BEQ 11:59 + looking for a non-existent error (Eric) 
[3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 11:43 (ZDL) 
[3.32 avg; 17 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:11 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today 10:35 (Emily) 
[2.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Note: Fireball is a contest this week. We’ll post a review after the submission period closes. Also, no WSJ puzzle due to the federal holiday.
Jamixiy’s Universal Crossword “Summer 2025 Themeless Week, Puzzle 4” — Eric’s review
Jamixiy’s Universal Crossword — 6/19/25
Congratulations to Jamixiy for what appears to be their debut crossword in a publication covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend!
It’s only been a few days since I reviewed another Universal puzzle that I didn’t realize had no theme until I was halfway through solving it. The same thing happened today. Sheesh!
Universal’s editors recently announced that they would no longer require puzzles to have a symmetrical grid. When I finished solving this puzzle, I thought it had an asymmetrical grid. But looking at it again, it looks to be symmetrical along the NW to SE diagonal.
I didn’t run into any major snags solving this; I could get the few non-gimme answers in the grid with a crucial cross or two. The straightforward clueing made the whole puzzle pretty easy.
Notable fill:
- 12A [Nintendo series starring Mario’s nemesis] WARIO WARE I don’t play video games, but crosswords have taught me the name WARIO. I needed a few crosses for the second part of the game’s name.
- 16A [Cold coffee order] ICED LATTE Decaf for me, thanks.
- 32A [Greek god of the sea] POSEIDON
- 35A [Captain Kangaroo portrayer Bob] KEESHAN A gimme for a late baby boomer like me. I wonder how familiar that name is to anyone under 40.
- 43A [ ___ and left no crumbs (piece of Gen-Z slang] ATE Easy enough to figure out even if, like me, you’ve never heard the expression.
- 47A [Internet forum for posting questions] ASK REDDIT I assume this is different than Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything,”
- 55A [Postcards and letters and such] SNAIL MAIL
- 1D [“Good News” rapper] MAC MILLER The song title is not at all familiar, but I may have come across the artist before. In any event, most of the crossings are gentle.
- 10D [Films that supposedly no longer exist, e.g.] LOST MEDIA I’d not heard that phrase before, and my initial reaction was that it seemed a bit green-painty, but my Google search convinces me it’s legit.
- 36D [Japanese setting for “Madame Butterfly”] NAGASAKI I don’t listen to much opera and while I knew this Puccini classic is set in Japan, I couldn’t have told you what city.
- 40D [One who handles a lot of change?] CASHIER I’m not sure what the question mark in the clue is there for, except to make the solver think there’s some wordplay that’s not really there.
Hannah Slovut-Einertson’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Average (11m43s)
Hannah Slovut-Einertson’s New York Times crossword, 6/19/25, 0619
Today’s theme: from this TO that
- RA TO UT / GraTER becomes GUTTER
- OC TO PI / SpiKED becomes SOCKED
- TS TO RM / PErmIT becomes PETSIT
- AR TO IS / BisHOP becomes BARHOP
Very little sleep, brain is stuck in first gear today. Took a while to see the obvious instructions in each pair of theme entries, but it all checks out.
Cracking: rarely do we get the full ET TU BRUTE — only the second time in the Shortz era that the entire phrase has appeared in a standard puzzle!
Slacking: the plural PTAS, see me after class
Sidetracking: THE US is indeed the subject of one of the greatest songs in American history. Here is a rendition I like very much:
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1793 “Helter Shelter” — Eric’s review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1793 “Helter Shelter” — 6/19/25
I like camping, and I sometimes like puns, but these didn’t do anything for me:
- 18A [Rough it for way longer than is healthy?] YURT TOO MUCH I assume this is a play on “Hurt too much,” which might be a phrase mental health professionals use. Or not.
- 34A [Creeps around while stepping over outdoor shelters?] WALKS ON TEEPEE TOE That tiptoe pun is awful, and not in a good way.
