Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Jonesin’ 5:31 (Erin) rate it
LAT untimed (Jenni) [2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:59 (Eric) [2.87 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker untimed (pannonica) [4.32 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:48 (Eric) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 4:19 (Jim) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Ocean’s Four” — the bodies you know. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 6/24/25

Hello lovelies! This week’s puzzle features wordplay involving four of the world’s five oceans.

• 18a. [Ocean that’s really amused?] ARCTICKLED (Arctic + tickled)
• 26a. [Ocean that’s not real?] PACIFICTIONAL (Pacific + fictional)
• 46a. [Ocean that’s a bit of a letdown?] ALANTICLIMACTIC (Atlantic + anticlimactic)
• 59a. [Ocean full of pink flowers? (yeah, there aren’t many options)] INDIANTHUS (Indian + Dianthus)
• Missing: the Southern Ocean, recognized by many countries but not ratified by the International Hydrographic Organization because not all countries agree on its borders.

Other things:

• 67a. [Baby that stays up at night?] OWLET. Also, a bunch of human newborns.
• 19d. [“Dance of the Nymphs” painter] Jean-Baptiste-Camille COROT
• 61a. [Author of “A Court of Thorns and Roses”] Sarah MAAS. Maas has penned a series of faerie adventure/romance novels.

Until next week!

Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword “Closing Time” — Eric’s review

Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword “Closing Time” — 6/24/25

As is too often the case, I solved this without using the theme, though the theme was readily apparent once I was finished:

• 16A [ Overachievement for a college student, say] DOUBLE MAJOR
• 28A [“And that’s that”] END OF STORY
• 44A [“This is our last chance”] IT’S DO OR DIE
• 58A [What to do after entering a house … and a hint to a sequence in 16-, 28- and 44- Across] SHUT THE DOOR

I like the neat progression of the DO and OR pairs closing up, and each theme answer is a nice phrase that would be fine as a long entry in a themeless puzzle. I suppose if someone were unfamiliar with a phrase like END OF STORY or IT’S DO OR DIE, the theme might help them fill in the blanks. But those phrases seem pretty well-known to me.

Other stuff:

• 31A [Emulate an angry bear] GROWL I had SNARL first. A few weeks ago, a yearling black bear was on our deck trying to get into our bird feeder; my husband scared it off by rapping on the sliding glass door. I was a little surprised to see this clue given that 43D [Greeting between long-lost friends, say] is BEAR HUG.
• 38A [Onetime Apple laptop] IBOOK More properly iBook; Apple is nothing if not consistent in naming its products. That was the first notebook computer we had, in lovely tangerine.

• 67A [They’ll make your wishes come true!] GENIES Unless you’re Sam Ezersky, in which case, only GENII will make your wishes come true.
• 9D [Private line?] SIR YES SIR I’ve seen that clue before, though maybe not with that answer (which I understand is the correct response).
• 10D [Indulged oneself excessively] WENT TO TOWN I lost a minute here by starting with WENT TOO FAR. Unusually for me, it was a sportsball thing that made me realize my error, as 43A [NFL players in Cleveland] was definitely BROWNS.
• 27D [“I’m just learning”] GO EASY ON ME
• 48D [Centers of eggs] YOLKS I’m okay with a hard-cooked yolk when it’s supposed to be hard, but for fried or poached eggs, I want my yolks runny. I just now learned that “yoke” is an accepted spelling, at least according to the promiscuous editors at Merriam-Webster.

Amy Goldstein & Adam Cohen’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “College Knowledge”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are made-up rhyming phrases one might see in the field of education.

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “College Knowledge” · Amy Goldstein & Adam Cohen · Tue., 6.24.25

• 17a. [College class in Scandinavian studies?] NORSE COURSE.
• 27a. [College certification for online discussion site participation?] REDDIT CREDIT.
• 44a. [College-concluding research paper about lab monkeys?] RHESUS THESIS.
• 59a. [College exam at the conclusion of a chiropractic class?] SPINAL FINAL.

Fun theme. I for one could make good use of REDDIT CREDIT, and RHESUS THESIS made me lol because of its similarity to the candy. I have to wonder if it was the seed entry for the theme. I definitely say the short i sound in “thesis”, but the two words sound close enough for me. I would’ve loved to see an entry about faculty, perhaps a LESSER PROFESSOR [College instructor with only a 3-star rating?].

