Thursday, July 31, 2025

BEQ 8:15 (Eric) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [3.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
NYT 9:14 (ZDL) [3.79 avg; 14 ratings] rate it
Universal 7:01 (Eric) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 9:15 (Emily) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 8:02 (Jim Q) [2.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Brad Wiegmann’s Fireball Crossword, “Call Letters” – Jenni’s write-up

This one took some figuring. I hope the figuring was right.

Fireball, July 30, 2025, Brad Wiegmann, “Call Letters,” solution grid

• 16a [What a lemur and a dinosaur have in common?] is RIGHT YOU ARE. U and R on the right of each one.
• 24a [What an air traffic controller and a tobacconist have in common?] is POSTSEASON. ON after two Cs.
• 36a [What yearly and yeasty have in common?] is A WORD IN EDGEWISE. Ys at the edges.
• 49a [What Spartacus and Bonaparte have in common?] is AFTER PARTY. ART after P.
• 58a [What Angola and Mongolia have in common?] is GEOCENTRISM. G-O in the center.

I can’t be the only one who grew up with C D B by William Steig.

I think my mother loved that book at least as much as my brother and I did and I enjoyed the puzzle-induced flashback. The fun of this one came with the decoding more than the solving.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that Pegasus was related to MEDUSA. Apparently the Gorgon was impregnated by Poseidon after the sea god took the form of something (competing accounts suggest a fish or a horse). Pegasus and his sibling Chrysaor then sprang from the neck of Medusa after she was beheaded by Perseus. I always thought Pegasus was an only child.

Matt Revis’s Universal Crossword “Set the Table” — Eric’s Review

Matt Revis’s Universal Crossword “Set the Table” — 7/31/25

A basic theme today, one that I’ve seen before — dinner table items incorporated into words that spin the meanings a little:

• 18A [Vehicle registration datum] PLATE NUMBER
• 24A [Boxer’s liability] GLASS JAW
• 39A [Arresting image?] MUG SHOT That might be my favorite clue of the puzzle.
• 52A [Sporting event that many alumni attend] BOWL GAME
• 59A [Presidential appointment … or the start of 18-, 24-, 39- or 52-Across?] CABINET PICK

It’s a solid theme, and the theme answers are all far enough from dishes to keep it somewhat interesting.

The grid is a bit choppy, with the NW and SE corners feeling particularly isolated. The fill and clues aren’t particularly new or exciting, but there are a few nice answers:

• 29A [Avoid] ESCHEW Nice word that you don’t see too often.
• 45A [“You Were Meant for Me” singer] JEWEL I don’t know that song, but the J of TAJ was all I really needed for that answer.
• 6D [Have your hair covered on Halloween, say] WEAR A WIG I don’t much care for that sort of answer. Why not use (appropriately clued) WEAR A T-SHIRT? EAT AN ICE CREAM CONE?
• 11D [Admission from Bruce Wayne] I’M BATMAN Unless this is an iconic line from one of the many Batman movies, it strikes me as almost as pedestrian as WEAR A WIG.
• 25D [Walk awkwardly] SHAMBLE
• 40D [Pursuit of pleasure] HEDONISM I momentarily blanked on this. I was disappointed now to learn its straighforward etymology; hēdonē is simply Greek for “pleasure.”
• 42D [“So cute!”] ADORBS What a cringe-inducing word, even when not proceeded by “totes.”
• 55D [Dialect of many Black people in the U.S.] AAVE African-American Vernacular English

Chase Dittrich & Christina Iverson’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Do the Math” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME:
“___ to ___” phrases are clued via a clever “math problem” using related entries elsewhere in the grid.

THEME ENTRIES:

WSJ • 7/31/25 • Thur • “Do the Math” • Chase Dittrich • Christina Iverson • solution • 20250731

17A: [1-Across – RID] — BRIDE TO BE
 (1A was WIFE → WIFE = BRIDE; subtract RID from BRIDE = BE. BRIDE (changes) TO BE
33A: [23-Across – D + Y] — SAD TO

 SAY
 (23A was GLUM → GLUM = SAD; minus D, plus Y = SAY)
41A: [53-Across – OD] — GOOD TO GO
 (53A was FINE → FINE = GOOD; minus OD = GO)
62A: [69-Across + L] — PAY TO PLAY
 (69A was WAGE → WAGE = PAY; add L = PLAY)

Okay, more mental steps than usual here. I didn’t fully grok the gimmick until my second themer. The first one I solved (SAD TO SAY) I just dropped in because it fit. Only later did I catch the “substitution” mechanic and suddenly everything clicked. And that “aha” was super satisfying.

The theme set is impressively tight. At first glance, it seems like there are only four long themers — but the elegance is in the details. The cross-referenced entries WIFE, GLUM, FINE, and WAGE are theme entries too, and symmetrically placed to boot. That adds more constraint to the grid than is immediately obvious.

Despite all that, the fill held up well! I didn’t hit too many snags early, but this Thursday definitely ramped up in difficulty by the end.

NEW TO ME / PUZZLE STUMBLES:

• 16A: [Samuel Johnson tragedy] — IRENE. Not a movie. A play! Learned that the hard way. I misread that and was thinking Samuel Jackson.
  
• 67A: [Nervous type] — NELLY. I’ve heard nervous Nelly, but didn’t realize NELLY could stand on its own.
  
• 1D: [Hoopster Spud] — WEBB. A brief guest in my sports-name short-term memory vault.
  
• 3D: [Liver, in French cuisine] — FOIE. I’ve only ever heard FOIE as FOIE GRAS. Never eaten it. Never will.
  
