LAT 5:00 (Stella) 
[2.89 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Newsday 17:55 (pannonica ) 
[3.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:03 (Amy) 
[4.38 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) rate it
WSJ untimed (pannonica) [4.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Erik Agard’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 7/19/25 – no. 0719
This 15×16 grid accommodates a central quad-stack of 15s, and what should really impress you is that there are only two 4s (SAID and TRES) crossing that stack. The remaining 13 crossings are 6- to 12-letter answers. It’s more typical for stacked 15s to have a lot of 3- or 4-letter crossings, some of them grievous junk.
Fave fill: TITILLATE, MASTER OF SCIENCE, SPUR OF THE MOMENT, “DON’T GET ANY IDEAS,” stadium MASCOT RACE, CORETTA SCOTT, fresh FAN EDITS, frozen CREAMERY makes me hanker for Jeni’s, and Civil Rights Era FREEDOM RIDES.
Things I learned:
- 21D. [Barbecued Mongolian dish whose name sounds like a disapproving canine], BOODOG. Never heard of its cooking method before. It startled me!
- 36A. [Vince Carter quote-turned-meme regarding his return for a 22nd N.B.A. season], “I GOT ONE MORE IN ME.” Carter was the first to play in four different decades. He’s the Cher of basketball! Will LeBron James top that?
- 53A. [Stygian blue or reddish-green], IMPOSSIBLE COLOR. This concept is new to me. Trippy topic!
- 57A. [Trans activist who founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project], DEAN SPADE. He’s a law professor.
- 25D. [Sportsperson, in Italian], ATLETA. Inferrable, but I hadn’t seen it before.
The crossings were all clear, so none of these new-to-me things really slowed me down.
Two more things:
- 48D. [Assist, as a lifter?], ABET. I blithely filled in SPOT, as if this clue had no question mark, then changed it to ABETting a (shop)lifter.
- 14A. [Tearing up or breaking down], EMOTIONAL. I correctly parsed “tearing up” as “shedding tears” rather than “ripping up,” but I like the mislead.
4.25 stars from me.
Paul Coulter’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Downward Dog” — pannonica’s write-up
WSJ • 7/19/25 • Sat • “Downward Dog” • Coulter • solution • 20250719
Pretty neat theme here, and well executed.
We crossword solvers are familiar with downward dog as a yoga ASANA, but here it’s taken more literally. The seven [Fictional dog]s among the down entries, which I’ve circled for convenience, contribute to across entries.
- 30a. [Musical drama filmed in 1937, 1954, 1976 and 2018] {A STA}R IS BORN. Asta, from Dashiell Hammet’s Thin Man books.
- 32a. [93-million-mile measures] {ASTRO}NOMICAL UNITS. Astro, from The Jetsons television show.
- 38a. [Both her first and last performances at the Met were “Madama Butterfly”] RENATA SC{OTTO}. Otto, from the Beetle Bailey comic strip. I suspect that many solvers will be unfamiliar with Renata Scotto, but there were headlines when she died in 2023. And the crossings are pretty fair.
- 69a. [Film for which Maggie Smith won her first Oscar] THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BR{ODIE}. Odie, from the Garfield comic strip. How fortunate that this worked out to 21 squares. I have to believe that it was the seed entry.
- 97a. [African carnivore with a distinctive howl] {SPOT}TED HYENA. Spot from, I presume, the Dick and Jane children’s books. Our old friend Crocuta crocuta is, like all hyaenids, including the aardwolf, more closely related to cats than dogs.
- 107a. [Royal court attendants] {LAD}IES IN WAITING. Lad, from <quickly consults the internet> the Lad series of books by Albert Payson Terhune.
- 111a. [Proceeding with much vigor] GOING {TO TO}WN. Toto, from The Wizard of Oz.
I feel it’s senseless to quibble that the dogs are not symmetrically paired, even as the relevant across entries are. The theme is challenging enough to construct without that additional layer of rigor.
Yet another Saturday morning where I’m pressed for time, so I’ll move on to the Stumper and return to this write-up afterwards if possible.
