LAT 3:31 (Stella) 
[3.61 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Newsday 24:35, with 1 error (pannonica ) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:43 (Amy) [3.42 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) 
[3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) 
[2.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ untimed (pannonica) rate it
Tracy Bennett’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 7/5/25 – no. 0705
Fresh and flavorful themeless from Tracy to take us into the calendar weekend.
I learned a new name, 5A. [French musician/composer ___ Tiersen], YANN. I know of author Yann Martel but not M. Tiersen. If you saw the movie Amelie, you’ve heard his music.
Fave fill: ART THIEVES (great clue, [Oil smugglers?], but not great to have it crossing REOILS), UNCANNY VALLEY, STAR KEY, BLOCKY Brutalism, QUEER THEOLOGY, GUTTER BALL (wasn’t grasping that [Alley oops] meant a mistake at the bowling alley, and BLOB fits all right for GLOB, so had BUTTERBALL for a bit), LITERALIST, TONGUE-TIE, “YES, AND …”, EPIC GAMES, RINKY-DINK.
Today’s foreign vocab includes Italian OSSO, French PERE Marquette, French AMIE, Spanish TIERRA, French CHASSE. A lot, non?
Fascinating bit: 46D. [Record-keeping device made of strings and knots], QUIPU. It’s Incan and can also be spelled khipu. I enjoyed this recent Atlantic article (gift link, no paywall, please do read it!) about the continuing efforts to untangle masses of khipus and work on deciphering the meanings encoded therein.
Could’ve done without NEAT VODKA. Is that really a thing, or is this an example of a “green paint” entry? And would someone order “neat vodka” or “vodka, neat”? I’m not one to order booze straight, but I feel like movies put “neat” afterwards.
David P. Williams’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 7/5/25 by David P. Williams
This puzzle is so good! Wish-I’d-made-it good. There were a lot of clever clues to lap up and a satisfying level of difficulty:
- 31A [Means of improving airflow] might lead you in a room-ventilation direction, but it’s NASAL STRIPS.
- 32A [Professional writing?] is LOVE LETTERS, probably my favorite clue in the puzzle. I had LETTERS down fairly early on, but it took some doing to realize that “professional” here is hinting at “professions of love.” Awesome.
- 39A [Tremble] is QUAKE, but could easily be SHAKE as clued, an ambiguity that wouldn’t fly on Monday but is to be encouraged on Saturday.
- 48A/42D The crossing of the UPs in BUST UP and I’M UP was the only needle scratch I felt in this puzzle. I wouldn’t necessarily quibble about a two-letter preposition like IN, ON, or UP being duped in a puzzle, but I hate when a preposition crosses its duplicate.
- 4D [Trademarked pan] is BUNDT. I didn’t know that BUNDT was a trademark, and the unusual ??NDT letter pattern wasn’t going to be easy to guess from scratch. This is a feature on Saturday, not a bug.
- 17A [Couples in love?] is TENNIS TEAMS. Get it? Great clue.
- 32A [One in the watch business] is LOOKOUT, also a very nicely deceptive clue.
David Alfred Bywaters’ Wall Street Journal crossword, “How Typical!” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 7/5/25 • Sat • “How Typical!” • Bywaters • solution • 20250705
- 65aR [This puzzle’s constructor …] CLIPPED ARTICLES.
- 22a. [The bust sculptor …] FORGED A HEAD (forged ahead).
- 24a. [The church builder …] GOT A CROSS (got across).
- 37a. [The film editor …] CUT A PART (cut apart).
- 43a. [The bar patron …] ORDERED A ROUND (ordered around).
- 85a. [The travel agent …] EXPLAINED A WAY (explained away).
- 94a. [The fight promoter …] SET A BOUT (set about).
- 108a. [The dogcatcher] LED A STRAY (led astray).
- 110a. [The salad maker …] TOSSED A SIDE (tossed aside).
So, the indefinite article a has been clipped and separated from from its home word in these deliberate reparsings.
- 3d [Train component] CAR. Had I remembered this entry I probably wouldn’t have spent as much time hunting down the incorrectly filled square at 5a [Airport arrivals array] CABS crossing 7d [Painter’s deg.] BFA.
- 12d [Org. monitored by AARP] SSA; 107d [IDs issued by 12-Down] SSNS. uhhhh…
- 43d [Lacking antigens] O TYPE. In the red blood cells. Part of why O negative is considered the “universal donor”.
- 47d [Ottoman governors] DEY, Crossed by 58a [Splinter group adherent] SECTARY, which is a little tough but gettable.
- 50d [Takes in permanently] ADOPTS. One hopes that that’s the case.
