AV Club 4:38 (Amy) 
[2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT 7:00 (Gareth) [2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
NYT 5:20 (Amy) 
[3.00 avg; 14 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (Kyle) 
[4.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) 
[4.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today 8:43 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 6:02 (Jim) [4.44 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Lynn Lempel’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Binary System”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases that describe two of something, while the clues are literal interpretations of what those two somethings are.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Binary System” · Lynn Lempel · Wed., 6.4.25
- 18a. [SUNDIAL, HOURGLASS] TWO TIMERS. This one made me LOL, so already the puzzle’s a winner.
- 24a. [GRUMPY, IRRITABLE] DOUBLE CROSS.
- 39a. [COST, COST] TWICE THE PRICE. Is this a common enough phrase? I’m having trouble recalling if I’ve heard it before. Maybe in ad copy such as, “You won’t find a better gizmo at TWICE THE PRICE!” Online sources list “Cheap at TWICE THE PRICE” as a common phrase.
- 52a. [BASH, BOP] PAIR OF SOCKS.
- 59a. [BIZARRE, WEIRD] ODD COUPLE.
Despite my hang-up with the third entry (it went in easily enough), I enjoyed this quite a bit. Starting off with a joke is rarely bad advice. The last one threw me for half a second since all the other phrases have the “two” word at the start. But evoking Felix Unger and Oscar Madison is a definite plus.
RHETORIC, WATCHDOG, KRAKATOA, KITSCH, RED HAIR, and BAD GUY are my highlights. I had two errors that cost me some time. The first was EMIT instead of SHED [Cast off], but I caught that fairly quickly. The trickier one for me was TAB instead of ORB [Round figure?] as the question mark fooled me into thinking about a round of drinks. I felt clever about that one so didn’t go back to check it until the end when I needed a full minute to sort that section out. All my own fault, to be sure.
Clue of note: 10a. [Field goal]. CROP. Couldn’t get sports out of my head for this one. That R eluded me for too long.
Four stars.
Danna Rosenberg’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 6/4/25 – no. 0604
This puzzle stretches to 16×15, to better accommodate the 12/13/13/12 theme and have space for stacked 9s in two corners.
The revealer is MAKE LEMONADE, [What to do when life gives you the proverbial items hidden in 17-, 27- and 48-Across]. The themers are a fairly jaunty trio, JANELLE MONAE, TICKLE MONSTER, and ANKLE MONITOR. All of the LEMONs are split LE/MON between words.
Fave fill: HALF-ASS, DAY JOB, OPEN HEART surgery, “BACK AT YOU,” and PLASTERED. Not keen on AMCS, OSCAR I, GETS AN A, LAICS, DIT, generic JOANN.
Less familiar to me: 54D. [Film portmanteau, informally], OP-DOC. Opinion documentary. Not sure how much this is a thing outside of the NYT’s video section. Here are the NYT op-docs on YouTube.
3.25 stars from me.
Justin Werfel’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Four Pieced Suits”—Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 6/4/25 – “Four Pieced Suits”
The theme revealer is CUT THE CARDS, and the four playing-card suits are “cut” by black squares breaking the circled SPADE, CLUB, DIAMOND, and HEART. Apart from the revealer, the puzzle basically plays as an unthemed puzzle, isn’t it?
Fave fill: literary CAESURA, ON AUTOPILOT, OY VEY. “IT’S A LULU” and “I’M A MORON” don’t strike me as idiomatic enough phrases to make for good crossword fill.
Who remembers Barbie’s sister STACIE? I remember Skipper but not Stacie. My sister had a Stacy doll, a redhead who wasn’t a kid. Mattel couldn’t come up with a better name than a differently spelled repeat for a different doll?
3.25 stars from me.
David Rockow’s Universal crossword, “Laughingstock” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 6/4/25 • Wed • “Laughingstock” • Rockow • solution • 20250604
Flat out, I’m not a fan of the theme, for various reasons. Putting that aside, it’s reasonably well executed.
- 5aR [Pastoral prank depicted three times in this puzzle] COW TIPPING. Okay, first: it’s an urban legend but here presented as a de facto phenomenon. Furthermore, the title makes light of what would be a cruel practice were it not apocryphal.
The circled squares in the grid first present descriptors of cattle as stand-alone down entries. In a nice touch, they’re clued in terms as unrelated to bovines as possible. Then, extending rightward and backward, as if the stacks of letters had been tipped over, the words appear within longer entries, and are circled as well.
