Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Jonesin’ 5:25 (Erin) rate it
LAT untimed (Jenni) [2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:26 (Eric) [3.56 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker untimed (pannonica) [3.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:48 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 3:50 (Jim) [3.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “That Light Is Lit” — it’s all some time ago. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 7/1/25

Hello lovelies! This week we have a vowel shift in the last syllable of the theme entries, from long I to short I.

• 17a. [Cleverest spot in the ocean?] ISLE OF WIT (Isle of Wight)
• 28a. [Line from a society that trades lice for goods and services?] TENDER IS THE NIT (Tender Is the Night). I really enjoyed this one.
• 44a. [How the dating dog trainers discovered they were a match?] LOVE AT FIRST SIT (love at first sight)
• 59a. [Getting the right-sized headrest?] PILLOW FIT (pillow fight)

Other things:

• 20a. [Faline, in “Bambi”] DOE. Faline is Bambi’s friend and future love interest. The original film was released in 1942.
• 29d. [Immeasurable time unit (and yet it has a number)] EON. The geological unit equals one billion years. The figurative definition is how long it takes a Monday to end.

Until next week!

Grace Warrington & Greg Warrington’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Under Construction”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are familiar two-word phrases with first words that could indicate a temporary or unfinished product. The revealer is WORKS IN PROGRESS (37a, [Unfinished projects, like 17-, 22-, 54- and 61-Across, maybe]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Under Construction” · Grace Warrington & Greg Warrington · Tue., 7.1.25

• 17a. [Kenan Thompson on “America’s Got Talent,” for example?] TRIAL JUDGE. No idea why Kenan Thompson’s here. Let me look it up…Oh, I guess he was a guest judge for a couple episodes back in 2020. Anyone know this?
• 22a. [Junior varsity football player?] BETA BLOCKER. I found this one first and it gave me a chuckle.
• 54a. [Eohippuses?] DRAFT HORSES. Didn’t even see the clue for this one and got it off the crossings. I take it an eohippus is an early relative of today’s horse? Yup.
• 61a. [Edison’s first bulb?] PILOT LIGHT. Again, I didn’t see this clue, but it works without us having to know any trivia.

Good theme. It’s consistent with lively theme answers, good wordplay, and even a bit of humor. Thumbs up from me.

Plus we get some fun long fill to enjoy along the way: “I’M NOT SURE,” LEAD STORY, the ALEUTIAN islands, SANTIAGO, Chile, and the CASBAH, which of course you must rock.

Clues of note:

• 36d. [Org. that has you down pat?]. TSA. A gimme with the T in place, but I’m not exactly sure how patting you down means they have you “down pat.”
• 57d. [Ivory or Coast]. SOAP. I enjoy a clue like this where it’s clear they’re trying to trick your brain into thinking of something else, in this case African geography. But we know better!

Good puzzle. 3.5 stars.

Rich Feely’s Universal Crossword “Culinary Equipment” — Eric’s review

Rich Feely’s Universal Crossword “Culinary Equipment” — 7/1/25

I was moderately baffled by the title of this puzzle. The “culinary” aspect was obvious, but since when are body parts “equipment”?

Google AI to the rescue: “In a literal sense, body parts function as equipment by enabling various actions and interactions with the world. For example, hands grasp, legs propel us, and teeth cut food. More abstractly, body parts can be considered ‘equipment’ in contexts like specialized fields or fictional narratives, where they are used as tools or even weapons.” Well OK, then.

We get four body parts, and they run both directions in a grid with vertical symmetry:

• 51A [*Fatty cut typically used for bacon] PORK BELLY
• 3D [*Popular sashimi fish] YELLOWTAIL I lost a few seconds by putting YELLOW TUNA first.
• 7D [*Barbecue morsel] BEEF RIB
• 11D [*One of two on a central Thanksgiving dish] TURKEY WING

Then there’s a revealer at 62A [Flight price … or an apt description of the starred clues’ answers?] AIR FARE I’m not sure how this is an “apt description” except that birds typically have all these body parts, and food is fare. Fair enough.

I’m starting to find Universal puzzles often take me as long (if not longer) to grasp the theme than they do to solve. That’s a little frustrating, and I wonder if other solvers feel that way.

Other stuff:

• 17A [Grand party] GALA/55D [Lavish party] FÊTE Interchangeable answers, maybe?
• 24A [Rich Mexican sauce] MOLE I have an ongoing gripe about crossword clues that imply that a mole Poblano (made with chocolate) is the only type of MOLE out there. Mole is just a thick sauce typically made with dried chili peppers, spices, nuts, seeds, and fruits, and there are many varieties. This clue, though, is fine, and to be totally fair, when I see “Mole enchiladas” on a menu, I know they probably mean mole Poblano.
• 39A [Woodsy homes] CABINS I thought of animal homes first. Then I saw 33D [Hummingbird’s home] NEST.
• 49A [Co. that mailed out free trial CDs in the ’90s] AOL Is this clue/answer pair past its “sell by” date?
• 50D [REI competitor] L.L. BEAN I had LLB___ from the crosses and didn’t bother reading the clue. We’re awaiting the opening of an REI store here that had been projected to open in the spring.
• 56D [Paper quantity] REAM A ream is 500 sheets. Somewhat useful trivia: The term “20-pound bond paper” refers the weight of a ream of bond paper sized 17″ x 22″. That’s often cut into four letter-size sheets, making a ream that weighs 5 pounds.
• 60D [Connected by a common thread?] SEWN Nice clue, if not particularly difficult to get.

