maybe it just reminds me of the wonderful editors I used to work with, some of whom I saw last weekend for the first time in a while.
- 3D [Email era?] POST-POSTAGE AGE This one’s kinda fun, too.
- 56D [“Suh-weet! I love this sandwich cookie!”?] WHOO WHOOPIE PIE I may have lost a few minutes here trying to work OREO in.
I’m sure there was a lot of trial and error in coming up with the theme answers, and they’re all pretty good. I did find myself relying on the pattern of previous theme answers to get some of the ones at the bottom, and I always appreciate a theme that’s relevant to my solving experience.
I’m not going to attempt to count the squares in the theme answers, but with eight theme answers, all fairly long, I expect the theme square count is high. Despite that, the fill is pretty solid:
- 9A [Italian restaurant frequently seen in food courts] SBARRO It took me a bit to come up with this one. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a mall or airport.
- 49A [Honcho] NABOB I can’t see that word without thinking of Vice-President Spiro Agnew and his speechwriter William Safire.
- 78A [Like Tommy in the Who’s 1969 rock opera] DEAF (as well as “dumb” and blind)
- 95A [Roasted or grilled, in Spanish] ASADA As in carne asada.
- 112A [Plant that was a top-five girl’s name in the 1970s] HEATHER I guess having “plant” in the clue might be helpful, but to me, it’s just overly wordy.
- 16D [Makeup of some metallic bonds] ARC WELDS That’s a process using electricity, not an acetylene torch, to melt metal.
- 103D [Support line?] I SECOND Years of working for the Texas Legislature taught me more than a little parliamentary procedure.
- 104D [Weapon similar to a halberd] POLE-AX Halberd is one of those words I only sort of know.
Halberds of various shapes, sizes, and ages (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Assumed Names” — Matt’s review
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Assumed Names” solution, 4/20/2025
Themers are common phrases whose first few words can be reparsed as a celebrity’s first name, and we have humorous clues to make that happen:
- 22a [Command to actress Conn to perform the specified task?] DIDI DO THAT
- 30a [News headline about how horror director Hooper is tenacious?] TOBE DETERMINED
- 48a [Nail-striking tool wielded by actor Assante?] ARMAND HAMMER
- 62a [Trivial detail about actress Ryder?] WINONA TECHNICALITY
- 82a [Cry to former prime minister May to grab the ball before it hits the ground?] THERESA CATCH
- 94a [Cry to soccer player Donovan when something is wrong with the body parts at the bottom of his legs] LANDON YOUR FEET
- 109a [Period when pop star Bieber performs] JUSTIN TIME
I was a bit distracted by the first themer using a reduplicative name, and then I didn’t recognize TOBE Hooper (“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “Poltergeist”), but I got sorted out. I don’t have a great sense of how constrained this set is but I’m starting to think it may be slim pickings to find names that fit the bill here.
The puzzle is a bit narrower than typical, at 20×21, and flows pretty nicely. Every themers is intersected by at least two entries that cross another themer, which I always appreciate.
Other highlights: TINDERBOX [Situational powder keg] is a fun one in a longer non-theme entry // If you didn’t know that HOOTIE & the Blowfish refers to two friends of the band rather than Darius Rucker and the rest of the band, now you know // PERT and “impertinent” in the clue don’t share an etymology, to my slight surprise // I did not know that the B in ORAL B stands for “brush” // In the world of conductors in crosswords, I think LEOPOLD Stokowski is new to me // as is a NARCO submarine, apparently a drug-smuggling vessel
Happy Easter to those who celebrate!
Priyanka Sethy and Rajiv Sethy’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Eye-Openers”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar(ish) phrases that features two letters I sandwiching a color. The revealer is COLOR INSIDE THE LINES (70a, [Behave conventionally, or a hint to the circled letters]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Eye-Openers” · Priyanka Sethy and Rajiv Sethy · 4.20.25
- 23a. [Drama series set in Mystic Falls] THE VAMPIRE DIARIES.
- 33a. [South Asian city home to the Manakula Vinayagar Temple] PONDICHERRY, INDIA. Didn’t know this city and since the theme wasn’t evident yet, I needed a lot of crossings.
- 50a. [A considerable amount of] QUITE A LITTLE. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this phrase before.
- 88a. [Sacred figure for some Indigenous people] SPIRIT ANIMAL.
- 108a. [Birds that are symbols of the Golden State] CALIFORNIA QUAILS.
- 118a. [Lizards with long tails and sharp teeth] CROCODILE MONITORS. I’ve heard of monitor lizards, but not this one which is a species of monitors.
Despite my challenges above, this is an amazingly tight theme. If you proposed this theme to me, I never would have guessed you could find enough theme answers to fill a regular grid, let alone a Sunday-sized one. So kudos to our constructors for putting together an impressive theme set with some really nifty finds.
