Sunday, June 1, 2025

LAT tk (Gareth) [4.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 14:52 (Eric) [3.63 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) rate it
Universal (Sunday) 7:41 (Jim) [3.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [4.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WaPo tk (Matt G) [3.89 avg; 9 ratings] rate it

Sam Brody’s New York Times Crossword “Making Arrangements” — Eric’s review

Sam Brody’s New York Times Crossword “Making Arrangements” — 6/1/25

Congratulations to Sam Brody on his New York Times debut!

Once again, I skipped over the puzzle’s title, though it quickly became obvious that each theme answer is an anagram of the clue, plus a word more or less synonymous with “rearrange” or “rearranged”:

• 23A [LEGAL NICETY] GENETICALLY ENGINEERED
• 39A [EARTH] CHANGE OF HEART
• 55A [GLIBNESS] MIXED BLESSING
• 83A [RESIST] TWISTED SISTER
• 99A [RAGES] SWITCHED GEARS
• 117A [ROYAL PERMIT] TEMPORARILY OUT OF ORDER

I don’t do well anagramming words longer than five or six letters, so the first and last two were a little tougher. But I can easily fill in gaps in words and phrases, and all six theme answers are very familiar phrases.

I was slowed a little by the lower two-thirds on the right side of the grid. 51A [Northwestern abode] DORM got me; I didn’t think of Northwestern University until I had most of the letters in place. 64A [Big Apple airport code] LGA could have been JFK or EWR; 53D [Members of a priestly caste of ancient Persia] MAGI was new to me as clued; 86D [Faux gardener, so to speak] SCARECROW took a bit to figure out.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Warm shade of brown] PECAN/19A [Warm shade of white] IVORY I’m not sure I’ve heard PECAN used to describe a color.
• 88A [European capital through which the Akerselva flows] OSLO That river doesn’t scream “Norway” to me.
• 6D [Park known as a “permanent world’s fair”] EPCOT My guess turned out to be correct.
• 16D [It might begin with a false alarm] FIRE DRILL I expect most people are done with fire drills when they graduate high school. I worked for a state agency in Austin, and every few years, we all had to troop out of the building and assemble in the parking lot across the street.
• 95D [Fundamental building block of DNA] ADENINE It took me an unreasonably long time to come up with this. The other three nucleotides in DNA are cytosine, guanine and thymine.

A solid puzzle if not particularly exciting.

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Cut the Deck” — Matt’s review

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Cut the Deck” solution, 6/1/2025

Thirteen (a notable number) entries have circled letters in them. Let’s get to it:

• 23a [Hears] GETS WORD
• 25a [Course competitions, informally] GOLF TOURNEYS
• 30a [Activist organization that used the slogan “Out of the closets and into the streets”] QUEER NATION
• 34a [Colloquial, colorful term for termites] WHITE ANTS
• 57a [Winter sport that involves tricks and jumps] FREE SKIING
• 61a [Actor who provides the voice of Chris Griffin on “Family Guy”] SETH GREEN
• 69a [Entrepreneur who founded the first commercial bungee jumping operation] AJ HACKETT
• 79a [Basketball Hall of Famer who was the first Canadian to win the NBA MVP award] STEVE NASH
• 83a [Mesmerizes] TRANSFIXES
• 107a [Properties of radioactive elements] HALF LIVES
• 110a [Authenticity] GENUINENESS
• 116a [Be a tourist] SEE THE SIGHTS
• 122a [Symptom of a lumbar strain] BACKACHE

In thirteen entries, the circled squares contain one of each of the thirteen ranks of a deck of cards. Hopefully you cottoned onto that before getting to AJ HACKETT (JACK) in the middle of the grid, and if you didn’t need the theme and crossers to get him, kudos to you!

A typically Evan quasi-revealer at the end of the grid ties it together for us:

• 133a [Poker holding … like the one spelled out in the letters that cut this puzzle’s circled cards] HAND

Indeed, each themer’s circled letters are interrupted by just one letter (we might nod to the “Cut the Deck” title here), and top to bottom those squares spell STRAIGHT FLUSH, an apt term in a cards-themed puzzle.

I sometimes feel bogged down in grids with lots of shorter theme entries, since they force a really horizontal pattern, but I didn’t notice that as much this time. An indication of interesting fill throughout, from my perspective. 

Cheers!

Evan Park and Jeffrey Martinovic’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Mined Games”—Jim’s review

The theme is presented in two parts. In the top half of the grid are idioms (and a book/movie title) having to do with rocks and stones and which hint at literal representations in the bottom half.

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Mined Games” · Evan Park and Jeffrey Martinovic · 6.1.25

• 24a [Hasn’t kept up with modern trends, say … as literally depicted in the lower half of this puzzle] LIVES UNDER A ROCK represented by OLIVES beneath IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.
• 38a. [Someone who’s just like their parent … as literally depicted in the lower half of this puzzle] A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK represented by TURNED BACK THE CLOCK.
• 65a. [1963 Disney animation … as literally depicted in the lower half of this puzzle] THE SWORD IN THE STONE represented by PASSWORD crossing through PULLING A FAST ONE.

Really nice! I like that the top three phrases all have a connection (i.e. rocks and stones), and I especially like the last representation with its perfect symmetry (SWORD passing through STONE at the O). All the phrases are easily in the language, and the keywords are disguised well in the lower phrases. Great design and execution.

I enjoyed the long fill as well with MOUNTAIN MEN and BOBSLED TEAM anchoring two of the corners (though both needed plenty of crossings as clued). Other goodies: LOOSE TEA, MOVIE FAN, and slangy “SRSLY?!” I did look askance at LACTEAL [Milk-related]. What’s wrong with “lactic” other than it doesn’t fit?

I’m not really okay with OKAY and OKS in the same grid. However, they’re fairly far apart and trying to remove either one would cause some difficulties.

Clues of note:

• 49a. [Resident of “Japan’s Kitchen”]. OSAKA. Apparently, while the city was the political and commercial center of the country in the Edo period, it remained a hub for commerce and trade after Tokyo was made the capital. It became known as the “Kitchen of the Nation” since all manner of goods were brought there for trading. (Per this site.)
• 92a. [“You can tell that it’s an ___ tree because of the way it is”]. ASPEN. Anyone have a source for this quote? Sounds like a Yogi-ism, but I haven’t looked it up.
• 104a. [“Frankenstein” mountains]. ALPS. That’s a different angle for this entry, and I certainly don’t mind as that’s one of my favorite books. I just learned Guillermo del Toro is developing a film for Netflix for later this year.

Good puzzle. Four stars.