Monday, June 16, 2025

BEQ 15:48 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:58 (Stella) [3.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:32 (including searching for an error) (Sophia) [3.85 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 5:41 (Amy) [3.93 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) rate it
USA Today tk (?) rate it
WSJ 3:55 (Jim) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Jill Rafaloff and Michelle Sontarp’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Write-Up

Theme: Each theme answer starts with the name of a baby animal

New York Times, 06 16 2025, By Jill Rafaloff and Michelle Sontarp

• 18a [Short stiletto shoe] – KITTEN HEEL
• 23a [‘N Sync bandmate of Justin Timberlake] – JOEY FATONE
• 36a [What a first crush might be dismissed as] – PUPPY LOVE
• 49a [Spot that may be affected by a charley horse] – CALF MUSCLE
• 56a [Movie marketed toward a primarily female audience, informally] – CHICK FLICK
• 64a [The first word of 18-, 23-, 36-, 49- or 56-Across is one] – BABY

This is an impressive amount of theme material for a Monday! Five theme answers plus the short revealer is hard to accomplish in any puzzle, much less a Monday with a high bar for fill quality. I was able to figure out the theme after the first two answers, and knowing the entries had to start with a baby animal meant that PUPPY LOVE, CALF MUSCLE, and CHICK FLICK could all be dropped in with almost no crosses. I like all the theme answers the constructors chose, but I’m curious how JOEY FATONE will play, difficulty-wise. I knew him immediately, but I’ve been a dedicated watcher of multiple reality competition shows he’s been a part of (“The Singing Bee”, “The Masked Singer”), so I don’t really know how well-known he is overall.

Thoughts on the rest of the puzzle:

• The NW and SE corners are a little blocked-off from the rest of the puzzle, but look at all the great fill that affords! KARAOKE, RECUSAL, and IN LIMBO are all great. POPSICLE and OFF-DUTY are fun too.
• OK, there are a few places the fill is tricky for a Monday. I’m so used to ETUI being a canonical example of bad crosswordese that it’s weird to see it actually in a puzzle. ODEON and RKOS are also not great.
• Despite all this the error I had in the puzzle was “mags” instead of RAGS for [Supermarket tabloids, informally]! I finished the puzzle and then had to spend 20+ seconds looking for my error. I also had “smog” instead of HAZE initially.
• Favorite clues: [Finger … or what a finger dials on a phone] for DIGIT, [No-longer-cool way to say “cool”] for HEP

Happy Monday all!

Kathy Lowden’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 6/16/25 by Kathy Lowden

The theme of this puzzle is both easy to pick out and somewhat inexplicable. The easy-to-pick-out part is that each theme answer is a rhyming two-word phrase that describes a kind of person who would make the comment in the clue:

• 20A [“Why should I care if the peasants are starving?,” snarled the __] is MEAN QUEEN.
• 26A [“Teach your kids some manners! And get better snacks,” snapped the __] is BITTER SITTER.
• 43A [“Don’t try and tell me the route—I’ve been doing this job for 20 years,” growled the __] is CRABBY CABBIE.
• 54A [“I need this work done yesterday!,” shouted the __] is CROSS BOSS.

The part I still don’t understand is…why? These aren’t in-the-language two-word phrases; to me “adjective that describes a bad mood in some way” plus “profession that rhymes with adjective” is not enough to hang a theme on, at least not for a 15x puzzle. (I could see Maura Jacobson back in the day making something like this work in a bigger puzzle, with more examples to make you chuckle a bit.)

I also didn’t love three crosswordy abbreviations (AMER, SRS, ASSTS) in the same puzzle. (I’m beginning to distinguish, both as a solver and as a constructor, between abbreviations I often see in print or say out loud outside of crossword puzzles, like REC, ECON, and UAE, and ones I don’t, which I would place AMER, SRS, and ASSTS in.)

Some of the longer nontheme fill, like MESQUITE, SPICE TRADE, and BELT BUCKLE, was nice. But on balance I’m sorry to say I didn’t like this puzzle.