- 53A [Outdoor shelters outfitted with AI, fusion reactors, etc.?] FUTURE TENTS The tense/tents pun is probably older than I am.
On the one hand, I feel cheated that there’s only three theme answers. On the other hand, I’m glad there weren’t more bad puns.
Other stuff:
- 4A [Insult heard ’round the Globe?] LIBEL I’m sure I’m missing something, but I don’t see what the Globe Theatre has to do with libel. Any thoughts?
- ?15A [Battery terminal] ANODE It took almost five years, but I finally learned to leave the first two letters blank until I had a crossing.
- 16A [Piercing part] PRONG I misinterpreted this clue and thought I was looking for a frequently pierced body part.
- 27A [Personality ___ ] TRAIT The T from STOW made me consider TESTS for a long while.
- 32A [DraftKings rival] FANDUEL My complete lack of interest in fantasy sports and sports betting didn’t help here. I’ve heard of both companies, but needed several crosses to get the answer.
- 44A [Young wolf] WHELP Welp, I’ve heard this used in relation to dogs, but not wolves. Some of the wolves that were reintroduced to Colorado a few years back have made it as far south as the county I live in, but I don’t really expect to see one.
- 45A [Baked noodle pudding] KUGEL I sort of guessed at this and confirmed it with a few crosses. The only time I’ve eaten kugel was at a coworker’s son’s bar mitzvah 25 or 30 years ago.
- 2D [With the soft pedal depressed, on some scores] UNA CORDA Not easy for those of us who are not musicians.
- 5D [Five-time ATP Player of the Year] BORG I know the T in ATP means “Tennis,” and I remember when Björn Borg was still playing, but I needed a few crosses there.
- 19D [Lubricant containers] OIL CUPS C’mon, you had OIL CANS, right? That incorrect answer slowed me down for a long time. It was only when I tried CUPS in place of CANS that the awful TEEPEETOE pun clicked.
- 24D [Guest at a synagogue] GENTILE See KUGEL.
- 36D [Type of attraction run by Joe Exotic, e.g.] TIGER ZOO I didn’t recognize this nickname for “The Tiger King.” By chance, just this morning, a friend sent me this photo from her recent visit to the Oregon Zoo in Portland.
Photo by sotto voce
Rachel Fabi’s USA Today Crossword, “Break Out in Song” — Emily’s write-up
Sing it!
USA Today, June 19, 2025, “Break Out in Song” by Rachel Fabi
Theme: the first word (aka “break out”) of each themer combine into the start of a song
Themers:
- 17a. [Electoral battlegrounds], SWINGSTATES
- 28a. [What a beeping smoke detector may indicate], LOWBATTERY
- 45a. [Milder version of a pungent veggie], SWEETONION
- 60a. [Equestrian event in ancient Greece], CHARIOTRACE
There is such a variety of this themers set with SWINGSTATES, LOWBATTERY, SWEETONION, and CHARIOTRACE. Other than the first, the rest of the themers took me longer and I needed multiple crossings. With the theme, we get the spiritual song SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT. Nice!
Favorite fill: ONBLAST, OHDEAR, WASNTME, and MALLRAT
Stumpers: PGA (needed crossings), ALA (new to me), and EARNS (misdirected)
Though the cluing was tougher for me and so I had a longer solve, it still have a good flow and fair crossings. Loved the great fill and their layout–some of which were top tier like OSAKA on top of RAMEN and TACOS on ALAMO.
4.5 stars
~Emily
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Took me a few minutes to figure out the trick to understanding the gimmick in the NYT, but once I did, I thought it was clever. 4 stars for me.
I was thrown by the first theme entry, figuring RAT OUT meant I had to remove RAT from the answer… but then OCTOPI was pretty confusing after that… I got through all of the first halves before realizing the “TO” gimmick, and then it was quite clever and useful for the solve. Nice Thursday!
Happy Juneteenth everyone!
Took me a while to understand the trick, after I plunked in GUTTER and didn’t realize it had to be modified. But once I got it, I liked it.
