Wednesday, July 30, 2025

AV Club untimed (Amy) [3.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
LAT 3:55 (Gareth) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 4:12 (Amy) [3.56 avg; 18 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (Kyle) [4.33 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [2.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:28 (Emily) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 8:11 (Eric) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Metamorphosis” — Eric’s Review

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Metamorphosis” — 7/30/25

A Kafkaesque word ladder of a theme, with circles to help us see the ladder:

• 1A [Garage conversion, maybe] MANCAVE BEDROOM fit, but none of the crosses cooperated.
• 18A [Instrument also called a syrinx] PAN PIPE I’d never heard that name before; a syrinx is also a voice organ in birds.
• 34A [Game with kickers and bumpers] PINBALL
• 42A [Braid usually in a pair] PIGTAIL
• 58A [“Well, whoop-de-doo!”] BIG DEAL
• 65A [Feature of many horror movie monsters] BUG EYES

I’m partial to word ladders, so I liked this theme. I didn’t pay attention to the title before starting and was halfway through before realizing what was up with the circled letters. I’m sure there are many ways to construct a word ladder that takes MAN into BUG, but I generally liked the words Mike Shenk chose.

The sideways crosses of black squares result in a grid that’s a little choppy, but the fill was smooth enough that I didn’t notice that while solving.

Other stuff:

• 15A [Age-old excuse] I FORGOT I can’t help but think of Steve Martin.
• 17A [Bible publisher’s ward in a 1924 musical]/3D [Words to 17-Across] NANETTE/NO NO My initial response to 17A was WTF, but a few crosses and the boost of 3D gave me the answer. About the only song title I recognize from No, No, Nanette is “Tea for Two,” and the song itself doesn’t sound all that familiar. Not surprisingly, it’s a bit dated: “No friends or relations/On weekend vacations/We won’t have it known, dear/That we own a telephone, dear.”
• 30A [Rangers outfielder Carter] EVAN A new name for me. His stats don’t look particularly impressive (a batting average of .233; 14 home runs in just under two years in the majors), but he’s still early in his MLB career.
• 40A [One of Iraq’s official languages] KURDISH This mildly surprised me — not that I didn’t know there are Kurds in Iraq.
• 57A [Fifth-century invader of the Balkans] ATTILA I’m about ready to give up on trying to remember whether it’s two T’s and one L or the other way around.
• 54A [Chimney sweep in “Mary Poppins”] BERT At age seven or eight, I once spent a day singing the Academy Award-winning song “Chim Chim Cher-ee” (Bert’s signature tune). When I was told to say grace before dinner that evening, that song naturally came out. My father was not amused.
• 10D [“Chilly Scenes of Winter” writer Beattie] ANN That 1976 title was hiding somewhere in my brain — or maybe Ann Beattie lives there independent of her novel.
• 24D [“What villain was it ___ that word?”: Titus Andronicus] SPAKE Shakespeare’s goriest play? Who doesn’t like thinking about a character’s tongue being cut out and hands being chopped off?

Thomas Byrne & Daniel Bodily’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 7/30 – no. 0730

A sweet treat in the theme presentation today! SS, TT, UU, and FF appear in four Across answers without crossings. But they’re flanked by dark bars that set them apart from the rest of their entries, and they’re sandwiched between pairs of black squares. They’re extra-boxy Oreos! And with DOUBLE STUF OREOS being the central revealer, [Extra-thick Nabisco treats, hinted at four times in this puzzle], those unchecked letters have an added hint. This reminds me—I should eat a couple of those Canadian Oreos my kid brought home for us. They’re not CHOCOLATE-COATED, though.

Fave fill: POP-UP MENU, OUTGROWTH, DIRTY LOOK.

Three things:

• 14A. [Sch. whose mascot is Tim the Beaver], MIT. I wanted this to be OSU, but I don’t know if it’s University of Oregon or Oregon State that has the Beavers rather than the Ducks. Beavers are nature’s engineers/builders, hence the MIT respect. And Tim, of course, is MIT backwards. See also:
• 32A. [Man’s name that’s a woman’s name backward], ARON. It took decades for crosswords to stop perpetuating the misinformation that Elvis Presley’s middle name was meant to be spelled ARON.
• 4D. [Sigmatism], LISP. My eyes misread that as astigmatism at first. Sigma is the Greek letter S, hence this Greek-rooted term.