Fill highlights include LOVESEAT, “I DOUBT IT,” SPELMAN College, and “SHAPE UP!” New to me is IDLI [South Indian rice cake] which looks a lot like our Chamorro potu, but ours are sweet, not savory.
Clues of note:
- 21a. [“Se ___ ingles”]. HABLA. I don’t know Spanish, but I know enough that if the answer was to be HABLO, it would come with “Yo” instead of “Se”. The phrase as written is “English is spoken (here)”.
- 18d. [In a relationship that’s not just for two, briefly]. POLYAM. Never seen this shortened version of “polyamory”, but it makes sense.
Good puzzle with an impressive theme. 3.75 stars.
Hey, Eric. In addition to Dem/Lib, I felt the same about demagog(ue)/hotheaded. Also, can you imagine the wigged-out out-rage that would ensue if 85A were something like “Odious conservative House member’s dogs?” [REP REPUGS PUGS]
The theme for the NYT was cute, but it was too much of a slog for me to truly enjoy the solve.
+1
+2. Add in that I accidentally filled CERA for CENA (the actor vs the wrestler) and then didn’t catch it as I had no idea what the random name of a god’s mother was, so I had to take the DNF and check where the mistake was. Blargh. There should be some sort of ironclad rule about never crossing any name with any other name. What’s the hip interweb acronym? YEKIOYD? When I don’t, it ruins the whole experience.
Same here. Clever theme with some fun entries. Surprised myself by getting SPAM SPAMALOT ALOT with no crosses, just based on the puzzle title. My favorite among the themers was POST-POSTAGE AGE – cute! But the puzzle could have used some more challenging cluing for the non-theme fill. Most of it was so straightforward that it felt like a chore to fill in a Sunday-size grid.
I’d agree that the puzzle’s demands weren’t as fun as I’d expect from the theme’s stress on wordplay. Maybe it was that some of them were just too forced to work as clever one-liners.
I don’t know if this is what Eric is saying, but I found the top half rather easy and the bottom half harder because more awkward. Now, I wouldn’t fault PRO for not describing a pharmacist, since clearly it’s someone who’s a pro with cures. Still, I put a little too much work into parsing the clue, with its mention of the customer. The customer never has a synonym in the fill and could have been left out. Similarly, I kept wondering if a radical was the same as a demagogue and whether a demagogue is much of a listener. And yeah, my own lefty leans may have got in the way of my appreciation. So blame me.
Oh, what’s the idea in what I get as I SECOND?
I SECOND is a reference to parliamentary procedure, specifically “seconding” someone else’s motion. Typically, if no one seconds a motion, it’s dead.
And it’s fair to say that I found the top third or half of the grid significantly easier than the rest of it.
Me too; I had the same experience as you—flying through the top half, feeling like I was on my way to a PR, and then bogged down in the bottom. The whole Rocky Mountain state being Idaho really threw me too…
URACIL crossing DANAE struck me as being pretty dang ESOTERIC.
I do remember, in the distant past, being required to memorize the nucleotide bases, but I have never again needed to recall that information until this very morning. Having been a student of the sciences, rather than arts & letters, I don’t recall ever having made the acquaintance of Perseus’ mother.
That said, I did finish a little faster than my Sunday average, mainly, I think, because the top was so much faster than the bottom. But the bottom was definitely kind of a slog.
I had to run the alphabet to get the A there…
LAT: Pretty smooth fills. I recommend it. (But didn’t the exact theme appear in a recent NYT?)
WaPo: I moaned as I saw so many names of actors and actresses. It felt like it would be a slog but by some magic it wasn’t, and I still got to finish within 20 minutes.
NYT: Can’t say if slog or not, maybe just out of my league. NYT Sundays are supposed to be as difficult as Thursdays, I guess.
NYT: I just now saw that PRO PROCURES CURE was also in the June 20, 2021, NYT puzzle “Familiar Surroundings” by Michael Lieberman. The earlier puzzle appears to have the same theme as today’s.
Jeff Chen’s review of the 2021 puzzle links to the November 18, 1984, NYT puzzle “Double Doubles” by George P. Sphicas, which had theme answers like MAN MANDATES DATES.
I know how difficult it is to come up with a novel crossword puzzle theme. Maybe this is just a type of theme like a word ladder or anagrams that is bound to be repeated eventually.
If anyone cares to compare the three themes and explain how they differ (if at all), please do.
Reviewer’s non-time posted but no review for Universal Sunday.
Was there a mistake in the cluing in the WaPo? Italian three minus two is clued once resulting in TRE and another time resulting in UNO. I don’t get it. There is a question mark on the one resulting in TRE but I can’t figure out what the trick is that gives you TRE.
