Monday, May 19, 2025

BEQ 12:52 (Eric) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
LAT 1:41 (Stella) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
NYT 2:45 (Sophia) [3.71 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 5:56 (Amy) [4.42 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
USA Today tk (?) rate it
WSJ 5:00 (Jim) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it

Kiran Pandey’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Write-Up

Theme: Each theme answer is a two word phrase where the first word starts with O and the second starts with G

New York Times, 05 19 2025, By Kiran Pandey

• 17a [Casual dining chain with unlimited breadsticks] – OLIVE GARDEN
• 28a [Event whose symbol is five interlocking rings] – OLYMPIC GAMES
• 46a [Theater binoculars] – OPERA GLASSES
• 61a [Starting point for Tropicana or Florida’s Natural juice] – ORANGE GROVE
• 69a [“Yikes!” … or, phonetically, a hint to 17-, 28-, 46- and 61-Across] – OH GEEZ

Cute theme! I picked up on the O-G theme pretty quickly while solving, but at first I thought that the revealer would relate to the term “OG” – does that make me too GEN Z for this puzzle? Anyways, the actual revealer works well and is placed perfectly at the end of the grid. All the chosen theme answers are nice, with OLIVE GARDEN and OLYMPIC GAMES being my two favorites.

Other notes on the rest of the puzzle:

• The top half of this puzzle played very easily to me, I was able to get all the way to OLYMPIC GAMES without needing to check a down answer.
• There’s some nice longer fill throughout this puzzle – I’ll specifically call out HONEST ABE, CUSTOM-FIT, ALTO SAX, NEO-SOUL, and LA LA LAND.
• Does anyone else to this day just think about the “I’m on a horse” ads when they see OLD SPICE? Not sure if it’s just me…
• Not very many proper names in today’s puzzle (which I think is good for a Monday!), so it’s funny to me that two that are there are both kid-lit authors – DAV Pilkey and SHEL Silverstein.
• [Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the ___”] for USA felt almost like an OLYMPIC GAMES tie-in, since I’ve seen many folks online make the case that she should sing this at the LA 2028 opening ceremony…

Happy Monday all!

Kathy Lowden’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 5/19/25 by Kathy Lowden

The revealer at 61A [Advantage in a race, and what can be found in 16-, 33-, or 40-Across] is HEAD START, because each of the theme answers in today’s puzzle starts with a slang term for your HEAD:

• 16A [Picnic side that may contain chickpeas] is BEAN SALAD.
• 33A [Potluck dish often made with cream of mushroom soup] is NOODLE CASSEROLE.
• 40A [Tchaikovsky composition excerpted in Disney’s “Fantasia”] is NUTCRACKER SUITE. I’m not crazy about this entry (although I do love Nutcracker) for a couple of reasons: First, I can’t think of a time I’ve heard someone say NUT referring to someone’s head, although the Internet tells me that it’s legit. Second, more pedantically, NUTCRACKER SUITE is already an excerpt. The work being excerpted is NUTCRACKER. The nit I’m picking could easily have been removed with a different clue, since the NUTCRACKER SUITE is indeed a well-defined and frequently recorded series of pieces from the full-length ballet.

Pretty quick grid to solve. I was amused by the position of LAST at 1-Across.

Caryn Robbins’ Universal crossword, “Words of Wisdom” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 5/19/25 • Mon • “Words of Wisdom” • Robbins • solution • 20250519

Pretty straightforward wordplay this time out.

• 20a. [Technical advice to a new plumber?] GO WITH THE FLOW.
• 28a. [Prudent advice to a first-time music conductor?] KNOW THE SCORE.
• 49a. [Cautionary advice to a rookie electrician?] STAY GROUNDED.
• 58a. [Useful advice to a novice photographer?] IT’S WORTH A SHOT.

Very cohesive.

• 4d [Symbol of financial losses] RED INK. 9a [Balance sheet plus] ASSET. 64a [Seem reasonable] ADD UP.
• 6d [Challenge for a babysitter] BRAT. 27d [Annoying] PESKY.
• 14a [Bring into harmony] TUNE. I too-confidently put in SYNC.
• 16a [Big name in wafers] NILLA. Was biased in favor of NECCO, but the crosses weren’t having it.
• 18a [It might be cracked or closed] CASE, not DOOR.

Adam Regn Arvidson’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Sowing the Seeds”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are stacked, vertical plants one might grow in a COMMUNITY GARDEN (7d, [What the circled squares in this grid collectively represent]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Sowing the Seeds” · Adam Regn Arvidson · Mon., 5.19.25

Stacked plants consist of CHARD/HERBS, CILANTRO/RADISHES, COLLARDS/TOMATOES, BEANS/BEETS. The first entry in each stack gets the clue [What your neighbor might grow…] and the second gets […in a 7-Down].