APHRODITE, WATER POLO, and GIRAFFE make for fun fill. ICEBERG and CUBISTS are additional assets to the grid. Not much to scowl about either.

Clues of note:

• 66a. [Chocolates in the bottom of a desk drawer, e.g.]. STASH. That sounds more likely to be a melted, gooey mess, not a treasured hoard.
• 35d. [Sport whose players wear their numbers on their caps]. WATER POLO. Good clue that made me think for a bit before the aha moment.

Four stars.

Ingrid Steffensen’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s review

Ingrid Steffensen’s New York Times Crossword — 6/24/25

Congratulations to Ingrid Steffensen for her New York Times puzzle debut! (And also, it seems, her debut in a venue covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend!)

Each theme answer has two clues, with the first clue describing “A couple of [somethings]” and the second clue describing those two somethings reimagined as a single word:

• 17A [A couple of places to secure boats … or a logical contradiction?] DOCKS DOCKS Paradox
• 26A [A couple of sets of game cubes … or heaven?] DICE DICE Paradise
• 48A [A couple of fibs … or incapacitate?] LIES LIES Paralyze I’m not crazy about this one; I don’t want to be thinking about paralysis when I’m solving a crossword. Or much of anytime, really.
• 62A [A couple of melees … or put into new, simpler words without changing the meaning?] FRAYS FRAYS Paraphrase

And in case we’ve missed the trick, we get a revealer: 54D [Law firm aides, informally … or a hint to 17-, 26-. 48- and 62-Across] PARAS

This is a solid theme that’s easily understandable for early-week solvers. It’s also a fine theme for anyone trying to set a new personal record for a Tuesday puzzle, since once you catch on, you can fill the remaining theme answers quickly.

There’s some nice stuff outside the theme:

• 16A [___ a ___ (how two foes confront each other)] MANO That’s Spanish for “hand.” (But you knew that, right?)
• 21A [Thing to be clicked in a “Click It or Ticket” campaign] SEATBELT I was moderately surprised to learn just now that New Hampshire law doesn’t require adults to wear seatbelts in the front seat. I thought every state had required that for decades.
• 29A [Some Hollywood tech] CGI It’s nice to see CGI clued for once without reference to sci-fi films. It’s in all kinds of movies; if you’ve seen a movie in the last 25 or 30 years, odds are good you’ve seen CGI.
• 3D [Surveillance systems installed by parents] NANNY CAMS
• 10D [Indiana basketballer] PACER I suspect there are some glum Hoosiers today, as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Pacers to win the NBA championship on Sunday. (But you knew that too, right?)
• 33D [Very cold] GELID Nice, underused word.
• 51D [T.S. Eliot’s (and the I.R.S.’s) “cruellest month”] APRIL Minor nit with that clue; the IRS would spell it “cruelest,” no?

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s précis

New Yorker • 6/24/25 • Tue • Berry • solution • 20250624

Am on a tight schedule this morning, so unfortunately I have to give this very pleasing puzzle short shrift in the write-up.

Judging from my (unreported) time, it was definitely on the easy side of ‘moderately challenging’, but it wasn’t completely smooth sailing all the way through. Minor hiccups and speed bumps, but no outright misfills.

The grid’s highlighted by intersecting staggered triple eleven-stacks in the center. Somewhat interestingly, the acrosses all begin with the letter S.

30a [Thomas Pynchon collection whose title alludes to his repeated missteps as an inexperienced writer] SLOW LEARNER; 24d [Express badly] MISWORD.

The cluing is good, with fun instances of misdirection and other wordplay, as well as some salient trivia.

33a [Result of too much flattery] SWOLLEN HEAD.

Dan Kamman & Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

I saw the repeated letter pattern at the end of each theme answer, realized they didn’t all rhyme, and otherwise had no clue where we were heading, so the revealer was a delightful “aha!” moment.

• 18a [Fast talker’s torrent] is a BLUE STREAK.
• 24a [Short mental rest] is a BRAIN BREAK.
• 38a [British dish named for frying sounds] is BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.
• 54a [Lean red meat choice] is BISON STEAK.

Now that I look at it, I realize that 18a and 38a rhyme and so do 24a and 54a, which increases the elegance factor. The actual theme has nothing to do with rhymes, though. 60a [Do some snooping, and a feature of 18-, 24-, 38-, and 54-Across] is NOSE AROUND. Each entry starts with B and ends with EAK – BEAK! So fun.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that BUBBLE AND SQUEAK is named for frying sounds. Makes sense!