Monday, June 2, 2025

BEQ 8:47 (Eric) [4.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
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Anthony V. Grubb’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Write-Up

Theme: Each theme answer is a spoken idiom involving an article of clothing

New York Times, 06 02 2025, By Anthony V. Grubb

• 18a [“Go fly a kite!”] – EAT MY SHORTS
• 28a [“Pipe down!”] – PUT A SOCK IN IT
• 49a [“No skin off my nose!”] – SUIT YOURSELF
• 64a [Where duds are draped to dry … or a literal description of 18-, 28- and 49-Across?] – CLOTHESLINE

A simple Monday theme but a solid one. At first I wondered if the theme was too loose – there are a ton of idioms involving pieces of clothing, after all. But then I realized that all of these were very clearly *spoken* lines (as evidenced by the clues) and then I liked the theme set more. EAT MY SHORTS stands out since it’s the only answer where the the idiom still directly refers to the clothing (as opposed to SOCK and SUIT), but it’s a fun enough answer that I don’t mind it.

Some fun down answers today – HOT BUTTON, THE BOSS, and BREWERY all stand out. I thought that [Out of the picture, maybe?] was going to be something like “on the cutting room floor”, so it took me a long time to switch my understanding to see CAMERA-SHY. I really wanted COHABIT to be “cohabitate” but both are apparently real words.

And some clue highlights: the “surname sounds like a bird” cross of HAWKE and CROWE, [Word before act or action] for CLASS, [Pink Nintendo character from Planet Popstar] for KIRBY (I did not know this fact despite being familiar with Kirby – are any of y’all excited for the Switch 2 release this week?)

Happy June and Happy Monday all!

Kareem Ayas’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “What a Disaster!”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases whose first words could also be natural disasters. The revealer is ACT OF GOD (60a, [Force majeure, and a hint to the starts of 17-, 25-, 37- and 47-Across]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “What a Disaster!” · Kareem Ayas · Mon., 6.2.25

• 17a. [Make a heated exit] STORM OUT.
• 25a. [Illumination source for a night game] FLOODLIGHT.
• 37a. [Wrongfully imprisoned boxer who’s the subject of a Dylan song] HURRICANE CARTER. Also the subject of the Denzel Washington film The Hurricane.
• 47a. [Colorful surface where you may put your foot down (or your hand)] TWISTER MAT. This is a bit green painty, but it is a rather iconic item.

You take a chance when you run a puzzle about potentially deadly and catastrophic incidents that if one should occur just before you go to print,  people would not be happy with your choice. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened here, but I wonder if there was a Plan B in place.

Anyway, it’s a pretty straightforward theme that I can’t say did a lot for me. But I did appreciate the inclusion of HURRICANE CARTER which caused me to read his story on his Wikipedia page and listen to the Dylan song (below).

SPORTS BRA and STEADY GIG are the fill standouts today as well as HOBBES (the comic strip tiger) and DREADS (the hairstyle). I haven’t seen “99 Luftballons” singer NENA in a while, but come to think of it, I’ve probably heard the song more recently than the last time she appeared in a puzzle.

Three stars.

Zachary David Levy’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 6/2/25 by Zachary David Levy

While solving this, I at first wondered, “Am I seriously not going to be able to explain the theme? Where’s the revealer?” It’s there, as it turns out — it’s just a very short revealer. 38A [Mayday call, or a pattern found in 17-, 27-, 45-, and 60-Across] is SOS, because each theme entry is a three-word phrase whose initials are SOS:

• 17A [Stark choice between success and failure] is SINK OR SWIM, a phrase that it seems hard to clue in a Monday-appropriate way without duplicating the OR in the answer. This clue does that.
• 27A [Hunting dog’s prized ability] is SENSE OF SMELL.
• 45A [Take baby steps, so to speak] is START OUT SLOW. I didn’t love this entry: START OFF SLOW, which both fits the theme pattern and the entry length, feels like the more natural way of saying this. The ambiguity isn’t great for a Monday.
• 60A [Footwear without laces] is SLIP-ON SHOE.

I did like that the O-word in SOS was different each time — not super easy to do.

Chandi Deitmer’s Universal crossword, “Raise Your Glasses” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 6/2/25 • Mon • “Raise Your Glasses” • Deitmer • solution • 20250602

• 56a^R [Sommelier’s suggestion for a meal … or each word in 17-, 24-, 34- and 47-Across?] WINE PAIRING. That is, each of the two words in those entries can precede or follow ‘wine’ in a phrase.
• 17a. [Place for golfing and gourmandizing] COUNTRY CLUB (wine country, wine club).
• 24a. [Residence first lived in by John Adams] WHITE HOUSE (white wine, house wine).
• 34a. [Directory of media contacts] PRESS LIST (wine press, wine list).
• 47a. [Frozen, fruity treat] ITALIAN ICE (Italian wine, ice wine).