Four stars from me.

Sharon Kassing’s Universal crossword, “Redefined” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 7/30/25 • Wed • “Redefined” • Kassing • solution • 20250730

• 8a. [Polishes again?] REBUFFS.
• 15a. [Becomes weary after getting a second wind?] RETIRES.
• 32a. [Gets the kinks out of, as a Slinky?] RECOILS.
• 44a. [Transports on the same Greyhound trip as before?] REBUSES.
• 67a. [Rings at the top of another hour?] REPEALS.
• 68a. [Brings to tears after bringing to laughter, say?] REMOVES. (28d [Move, in Realtor slang] RELO.)

It’s a rather slight theme, with short answers. But there are six of them. I wouldn’t say that the wacky re- definitions are all unrelated etymologically to those of the actual re- words, but there’s generally enough distance.

• 9d [Musical Clapton] ERIC. Quite a problematic figure, it turns out. Racism and more.
• 13d [Posture in ballroom dancing] FRAME. Had not heard of that term.
• 31d [Nearest-possible location] HERE. That’s one way to put it.
• 40d [Devices with GPS chips] TRACKERS. Thought this might be something about TRACERS or TRACE-something.
• 50d [Person who tends not to spend] SAVER, not MISER.
• 1a [Popular spring break destination] FLORIDA. Even with all the protofascist policies that have been instituted. Disappointing.
• 30a [Complaint on a summer day] IT’S HOT. 29d [Coffee specification more popular in summer] ICED.
• 56a [Some prayers?] MONKS. 17a [Obvious] EVIDENT.
  
  factette: The melody is based on the standard “Just You, Just Me“, which Monk then called “Just Us”, a loose homphone of “justice”, which eventually became the new title.

Katie Hoody’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Themeless #83”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 7/30/25 – “Themeless #83” – Katie Moody

This puzzle cursed me last night. The unfortunate trio of FENDER BENDER, ROOKIE MISTAKE, and “THAT’S NOT GOOD” (excellent fill with misfortune vibes) led to a mirror falling off the wall and breaking. I was too sleepy to blog the puzzle after solving it, but then bedtime was delayed by the broken mirror. I’m hoping the curse ends now and the mirror doesn’t bring additional badness upon me!

Other fave fill that didn’t curse me: HANG TIME (the mirror’s expired), EARWORMS, PECORINO cheese, DO THE WAVE, GREEK HERO, GO-GETTERS, KOHLRABI, and the Tuskegee AIRMEN.

Never thrilled to encounter OATEN in a puzzle. One of those words I just don’t encounter anywhere but crosswords. Overall the fill was pretty smooth, though, and filled with lots of zest.

Four stars from me.

Matthew Stock’s USA Today Crossword, “Tear Down” — Emily’s write-up

Put your hard hat on for this one!

USA Today, July 30, 2025, “Tear Down” by Matthew Stock

Theme: each downs themer contains –TEAR–

Themers:

• 3d. [Our home], PLANETEARTH
• 17d. [Guest who missed the surprise of a surprise party, say], LATEARRIVAL
• 26d. [Canadian “Jeopardy! Masters” competitor], MATTEAROACH

A variety pack with today’s themer set of PLANETEARTH, LATEARRIVAL, and MATTEAROACH. Since I do across first, most of these already had crossings when I got to them so they weren’t too tricky to finish filling.

Favorite fill: LADYLUCK, PUNCHY, SINKERS, and YAAGYASI

Stumpers: LAPSED (thought of “rotting”, “go bad”, “expired”, and “decayed”), HIGHBALL (“cocktail” and “pairing” came to mind first), and MOUTHY (needed crossings)

A fun puzzle! Great overall fill, a fun theme and themer set, plus a cool grid design.

4.0 stars

~Emily

Dan Kammann & Zhouqin Burnikel’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

Dan Kammann & Zhouqin Burnikel’s puzzle attempts to link four different phrases to “catch” and “ray” with varying degrees of success. A ROOFTOPDECK is a typical place to “catch some rays”as it is usually thought of. The FOODNETWORK is where one might catch as in watch Rachel Ray. The OCEANFLOOR is a place one might catch a ray as in a cartilaginous fish. The first entry, SCIFIMOVIE, feels the most tenuous; I get rays from ray guns may be associated with some films, but the catching part seems off?

Gareth