My first reaction to this grid was that I should be in for something different, and yup, that was true. The vertical entries are apt as that’s what you’d expect (hope) your plants to do. And the stacked nature of the entries gives the feel of the variety of plants crowded together as in a COMMUNITY GARDEN. There’s no wordplay or anything tricky going on, and that’s okay, the theme is interesting and potentially helps a solver as they proceed through the grid.

What threw me off the most was the paired cluing. It made me think there was supposed to be some connection between the two words in each pair. But that’s not the case (or at least not that I’ve found).

With so much stacking going on, you then look to see if the crossings are overly awkward. We get an “I’D SAY” and UTAHANS, but other than that, the corners are fairly smooth, with the SW being the best of the lot. The center is mostly fine, though AA TEAM gave me a pause. Highlights include GROMMET and LASAGNA.

Clues of note:

• 21a. [Eyelet in a tarp]. GROMMET. I was hoping this could be clued as the claymation dog, but I just realized it’s spelled “Gromit”.
• 26a. [After a 2025 state bill, an obsolete name for Beehive State residents]. UTAHANS. I do hope this means we can officially retire the entry.

Solid puzzle. Three stars from me.

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 5/19/25 – Berry

Who else finished this puzzle at the SLUFF/CLONE crossing? I’d never heard of [Ruff-and-___ (term in bridge)] and the CLONE clue was tricky, [You, too?]. Overall, the puzzle wasn’t too hard, though.

Fave fill: POWER STRUCTURES, TENNESSEE TITANS, CROSS-REFERENCES, “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE,” TOWN HALLS, PUNK ROCK, “TRUE STORY,” PIRANHAS.

I appreciated the tricky clue right at 1-Across, [Fudge alternative]. It’s not about ice cream sundaes, fortunately, since the answer is RATS, as in “drat” or “darn it.” I’m not one to use “fudge” in lieu of the F-word, though.

Four stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1784 — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1784 — 5/19/25

This one felt more challenging than it turned out to be. Some of that challenge was my own failure to think adequately about the clues.

The grid is a bit segmented, with the four corners set off by six black squares in stair-step shapes. That allows for only one longer answer, the 13-letter 14D [Chamber music group] STRING QUINTET. Despite being a big fan of chamber music (the interplay between the musicians can be great fun to watch), I first had nothing here. (“Chamber music” is a broad term.) Once I had a few letters, I guessed STRING QUARTET, even though it required dumping 41A [Pram pusher, perhaps] NAN, which I’d filled in early.

Correcting 14D helped me see 38A [Spaces of nothingness] NULLITIES (the A of QUARTET really slowed me down).

I lost a little more time with 35D [Pepper in olives: Var.] PIMENTO I assumed that the one-I version was the standard spelling, but after filling in a few letters, I realized that PIMENTO was the correct answer.

The NW corner was the last part I solved, despite having quickly guessed ANTIWAR for 1A [Dove’s approach]. For 13A [Realtor’s enticement] LOW TAXES, I started with LOW RATES (which doesn’t make much sense).

Other stuff:

• 8A [Class-conscious individual?] PUPIL I saw through that clue immediately, but I’ve always preferred “student” to PUPIL (which I’ve just learned comes from the Latin Latin pupillus (diminutive of pupus ‘boy’) and pupilla (diminutive of pupa ‘girl’)).
• 16A [Wand wavers] TSA AGENTS Oh, that kind of wand.
• 23A [Brush collector] ARTIST Oh, that kind of brush.
• 28A [Lily Tomlin’s telephone operator character] ERNESTINE I should have gotten this immediately, but I toyed with EVANGELINE for half a minute.
• 4D [Nazione whose football club is the gil (sic) Azzurri] ITALIA This is where it would have helped to think a little more. I quickly assumed “Nazione” was a surname when it should have been obvious it’s the Italian for “nation.” The Gli Azzurri (The Blues) have won the FIFA World Cup four times but haven’t qualified for the last two cups. You might think (well, I would have thought) that the Italian team would use the red, green or white from the Italian flag for its uniforms, but the blue apparently comes from the color in the House of Savoy crest.
• 24D [Capital of the Brazilian state of Piauí] TERESINA I didn’t know either name; Piauí is in the northeast part of the country.
• 46D [Wallenbergare meat] VEAL A Swedish dish I’d never heard of. Because so few words in English end in V, I wondered briefly if Wallenbergare was made with BEAR.