This is nice, but it doesn’t feel so impressive. Not to WHINE (63a [Kvetch])—not part of the theme—but given how wide ranging and the pairings are here, the pool of potential word candidates seems very large. I feel that some further restriction—don’t know what exactly—could have reduced the unevenness and made it more robust.

• 3d [Invasive lizards in Puerto Rico] IGUANAS. Introduced by humans, no doubt.
• 8d [Genre for feel-good stories] UP LIT, which is a new one on me, though I’m familiar with the adjective UPLIT.
• 11d [Detaches, as stuff that’s stuck together] UNGLUES. 13d [Attaches with sticky stuff] PASTES.
• 18d [Alter electrically] REWIRE. I *guess* this is ok?
• 28d [Beer brand from Lombardia] PERONI. 41d [Beer type from Czechia] PILSNER.
• 36d [Undergoing debugging] IN BETA. 59a [One who’s up to code, briefly?] DEV.
• 43d [Insect with a distinct song] CICADA. I once read in a novel a description of cicadas that used the word crepitant, which I had to look up. It was so APT (42d) that I’ve never forgotten it.
• 15a [Patient privacy law: Abbr.] HIPAA, not HIPPA as it’s so commonly misrendered. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
• 20a [Light purple] MAUVE. etymology: French, literally, mallow, from Old French, from Latin malva. (m-w.com)
• 27a [Cause of insomnia for a princess] PEA. A certain princess.
• 43a [ __ de Santiago (Spanish pilgrimage route)] CAMINO.

Natan Last’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 6/2/25 – Natan Last

Easier than many Monday New Yorker puzzles, I thought.

Today I learned that MCNUGGETS are 45% chicken meat. I’m not sure what the rest is. Chicken skin, fat, fillers?

New to me:

• 3d. [Hustler’s mentality, slangily], GRINDSET. Combo of grind and mindset, I guess.
• 41a. [Chilean poet Zurita], RAUL. You know Natan wants us to read poetry, right? (I assume poet Natan isn’t just digging around Wikipedia looking for names giving fresh clue angles. I assume he’s familiar with the poets he includes in his puzzles.) Here’s Zurita’s “Sunday Morning.”

Fave fill: BAD ACTORS, EYE CANDY, SCAMPS, “DRIVE MY CAR” (dupes nearby MY IDEA; LET ME IN and THIS IS ME NOW, along with I AM CAIT, bring us to five first-person singular pronouns), BOTTOM SURGERY.

Four stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1788 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1788 — 6/2/25

This wasn’t particularly difficult, despite some uncertainties in the middle of the grid.

It helped that my guess for 1A [Moves before one has to go] PEE DANCE was correct. My initial attempt to check that answer was 2D [Creature in some rebuses] EWE, where I foolishly put EEL at first. But 3D [Prefix with “conscious”] had to be ECO, and that helped me confirm PEE DANCE.

Lots of proper nouns/”trivia” this time around:

• 16A [Comic Patton] OSWALT I haven’t seen him in many things, but he’s been around long enough that his name is pretty familiar.
• 17A [Price of opera] LEONTYNE I just now realized that if you’re not familiar with this “spinto soprano,” you might easily think that “price” is “cost.” I wasn’t entirely sure that Ms Price was still alive, but she turned 98 a few months ago.
• 18A [Pitcher nicknamed “Tom Terrific”] SEAVER I needed a few crosses to get that one, though I recognize his name. From 1967–1986, he played for the New York Mets, the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox.
• 47A [Trout, e.g.] LA ANGEL The clue references outfielder Mike Trout. The repeated A’s didn’t seem right until they were.
• 58A [Tirana resident] ALBANIAN I’d originally put PUN for 53D [Dad joke, perhaps] GAG, so remembering where Tirana is nixed that.
• 12D [Lake ___ City, Arizona] HAVASU I knew it was something like HAVASU or HUALAPI. It’s northwest of Phoenix, on the Arizona-Californa border.
• 13D [Number worn by Isiah Thomas] ELEVEN Another one I got from the crosses.
• 27D [Youngest Pevensie in the “Narnia” series] LUCY I’ve never read that series and got this from the crosses.
• 28D [Abraham’s son] ISHMAEL/46D [One of the Twelve Tribes of Israel] JUDAH I think we’ve met our Bible quota for the week.

Other stuff:

• 31A [Anybody else feel this way …?”] IS IT JUST ME OR I typed the first four words and then immediately took them out because they didn’t fit. I don’t know why the OR didn’t occur to me.
• 34A [Sort of homely] NOT MUCH FOR LOOKS It’s a bit superficial, no?
• 38A [1995 #1 country hit by Shania Twain] ANY MAN OF MINE I don’t know the song; we’ve been listening to a lot of country music in the last five or so years, but it’s either 50 or 60 years old or something recorded in the last decade.
• 52A [Highly skilled] ADROIT Great word, from the French à droit (droit meaning “right”). I’m surprised it doesn’t show up in puzzles more often, given the constructor-friendly letters.
• 57A [Service center] TEMPLE Nice little misdirection there.
• 24D [Place known for its tunnel vision?] ANT FARM Cute.