Leo Tsai’s Universal crossword, “Summer 2025 Themeless Week, Puzzle 1” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 6/16/25 • Mon • “Summer 2025 Themeless Week, Puzzle 1” • Tsai • solution • 20250616

This is the second crossword from Leo Tsai that I’ve tackled—the third overall to appear in these pages—but only just now am I noticing that the name neatly anagrams to isolate.

The grid features pairs of stacked 10s in a pinwheel formation near the perimeter, augmented by interlocking 11s in a parallel pinwheel farther inward.

• 1a [Temporary currency] SCRIP. As you probably imagine, the word is an alteration of script, which ultimately derives from a Latin word for writing, or scribing.
• 13a [One might go undercover] PRIVATE EYE. 24a [Hideout for one going undercover?] BLANKET FORT.
• 16a [They’re sometimes shooting stars!] CAMERA CREWS. A question mark would be incongruous here, but the exclamation point adequately conveys the playfulness of the clue.
• 17a [Taiwanese computer company] ACER. Waited to eliminate ASUS via crossings.
• 20a [Broke into, digitally] HACKED. Unfortunately, the more benign technical sense of this word (“a creative, improvised solution to a problem or limitation”) has effectively been eclipsed by this more sinister one.
• 28a [Faucet] TAP. 37d [Sound of a stalactite forming or a faucet leaking] DRIP.
• 34a [Objects used in contact juggling] BALLS. What’s the alternative to contact juggling? Metaphorical juggling?
• 51a [What divas sing] OPERA MUSIC. I foolishly tried OPERA SONGS, which duplicates a key word from the clue.
• 54a [St. crossers] AVES. Do we ever see this clued as the taxonomic class for birds? Okay, certainly not in an easy puzzle such as this one, but I wouldn’t mind seeing that more often instead of a plural abbrev.
• 58a [Apple devices that received the Calculator app in 2024] IPADS. Seems late in the day for that, no?
• 6d [Hidden key to success] SECRET SAUCE. Metaphorical at least 99% of the time.
• 10d [Concert souvenir, maybe] TICKET STUB. Becoming obsolescent as electronic tickets predominate nowadays.
• 23d [Sport where the star player has a star on their helmet] ROLLER DERBY. Was easy to get with most of the first word already in place via crossings.
• 29d [ __ art (graphic style for “Celeste” and “Stardew Valley”)] PIXEL. It’s my impression that the designation pixel art was formulated when such obviously raster images became a deliberate choice rather than borne of limitations of technology or memory.
• 34d [Drinking game in which players take shots] BEER PONG. In more than one way.

Andrea Carla Michaels & Kevin Christian’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Very Funny!”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases whose first words can precede “joke” to make other phrases. Each of these joke words is atop a circled U to give credence to the revealer “THE JOKE’S ON YOU” (33a, [“Ha! That backfired, didn’t it?” (and a homophonic hint to 18-, 23-, 48- and 54-Across)]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Very Funny!” · Andrea Carla Michaels & Kevin Christian · Mon., 6.16.25

• 18a. [Clint Eastwood film with four sequels] DIRTY HARRY. Dirty joke.
• 23a. [Out-of-shape physiques, to some] DAD BODS. Dad joke.
• 48a. [Brief time off from work] SICK DAY. Sick joke.
• 54a. [Tip that might lead to illegal trading] INSIDE INFO. Inside joke.

Solid. The whole “on top of a single letter U” thing is almost a little silly though. I wonder if it would have been possible to have the lower words have the letters YOU in them like in BAYOU or WAY OUT and such. But that would have been a much harder puzzle to construct though, especially with all those Ys. As it is, the U’s provide the lightest of additional constraints and potentially help a solver out once they realize what goes in the circles. All this is suitable for a Monday, so no complaints here.

I enjoyed seeing HORTON of Horton Hears a Who, one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. I love that he crosses DIRTY HARRY who could be considered the antithesis of HORTON as far as mercy goes. (Now I can’t get the line, “Do you feel lucky, Who?” out of my head.) MILANOs are always a favorite in our household as well.