Subtract “two” from “three” in the question mark clue means remove two letters from the word THREE (H and one of the E’s) and you get TRE.
Pretty sneaky, sir. Thanks for explaining it.
The puzzle was a lot of fun. It helped that I was more or less familiar with all the celebrities. WINONA TECHNICALITY is just brilliant.
I was slightly misled in the WaPo because I got ARMANDHAMMER first, and thought all the theme answers were going to be people’s names. But that was a minor hiccup and I enjoyed the theme.
One question: I don’t understand how “End of a queue?” clues ARSE. And yes, I know that ‘arse’ and ‘queue’ are both British English, and I know what they mean, but I still don’t see the connection.
Wouldn’t the last thing in a line of people be someone’s butt?
Unless the last person in line is the Texas Department of Public Safety officer who I used to see around the Texas Capitol. The man had the least protruding buttocks I have ever seen.
Oh. I guess so. Not something that would have occurred to me.
Plus, people do not always queue in an orderly manner. The last person might be looking backwards to see if more people are coming.
Aren’t the British known for their orderly queues?
I should’ve attached a caveat to my earlier reply. I’m not the most guy-like guy around, but I do have a bad case of male answer syndrome. So maybe someone will have a better explanation about that answer.
It could be at the end of a long braid at the back of one’s head.
That crossed my mind but struck me as too Stumper-like for Evan.
fwiw, I thought it was unambiguously the rear end of the last person in line. Although we use “queue” to mean line, it’s much rarer than in the UK, where it’s the default term. So I think it’s a reasonable Britishism signal. (By the way, if it’s not orderly, it’s not a queue.)
The street in front of our local elementary school gets crazy in the morning and afternoon (no school buses here), and there’s a sign to QUEUE HERE. Our son was in second grade when we were dropping him off before some errands. He said, “There’s Peter by the ‘kweh here’ sign.” Elaine and I tried mightily, but couldn’t prevent bursting out in laughter. It’s one of those family things now and we all pronounce it “kweh,” including Alex. He survived some rocky parenting admirably.
if it’s not orderly, it’s not a queue
Oh, come on. I mean people don’t always stand facing forward, like soldiers. Even in Britain.
Not facing forward does not make a queue disorderly. A mob trying to get rescheduled after a canceled flight does.
The clue only requires that occasionally the last person faces forward. Clues never imply “at all times.”
One of the definitions for ‘queue’ in Wiktionary is “(heraldry) An animal’s tail.”. It makes sense to me that, on this definition, ARSE is the end of a queue.
One of the definitions of ‘queue’ in Wiktionary is “(heraldry) An animal’s tail.” On this definition, it makes sense to me that ARSE is an end of a queue.
Using a heraldic term to clue ARSE seems a bit of a mixed metaphor.
Another interpretation just occurred to me: “End” = ”rear end” = ARSE.
I read through Evan Birnholz’s comments on this puzzle on the WaPo website, hoping he might have discussed this. But the only relevant thing I learned was that Patrick Blindauer wrote some of the clues.
This was my clue and “rear end = ARSE” is basically what I meant. I honestly didn’t think it would cause this much confusion.
(Patrick wrote 25% of the clues to last week’s puzzle, not this one.)
Thanks.
It’s a perfectly fine clue. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out — possibly because I got that answer from the crosses and never thought much about what the clue meant.
Thanks for the clarification about Patrick Blindauer’s assistance. I obviously read your saga of sleeplessness too hastily.
Uracil in RNA is “buggy,” and its replacement by thymine in DNA seems to be evolution debugging the basic mechanism of life. The flaw is that uracil can easily degrade into cytosine, another “bit” in the genetic code, and thus introduce coding errors. Thymine is a derivative that will fill the same function, but does not suffer from the same problem as uracil. So it seems that DNA adopted Life Code 2.0. RNA manages with the bug because most of its functions are shorter-term than DNA’s. In other words, uracil is ok for code snippets but thymine is much better for archival purposes.
You can’t get cooler than meta-evolution.
WaPo: really fun set of theme clues; I wonder if it started with ARMAND HAMMER and worked from there. Great Sunday puzzle!
Edit: just read Evan’s writeup, and it all started with JUSTIN TIME. Nice!
WaPo: I don’t understand 72D. “Oft-pierced thing that can be free or attached”, and the answer is “Ear Lobe”. Help!!!
Look at some pictures of human ears. I expect most people have free earlobes — that is, the lobe dangles below the main part of the ear.
But as you know, ears are greatly variable. Some people have lobes that connect to their necks on the front edge.
TY Eric for the explanation, and now I see what you mean.
Universal’s regular puzzle’s 57 across, ENTs or PDFs, is kind of sneaky.