Friday, June 13, 2025

LAT untimed (pannonica) [3.50 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:15 (Amy) [4.08 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:15 (Jim) [4.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it

Evan Mulvihill’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 6/13/25 – no. 0613

Congrats to Team Fiend’s Evan on his NYT debut!

First up, I like that the difficulty level was more on target for a Friday than some other recent puzzles have been.

Fave fill: SASHAY and TUCK (which go together on RuPaul’s Drag Race), SEA OTTER, COMES OUT AHEAD, GOES BEAST MODE (if you speed-solve crosswords to any degree and go faster than most people in your social circle, consider yourself going beast mode), WHITE RUSSIANS, UNICORNS, GHOSTING, Gertrude Stein as a PROSE POET, HOUSE REDS, HONOR CODE. Could do without: HAS AT.

Five more things:

• 26D. [Gesture of respect or recognition], HAT TIP. I see this used more as a written nod to someone you got a link from, say. The actual tipping of the hat feels more like a “tip one’s hat to,” no?
• 15A. [Light shower?], APERTURE. Little photography terminology, yeah? Tricky clue.
• 9D. [“Some rise by ___, and some by virtue fall”: “Measure for Measure”], SIN. An insightful Shakespeare quote.
• 34D. [What might be pinched for pennies], COIN PURSE. Another tricky clue. Some little coin purses pop open when pinched from the side.
• 35D. [Artist who made a lot of good points?], SEURAT. Points of paint in his pointillist art.

Four stars from me.

Katherine Simonson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

LAT • 6/13/25 • Simonson • solution • 20250613

• 17a. [Meeting of monarchs?] BUTTERFLY SOCIAL.
• 23a. [Lingerie for a grizzly?] BEAR TEDDY.
• 34a. [Shortage of raptors?] HAWK DEFICIT.
• 51a. [Protest in support of the loser of a fabled race?] HARE MARCH.
• 56a^R [Annual mass relocation, or a movement that happened four times in this puzzle?] ANIMAL MIGRATION.

I’d noticed the commonality of animals among the theme answers, but had been interpreting them as simple transposals with the other words. The revealer slightly changes that perception, and it’s fine. For two of the original phrases—social butterfly and deficit hawk—the animals are more idiomatic, whereas in the other two—teddy bear and March Hare—they more or less represent the same thing as in the altered version.

• 

  Mark Tansey, “Picasso and Braque” (1992) LACMA (see 56-down)

  1d [Avant-garde movement pioneered by Georges Braque] CUBISM. He and Picasso were the two most prominent proponents. 56d [Part of LACMA] Los Angeles County Museum of ART.

• 2d [Spelman graduate] ALUMNA.
• 7d [Like some starts and returns] FALSE.
• 29d [Large ruminant in the Rockies] ELK, which is the word for moose, in much of Europe. Such confusion is one of many reasons scientific binomials are more reliable. The animal of the clue is Cervus canadensis, and the other is Alces alces.
• 43d [Board] EMBARK. Overall, the cluing in the crossword is on the easy side, but when things need to be kicked up a notch or so, we get one of these laconic, ambiguous prompts. Others include 34d [Locks] HAIR, 44d [Buzz] CALL, 21a [Box] SPAR, 53a [Plot] TRACT, and 54a [Pedestrian] BLAH.
• 1a [Raucous field cry] CAW. Oh that kind of field. I was thinking of some kind of sporting event. 9d [Hurling and curling] SPORTS.
• 30a [Kicks on Route 66?] NISSANS. Was only vaguely aware of this auto model.
• 33a [Central Asia’s North __ Sea] ARAL. Used to be just the ARAL Sea, but I guess due to its slow demise and shrinkage its becoming fragmented.
• 39a [Half-moon tide] NEAP.
  
• 41a [Lad of La Mancha] NIÑO. While a man from the same place would be un quixote un hombre.
• 65a [Had a restful night] SLEPT. Mine was restful but too brief.

Mike Graczyk’s Universal crossword, “Measures Up”—Jim’s review

Hey! I did this puzzle without reading any of the theme clues with their annoying parenthetical hints. I call that a win.

Theme answers are familiar phrases in the Down direction with circled letters that spell out a unit of measurement in the Up direction.

Universal crossword solution · “Measures Up” · Mike Graczyk · Fri., 6.13.25

• 2d. [“Who knows?!”] “YOU NEVER CAN TELL.” Acre (area).
• 4d. [They may be smitten with kittens] CAT LOVERS. Volt (electricity).
• 10d. [“Nothing can stop us now!”] “THE SKY’S THE LIMIT.” Mile (distance).
• 16d. [Noise complaint] “WHAT A RACKET.” Carat (weight for gemstones).
• 36d. [“Can you please help?”] “ANY ADVICE?” Day (time).

Nice. I especially like that each unit measures something different and that all the entries are fun phrases. One little inconsistency is that all the phrases are colloquialisms except for one. I have to believe that there’s an entry out there to replace CAT LOVERS with a different type of measurement hidden within a verbal phrase. I almost found one in “Pucker up!” which hides a CUP, but it’s one letter too short to be symmetrical with ANY ADVICE.

The rest of the fill is solid-to-great with highlights RIM SHOT, WINE MENU, “I GET THAT,” LYCHEE, SELL OUT, and POLENTA.

Clues of note:

• 28a. [Nickname comprised only of Roman numerals]. VIV. My first guess was MIC then LIV.
• 65a. [Certain pilot]. AIRMAN. This is a rather generic term for a pilot, so I’d rather see this clued as the USAF rank, for example [Air Force equivalent to a Private First Class].
• 9d. [Donny who was in Weird Al’s “White & Nerdy” music video]. OSMOND. Well, now we have to check out the video, don’t we? BTW, Weird Al’s tour starts today in Las Vegas with many locations sold out already. Got my tix for the Aug 15th near Seattle.

3.5 stars.

Ha! Just noticed this. Guess who else cameos right at the start of this video from 2006? None other than Key and Peele.