Monday, May 26, 2025

BEQ 11:36 (Eric) [4.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 2:21 (Stella) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:13 (Sophia) [3.46 avg; 12 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 8:36 (Amy) [3.94 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) rate it

Note: No WSJ puzzle today due to the Memorial Day holiday.

Ari Halpern’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Write-Up

Theme: Each theme answer is a movie that ends with a day of the week

New York Times, 05 26 2025, By Ari Halpern

• 16a [1999 sports drama co-starring Al Pacino] – ANY GIVEN SUNDAY
• 25a [1973 marital drama co-starring Elizabeth Taylor] – ASH WEDNESDAY
• 42a [2003 fantasy comedy co-starring Lindsay Lohan] – FREAKY FRIDAY
• 53a [1970s-’80s TV staple … or a hint to 16-, 25- and 42-Across] – MOVIE OF THE WEEK 

I’m on vacation for Memorial Day right now so this will be a quick write up! I liked this theme although I was unfamiliar with the phrase MOVIE OF THE WEEK – folks who were alive in the 70’s – 80’s, how well known is this term?

It can be hard to do a proper-noun based theme like this one on a Monday since different beginner solvers have different knowledge bases, so even more so than some themes what’s easy for one person will be tricky for another. This puzzle did a few things right in order to mitigate this issue. The movies are all from different decades and genres, so it’s more likely solvers will have heard of at least one of them. The days are also in order from SUNDAY to WEDNESDAY to FRIDAY. And finally, the movie titles are (for the most part) known phrases – as a personal example,  I only knew FREAKY FRIDAY of this set, but was able to parse out ASH WEDNESDAY and ANY GIVEN SUNDAY pretty quickly just as phrases.

Lots of interesting longer fill due to the unique black square layout! BRAINSTEM, LENGTHENS, ESCAPE KEY, NERD ALERT (I like to think of ALARMS going off as part of the nerd alert). Biggest issue for me was FARINA, which I was unfamiliar with.

Christina Iverson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 5/26/25 by Christina Iverson

The revealer at 52A [“I wasn’t sure at first, but …,” or what could be said about the ends of 16-, 26-, and 44-Across?] is IT’S GROWING ON ME, because the last word in each theme entry is something that your body might grow:

• 16A [Really, really strong] is AS TOUGH AS NAILS. The Internet tells me, not with great authority, that the etymology of this phrase refers to carpenter’s NAILS, and not the kind that grow on your fingers and toes. (That’s a good thing, as it’s less fun when the meaning of a theme word is the same in the base phrase as it is in its thematic sense.)
• 26A [Delicate pasta often served with a light sauce] is ANGEL HAIR. Of course the pasta is named because of its resemblance to the hair that grows on a person’s head, but we’re still a little bit away from true overlap of literal meaning.
• 44A [French folktale that inspired a Kurt Vonnegut novel] is BLUEBEARD. This one’s too literal for my taste: The title character of the story gets his name because he has a beard and it’s blue.

Grid a little harder than one would expect on a Monday. SUGAR HIGH and NOSE RINGS were fun long Downs.

Zachary Edward-Brown’s Universal crossword, “Ebb and Flow” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 5/26/25 • Mon • “Ebb and Flow” • Edward-Brown • solution • 20250526

Diving right in,

• 30d^R [It “lifts all boats” in a famous aphorism … and what can be found in the starred clues’ answers?] RISING TIDE. One rebuttal.
• 3d. [*”Star Wars” building used by the Order] JEDI TEMPLE.
• 8d. [*”Told ya that was gonna happen!”] I CALLED IT.
• 34d. [*Chicago Bears head coach from 1982–1993] MIKE DITKA.

A nice flourish is that each of the three instances breaks up the word in a different position.