- 1d [Leg part] CALF, 19a [Singer Roberta] FLACK.
- 24d [Papal decree] BULL, 41a [Alcohol, slangily] SOCIAL LUBRICANT. Nice job finding a grid-spanning entry with the appropriate letters smack dab in the middle.
- 54d [Navigate] STEER, 71a [It often features white writing on a green background] STREET SIGN.
So the theme entries are more or less by necessity relegated to the left side of the grid, and the revealer, unusually, is placed in the upper right section. The whole thing feels unbalanced, but that may be down to the novelty.
- 16a [Nabisco treat, redundantly] OREO COOKIE. Is it actually redundant? Oreo is understood to be a cookie, but there’s nothing inherent in the name that says ‘cookie’. I guess what I’m saying is maybe it would have been better to say ‘somewhat redundantly’? The more I think about it, however, the less confident I become. Thinking about how, to give just one example, ‘corn flakes cereal’ could be considered redundant.
- 17a [Drinks like a cat] LAPS. factette: a cat drinks by curling the tongue into a backwards J shape and lifting the liquid up into the mouth.
- 18a [Tropical fruit with an unrelated fruit in its name] MANGOSTEEN. etymology: modification of Malay manggisutan. etymology of mango: Portuguese manga, probably from Malayalam māṅṅa.
- 33a [Like the Atacama] ARID. Seems as if the Aticama is the current go-to desert in crosswords.
- 69a [Poplar hangout spots] TREEHOUSES. Did you misread the clue, as I did?
- 3d [He allegedly banished snakes from Ireland] ST PATRICK. Or did he?
- 20d [There are ~1.6 in a mi.] KMS.
(on my copy of the album, the tracks are listed as KM1, KM2, KM3, etc.) - 30d [Pluses] PROS. 10d [Neg. opposite] POS.
- 40d [Sicilian stratovolcano] ETNA. In the news.
- 55d [Origin of the word”jackal”] FARSI. etymology (m-w.com): Turkish çakal, from Persian shaqāl, of Indo-Aryan origin; akin to Sanskrit sṛgāla jackal. Shaqāl is pretty neat.
- 61d [Spanish word before and after “a”] MANO. It’s come to my attention that some people mistakenly believe the phrase means ‘man to man’ rather than ‘hand to hand’.
Sala Wanetick’s USA Today Crossword, “Starter Homes” — Emily’s write-up
Come on over!
USA Today, June 04, 2025, “Starter Homes” by Sala Wanetick
Theme: the first word (aka start) of each themer is a type of home
Themers:
- 17a. [Sitcoms are often filmed in front of them], STUDIOAUDIENCES
- 39a. [Part of a restaurant’s standard salad], HOUSEDRESSING
- 64a. [Gripe to the manager, say], LODGEACOMPLAINT
For today’s themer set, they all filled in quite easily for me. The cluing, along with the length, really helped me hone in on the themers: STUDIOAUDIENCES, HOUSEDRESSING, and LODGEACOMPLAINT. Also, such a fun theme! We’ve got a studio, house, and a lodge.
Favorite fill: MACAROON, ADOBO, HULAHOOP, and ONTHEDOT
Stumpers: EAR (mis-directed by cluing; thought about walls and horses), PLEDGING (needed some crossings), and DENIM (needed crossings)
A fun puzzle with lots of fresh fill. The grid had a good flow, though the cluing for some took me a bit longer to solve but everything was fairly crossed.
3.75 stars
~Emily
Joe Marangell’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
Joe Marangell’s Los Angeles Times is revealed with a sarcastic YOUDONTSAY. Four answers have non-verbal communications in their centres. Why their centres? Probably, because it’s mid-week in the LA Times, and that’s where things go? We get a facial NOD and SMILE, a shoulder SHRUG and a STOMP, which seems less specific?
The answers themselves are:
- [Credit card promotion for frequent fliers], BONUSMILES. I feel like there is no standardized name for this?
- [Etsy purchase, perhaps], CUSTOMPRINT. I wanted order first.
- [Key partnership], PIANODUET
- [Handwoven products at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar], TURKISHRUGS
Theme aside, this felt trickier than many mid-week LA Times offerings, possibly due to the large corners?
Gareth
NYT: Why not change 37D to LOLLS to take out the crosswordese fish?
We had this discussion recently. Opah is fairly commonly found in markets in California. It’s like tuna in having a rich belly loin and a leaner back loin. It’s a gorgeous red color in life and the meat has pretty pink shades, depending on where it’s cut from.
