Friday, August 1, 2025

LAT untimed (pannonica) [3.86 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:17 (Amy) [3.83 avg; 18 ratings] rate it
Universal 3:14 (Jim P) [3.42 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Abigail Martin’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 8/1/25 – no. 0801

Okay, we’ve got an NYT debut from a constructor who hasn’t been tagged in a Fiend post so this might be her first published crossword. And it fits right in for this Fri NYT slot.

Fave fill: STREET FOOD, SCAM ARTIST, PATREON, HOT CEREAL (I prefer cold cereal; do we all choose one camp or the other?), CARNE ASADA, ACCESS ROAD, PHOTO SHOOT, SEAWEED SALAD, HORSE RACE in politics (grr), STEEPLECHASE (the splashiest of the distance running events), CAMERA-READY, and a musician’s NEW RELEASE. Lots to please the foodies!

Three more things:

• 6A. [Regarding], IN RE. Started with AS TO, but the crossings straightened me out. The fast-breaking 6D. [Evening meal during Ramadan] is IFTAR (I was honored to be able to partake of a community iftar in my neighborhood some years back, with yummy Kyrgyz food), and NOIR won’t start with an S. It’s lovely to have SEDERS in the same puzzle as IFTAR, further diversifying the foodie culture here.
• 22D. [Intuitive ability in the Marvel Universe], SPIDER SENSE. *frown* What’s in Marvel is SPIDEY-SENSE, with a Y.
• 26D. [Dad, in Korean], APPA. A TV show I saw recently, Apple TV+’s Your Friends & Neighbors, had a minor character refer to her dad as APPA without any elaboration, and that helped me plug the answer in with just the first letter in place. Remember five years ago, when American newspaper crosswords were afraid to include such vocab because who would know it? Lots of Americans have picked up some Korean vocab in recent years.

Four stars from me.

Kyle Beakley and David Levinson Wilk’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

LAT • 8/1/25 • Fri • Beakley, Wilk • solution • 20250801

I misidentified what the theme would be after the first relevant entry:

• 17a. [Zooplankton eaten by whales] BUNKER HILL (krill). Specifically by baleen whales, who are filter feeders, so I figured that some sort of filtering was going on. But no, as the next entry proved otherwise:
• 25a. [Berets, bonnets, etc.] HASTINGS (hats). Krill? Hats? I was lost, yet didn’t bother to analyze the full, unclued entries, until:
• 31a/42a^R [… encouraging words to someone making a good effort, and an apt description of this puzzle’s circled letters] THAT’S HALF | THE BATTLE. Aha, and it’s mathematically precise too.
• 52a. [More than a few] NORMANDY (many).
• 59a. [Art museum named for an oil magnate] GETTYSBURG (Getty). Named for Samuel Gettys, who seems unrelated to J Paul Getty and family.

Interesting and different.

• 4d [Make demands (of)] ASK A LOT. The most annoying knight of the Round Table.
• 7d [Tech sch. in upstate New York] RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
• 9d [Writer who studied under William Strunk Jr. at Cornell] EB WHITE. 44d [9-Down’s “Is Sex Necessary?” collaborator James] THURBER.
• 10d [“Why are you waiting?” DO IT NOW.
  
• 29d [Pretzel topping] SALT. “Topping” seems like the wrong word, but I can’t think of anything better.
• 39d [24-month] TWO-YEAR. These are adjectives.
• 41d [Carrying capacity] ARMLOAD. I would have qualified the clue with ‘certain’.
• 46d [Papal name chosen by Robert Prevost] LEO. Novum Leonem habemus!
• 49d [Southampton smooches] SNOGS. The place on Long Island is South Hampton, which preserves the H of Hampton, unlike the British name. 58a [Smooching at the movies, say] PDA.
• 62d [HS equivalency test] GED. I always thought it stood for “graduate equivalency diploma” but it’s General Education Development!
• 16a [Shelved item] BOOK. Very literal.
• 21a [Make a beeline for] DASH TO. To people actually say this?
• 54a [Full-busomed] BUXOM. etymology: Middle English buxsum, from Old English *būhsum; akin to Old English būgan to bend — more at BOM. Bosom etymology: Middle English, from Old English bōsm; akin to Old High German buosam bosom (m-w.com)

Prasanna Keshava’s Universal crossword, “10 + 10”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases that feature two X’s. The revealer is TWO-TIMES (62a, [Betrays romantically … or what each starred clue’s answer contains?]).

Universal crossword solution · “10 + 10” · Prasanna Keshava · Fri., 8.1.25

• 16a. [*Kind of menu] PRIX FIXE.
• 39a. [*Crunchy party snack] CHEX MIX.
• 10d. [*Glasses in old comic book ads] X-RAY SPEX.
• 38d. [*Candy in a straw] PIXY STIX.

Very nice theme! I could tell something was up when I kept encountering X’s at every turn. A glance at the title added to my suspicions, and then the revealer nicely summed things up. Plus, all the entries are fun of their own account. Well done.

With all those X’s, you’d think the fill might suffer, but each crossing answer is a solid entry (with the possible exception of XES), so I’m impressed at how deftly they were handled. Perhaps what helped achieve that level of smoothness is the fact there are no very long fill entries. But there are still plenty of enjoyable mid-length bits of fill like NEOPET, PEE=WEE, “IS IT ME?”, and L-WORD.

WARIO’s skins in the latest Mario Kart game

Clues of note:

• 29a. [Janet, to Michael, informally]. SIS. I’m guessing Jacksons? But I didn’t think of that until just now.
• 57a. Nintendo villain]. WARIO. Aw, “villain” a little harsh. He’s just a simple garlic-loving dude. Plus, he’s got some fun outfits in the latest Mario Kart game.

Good theme and solid fill. 3.5 stars.