Monday, June 30, 2025

BEQ 10:15 (Eric) [3.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:58 (Stella) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 2:48 (Sophia) [3.50 avg; 12 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 6:24 (Amy) [3.15 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 4:29 (Jim) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Dena R. Verkuil and Andrea Carla Michaels’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Write-Up

Theme: Phrases ending with a person’s name

New York Times, 06 30 2025, By Dena R. Verkuil and Andrea Carla Michaels

• 17a [“My heavens!”] – GEEZ LOUISE
• 25a [“Hold it right there!”] – WHOA NELLY
• 51a [“Absolutely, positively not!”] – NO WAY JOSE
• 61a [“I’m done with you”] – BYE FELICIA
• 36a [Classic Robert De Niro line in “Taxi Driver” … or a hint for 17-, 25-, 51- and 61-Across] – YOU TALKIN TO ME?

A simple theme, but one that’s elevated by the strength of its answers.  I liked all of the ones chosen, particularly GEEZ LOUISE and NO WAY JOSE. BYE FELICIA feels a little like an outlier given that it was originally said to someone actually named Felicia (the phrase comes from the movie “Friday”), but at this point it’s so engrained in pop culture as a stand-alone phrase that it doesn’t really matter.

This puzzle also reminded me of the chorus to the song Footloose, for obvious reasons.

I’m of two minds about the revealer YOU TALKIN TO ME. On one hand, I like that it references how the clues are all quotes that could be directed at a person with the given name. On the other hand, I didn’t feel like it was an effective “hint” to the answers – the structure of each answer is clear without it – and I think a fifth theme answer rather than a revealer at all could have been cool. What do y’all think?

Fill highlights: CAT PERSON, MUSTACHE, PEEKABOO, TWISTY

New to me: That PAPA is a nickname for Haydn or Hemingway

Happy Monday! Congrats to Dena in particular on a great NYT debut.

Amie Walker & Darby Ratliff’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 6/30/25 by Amie Walker & Darby Ratliff

At first I had a slight negative reaction to how many black squares this puzzle has, but once I was done and got a load of the theme answers, which necessitated a grid design with more black space than usual, I thought the ends more than justified the means. The revealer at 52A [Manager who opens up a shop, or an apt description of 20-, 25-, or 42-Across] is KEYHOLDER, because each of the theme answers “holds” a key found on a computer (helpfully marked by the circled squares in the grid). The computer key always spans the two words in a two-word answer, which I think is not just a nice touch but a necessity when the contained words in a contained-word theme are all three letters long.

• 20A [Place to see some spectacles?] is a GLASSES CASE, with ESC as the “held” key.
• 25A [“Abbott Elementary” star] is QUINTA BRUNSON, with TAB as the “held” key.
• 42A [Coach at a health club] is PERSONAL TRAINER, with ALT  as the “held” key.

I really liked how evocative the theme answers were, and it’s nice to see QUINTA BRUNSON‘s entire name in a puzzle.

I quibble with COSMO being described as a “fashion” magazine — I haven’t read it in about 20 years, but I always remember COSMO as being more about dating, celebrities, and pop culture than about fashion. I really liked seeing APPA and MEAL KIT in the fill. Fun fact about QUEENS, which was clued in its NYC borough sense: I’m learning Cantonese right now, and the Canto names for the four other boroughs are all phonetic translations of their English names (e.g., “bou lou hak lam” for “Brooklyn” or “man haa deon” for “Manhattan”). Queens is different: The Cantonese name for Queens is “wong hau keoi,” which literally translates as “queen’s district.”

Adam Simpson’s Universal crossword, “Game Changers” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 6/30/25 • Mon • “Game Changers” • Simpson • solution • 20250630

Relatively familiar phrases are repurposed to describe various game mechanics.

• 16a. [Playing Catan?] GETTING SETTLED.
• 28a. [Playing chess?] FINDING A MATE.
• 45a. [Playing Go Fish?] CALLING CARDS.
• 59a. [Playing Operation?] MOVING PARTS.

Speaking of game changers, is this the first Universal crossword of the symmetry-optional era? It’s certainly the first one I’ve encountered, but I only solve it on days that I do write-ups (Mondays and Wednesdays).

The crossword wasn’t notably difficult, but my solve time was a bit longer than usual.

• 1od [GOAT backside?] greatest of ALL TIME. But I’m also going to coin opisthocapra now.
• 34d [Every adult had one] CHILDHOOD. And some were better than others.
• 39d [Rationale] REASON. Some are better than others.
• 46d [Boxers’ protectors] GLOVES. 57d [Org. that protects boxers] SPCA. Nicely turned.
• 41a [Mailing label words] SHIP TO. I wonder if this entry spent any time in development as SHINTO.
  

