Jonesin’ 5:59 (Erin) rate it
LAT untimed (Jenni) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:00 (Eric) [3.14 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker untimed (pannonica) 
[4.10 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:49 (Eric) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ 5:05 (Jim) 
[2.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “1724” — two specific rare letters. – Erin’s write-up
Jonesin’ solution 6/10/25
Hello lovelies! The theme entries in this week’s puzzle contain the 17th and 24th letters of the alphabet, Q and X.
- 16a. [Literary tiller at windmills] DON QUIXOTE
- 24a. [September 22, 2025 occurrence] FALL EQUINOX
- 35a. [Sudden getaway] QUICK EXIT
- 48a. [Modern phase for high-quality elegance over showiness] QUIET LUXURY
- 59a. [Japanese publisher of the “Final Fantasy” series] SQUARE ENIX
Other things:
- 13a. [Biblical mountain (hidden in “offshore banking”)] HOREB. This is where the Old Testament states the Ten Commandments were given to Moses. It may or may not be the same as Mount Sinai.
- 14d. [Taiwanese maker of Mobiuz gaming monitors] BENQ. I had confidently plopped in an A for the first letter since a Taiwanese computer company is either ACER or ASUS, right? Wrong.
Until next week!
Daniel Hrynick’s Universal Crossword “Rifts” — Eric’s review
Daniel Hrynick’s Universal Crossword “Rifts” — 6/10/25
I notice the circled letters when I started, but having gotten the revealer before I had made any sense of them, I mostly ignored them while solving:
- 15A [Exercise named for a large mammal] BEAR CRAWL The highlight of the past week was the yearling bear that visited our bird feeder around dusk on Wednesday. I halfway hope I see him or her again and halfway hope I don’t.
- 22A [“Seriously?”] REALLY NOW
- 35A [Occasion to play Candy Land] FAMILY GAME NIGHT
- 44A [Pic taken on Edge?] SCREEN CAP “Edge” does not say “browser” to me. The last Microsoft browser I used was Internet Explorer 11.
- 59A [Boxing ref’s directive … or a theme hint] BREAK IT UP Do boxing referees really say this, or is it just a movie cliché?
The circled letters, of course, all spell synonyms for fisticuffs. My dictionary lists a few dozen such synonyms, so this might not be the tightest theme set. But on the other hand, all the theme answers are solid and relatively interesting.
Other stuff:
- 13A [“Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” subject] THERANOS It’s only been a few years since Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of securities fraud, but it seems longer.
- 31A [___ dejeuner (breakfast, in French)] PETIT I’ve forgotten a lot of my high school French, but not my favorite meal.
- 4D [“The ___ Side of the Moon”] DARK Given the quotes, I assume this refers to the classic 1973 Pink Floyd album. But there are at least two movies sharing that title.
- 32D [“A Passage to India” author] E.M. FORSTER It seems like a missed opportunity to not clue Forster to his novel Maurice during Pride Month, doesn’t it?
- 37D [Co. secrets contract] NDA When I first started seeing NDA in crossword grids, I thought it was pretty obscure. But the things are so ubiquitous anymore that I guess most people have heard of them.
Annemarie Brethauer’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “We Love Dirty Laundry”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases whose final words are steps in the process of cleaning clothes.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “We Love Dirty Laundry” · Annemarie Brethauer· Tue., 6.10.25
- 18a. [Gloss over] WHITEWASH.
- 24a. [Abandoned] HIGH AND DRY.
- 36a. [First Amendment guarantee] FREE PRESS.
- 52a. [1982 #1 hit for the J. Geils Band] CENTERFOLD.
- 59a. [Care] GIVE A HANG.
Nice, although not everything needs pressing (unless you’re my mom) and folding and hanging are mutually exclusive. Never have I ever heard GIVE A HANG [Care] which sounds dated, maybe even Shakespearean. I wanted GIVE A HOOT (that was before I paid attention to the theme).
Nothing long and sparkly in the fill, but LASAGNA, ANTIGUA, and BOLIVAR are nice 7s. I must have had P-FUNK deep in the recesses of my gray matter, but the crossings were fair if you didn’t. CCH (Pounder) crossing MCXI is a little less fair. If you didn’t know the prolific actress or that C is 100, you probably would’ve had to run through the Roman numerals to get it. (Thankfully, I knew both.)
