Thursday, June 5, 2025

BEQ 9:16 (Eric) [4.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
LAT 5:31 (Gareth) [2.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 8:56 (ZDL) [3.69 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:40 (Eric) [3.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:32 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 6-something (Jim) [4.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Sam Brody’s Universal Crossword “High Stakes” — Eric’s review

This was a smooth-solving puzzle despite a somewhat choppy central area. The theme is solid crossword wackiness, courtesy of the letters R and U:

• 17A [Off-putting offering at the mess hall?] CRUD TRAY CD tray
• 28A [Consequence of eating from the Tree of Knowledge?] FIRST ERUDITION First edition Despite generally disliking Biblical clues, I kinda like this answer.
• 46A [ Starting a food fight, perhaps?] THROWING A FRUIT Throwing a fit
• 63A [Question at the poker table, or a phonetic hint to 17-, 28- and 46-Across] ARE YOU IN

I didn’t really notice that CRUD TRAY or THROWING A FRUIT had extraneous R’s and U’s, so getting the revealer helped me figure out FIRST ERUDITION.

The longer Downs are for the most part straight-forwardly clued, but they feel fairly fresh:

• 6D [Document digitizers] SCANNERS Does the digitization occur in the scanner or in the computer?
• 10D [Breakfast nook] DINETTE I hesitated a bit here; the answer is defined as “a small room or part of a room used for eating meals” or (in North American English) “a set of table and chairs for a dinette.” I’d only known the second definition. I also hadn’t known it was a regional usage, so that’s two things I learned from this puzzle. 
• 39D [Excursion where you might play “I Spy”] ROAD TRIP As a kid, I spent many summer hours in the back of my parents’ Chevrolet station wagon. My sibs and I weren’t much for “I Spy,” but we played countless games of “Hangman” and “The alphabet game.” (It still astounds me that Josh Wardle sold a colorized “Hangman” to the New York Times for something in the low seven figures.)

Rich Katz’s Fireball Crossword, “Only as Old as You Feel” – Jenni’s write-up

I had no idea what was going on until I got to the revealer, and then it helped me figure out the last two theme answers. I really enjoyed this puzzle.

The revealer is at 42a. [Birthday reflection…and how to make sense of 19-, 25-, 57-, and 67-Across] is AGE IS JUST A NUMBER.

• 19a [Dumbbell with an animal on both ends?[8] ] is LIVING WEIGHT. Took me a minute to figure out the clue – a dumbbell with something alive on both ends. If AGE is just a number, the number is EIGHT, so we have LIVING WAGE. That was much easier to parse
• 25a [Artery insert used in a hairdo?[10] ] is BOB STENT. AGE is TEN, which give us BOB SAGET.
• 57a [Scoop shop holder featuring a Celtic icon? [1] ] is BIRD CONE. ONE = AGE and we have BIRDCAGE.
• 67a [Beer whose label depicts Shakespeare? [3.14159…] ] is LITERARY PINT. 3.14.59 is PI which is AGE so that leads us to LITERARY AGENT.

Ridiculously amusing answers – check. Consistent and solid theme – check. Takes a bit to figure it out – check. Satisfying “aha!” moment – check. It all adds up to a really good puzzle.

A few other things:

• 4a [Spends time going through London, say] is READS. Jack London, not the city.
• 41a [Beethoven symphony] is the EROICA. I was listening to an audiobook in which the protagonist listened to this repeatedly. That’s fine. What wasn’t fine was the reader consistently pronouncing it as the EROTICA.
• [Maratón Montevideo handout] is AGUA. “Maratón” is Spanish for “marathon.”
• KLAXON is a fun word
• 74a [Flatter feet?] is ODE. Because poems are measured in feet and ODEs are flattering.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that ESTEE Lauder makes Beautiful Belle perfume.

Jared Cappel’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Character Introductions”—Jim’s review

Each theme answer is a familiar phrase whose first word has been replaced by a repeated letter which together comprise a homophone of the omitted word. The revealer is LETTER OPENERS (35a, [Mail-processing tools, and what the four theme answers each have]).

• 21a. [Jump on an opportunity] CC THE MOMENT. Seize the moment.
• 27a. [Get physical] UU FORCE. Use force.
• 44a. [Disentangle] TT APART. Tease apart.
• 53a. [Slow down, literally or figuratively] EE OFF THE GAS. Ease off the gas.

Pretty sure I’ve seen a similar theme at one point or another, but that doesn’t take away from the effectiveness of this one. As one would expect, I couldn’t make a lot of sense of those two U’s at 27a, so it took some doing before the satisfying aha moment occurred. The rest of the theme answers fell in turn, but the variety kept me engaged throughout. Nicely done.

That said, a couple things surprise me. Usually the first theme answer is in the third row except when it’s an awkward length (12-14 letters). But we have 11-letter first and last theme answers, so they could’ve easily gone in the third and 13th rows, allowing for more room between theme answers.

The other thing I’m a little surprised at is the short 7-letter theme answers. I wondered if some longer more interesting phrases could’ve been used. I found “Use the force” or “Use your head” and “Wise cracking” (YY CRACKING) which would fit symmetrically and are pretty fun (IMO). And if the outer theme answers are spread a row outward, there’d be a decent chance of getting these to work.