Chandi Deitmer & Erik Agard’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 7/19/25 by Chandi Deitmer & Erik Agard
When I started this puzzle, I thought, “This is too damn easy,” but obviously that’s not how things turned out. Things got very difficult about midway through and I actually wondered whether I might not finish! Anyway, I’m delighted when a puzzle puts up a good fight and this one sure did; it’s harder than the last Saturday Stumper I did.
- 17A [Boxing titles?] is RING NAMES. Which…I guess so, but I think this would’ve been a lot fairer clued as [Wrestling titles?] I’m trying to recall whether I’ve ever heard a boxer’s nickname referred to as their RING NAME the way a wrestler’s is, perhaps because the latter is way more stage-y and a RING NAME is truly a stage name in a way that a boxer’s nickname isn’t.
- 40A [Stream-ing music?] is BURBLE. This is the part of the puzzle where ish started to get hard. It’s a clever clue.
- 45A [Rice flour pastry] is a MOCHI DONUT. Pretty mad at myself for having MOCHI DOUGH in here for a while.
- 49A [In some cases, it won’t break] is PHONE. WOW, great clue that had me fooled for a good long time. “Cases” here refers to smartphone cases meant to prevent a phone from breaking.
- 50A [Surprisingly good event?] is a MIRACLE, also a clever and deceptive clue.
- 53A [Slayer player] is METALHEAD, but you wouldn’t believe how long I tried to make something related to Sarah Michelle Gellar work here.
- 5D [Looks in two different directions at once?] is POWER CLASHING. Boy, does this one make me feel old. If you had to look this one up after the fact, don’t worry; so did I. POWER CLASHING is what the kids are calling dressing in contrasting patterns in visually interesting ways these days. I knew the phenomenon but not that it had a name.
- 9D [Man known for his many gifts] is SANTA CLAUS. This clue didn’t slow me down while solving, but I appreciate the cleverness nonetheless.
- 30D [Honey-don’t list?] is VEGAN MENU, which it took me an awfully long time to figure out. It’s easy to forget that honey, a product of bees, is forbidden on a vegan diet.
- 34D [Kloss’s “Project Runway” predecessor] is KLUM, but she’s also Kloss’s successor! Heidi is back for season 21.
- 36D [Financial term from the French for “slice”] is TRANCHE. That’s just a tough entry, period.
- 51D [Person to fight with] is ALLY, which is an interesting bit of deception. Here, “with” means “on the same side as.”
Lester Ruff’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s précis
Newsday • 7/19/25 • Saturday Stumper • Ruff, Newman • solution • 20250719
More pressed for time than I realized!
This was not as tough as some Stumpers, but there have been others that I’ve solved more quickly than this ‘less rough’ offering.
Can’t recall seeing a Stumper with left-right symmetry, but here we are.
Quickest of notes:
- 22a [ Oral >:{ ] I’M SO MAD. Was stuck thinking this was about dentistry or tooth woes.
- 28a [Spotty nature] INTERMITTENCY. Definitely wanted something with INFREQUENCY at the end, especially with a pair of Xs and ‘another’ Q in the grid.
- 36a [Contemporary alias of the Bell “brothers”] BOZ. Is this Dickens?
- 42a [All the search-proof sites] DEEP WEB, not DARK WEB.
- 1d [Pound sound] MEOW. ‘Shelter’ would have made the clue much less stumpery.
- 32a [Swedish dairy-alternative brand] OATLY. Tried OIKOS first.
- 53d [She’s transfixed by teen idols] ENID. The cryptic-style clue, a hidden word.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT: a themeless Orca candidate for me. a quad stack with, as Amy noted, none of the typical subpar short glue to hold the 15s together.
Not just an impressive feat of constructing but a very fun solve; the Venn diagram for those two characteristics doesn’t necessarily have a ton of overlap but this one sat right in the center of both for me. 4.5 stars.
It may not have “short” glue, but there’s plenty of subpar gunk in the middle section that disqualifies the puzzle for me. BOODOG is terrible. ATLETA crossing DAPS is a Natick. THEMAP is an ugly partial, made doubly worse with the THE crossing the THE from SPUROFTHEMOMENT. More dupes with two ONEs in the middle section and GOT/GET one row apart.