Clue of note: 44d. [Handsome hunks]. APOLLOS. Really? Because I think most people would use “Adonis” to refer to such people.
3.5 stars.
There’s no good online version of the original video to Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” so we’ll check out some Radiohead instead.
Zachary David Levy’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s review
Zachary David Levy’s New York Times Crossword — 6/10/25
I was pleasantly surprised to open the puzzle page and see my Fiend colleague ZDL’s byline. That made me expect a breezy puzzle-solving experience with perhaps a touch of humor. While my first expectation was met, the clueing — probably in a nod to the early-week placement of the puzzle – was overall more straightforward than I’d hoped for.
Most solvers, even those with Luddite tendencies, will probably appreciate the theme of cell phone service:
- 18A [Places where nonprofessionals sing] KARAOKE BARS
- 24A [Netflix or Hulu] STREAMING SERVICE
- 38A [“You predicted that correctly” … or what the ends of 18-, 24-, 48- and 57-Across will yield?] GOOD CALL
- 48A [Occasion for toasts] WEDDING RECEPTION
- 57A [Nodding yes while saying no, e.g.] MIXED SIGNAL
These are almost all solid answers that I got with a few crucial letters in place. I’m not crazy about MIXED SIGNAL, which really seems to need an S. The nod is one signal, the words are another, and that makes two signals.
Some of the fill is quite good. I especially liked:
- 33A [Was verklempt] PLOTZED
- 41A [1981 German film set aboard a submarine] DAS BOOT The cinematography and editing in that movie are wonderful at showing the claustrophobic surroundings and high-tension atmosphere of life on a submarine (not that I’ve been on a submarine other than at a museum).
- 10D [“I’m totally serious!”] YES REALLY
- 34D [Repeated instance, jokily] ZILLIONTH
- 46D [2016 subject that dominated U.K. newspapers] BREXIT I started to fill that in, then took it out because surely it wasn’t that long ago. Sigh.
The rest of the fill is fine, except that I’m never going to like seeing E. COLI in a grid.
Emily Biegas & Sala Wanetick’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up
A solid, amusing theme for a Tuesday! We have a menagerie.
Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2025, Emily Biegas & Sala Wanetick, solution grid
- 17a [American government official accused of Soviet espionage in the McCarthy era] is ALGER HISS.
- 25a [Arts and entertainment company know for large-scale interactive installations] is MEOW WOLF. I’ve never been and I’m not sure I want to. Their website is sensory overload already.
- 34a [Traditional canoe material] is BIRCH BARK.
- 48a [Kaleidoscope opening] is a PEEP HOLE.
Where are we going with this? 57a [Beach boys album that’s No 2 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and what can be found in 17-, 25-, 34-, and 48-Across] is PET SOUNDS. Nice! Bonus points for alternating the position of the sound – it’s the second word in 17a and 34a and the first word in 25a and 48a.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that a SCHOONER is fore-and-aft rigged.
Erik Agard’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up
New Yorker • 6/10/25 • Agard • solution • 20250610
A flowing and fresh grid but as usual a bit too easy for my liking.
- 10a [Folksinger Mercedes] SOSA. I’d forgotten about her. In any case, a refreshing change from ’90s slugger Sammy.
- 14a [“Well I’ll be!”] LOOK AT THAT. Would you just?
- 17a [Person who avoids eating 18-Across] VEGETARIAN, 18a [See 17-Across] MEAT.
- 22a [Type of “Star Wars” character often used for comic relief] DROID. Good framing.
- 31a [Disco duo whose founding members were Martha Wash and Izora Armstead] THE WEATHER GIRLS, most notably of “It’s Raining Men” fame.
- 35a [ __ paneer (stewed greens-and-cheese dish] SAAG, which seems as if it should appear in crosswords more often.
- 37a [Hunter in Greek mythology] ARTEMIS. The clue would have been easier had the gendered noun huntress or goddess been used. As it is, most everyone’s first reflex is surely for ORION, which obviously doesn’t fit—so we know something’s up.
- 39a [Units of land area] ACRES. 50d [There are nearly eleven hundred of them in a kilometre: Abbr.] YDS; not sure why the British spelling is used here—is it a way to play up the metric/imperial rivalry? 19a [Bad start?] DYS.