- 73d [Small feature of “Die Zauberflöte”] UMLAUT. 120a [“Die Zauberflöte,” zum Beispiel] OPER (zum Beispiel = for example).
- 76d [Latin “but”] SED. Another of the exposed joints holding together the grid. NUTTED for 83d [Collected cashews] would be yet one more.
- 26a [Only state whose flag has different designs on front and back] OREGON. I did not know this.
- 27a [Distribute] ALLOT. 119a [Distribute] DOLE.
- 54a [Food, shelter, etc.] NEEDS. Being systematically attacked and ripped away, by the way.
- 64a [Small purchases] TOEHOLDS. Clue fooled me.
Lester Ruff’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s précis
Newsday • 7/5/25 • Saturday Stumper • Ruff, Newman • solution • 20250705
Apologies everyone, but I’m exhausted and my brain is fried, so just a minimal report on the Stumper.
My mistake was at the crossing of 47a [Spray array] ROSES for HOSES (I still prefer my answer) and 47d [Ali (1972) and Tyson (2022), religiously] HAJIS. For the latter, I had RAJIS, which was a partial remnant from the I-knew-it-was-wrong RASTA that occupied that space for a while.
At 17-across I for a time had SAMOA not NAURU as [Kiribati’s closest neighbor]; it’s close, but not as close.
As for the overall solve, the northeast section was the first I filled fully, and the northwest was the last to be squared away.
- 25a [Condiment made from quinoa] MISO. Whaat? Okay, news to me.
- 33d [Well-suited for vacationers] TOURISTIC. >grumble<
- 23a [Papyrus, for instance] REED, not FONT.
- 5d [Doctor’s order] DRUG. 14d [Doctor’s order] TESTS. Neither was REST or SAY AH.
- 42a [Finally free] UNSTUCK.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Loved the LAT themeless today- the LAT Saturday puzzle has become my favorite weekly themeless to solve. Always so clever and fresh. I wish there were an explanation for the 1 star rating it was given by someone before me.
I agree. It’s most often a pleasure to solve.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
Queer theology? Blocky? Uncanny valley? Neat vodka? All new to me and not easily arrived at. I liked (and met) the challenge of completing this puzzle with no mistakes but think too many clues are “niche-y.” Or maybe I’m just getting too old for this game.
NYT: Some good stuff in here. I liked RINKY-DINK and TONGUETIE. Fun clues for ART THIEVES, CADET BLUE and GUTTERBALL (after I corrected the BLOB/GLOB error).
Did not care for YANN crossing YES AND (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the latter in puzzles before, but apparently it didn’t stick). I think if you asked a bartender for NEAT VODKA, they would assume English is not your first language. I’m a typist, and I don’t think I’ve ever called it the STAR KEY – I kept trying to figure out how to squeeze in SHIFT EIGHT.
I had a hard time recalling the term, but I experience the UNCANNY VALLEY effect with CGI and Claymation-type animations – they give me the creeps! Could not watch Polar Express.
Stumper: Made the same ROSES/HOSES error as pannonica, but caught it. NW was a mess for me. I’ve never been in a TRADER JOE’S (one opened recently near us, but I haven’t visited) – what’s “quirky” about it? Have never owned an aquarium and have never heard of a SAND REEF. Still don’t know for sure what it is – Google shows me “reef sand” for sale. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In retrospect, I should have remembered FON as Sprint’s ticker symbol and should have thought more “Stumperishly” on the clue for DDS.
NW was super hard for me too. Turns out I had a lot of right ideas (STAND, ARMOR, SAND) but couldn’t get any of them to work. SAND REEF seems redundant — where else would a reef be? Totally fell for the “drill” trick, even though I knew it was a trick.
coral reef
The staff usually wear Hawaiian shirts and tend to be friendly.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
NYT: Perhaps this is a stupid question, but what the issue with ART THIEVES crossing with REOILS?
Having the word “oil” in the ART THIEVES clue when REOILS is a crossing answer is inelegant. Some editors (like me) root out such duplications, while the NYT team doesn’t give a hoot.
Ok Woodsy. Give a hoot don’t ever dupe
Since you asked what the issue is, dupes are frowned upon lest they spoil an entry for the solver. Will Shortz has said that he does not wish to constrain the editing unless a clue or entry is likely to do so. This could happen, for instance, if a clue uses a word that appears with the same meaning as an entry. The more unusual the word, the likelier it could be a spoiler. You wouldn’t want to remind a solver of the word “genome,” let’s say, in a clue if GENOME is an entry.
Some editors take no chances, essentially insisting that just about no word should appear twice among clues and an entry. Of course, this becomes impossible if a word like THE is an entry, but you get the idea. Will Shortz has said such a rule serves no purpose but could limit sparkly editing, so unless a word is uncommon and is used twice with the same meaning, dupes are not a problem.