Opah is the only fish documented to be warm-blooded. It’s therefore an active swimmer and fierce predator. If a sport fisherman is lucky enough to hook one, it’s a fight that won’t be forgotten. I’ve got nothing against OPAL; it’s my birthstone. But an occasional trade for the fascinating OPAH is a plus in my book.
I remembered the discussion, so was able to plunk in OPAH easily. The lesson stuck!
NYT: Loved it, but Neal/et alia to Neil/et alii was a hard mistake to ferret out.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Exactly where I was stuck. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Seems unfortunate.
I see what you’re saying. I’m an astronomy nerd so I knew Neil. But I know not everyone (or even most) are astronomy nerds.
Would it be the same if we had E_G crossing _ARL with the clues being “Heart diagnostic aid” and “Astrophysicist Sagan?” Seems C or K could fit. Or is Sagan more universally recognized? I suspect that’s the case but I don’t know
I’m not disagreeing, but in my experience the less common ALII will always be clued with an easy disambiguating crossing. I know you can’t take that to the bank but I can’t find a counterexample in xwordinfo. ALIA is the defacto default, according to the Crossword Force.
I didn’t notice it while solving, because I had entered NEIL (fairly confidently) before getting to the cross. But, yeah – as Martin notes, ET ALIA would be the default, and NEAL is certainly plausible.
To PJ’s question, I would guess that 30 years ago Carl Sagan’s name was better known than Neil deGrasse Tyson’s today. But if your Sagan clue came up today, I suspect it would be a problem for a lot of solvers. My sense is that EKG is the default.
I think most laypeople say EKG, but ECG is more common in medical publishing.
It is odd to continue to use a German initialism a century after the procedure became commonplace. I think part of the reason is ease of pronunciation. The rhyming “E-C-G” has a tongue-twister quality that’s broken up by the “K,” making EKG a bit easier to enunciate. Doctors get more practice saying ECG.
Looked at the report from my most recent physical. Printout says “ECG,” but I’d swear my doc calls it an “EKG.”
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
We pretty much all do. My dad was a cardiologist and he always said “EKG,” as do I.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
Agree, that was basically a Schrödinger square that should have been edited out
For some reason I don’t follow TAT for “Hawk on one’s shoulder” in the WSJ. My extreme dumb, I’m sure.
I decided it must be a tattoo
Oops. Thanks and sorry, it dawned on me this morning, sure enough, as soon as I had posted that. Maybe a hawk not my first association with tattoos, but then nothing much else other than crosswords is either.
Man, Lynn Lempel graduated at the very top of her class from Early-Week Crossword Construction School. I mean, look at that thing: the wide open corners; the free-flowing, unsectioned-off grid; the drecklessness; the sage choices of and employment of her 8s, 7s, and 6s; the knocked-out-of-the-park theme. That grid is hanging on a museum wall in my head, and I am standing before it, head tilted up, hands clasped behind back, admiring, staring.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 5 stars
This was one of my favorite WSJs in a long time. Bravo, Lynn!
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 5 stars
I’m with placematfan and Zach…saw the byline and thought “huh? A Lynn Lempel puzzle on a WSJ Wednesday?” But I absolutely loved it. The theme answers cracked me up, the fill is sensational…thank you, Lynn!
TNY: Fun to zip through Robyn’s New Yorker puzzle in 2:36! Super-smooth fill, crisp cluing, and a good bit of sparkle (HAMSTER WHEEL, ZERO-SUM GAME). Robyn, Caitlin Reid, and Patrick Berry excel at crafting smooth themelesses and writing easier clues (though they can also write tough clues), and this is why so many of the easy New Yorker puzzles carry their bylines. There’s an art to making crosswords easy, and not everyone has the knack.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
NYT: Thank you for explaining OPDOC. I have never heard the expression, but it makes sense.
I knew that Neil deGrasse Tyson is an I-Neil, but I can see where that would provide some confusion with ALII/ALIA. I know that ALII is more common, but that doesn’t mean that the less common answer wouldn’t appear in a Wednesday crossword. I appreciate the stickiness of the mid-week crosswords.
“69a [Poplar hangout spots]” TREEHOUSES
A poplar would not be my choice for a TREE_HOUSE. That would be a tough build.
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 4.5 stars
Pannonica’s review pointed out how the three cows “tilt”, which I clearly missed during the solve.
Great puzzle by David Rockow!
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 5 stars
Hard to imagine a sharper, more enjoyable Wednesday puzzle than this.