Zachary David Levy’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Mullet Over”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases that feature words that are homonyms of certain types of fish. The revealer is SOMETHING’S FISHY (37a, [Suspicious comment regarding 17-, 23-, 47- and 59-Across?]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Mullet Over” · Zachary David Levy · Mon., 6.30.25

• 17a. [Four-wheeled ride in an Olympic sport since 2020] SKATEBOARD.
• 23a. [Cheeky youngster] WHIPPERSNAPPER.
• 47a. [Freedom to make decisions without oversight] SOLE DISCRETION.
• 59a. [One-in-a-million bit of luck] TOTAL FLUKE.

Despite the revealer, this is a fairly straightforward theme. It might have been apt to have wacky clues in this case like [Meal plan for a certain fish?] for SKATE BOARD. But then I have no idea how you would clue WHIPPER SNAPPER. And it is a Monday puzzle, so it should be easier for newer solvers to suss out. I’m not bothered by the fish homonym coming first or second in the phrase as long as there’s an even distribution (two of each in this case).

Not much in the way of flashy fill with the longest entries being IN EFFECT and PHOTO OPS. I most liked seeing BANFF in the grid. Some friends of ours visited the park recently and piqued our interest.

Clue of note: 30d. [Fireworks-viewing exclamation]. OOH. Call me a spoilsport, but I’m fine if I never see another firework. We have too many numbnuts in our neighborhood who set off massive devices scaring everyone’s pets. Ugh. Happy 4th, everyone!

Three stars.

Liz Gorski’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 6/30/25 – Gorski

Surprised to encounter two names I hadn’t seen before:

• 7a. [Wetland plant that lends its name to a set of Walt Whitman poems], CALAMUS. That’s one of 14 sections in Leaves of Grass. The calamus plant is associated in mythology with men’s love for other men.
• 29d. [“Out of the Sun” author Edugyan], ESI. She’s a Canadian writer of Ghanaian descent. Have you read any of her books?

ARCARO, ALAN ALDA, MAURA, DIPLO, IMELDA, ERROL, PHIL, BOONE, RHODA, and EL CID are also in the mix. Lots of people’s names!

Fave fill: ROSE BUSH, BROTHERS-IN-LAW, U.S. DOLLAR.

Two more things:

• 53a. [Ones accustomed to the grind?], PESTLES. Not wild about the suggestion that an inanimate object might be “accustomed” to something.
• 37d. [Aaron of the Yankees], BOONE. I slowed myself down by filling in JUDGE. Apparently Boone played for the Yankees in 2003 and is currently the team’s manager/coach. Pet peeve: That MLB calls the head coach a “manager.” Makes me picture a file cabinet in the dugout.

3.25 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1796 — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1796 — 6/30/25

On the easier side for one of Brendan’s themeless puzzles, but maybe that’s just because I knew a lot of the “trivia.” And with a few crucial letters, it wasn’t hard to fill in the rest.

Notable stuff:

• 14A [“Things are changing”] I CAN FEEL IT I don’t really see how the answer fits the clue.
• 17A [Nursery security] CRADLE CAMS I’ve heard of nanny cams, but that obviously didn’t fit.
• 19A [Most established] SENIOR I had trouble seeing this answer. 4D [First name in Indian prime ministers] was clearly INDIRA, and the I didn’t fit with a word that I expected to end in EST.
• 22A [First American woman to win the Olympic all-around title in gymnastics] Mary Lou RETTON (1984). The R from INDIRA led me to try Aly RAISMAN first.
• 30A [“Just because!”] OH NO REASON You can’t argue with that.
• 37A [One who might chew the scenery?] TERMITE Cute clue.
• 55A [State park in Oahu] HANAUMA BAY The Y was my last letter because I wasn’t seeing this as two words.
• 5D [Involving sharing files between computers connected on a network] PEER-TO-PEER
• 12D [“We have to make this work!”] IT’S DO OR DIE
• 28D [Complex figures, for short] APT. NUMBERS That took me longer than it should have given that I immediately understood “complex” to mean “apartment complex” or “office complex.”
• 31D [What jinxed people tend to have] ROTTEN LUCK
• 34D [Most-nominated performer in Oscar history] Meryl STREEP She has 17 nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role and four for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. I knew she had a lot of nominations, but that’s incredible.