Far from stellar work.
Agree to disagree. i loved BOODOG. it’s a national dish and the clue made it gettable in a fun way.
THE MAP isn’t good, agreed. don’t see how ATLETA (clued so the relationship to athlete is clear) can be a natick when crossing a very well known slang term. no universal but not even close to obscure.
for me, i don’t get bothered by repetition of short filler words in longer phrases. That’s not a dupe for me. THE, ONE, OF etc — for me, calling those dupes is silly and i’d rather a constructor used such a duoe to get better fill than bend over backwards to avoid and end up with a lesser puzzle. for me it would have to be something like BAD ROMANCE and HARLEQUIN ROMANCE in the same puzzle for me to be upset. indeed Amy frequently calls out dupes on this blog they don’t bother me at all
“Very well known”… by what metric? Let’s just call it a slang term crossing a foreign word. Classic Natick territory. That A could reasonably be one of a few vowels.
Where are you seeing that boodog is a “national dish”? No Google result I’ve found gives it that kind of importance.
I consider myself pretty liberal when it comes to dupes. To me it crosses the line when the duped words *cross*. And when there’s several “minor” dupes mashed together in the same section, the flaws add up and become more noticeable.
Actually I too had a hard time with that crossing. Somehow I just could not remember the other term for “fist bump,” which doesn’t really need another term, and of course the Italian cognate for “athelete” could have ended with any vowel sound.
That sector, veering into center and SW, was generally tougher than the rest. I didn’t know the baseball idea (not how I follow baseball) or the basketball quote, say. But yes, a lot was, if not too easy for Saturday with an impressive grid, at least easier than Friday’s (well anything would be). And quite generally an impressive puzzle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giving_dap
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Just wanted to know if anyone else learned LORIS from Friday’s Wordle and was surprised/delighted (dare I say TITILLATED?) to see it again today!
Wordle 1,490 3/6*
🟩⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Not a new word for me. They’re cute little creatures.
I had _ORIS after three tries, and the “L” was still a guess. I had to look it up, but as Eric says, they appear to be cute little things.
They may be cute, but they’re also one of the few mammals—and the only primates—that produce a toxin.
I almost put in lemur at first but then remembered the slow LORIS, so in it went :-) Really nice Saturday; about my average time, but worth the work. I had a few screwups that needed to be fixed: DOCTOR OF SCIENCE rather than MASTER OF SCIENCE, and I dropped in RETRIEVER for the back end of the dog breed when I had the R, forgetting about TERRIERS, which I should never forget because…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC8rZq3oKuI
A good friend owned an Airedale in the 1990s who we got to know pretty well. My trouble with the entry was that I forgot about that first E.
Thanks, Amy, for the observation about how cleanly Erik Agard filled that quadruple stack in the middle.
never knew loris before Wordle – so great timing!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
I agree, a really clean grid, almost gunk free, but still very solvable. I was worried going in because I had looked at some of Erik’s old Saturdays and saw this doozy from 2020. Imagine the gnashing and teeth and rending of garments if an entry like HAUDENOSAUNEE crossing ALSATIANS showed up now.
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/28/2020
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Amazingly, I remember that 2020 puzzle! That’s the kind of entry that earned Agard the title “Erik the Esoteric” back in the day.
Today’s puzzle was blessedly free of that sort of obscurity, and struck me as being on the easy side for a Saturday, but impressive, clean and entertaining nevertheless.
Erik’s point in including HAUDENOSAUNEE may have been showing respect for the people. Imagine being an enrolled member of that tribe, your ancestral heritage, and hearing your people being called an “obscurity.” Erik called me out on criticizing the entry OTOE for that reason–it may not be a tribe most Americans learned in school, but they’re people living today.