Adam Aaronson and Michael Garbus’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Adam Aaronson and Michael Garbus’s New York Times Crossword — 7/1/25

Congratulations to Michael Garbus for his New York Times puzzle debut. It also appears to be his debut puzzle in any publication covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend.

Messrs. Aaronson and Garbus have a culinary contradiction for our theme today:

• 20A [*Most “wasabi” at sushi bars, in actuality] HORSERADISH I learned that fact from a crossword or a crossword blog (maybe even Diary of a Crossword Fiend).
• 23A [*Fruit whose name is also a synonym for a grouch] CRABAPPLE
• 26D [*Fruit from a bush, much used in pies and jams] GOOSEBERRY
• 28D [Like the foods that answer the starred clues, despite how their names start] VEGETARIAN I lost 20 or 30 seconds here by putting VEGETABLES, which makes sense only if you don’t read the clue carefully or think about it much.
• 38D [*Little tuber used to make Spanish horchata] TIGER NUT I’ve only had Mexican horchata, which typically uses rice and almonds for the base.
• 39D [*Garbanzo, by another name] CHICKPEA

The vertically-symmetrical grid reminds me of a character from an early video game. It doesn’t allow for many longer answers that aren’t part of the theme, but the ones we get are all fine:

• 43A [Omnivorous fish of the Amazon] PIRANHA
• 45A [Like Nickelodeon’s Mutant Ninja Turtles] TEENAGE It’s a little hard to believe that Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael made their comic book debut in 1984.
• 56A [“Dead serious,” in modern lingo] NO CAP None of the definitions for this phrase in the Urban Dictionary go back beyond 2018, so maybe it really is “modern” lingo.

Robin Stears’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

I really wanted to like this puzzle. It has one of my favorite clue/answer pairs of recent times* and the revealer is a very fun phrase. Two of the theme answers, though…

Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2025, Robin Stears, solution grid

• 17a [Canned responses featured on many classic sitcoms] are LAUGH TRACKS.
• 28a [Alcohol, in 1920s speakeasy slang] is GIGGLE WATER. I have never heard this. I wasn’t alive in the 1920s, of course, and I’m guessing very few of you were, either.
• 46a [Egg, in diner slang] is CACKLEBERRY. Really? I looked it up and found that Dictionary.com calls it “facetious American slang.” They provide two 1940s citations. Ooh-kay.

The revealer: 59a [Bozo, and a feature of 17-, 28-, and 46-Across] is CHUCKLEHEAD. A good idea with not great execution.

*33d [Spoke in a husky voice?] is BARKED. I love this.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that ASLAN is Turkish for “lion.”

Wyna Liu’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

New Yorker • 7/1/25 • Tue • Liu • solution • 20250701

Once again a less difficult crossword than I’d prefer to see (my calibration must be set differently than those at the magazine). However, I found this offering to be very engaging with a lot of great clues.

• 7a [Instrument used to signal a dream sequence] HARP. So true, at least stereotypically.
• 14a [Watercraft brand that’s an alternative to Jet Ski] SEA-DOO. Despite the duplication (didn’t realize it), I put in SKI-DOO, which made 2d [Heading above a most-wanted list?] look like it might be AKA something; instead it was DEAR SANTA, which shows how super a clue that was.
• 15a [Boozy beverages such as Bacardi Breezers] ALCOPOPS. These things are wildly popular as a category.
• 23a [An introvert might describe theirs as “drained” after a party] SOCIAL BATTERY. Considered SOCIAL CAPITAL but it didn’t play well with crossings (e.g. II— at 26-down).
• 32a [Like some chargers and bras] WIRELESS. Niiice.
• 39a [“I need you to handle that”] GET ON IT, stay on the scene. 60a [“Don’t move, I’ll be right back”] STAY HERE. *yes I know it’s “get on up”
• 42a [Is unacceptable] WON’T DO. Like Guadalajara, in a song.
• 6d [Woman in “Crime and Punishment” or “War and Peace”] SONYA. Are we expected to remember that, or is it just common-Russian-name time?
• 7d [Accessory for Ms. Pac-Man or Minnie Mouse] HAIR BOW. Both are iconic.
• 8d [Fraternity whose alumni include Warren Buffet and Vincent Price, familiarly] ALPHA SIG. Came in pieces for me.
• 10d [Seedy element?] POD. Okay, fair enough, I guess.
• 11d [Deep sleep] SOPOR. The root of soporific.
• 12d [Try to get in] APPLY. Shares etymology with the crossing 18a [Some Apple programs] IPAD APPS.
• 26d [Hook up with?] TIE TO. Nice also.
• 34d [Something pressed for access] ENTRY CODE. I went down the ENTER fork initially.
• 38d [“Yeah, that’s what people told me”] SO I HEAR.
  
• 49d [Bring forth] EDUCE. Some more vocabulary.
• 50d [Fabric that sometimes sold “raw”] DENIM. Wanted LINEN, but the crossings wouldn’t comply.
• 56d [Café alternative] THÉ, or moi.
• 59d [Bear-hug recipient?] CUB. groan … ok.

I really solid and entertaining crossword.