I had trouble with the right hand side. Never heard of PARADEREST, ODES (as clued), TAIO, PERETTI. But it all came together eventually.
Chelsea Peretti was in several of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s seasons. She’s also married to filmmaker Jordan Peele.
Nice theme, and of course hard to catch. On the other hand, getting it still left me with TAIO crossing PERETTI, both of which meant nothing to me.
That SE quadrant murdered me, with PERETTI crossing TAIO crossing the theme answer PETSIT. There were a lot of Proper Nouns in this puzzle, and while most were easy, these two were complete unknowns to me.
And I agree with @rob (below) that the theme instructions seem backwards. Not a fan of this one.
I had trouble with the same answers. I kept trying to image what position (as in role) one might play in a silent marching band. (Surely if one can compete at air guitar, one can play in a silent marching band, right?) (With few exceptions, I’d prefer that marching bands stay silent, anyway.)
I’d have found the right side much easier if PERETTI had been clued to the jewelry designer. I’m not a big buyer of jewelry, but the NYT Magazine for decades had prominent Tiffany ads that often featured her designs.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
So glad that it was Chelsea PERETTI and not a jewelry designer I never heard of! I agree that it’s not ideal to have that name crossing TAIO, but upon looking up the song in the clue, I do believe it’s well known, as it must be if I recognized it. I love Chelsea PERETTI, she’s hilarious, but I guess that most proper-nouns crossings are less than ideal.
Agree on TAIO and PERETTI – that was ugly.
I’ve heard of PARADE REST, but never in reference to a marching band – only in reference to a group of military personnel marching.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
PARADEREST in a marching band is sort of like switching off a toy robot. You turn your head downward and bring your instrument away from you, but you stay lined up in formation and stand there silently.
I was in my high school marching band. My college didn’t have a marching band until after I started, by which time I had figured out that going to football games and tailgating with my friends was more fun than wearing 10 pounds of ill-fitting canvas and polyester. But I never saw our band or any college’s marching band ever use PARADEREST. So my conclusion is that high school marching band rivals high school football for overzealous control freak wannabe drill sergeants.
“[H]igh school marching band rivals high school football for overzealous control freak wannabe drill sergeants.”
I’ve no personal experience with either marching band or high school football, but from what I’ve observed, you nailed it.
Eric,
Interesting bit of history: Nagasaki was founded by Portuguese traders and was the only city in Japan where foreigners could live during the shogun period, when Japan was a closed society. So it’s the only place Pinkerton could have had his dirty way with Madame Butterfly.
It was a center of western knowledge that Japanese scholars flocked to for “Dutch learning,” and the origin of much 17th-century fusion cuisine we think of as Japanese today (tempura is a Portuguese word). Nagasaki has many styles of noodle dishes, unique in Japan, that were developed to feed students from within and outside of Japan, including many from Korea. To avoid “tainting” the rest of the country with foreign presence, Nagasaki was sited on the western tip of Japan’s westernmost main island of Kyushu. In fact, Nagasaki is half the distance to Seoul as it is to Tokyo.
It was also a military port (to keep the barbarians from getting out of line), which led directly to the sad role for which most of us know the name “Nagasaki” today.
Thanks, Martin. I knew none of that other than Nagasaki’s “sad role.” I wasn’t aware that the Portuguese had established any cities in Japan, though it’s not particularly surprising given the Portuguese history in Macau and Mumbai.
p.s. I just read the Wikipedia plot synopsis for “Madama Butterfly.” How operatic.
One of my favorite things about reading this blog each day is the edification I often get from Martin’s posts.
I blush. Thanks.
I wonder what subject does Martin not know something about?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Nice theme. I also like how the first themed fill, RATOUT, is not obvious as to how the theme works.
This is the first time Jamixiy’s had a puzzle talked about on Crossword Fiend, but I believe he’s been published in Universal before.