I don’t doubt that Erik could have mentioned this point about OTOE, but I’m curious if you’re thinking of a comment that I made here, instead (although I referred to the term “crosswordese” rather than “obscurity”).
i don’t know if i’d call it a respect thing so much as just, this is a thing that makes sense to ask about in a crossword puzzle – i’ll cop to using some clues/answers over the years that could be called esoteric, but HAUDENOSAUNEE really isn’t one of them. which doesn’t mean i would fault anyone for not having known it! but yeah. (and to Jamie’s point, really interesting to look at how our reactions to perceived obscurities have changed over time, or how they vary across different solving communities)
Very nice NYT. One should include Discworld’s Octarine in any discussion of impossible colors— “said to be a mix of greenish-yellow and purple, visible only to wizards and cats, and represents an elusive eighth color beyond the traditional spectrum” according to Wiktionary.
Newsday: No errors, but unexpectedly fraught crossings with lots of lucky guesses. Was off to a very promising start with MAGI, RESET ([Cellphone “factory” task] feels like a Monday-level clue) then USE etc. to fill out the center quickly but eventually slowed down to normal pace by trivia.
Didn’t know SPODE/GAUDI, but D felt right. I’m glad SUBORNS (and “iniquity”) was somewhere there in the recesses of my mind because I can’t make sense of the clue for SAGS [Needs to slow down] and I forgot what a BOLA was. Very scary.
My sympathies to solvers who didn’t know WYSIWYG.
– LOL is an “approval”? *squints*
– PHUBS is an ugly word. Sounds like something made up by a committee (*looks it up*) wow, whaddaya know.
Overall a bit more trivia-heavy than I usually like, but still good fun.
My best guess on “sags” is, if you’re overdoing things, you sag. Regarding, “bola,” I didn’t like it because “bolo” is more common.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Just what I want from a Saturday!! Wonderful. No notes.
(Oh loris, where were you yesterday!)
https://youtu.be/PCOWE0EiCyo?si=N5krQ34EsyEDR9rn
I’m pretty sure that’s a LORIS around 2:40.
If not, it’s still a funny video.
More likely a bushbaby or a tarsier. Definitely a classic animation.
I don’t know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_slender_loris
But the Wikipedia entry on Creature Comforts suggests it’s a tarsier, so you may be right.
Stumper: As usual, I agree with panonnica. Yes, Boz is for Dickens — it was his pen name when he started, but I don’t get the reference to “brothers,” particularly in quotation marks. Yes, he could be considered to be a contemporary of Alexander Graham Bell, but “brothers”?? I also didn’t like the use of “bolA,” rather than “bolO” — “bolo” is far more common.
The Bell brothers (Currer, Acton, and Ellis) were pseudonyms used by the Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Anne, and Emily). Thus Dickens’ pseudonym is at home with them.
Ah! I never even thought of that because I always think of them as the Bronte sisters. Thanks!
A BOLA is also a shoestringy accessory…used as a weapon…as opposed to a decorative BOLO tie.
It’s helpful when commenters identify the puzzle.
Thanks.
I looked it up later and Wikipedia says that it is an alternate for bolo tie, so I’m not happy with it, but it’s probably technically OK.
Stumper: So so SO many Naticks and clues that just don’t make sense. I’ll list all of mine!
– WYSIWYG (7 random letters to me) crossing PRAY (shouldn’t it be PRAYER?) crossing PHUBS (LOL if you say so)
– SUBORNS (come on, that’s not a word) crossing SAGS (LAGS works better imo)
– BOLA/SHAD. Fish I’ve never heard crossing something that really really should be BOLO.
– ROONE/BOZ
– SIS (maybe SIB) crossing SPODE (no hope) crossing LENIN PEAK (never heard of it) crossing PROKEDS (never heard) crossing DARE (wanted RARE, because it’s a random quote with no context so who knows?)
The rest of the puzzle was fine, but all of this meant I was left unsatisfied at the end.
WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get (that is, how it appears in the Word document on the screen is how it will print.
Sorry, suborns is a word — mostly, a legal one: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suborn My Perry Mason readings may have helped me with that one.
I agree with bola/bolo, as I indicated elsewhere. I did look it up and Wikipedia OKs it as an alternate to bolo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_tie Regarding shad, I was simply expecting a fish in Italian since Sardinia was given its Italian spelling.