This is a good example. Alluding to an art genre is not likely to make the solver think of lubrication.
NYT: A lot of unfamiliar stuff, so it took me longer than usual, but everything was gettable in the end. I thought both NEATVODKA and STARKEY were green painty, but otherwise it was a nicely constructed puzzle.
Stumper: I waited on _OSES to see what the down answer would turn out to be. The trickiest square for me was SANDREE_S/_ON. ‘Reeds’ seemed plausible, but DON doesn’t make much sense as an abbreviation for Sprint, so I went with FON.
Newsday: Didn’t love [Title like san] for SRI—was looking for another Japanese title, not a title from a country over 4000 miles away. I know the Stumper does this a lot especially with crosswordese so I figured out what they were going for, but for what it’s worth, SHI (氏, a very common honorific in formal settings) is only one letter away and fits the clue much better.
EJEMPLO was uncharacteristically easy with how often you see [xxx, por ejemplo] in clues. That J opened up the NW corner. -ODO could only be QUASIMODO, and that Q made QUIET QUIT (great answer) obvious which filled in the rest of the NE. Eventually I got FLUMMOXES and that X and a few other letters made JAMIE FOXX and the rest of the SW easy to see. Always fun to see the rare letters come in.
I spent a good half hour stuck in the SE since I only had FROSTED and nothing else there. Eventually I cobbled together enough guesses (TAG, GIRL) to fittingly get UNSTUCK and then DEKALITER.
Didn’t know PIMA and didn’t know MINXES, so my [Misses with boldness] were MANXES. Maybe those cats are uncharacteristically bold, dunno.
Enjoyed it.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4 stars
I often have a really, really tough go with the Saturday LAT, but today was a rare exception A number of the misdirections like “Globe direction” flew by correctly on the first pass. Nothing profound to say here, but it was a nice change from the norm.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
NYT: I liked some of the wordplay here, but I have never heard of anyone ordering a vodka neat in my life. I guess really good vodkas might taste delicious enough, but it does seem forced. QUEER THEOLOGY seemed quite gettable from the clue, even though it was new to me.
Hello Mary,
No you’re not too old for the puzzles. They are too skewed towards the young & hence trying to grab new/young solvers. I’d like to see solving these puzzles in the, say, 2060’s. I don’t think “yeet” would fly. And who will know all the initialism people are using on the phone. I’m particularly sad about the NYker. When they debuted I was hoping we would have clue/answers on the intellectual level that the magazine proports to print. It started fine but then slowly dumb-downed.
“When [the New Yorker crossword] debuted I was hoping we would have clue/answers on the intellectual level that the magazine proports (sic) to print.”
They do, in virtually any puzzle by Natan Last. And people complain.
To the contrary, and I’ve often commented on it here, so it’s not just some irrational gripe I’m just making up out of the air (and I suspect this is what Brenda Rose feels as well). I can usually count on one proper noun to do with a book for adults, and I always call it a sop to me personally, although that’s just a joke.
The rest is the usual for TNY puzzles but especially Last. I often feel that one can’t be smart enough to solve his puzzles and illiterate enough to recognize some of the answers.
NYT: Is STAR KEY a thing? I can’t find any reference to it when Googling.
“Star key” is pretty common when referring to a Touchtone keypad. It’s also used when talking about a numeric keypad on or for a computer, like the key above the 9 on this one. I figured a typist doing data entry with a numeric pad might say it often enough for a Saturday. On the regular keyboard, the asterisk is on the 8-key.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I agree with Amy that the NYT was “Fresh and flavorful” in spite of a few inelegancies and a hefty dose of PPP. I found it very, very easy (for a Saturday) but still enjoyed it. It would have been better placed as a Friday puzzle, but yesterday’s puzzle was even easier, so what’s a puzzle editor to do?
Re Stumper – I believe 47D is incorrect. Mike Tyson’s pilgrimage to Mecca in 2022 was in a month different from when the Hajj was. Am I missing something?
I am in way from my head here, but it seems a real stretch to say that miso is made from quinoa. Miso is at least typically made from fermented soybeans. Koji is used for fermentation, and koji can be grown on quinoa, but it’s difficult to think of miso as not a matter of soybeans.
Did you peruse the Wikipedia article pannonica linked? Traditional miso can (and is) made with many grains, and “nouvelle” misos add to that list. Quinoa miso is a thing, but I’m in no hurry to try it.
No, I didn’t — and didn’t realize that was a link to a Wikipedia article, which begins “Miso (みそ or 味噌) is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji (the fungus Aspergillus oryzae), and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients.”
I did say typically, and so I still think it’s a stretch to think of miso as a product made from quinoa.