- 42a [Ice-cube holders] TRAYS. I have a special one that makes clear ice, based on phenomena observed in, for instance ponds and lakes.
- 44a [Dial 8] VIII, sundial.
- 49a [Oblivion to which inconvenient facts have been consigned, as in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”] MEMORY HOLE. It gets a lot of use in current discourse, often as a verb.
- 55a [Planet whose tidal forces will eventually destroy the closer of its two moons] MARS. Is that Phobos or Deimos?
- 56a [Watchband] STRAP.
- 2d [ __-gooey] OOEY. Kind of awful fill, but very easy to get with basically the only clue possible.
- 5d [Plopped down in a papasan, perhaps] SAT. 6d [High earnings?] STRAIGHT AS.
- Did someone say “straight As”? 8d [Batteries for small portable devices] AAAS.
- 11d [Says too much] OVERSHARES. Another common occurrence in our modern world.
- 12d [Wares in a classic tongue twister] SEASHELLS, by the seashore.
- 13d [Leaves speechless] ASTOUNDS.
- 22d [Hall of Fame Dallas Cowboys wide receiver nicknamed Mr. Clutch] DREW PEARSON. Symmetrically paired with an even more celebrated athlete, 10d [Sports Illustrated’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year] SIMONE BILES.
- 24d [It might be cut and dried] HAIR. Quite so.
25d [Postering adhesive made from flour and water] WHEAT PASTE.- 26d [Sociable] GREGARIOUS. etymology: Latin gregarius of a flock or herd, from greg-, grex flock, herd (m-w.com)
- 27d [Chemical signal secreted by an animal] PHEROMONE. Although the clue is fine as is, there are also for instance plant pheromones and fungus pheromones.
- 31d [Category that includes the novels “Nevada” and “Felix Ever After,” familiarly] TRANS LIT. 51d [Certain gender-affirming treatment, for short] HRT, hormone replacement therapy, which of course is not limited to trans people.
Transformation, of course, is using a different sense of the prefix than transgender. In fact there are several senses of trans- that are commonly conflated, either through ignorance or malice. First is ‘on or to the other side of’ which is used in molecular chemistry and also relates to gender and geography; second is ‘beyond’ as in transhumanism; third is ‘through’ as in transcutaneous; fourth is ‘so or such as to change or transfer’ as in transform or transliterate (but not TRANS LIT).
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 2 stars
Per se? Give a hang? J.Geils band, Ozzie and Harriet?
No wonder reviews of the WJJ xword usually use euphemisms like ‘musty’
The Iron Law of Crossword Commentary: all complaints about fill must reference at least one entry that’s completely unobjectionable (e.g. PER SE).
I liked the NYT them but thought some of the fill was a bit chewy for a Tuesday — PEREC and (for me) PLOTZED, a word I’ve seen but whose meaning I’ve never fully understood.
Singular MIXEDSIGNAL doesn’t work, as Eric says, and in addition I didn’t care for plural ENAMELS. A tooth is coated in enamel; teeth are also coated in enamel. ‘Enamels’ could have been clued by reference to paint types.
REARDRIVE: almost all modern cars are front wheel drive.
PEREC was new to me – got it completely from crosses (which were fair).
I think all four tires give a car traction, regardless of which tires drive the car. But then maybe the answer should just be TIRE.
Yeah, it depends precisely what one means by ‘traction.’ Either way, an odd clue/answer combo.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT
Clever theme, smooth fill 4.5 from me
NYT: Nice puzzle – just about right for a Tuesday, I’d say.
I was thrown a bit by PLOTZED, which I have always understood to mean “drunk” (I had a friend in college who would describe himself, during an evening of bar-hopping, as “pleasantly plotzed”) – so the clue seemed off. But with a little Googling, I see I’ve been missing the formal meaning of the word all these years.
In the WSJ, I can’t imagine not knowing that C s 100. Surely we were all taught Roman numerals as children and encountered them many times since. But I had no idea of CCH and, crossing it in that area, no special comfort with give a HANG. With the first letter missing, I indeed guessed “dang.” CCD would have to do just as well.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 2 stars
+1 re HANG/DANG plus the CCH cross. That was just plain horrible.