Roone is Roone Arledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roone_Arledge The Howard is either a reference to Chuck Howard or Howard Cosell. Boz was a pen name for Charles Dickens when he started. Someone else explained the Bell “brothers” as referencing the Bronte sisters, who used Bell as their pen names’ last name.
Pro Keds is a type of Keds.
Howard is Cosell. The first name signaled we were looking for another first name
That’s what I was thinking, but was being cautious.
I couldn’t make any sense of the clue for SHAD. Sardina, Google tells me, is the Spanish word for sardine or pilchard, whereas shad is the English name for an unrelated fish. And anyway, the clue is ‘Swimmer in Sardina.’ No idea what’s going on here.
As for WYSIWYG, I guess you have to be of a certain age to remember when that was a big deal.
The clue says Sardina. The italics signal the pilchard genus. Although it’s not clearly correct, I think the clue is getting at pilchards being in the shad family, Alosidae. It’s a small family, of only four genera. So Sardina are shads. While the converse is not true, I think that’s what’s behind the clue.
Oh, I see. Inexplicably, I didn’t not know that.
Unfortunately for me, the pdf I printed out (from the Washington Post website) did not have “Sardina” in italics, so I was left with thinking it referred to the Spanish/Italian spelling of Sardinia. So I just went with BOLO/SHOD.
“As for WYSIWYG, I guess you have to be of a certain age to remember when that was a big deal.”
I learned to use word processing software before WYSIWYG was standard. I vividly remember when the state agency I worked for in the early 1990s got WordPerfect for us attorneys to use and we were introduced to the WYSIWYG concept.
I LOVE WORDPERFECT! I’m not an attorney or anything like that, but it’s simply the one I first learned. I wish it were available for the Mac — I have to use some adaptation software, which makes it a little awkward.
Reveal codes 4ever!
I’m not seeing a “Reply” link to respond to you, pannonica, so I’ll reply to myself instead.
Yep! I LOVE those “Reveal codes”! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been forced to work in Word, see something isn’t right, and can’t figure out how to get it right because I can’t see the codes. With WP, I can always tell right away.
P.S. One suggestion I would have for this site would be if it were possible to get notifications when someone replies to a post. I don’t always remember to check back. You have the e-mail address so it would be theoretically possible.
I’m not sure that that can be done, but there is an RSS feed for sitewide comments. Might be overkill, but also marginally helpful.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Whoa, now *that’s* a proper Saturday!
POWER CLASHING was new to me, too, and the clues for HORNS (Lockers in a row?) and HORAS (Some social circles?) were truly devious.
Long solve, but a super satisfying one in the end.
Agreed! I’m delighted that Patti seems to have finally moved on from her snooze-inducing “gentle challenge” era. This one and other recent Saturdays have been a lot more fun.
WSJ: Did anyone think, as I did, that 111-A didn’t quite fit the theme like the others did? All the letters in the rest of the answers were contiguous – down and across or across and down, but for 111-A you had to jump back up to the top to complete the answer.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 4.5 stars
You are correct about 111A being an oddball, but I’m glad the constructor was able to squeeze it into the puzzle instead of leaving it out.
[this a Reply to the above]
Part of Crossword Construction 101 that I internalized was the “rule” that thematic outliers–that is, the one themer that is “different” or breaks a norm established by the other items in the theme set–need to go last or be centered; the one that’s different should be down at the bottom (if the themers are all Across), or it should go in the center. This way, its differentness is noted, is signalled, or, even, highlighted.I consistently read comments about how “this themer is different and why is that?” and I’m just thinking, Yeah, but it’s situated as the last one, like it’s supposed to be; feature not a bug. I find it off-putting that for the last decade or thereabouts bloggers and commentors seem to have, well, forgotten this “rule”–but it’s probably that I just internalized something I garnered or mis-garnered and considered important. Hmm. But what I see here is the constructor’s adherence to it.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Excellent puzzle. Love the quad-stack of 15s and there weren’t many (any?) rough patches of fill as a result. Nice work as always, Erik!