LAT untimed (pannonica) 
[2.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:23 (Amy) 
[3.38 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:05 (Jim P) 
[2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Kelly Morenus’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up
NY Times crossword solution, 7/18/25 – no. 0718
I didn’t get enough sleep last night, so let’s be quick here.
Fave fill: CORKERS, “ONE DAY MORE,” LAYING IT ON THICK, NASCAR RACE, SOUR MASH, SKOSH, MUD-WRESTLE. Not sure that “THAT’S JUST TOO BAD” really feels fully idiomatic.
Three more things:
- 13A. [“Psycho” screenwriter Joseph ___], STEFANO. Didn’t know the name, but I did recently watch a scene from Psycho in which Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates) are conversing. He plays blandly creepy and unsettling so well!
- 20A. [Certain fraternity guy, informally], SIG. Meh. I think the clue wants to be [Guy from a certain fraternity, informally].
- 25A. [“My Old ___” (2024 coming-of-age film)], ASS. It’s a time-travel thing and Aubrey Plaza deftly and wistfully plays the lead character’s older self. It was an odd film but I enjoyed it.
- 45A. [Farm cry], MAA. Only in crosswords is this a thing. (It’s supposedly the sound a goat makes.)
- 31D. [They glisten in a classic Irving Berlin tune], TREETOPS. Trying to think what sort of weather leads to glistening treetops. An ice storm?
Four stars from me.
Tracy Gray’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 7/18/25 • Fri • Gray • solution • 20250718
- 53aR [Request to a bartender and what must be done to the last words of 20-, 30-, 36-, and 47-Across for the answers to match their clues] MAKE IT A DOUBLE.
- 20a. [Casual departure from a pub crawl after just one drink?] FIRST ROUND BYE (first round bye-bye). Unfortunate that this is the first theme answer—or a theme answer at all—because it doesn’t require (“must be done”) duplication of BYE to make sense; just a simple reparsing is needed.
- 30a. Big name in transparent Band-Aids for toddlers?] PEEK-A-BOO (peek-a-boo-boo).
- 36a. [Confident shout from a Moulin Rouge dancer?] OH YES I CAN (oh yes I cancan). ‘Oh yes I can’ sounds “confident”, whereas ‘oh yes I cancan’ sounds like mere acknowledgment.
- 47a. [Question of quality?] IS THAT SO? (is that so-so?). This is also my assessment of the theme, as executed.
- 3d [Decent, in golf] NEAR PAR. New to me, but easily inferable.
- 7d [Newman’s Own rival] RAGU. I guess I consider Newman’s Own to be a notch above RAGU, which is kind of declassé (no?).
- 21d [“Facts!”] TRUTH. Both are being assaulted and devalued at an increasing rate.
- 29d [Visitor who leaves money under a kid’s pillow] TOOTH FAIRY. Facts? Truth?
- 32d [“The rest is obvious” abbr.] ETC. Thought it might be QED.
- 44d [Glacial hue] ICE BLUE. 54d [James of blues] ETTA.
- 59d [“Hadestown” Tony nominee Noblezada] EVA. A new EVA on me.
- 10a [Au naturel] BARE, not NUDE.
- 16a [Limburger feature] ODOR. Passes my sniff test.
- 18a [Get connected] LOG ON. 26d [Early ISP] AOL.
- 28a [“Rub-a-dub-dub” location, in a classic rhyme] IN A TUB. Not part of the theme.
- 34a [O’Reilly purchase] PART. It’s an auto parts store chain.
- 35a [Bora Bora, e.g.] ISLE. Also not part of the theme.
- 51a [“Corduroy” writer/illustrator Freeman] DON.
- 67a [Gels] SETS. I feel that more often we get set/s cluing GEL/S.
The crossword flowed well and my solve time was perhaps slightly longer than typical for a Friday LAT offering. Still have theme-related reservations.
Stella Zawistowski’s Universal crossword, “Book Jackets”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases whose outer letters spell out book titles.
Universal crossword solution · “Book Jackets” · Stella Zawistowski · Fri., 7.18.25
- 17a. [Vegan product for infant feeding] SOY FORUMULA. Sula, by Toni Morrison.
- 24a. [Building that once held buggies] CARRIAGE HOUSE. Carrie, by Stephen King.
- 43a. [Air travel option with no connections] NON-STOP FLIGHT. Night, by Elie Wiesel.
- 58a. [Certain scarab] DUNG BEETLE. Dune, by Frank Herbert.
Nice. I had a quick skim of the top 200 one-word book titles on Goodreads.com and decided coming up with a list of potential theme entries probably wasn’t easy. The titles obviously had to lend themselves to familiar phrases but they also had to be widely known as titles. Bonus if a variety of authors could be used, and not just white men.
I confess to not knowing Morrison’s Sula, but I welcome it in this list. Unfortunately, her most well-known one-word title, Beloved, must not have given itself over to an in-the-language theme entry.
Curious grid construction with the two middle theme entries centered left-to-right in the grid. Typically, we’d see them pushed to the left and right edges respectively. Instead, we have “cheater squares” and abundance of other black squares in the center of the grid. I expect other configurations must have resulted in a lot of clunky fill.