Yes, I also had GIVE A DANG, it makes much more sense than HANG.
I agree that the GIVE A HANG/CCH crossing was tough, and I too had a D there.
I remember now having encountered Ms Pounder in puzzles before and her face is familiar, probably from “The Good Fight” or “3 Body Problem.”
But the H would have been obvious if I had paid any attention to the theme, which I didn’t.
NYT: One of my failings was the BOOBY/OGAUGE cross. Seemed like it could have easily been a B in there, not an O
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I really didn’t like O GAUGE because there are quite a few gauge sizes for model trains, all labeled by a single letter, and I don’t know which is most common. I wouldn’t call the cross with BOOBY a natick, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to run the alphabet this early in the week. That’s more of a Friday or Saturday expectation.
PLOTZED was pretty funny though.
Isn’t there an HO scale? I seem to recall that.
Yep, it stands for “half-O.” O was the standard until HO.
To answer your question from yesterday: “Did those banners have much of an effect?”
Of course, you know the answer to that. In fact, many of them had vulgar graffiti scrawled on them.
G_ _ d_ _ _ sailors!
Why am I not surprised?
To expand a bit, O-gauge was the standard for “toy” train sets, like the Lionel that many of us lusted after in the ’50. They needed to be robust because many of us were hard on them.
HO opened a new market for enthusiasts who created permanent displays, rather than pack up the rails and put them back in the box after play sessions. Half the track gauge meant the little towns took up a quarter of the space in the basement, and the cars were a dainty one eighth the volume of the clunky Lionel locomotives.
My dad had a wonderful Lionel set that he must have put together in the 1930s. He had four locomotives, a freight car set and a passenger car set. He all the accessories — the automated crossing guard, the log loader, the lit-up passenger station, the conductor with the swinging arm and the tunnel. It was put up under the Xmas tree for many years.
Good point about that crossing.
In TNY, I ran into obstacles at proper names, as Eric often likes as constructor, much more than pannonica. After all they included the long central entry. They also gave me my last to fall, really an empty square, although I’d heard of both Mercedes and SIMONE BILE. It was just a factoid that didn’t stick with me.
I didn’t recall that SIMONE BILES was SI’s “Sportsperson of the Year” in 2024. But _IMONE BILES, with a sports-related clue, gave you pause?
Pleasant puzzle that could have been a Monday. No complaints.
Which puzzle would that be?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
NYT – Mostly enjoyable, but agree with those that felt BOOBY/OGAUGE is a bit of a natick. I guessed BOBBY first.
PEREC was new to me but crosses were fair. PLOTZED not a word I knew, but it “felt right” and almost onomatopoetic for the clue. Overall a mostly smooth fill with a few new words. I’ll take it.
TNY: Played harder for me than yesterday’s puzzle – but looking back after it’s been solved, I’m not sure that should have been the case.
I was slowed down some by transposing the “M” and “N” in PHEROMONE.
I came of age in the disco era and remember (sort of) THE WEATHER GIRLS. But I thought asking me to know the names of the artists was a bit of a stretch. That was pre-internet, so we didn’t have all of these details readily available – and while I can name members of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and The Who (also pre-internet), I’m not sure the Weather Girls rise to that level of recognition.
I’m thinking that e.a. is too young to have been a fan of THE WEATHER GIRLS when they were in their prime – so he had to look this up on the internet, right? ;-)
Similar experience for me with the difficulty of yesterday vs today. I had no idea about THEWEATHERGIRLS — the disco years were in the middle of my teens, but we snooty would-be intellectuals scorned disco in favor of reggae and then punk.
I learned about them retroactively in the late 80s/early 90s because there was a minor scandal regarding C+C Music Factory’s ubiquitous hit “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”. It was sung by Martha Wash but the video proffered a significantly more petite woman as the performer. Anyway, the backlash seemed to have made Wash more of a household name.
I actually submitted a puzzle to Will with MISTY COPELAND, SUNNY VON BÜLOW and STORMY DANIELS as theme entries and then THEWEATHERGIRLS as the final revealer, but was told the names were too obscure (and in particular with STORMY soon to be forgotten?)
Sounds great. Perhaps GALE STORM?