• 1d [Second part of a fire safety technique] DROP. 2d [Third part of a fire safety technique] ROLL. The first part is of course STOP.
• 9d [Bootee] BABY SHOE. Bootees always makes me think of Boötes.
• 27d [Country in which camel jumping originated] YEMEN. I neither need to nor want to know whether the camels are doing the jumping or being jumped over.
• 41d [Fish-throwing Muppet Zealand] LEW. He’s been around since 1978, but is unfamiliar to me. Apparently his scaly projectiles boomerang back to him.
• 53d [ __ or shine] RAIN. In haste, I misread ‘and’ for ‘or’ and put in RISE, but this was quickly corrected.
• 27a [Trees used for longbows] YEWS. Crosswords have taught me this. Also, a phonic suggestion in the clue with ‘used’.
• 40a [“All right, fine”] WELL OK.
  
• 47a [Marries] WEDS. 60d [Altar declaration] I DO.
• 57a [Piece of gossip] TIDBIT, which dwarfs titbit in an Ngram, especially after 1980. I think of the other spelling as chiefly British, or maybe Commonwealth.
• 59a [Put on the line?] AIR DRIED. Perhaps with an onshore breeze to help.
• 65a [Meddlesome] NOSY.
  

Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

NY TImes crossword solution, 5/26/25 – Gorski

It’s a pretty grid, with the corner brackets spotlighting the 9/13/13 stacks that frame the puzzle.

There are also about 16 proper nouns, which tells me a lot of folks will have struggled with this crossword. I’m usually great at names, but needed to work the crossings for ELIZA, SIVA, SUN RA, and ESTES. I knew My Fair Lady is based on Pygmalion, but didn’t know the Eliza character was the same in both.

Fave fill: UNDER THE TABLE, SYCAMORE TREES, CLEAR FAVORITE, SELF-MEDICATES, and DEAD SPOTS (started with DRY… here, thinking of alcohol rather than cell service).

Not so keen on ELD, CIEN, URAL, M-STARS, DER, ERAT, BUSINESS LINES.

3.25 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1786 — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1786 — 5/26/25

There’s a lot of nice stuff here, but I expect that the perceived difficulty level is going to vary widely from solver to solver based on whether one knows some key answers.

I didn’t find it particularly difficult, thanks to gimmes like these:

• 1A [Mezzo-soprano Cecilia] BARTOLI I’m not a big opera fan and don’t remember where I picked up this name, but it stuck.
• 16A [Paris Saint-___ (French soccer club)] GERMAIN I pay more attention to association football than most sports, but that’s not saying much. I just glanced at PSG’s current roster  and don’t see any names that I’m familiar with.
• 18a [“Veep” creator Armando] IANNUCCI I haven’t seen that show, but I really enjoyed the 2009 movie In the Loop, which Iannucci also wrote and directed.
• 44A [Sweden’s second-largest, to Swedes] GÖTEBORG “Gothenburg” to the English-speaking world. The largest city in Sweden is, of course, Stockholm.

The SE corner slowed me down a little, with 30D [When pigs fly] NOT AT ALL seeming a bit off; I’d say “Never” or “Not every,” but those didn’t fit. There’s nothing in that corner that’s particularly hard, but the clueing for 48A TITANIC, 51A OPULENT, 53A TABLETS and 35D NOMINEE is just vague enough that I couldn’t at first find anything I was certain of. Imagine instead that TITANIC had been clued to the ill-fated ocean liner or the James Cameron movie, and that corner might have been a lot easier.

Other stuff:

• 15A [Publication with the annual Top 200 Collectors list] ART NEWS The W might have been enough to remind me of that magazine’s title.
• 26A [Having a low-cut neckline] DÉCOLLETÉ Though I’ve long known the word “décolletage,” I don’t remember ever seeing this adjectival form.
• 47A [Excellent English homework] A PAPERS Borderline green paint?
• 38A [Lift providers] STILETTOS I can never remember whether the L or the T is doubled, though when I sound it out, it’s obvious it should be the T.
• 14D [School attended by the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde and DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh (at the same time)] KENT STATE I knew Hynde was from Ohio, but I didn’t know she’d attended Kent State.