Thanks. I found a constructor by that name on Crosshare, but they weren’t in the list of constructor tags here.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Took me a while to grok the theme as well (it didn’t help that I was thinking of Chelsea Handler instead of Peretti)…I wonder about the direction of the TOs as well, ARTOIS for instance to me means take AR and make it IS as opposed to t’other way ’round. But fun all the same.
I’m lucky that I’m so forgetful that I was trying to remember Chelsea Handler’s name and it didn’t come to me. That enabled me to get some crossing letters and the right name before going off in the wrong direction.
LAT: clever theme; wanted to like this more, but RBI MEN and I LOSE were clunkers for me
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
NYT: I really enjoyed this puzzle, but as Rex points out in his blog, the direction of the revealer seems to be backwards. And ZDL’s write up (maybe inadvertently) confirms this. For example, we know gutter (mind in the gutter) and we need to do something to go from gutter (in our head) to grater in the grid. But the clue implies that we are going from grater (which has nothing to do with the clue) to gutter ( which we know from the clue) by changing the RA to UT
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
Thank you – this is exactly what I was thinking!
Overall, an OK puzzle but too much weirdness or obscurities (THE USA, PARADE REST, WETTEST, PERETTI crossing TAIO, etc.). I think the NYT should demand better from its puzzles. They have declined in quality of late IMO.
NYT The inconsistency of the meaning of TO bothered me a lot.
Always a little disappointing to find myself agreeing with Rex, but that was my thought, too.
LAT: How is III [“sundial three”] a “loose description of the last part of the geometry formula hinted at in this puzzle”? I was amused by by 2πR but III does not say circumference to me.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 2 stars
Okay, I just went to crosswordcorner, and I still think that is a stupid clue. Radius is not “hinted at”; it’s staring you in the face as part of the theme. And I see nothing suggesting that there is a circle near III. UGH.
From crossword corner: “Sundial three, and a loose depiction of the last part of the geometry formula hinted at in this puzzle: III. To understand this subtle clue, you have to think about the center of the grid in a way that is literally figurative. Note that the black squares inscribe a circle about as perfectly as can be done in this medium. The vertical I-I-I then represents a radius [r] of that circle.”
Sorry. It’s not even close to being a circle. And it’s asymmetrical to boot.
When I look at the inner “circle” I get it. The three black squares betweem OOLALA and SEE at the top and the three between RIB and (ugh) RBIMEN with the sides contained by four sets of two diagonal black square. But I remain a non-fan of grid art. It almost always seems like a drawing using super sized pixels that don’t quite capture the intended object
Re: BEQ. I think Yurt Too Much is a play on You’re Too Much. And the Globe referenced in 4-across is the Boston Globe not the Globe Theatre
Thanks! You could well be correct about the YURT pun.
And I keep forgetting that BEQ is from the Boston area. Your interpretation of the Globe clue makes perfect sense, particularly given the allusion to “the shot heard ‘round the world”
ZDL: Loved the Counting Crows rendition. Check Out My Morning Jacket’s version. Also very good!
Puzzle: USA Today; Rating: 2 stars
I wanted to give this puzzle 4 stars because the theme was well played out. But the clunker at 22D turned me off so much that I docked the puzzle 2 stars. Clue 22D: “Hashtag on a mirror selfie post” and the answer is “OOTD”, which I guess stands for “outfit of the day”.
As a retired baby-boomer who can’t keep up with — nor tolerate — the excessive amount of initialism and acronyms that appear in crosswords nowadays, it’s no wonder that many publishers are requiring subscriber fees because puzzle quality has gone down in the last few/several years and people are moving onto other games.
And for me, this puzzle should have been rejected by the editor and the creator should have re-worked that corner of the puzzle.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4.5 stars
This is a very clever & ingenious puzzle by Joe Rodini, and the geometrical theme was spot on.
In the center of the puzzle you’ll see that there’s a loose “circle” of black squares around a central black square. These three stacked “I”s mark out the “radius” of that circle.