Clues of note:

• 16a. [“Listen up!”]. HARK. Yeah, “Listen up” sang those herald angels.
• 43d. [English county known for its sheep]. DORSET. Did not know this and I lived in the country for seven years. But then, I never had reason to visit that county.

Three stars.

Anna Shechtman’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 6/16/25 – Shechtman

Not as hard as I was expecting, though there was one impenetrable clue/answer for which I worked the crossings: 13d. [Critics such as Roman Jakobson and Viktor Shklovsky], FORMALISTS. Never heard of those two, nor the term FORMALISTS used for a category of critics. See also: [Milieu in Rachel Cusk’s “Parade” and Rachel Kushner’s “The Flamethrowers”], ART WORLD. Scholarly fill from the world of literature and art is perhaps the main reason Shechtman’s puzzles almost always appear on Mondays rather than medium and easy Tuesday and Wednesday.

Fave fill: VACATION TIME (could’ve been DAYS), FASHION VICTIM, SOCIAL CLIMBERS, NOBEL LAUREATES, CORNER STORES, SOAP OPERA, CHALICE, THE BEAR, SIDE DOOR. In the demerit column: NES, TOCK, REO, OVISAC, -ITE, EMS, ETES.

Clue that took a while to grasp: [Floor-brushing, maybe], MAXI. A dress that brushes the floor is MAXI length.

3.25 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1793 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1792 — 6/16/25

I found this trickier than any BEQ puzzle in recent memory, particularly in the SW corner. There were some long entries that I hadn’t heard before, though they were ultimately guessable.

I got off to a decent start, working from the NE corner down and around. 23A [“Sandal season”] is new to me, but PEDIS was obvious enough there. That P helped me get 10D [Held on tight] CLASPED, which led to 28A [Compliment to the goalie] GOOD SAVE and so on.

The quadruple stacks in the NE and SW were a bit challenging, in part because there were multiple possibilities for things like:

• 5A [Masonry’s skill] STONECRAFT
• 16A [Scrooge, famously] MONEY LOVER
• 18A [“Were you followed?”] ARE WE ALONE
• 48A [Put aside for the future] SALTED AWAY
• 57A [Hearty meat substitute] PORTOBELLO

Throw in a few things that I didn’t know and I had some slowdowns:

•  20A [Cutting device that allows for precise movement on the x- and y-axes] CROSS-SLIDE Maybe this is part of a metal lathe, which I haven’t used since eighth grade shop class. Maybe not.
• 55A [Singer with the 2025 #1 “Ordinary”] ALEX WARREN I don’t recognize the song or the singer.

A few other things that caught my eye:

• 21A [Enters with stealth] SLINK IN The disjunction between clue and answer cost me a bit, as I had an S in the place of the K for a long while.
• 36A [Punk fool] ASS CLOWN I hadn’t heard that one before, but I have met my share of such persons.
• 39A [Hurled] SLUNG/39D [Whole number?] SUM I originally had FLUNG, which made it impossible to get the third letter of 39D. It’s embarrassing and annoying to be stumped by a three-letter word.
• 47A [Faker] SHAMMER Also new to me.
• 54A [___ Shelley (soccer coach in “Ted Lasso”)] NATE In some ways, Nate had the most interesting character arc on that show (which is one of the best shows I’ve seen in the last five years).
• 2D [Nickname for Oliver Cromwell’s troops] IRONSIDES I don’t know much about the English Civil War, and the only name I could associate with Cromwell was the Roundheads.
• 24D [Founders of the K’iche’ kingdom] MAYA From the name, I was guessing this was a kingdom in Africa. Oops.
• 34D [Bird call] AWK As in “awkward,” like this answer.
• 37D [Fact checkers may provide it] CONTEXT I had CONTENT first, which led me to guess that the singer Warren’s first name was ALAN. Obviously, CONTEXT fits the clue better.
• 38D [Position taken by many a sports talk radio caller?] LINE TWO This is my favorite clue of this puzzle.
• 40D ___ space (in-between zone) LIMINAL Nice word that you don’t see too often.
• 46D [___ College of Management (University of Arizona’s business school)] ELLER The parenthetical didn’t help me at all.