• 6D: [Took to the cleaners] — ROOKED. This feels made-up. Is this real slang?
  
• 28D: [Counterfeit coin] — SLUG. Love this one. Gritty little word.
  
• 57D: [Shawkat of “Search Party”] — ALIA.
  
• 58D: [Fritz who directed “M”] — LANG. Those two names side by side slowed me down a lot.
  
• 43D: [English word with no Chinese equivalent] — THE. Fascinating clue.

OTHER THINGS:

• 20A: [Sans sheet music] — BY EAR. At the piano, I either improvise or memorize. My ears are mostly decorative.
• 38A: [Symbol of greed in a Steinbeck novella] — PEARL. Love a good Steinbeck reference. I have a large Steinbeck-themed tattoo on my arm. No reference to Kino and his PEARL though.
  7D: [Headmaster to Harry, Hermione and Ron] — ALBUS. As a constructor, I’ve been avoiding Harry Potter clues. Anyone else feeling that shift?
• 9D: [Politico Cheney] — LIZ. Miss the accountability she tried to bring to her party.
• 29D: [Marine layer] — CAMO. Not water-related. Sneaky.
• 46D: [Large print source] — BEAR PAW. Not newsprint. Got me again.

EMBARRASSING MISSTEP:
Had ROUTED instead of ROOKED, which gave me TURD for [Iraq native]. I mean… that clue really ROOKED me.

OVERALL:
This was an exceptionally clever puzzle. Smart, layered, and engaging from start to finish — a true Thursday brain workout. Loved the dual-layered theme mechanics and the satisfying aha.

4.75 stars from me.

Alexander Liebeskind’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Average (9m14s)

Alexander Liebeskind’s New York Times crossword, 7/31/25, 0731

Today’s theme: TEN ANTS (Ones paying flat rates … or, when read as two words, a hint to this puzzle’s theme)

• ANT rebus, times ten

I like the silly bluntness of the revealer.  Apropos of nothing, here are TEN ANTS (go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!).

Cracking: SLEIGH almost abutting DEAR S(ANT)A

Slacking: I know LACUNAS from medical jargon, but even then, we would say LACUNAE because of the old fusty Latin-ness of it all.  I also know enough people from Cali to have ironically heard about “shredding the GNAR” several times over, but I can imagine that it looks like gibberish otherwise.

Sidetracking: where ATL(ANT)A peaked

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1805 “BFFs” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1805 “BFFs” — 7/31/25

A simple letter substitution theme today, though I found the revealer helpful in explaining that the double F’s replace B’s:

• 17A [Like those that inhale certain tobacco?] SNUFF-NOSED Although snub-nosed is an appropriate description for my face, I tend to think of “snub-nosed” as describing a type of revolver.
• 40A [Capital of Wales, or the “W.A.P.” rapper after alteration in the style of this puzzle’s theme] CARDIFF Cardi B., and not her collaborator Megan Thee Stallion.
• 64A [Injury caused by those on the payroll?] STAFF WOUND Stab wound. That’s a cheerful image.
• 11D [Guffaw made while in R.E.M.?] SLEEP LAFF Sleep lab. Another not-so-pleasant image for me.
• 35D [Surly sulky mood?] GRUFF HUFF Grub Hub, the Uber Eats and Door Dash competitor.

None of the wackified (thanks, Jim Q.!) answers particularly amused me. On the other hand, between the title and STUFF-NOSED, it was easy to see that the theme answers would all have double F’s. (For the one or two people more clueless about modern slang than me, the title’s initialism stands for Best Friend(s) Forever.)

Other stuff:

• 5A [Lady’s title] MADAM I don’t think I’ll ever get the MADAM/MADAME distinction straight, except that I know who runs the brothel.
• 15A [Novelist Zola] ÉMILE A gimme ever since I read Captain Dreyfus around age 12. (Spoiler alert: Zola wrote a famous newspaper essay, “J’Accuse . . . !,” about the French government’s anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus Affair.)
• 16A [Ovechkin of the NHL] ALEX A name I know from crosswords.
• 24A [Prime minister May] THERESA Did you realize the United Kingdom is on its eighth PM this century (counting Tony Blair, who became PM in the 1990s)?
• 28A [Praise to the skies] EXALT I had EXTOL first because when I have to guess, I almost always guess wrong.
• 46A [Dramatists’ degs.] MFAS At least I’ve learned not to guess at that first letter.
• 53A [Chip from a can] PRINGLE I can inhale potato chips nonstop if I let myself, but those canned chips never appealed to me.
• 5D [Sound mind, in a phrase] MENS SANA Often seen in Mens sana in corpore sano, “A healthy mind in a healthy body,” which comes from the Roman poet Juvenal.
• 18D [“Weird ___, but okay”] FLEX I know that phrase only from crosswords.
• 63D [Main character in “Zoolander”] ZEE “Character” as in “letter,” not “role.” My husband and I don’t often abandon movies after 15 or so minutes, but that one did nothing for us.

Hannah Slovut-Einertson’s USA Today Crossword, “Tell the Truth (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up

I’m all ears.

USA Today, July 31, 2025, “Tell the Truth (Freestyle)” by Hannah Slovut-Einertson

Favorite fill: BEACHREAD, DONTSTART, TOBEHONEST, and SLOWPOKES

Stumpers: ENDSIT (needed crossings), CAMEOFAGE (also needed crossings), and OHWAIT (also needed crossings)

A tougher puzzle for me today. How’d you all do? Nothing super challenging, but I needed lots of crossings to get there in the end. Cluing I found a bit harder than usual for me, though the fill is delightful, especially all the length ones.

3.75 stars

~Emily