With all those blocks, there’s not much room for long fill with only a quartet of 7s in that category. I do like PEACOCK, NULL SET, and “BOOYAH!” as the most interesting bits of fill. I also like YEET‘s inclusion in the crossword lexicon as modern slangy fill (though for how long?) Did not know AMARO [Liqueur whose name is Italian for “bitter”] nor FUFU [West African cassava dish] but I liked the international flavor (haha).
Clue of note: 19a. [“The Traitors” streamer]. PEACOCK. I am currently vacationing in Costa Rica and have seen some amazing fauna (most notably the Montezuma oropendola), so maybe that’s why I would’ve liked to have seen this clued as the beautiful bird, and not some corporate entity.
Three stars from me.
WSJ: Fantastic and difficult meta with some devious red herring. The grid is so-so, though. Not recommended for people new to metas.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I really enjoyed it because every time I hit a rough spot I found a long answer that seemed perfect and opened up a whole neighborhood for me. THAT’S JUST TOO BAD was actually one of them, it feels like something I’d say when my teenage kids were bemoaning how unfair I was being…
I sometimes tell people that studying how the brain processes emotions is like MUD WRESTLing… It’s pretty messy and slippery but also fun! (not that I ever done it the real thing).
NYT: 41a [Explicit subject for her?] ANTECEDENT.
?
Second this. I don’t understand…
I took it as clearly the noun the pronoun was replacing
Yep.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Her is a pronoun. It requires a clear [explicit] antecedent identifying who the “her” refers to in order to avoid ambiguity and confusion. The failure to do so is a common writing error.
Thanks! I was wondering!
I really liked this funny clue but didn’t get it for solving. I only solved this patch with Christina Iverson’s Easy Mode, which had a different clue here.
(also, to Josh) I agree! That’s why I came here today was to see if anyone could explain it!
Fun NYT! Thanks for explaining SIG… I had EDGES on the down, but thought maybe the crossing was BRO and EDGES was wrong; eventually got it from the crossings.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I’m clearly not on the constructor’s wavelength – each one of her grids has taken me progressively longer to finish. MAA cost me my gold star which was annoying.
Also – really not a fan of clues like “(Word) ending?” and it’s just the last letter of that word spelled out phonetically.
NYT: Finished with no errors.
GNEISS, CENAC, MAA?
SE corner sucked.
I’ve seen MAA before.
I’ve watched daily show in past, so I know Wyatt CENAC.
I ran into group of bikers in Sangerville Maine, one who had GNEISS on her plate. She explained it was a rock. Who’d have thought a week later I’d use it in a crossword!
SKOSH was my clueless entry.
Good puzzle!
What else would a goat say? I disagree that “maa” is only found in crosswords. It’s the only onomatopoeic goat sound listed on the wonderful Wikipedia animal sounds page. The recordings of animals bleating, lowing, barking and squeaking are hypnotic.
There are lots of terms included in lists on Wikipedia. It doesn’t mean they’re actually common knowledge (atychiphobia, anyone?). I don’t know that any of us grew up learning that goats say MAA. It’s not in “Old MacDonald,” it’s not on a See ‘n Say toy, it’s not in picture books. The fact that people struggled with that entry in today’s puzzle bears this out.
There are all kinds of picture books with goats, and most of them say “maa.” But if it’s obscure for many, so be it.
+1.
Wasn’t there a video meme that featuring a goat bleating and questioning if the sound emitted was “baa” or “maa”?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
When my family moved to Oregon farm country, we attended a children’s event where the entertainer asked for common animal sounds, probably thinking, moo, quack, etc. However, he underestimated his audience, whose kids who were remarkably more realistic! It was adorable. 🐄🐖🐑 “Maa” is definitely a thing! 😂
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
There I was, pleased that I had gotten 100% on all of the puzzles in the print edition of today’s NYT—the Brain Tickler, the 2 KenKens, both (!) Two Not Touch grids, and, for me, a very easy crossword. (“CENAC” was gettable to me only because of the crosses.) It never occurred to me that 45A—“FARM CRY”—could be anything but “BAA.” After all, the onomatopoeia of “Baa baa, black sheep…” is central to the fun of the ditty. I just figured “SEBITE” was a term unfamiliar to me; stupidly, “SEMITE” never registered with me.
As always, hubris is punishable by a lesson in humility. 😉
Yeah, but that’s a sheep! But congrats, impressive.
Thanks. As a city person, I had no idea that the cries of goats and sheep were audibly distinct. Double shame on me! 😉
Goats are way different.
I don’t know anything about the country or animals, but as Martin sort of said, I’ve read plenty of kids’ books in my life. Like my husband, Amy must have started with adult books.
I didn’t complete my point. Maa for goats, baa for sheep.
Clever puzzle from Kelly Morenus. Went down a rabbit hole reading about Vidkun Quisling and his first wife, Alexandra Andreyevna Voronin. Now, I’d like to read her memoir. 5 stars