But for all I know there were earlier versions of this puzzle in which these modifications were tried and perhaps they just didn’t work as well. As it is we get a lot of nice fill to enjoy with the current grid: RAMEN BAR, SEX TALK, EYE COLOR, fully spelled out LAKE ERIE, BAKE SHOP (although, isn’t that what normal people call a bakery?), and ROUGH CUT. Good stuff there, and those large corners are quite nice.

Clues of note:

• 18a. [Home of baseball’s Orix Buffaloes]. OSAKA. Huh. In this country we complain about naming rights for a stadium. In Japan, the teams themselves are named after their owning entities. In this case, Orix is a financial services company.
• 33a. [Head of a family]. DON. With the D in place, I admit I immediately put in DAD. But I was definitely going to complain about that being the answer. I’m glad it was wrong.
• 13d. [Parental delivery that’s often awkward]. SEX TALK. I went first with SEX TAPE and SEXTING which would be even more awkward.
• 39d. [Enjoys a favorite book]. REREADS. Clever way to word this clue without using “again” or “anew.”

Good puzzle. Four stars.

Timothy Gaetz’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Easy (8m56s)

Today’s theme: NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS (Emphatic instruction for entering the answers to this puzzle’s 10 starred clues?)

• VERY, BITS, CHER, STING, TRIES, TONED, DEED, STOUT, ERRS, WAS are all missing either IF, AND, or BUT

Tried to rebus IRR into STING and RIF into VERY before reversing course and jumping to the revealer — didn’t need any crosses and was fairly confident about it, NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS.  My only real nit is that the grid has 82 words and 44 blocks, which is a lot for a 15x.

Cracking: SLY FOX

Slacking: OOP, we forgot the S

Sidetracking: OMAHA

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1789 “Go Figure” — Eric’s Review

An interesting theme today, torn from the headlines, or at least from a high school English syllabus:

• 17A [With 28-Across, “1984” directive] TWO AND TWO/28A EQUALS FIVE
• 46A [With 62-Across, “This makes no sense”] THE NUMBERS/62A DON’T ADD UP

It’s been about 50 years since I’ve read 1984, so I didn’t remember that particular bit of government misinformation. That slowed me down some.

My bigger problem was that my normal “Wheel of Fortune” solving method didn’t work so well. Usually, I can fill in gaps in answers without really seeing how the answer fits the clue (and sometimes, without even reading the clue).

But today, I got part of the grid filled and answers that should have been easy to complete weren’t.

Part of that was 20A [First bedroom roommate, perhaps] SIS. I shared a bedroom with my younger brother for almost 10 years, so I put in SIB. That made it impossible to see the cutely-clued 3D [“Schindler’s List” character?] APOSTROPHE.

The other thing that slowed me down was thinking that 46A/62A was THAT DOESN’T ADD UP, which to me is a more common rendering of the concept than THE NUMBERS DON’T ADD UP.

There’s some nice stuff throughout:

• 43A [Singer Mann] AIMEE Yeah, she shows up in grids almost as much as Yoko Ono, but in the last 25 years, there’s probably no one whose music we’ve listened to more.
• 53A [Shakespeare character who says “You kiss by the book”] JULIET I should have been able to get this without crosses.
• 61A [“To your health!”] PROST Hands up if you tried SALUD or SALUT first.
• 31D [Like a despot] IRON-HANDED All too fitting for the contemporary USA.

Roland Huget’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

In common with yesterday’s puzzle, the middle of four long across answers has a concealed string of letters. Today’s is a little more precisely defined, as explained at ROUNDTRIP. Four answers in sequence contain TRIP, PTRI, IPTR and RIPT, making a circular sequence.

The entries themselves? I personally had heard of 50% of them. YMMV…

1. [Hair removal option], WAXSTRIPS
2. [Underhanded move], CHEAPTRICK
3. [Growth also known as yellow poplar], TULIPTREE. Growth is a weird choice of word. I realise tree was out of bounds, still…
4. [Noncomissioned screenplay], SPECSCRIPT

Gareth

Stella Zawistowski’s USA Today Crossword, “Raise Your Glass” — Emily’s write-up

Here’s to you!

Theme: each downs themer starts with a type of glass Themers:

• 3d. [Exercise done holding one dumbbell with both hands], GOBLETSQUAT
• 6d. [Bird that does somersaults in flight], THIMBLEPIGEON
• 9d. [Rival of Dad’s and Barq’s], MUGROOTBEER

I struck three out of three with this themer set, though I really shoul have gotten the last one. GOBLETSQUAT and THIMBLEPIGEON are new to me but I have certainly had MUGROOTBEER though it’s been ages and truth be told, I was more of a Barq’s fan. Nice theme and title hint!

Favorite fill: UHURA, SAMOSAS, ROTI, and PIGLATIN

Stumpers: SPOONED (only thought of “snuggled”), GOBLETSQUAT (new to me), and THELBOMB (needed crossings)

A quicker solve, with a smooth flow. Loved the grid design and bonus fill. A fun puzzle for later in the week!

4.0 stars
~Emily