Monday, August 4, 2025

BEQ 19:31 (Eric) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:54 (Stella) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:41 (Sophia) [2.33 avg; 18 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 5:28 (Amy) [2.89 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ untimed (Jim Q) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Patti Varol’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Recap

Theme: Vowel progression for the letter after A in the first word of each theme answer

New York Times, 08 04 2025, By Patti Varol

• 18a [Yankees slugger who hit a record-setting 62 home runs in 2022] – AARON JUDGE
• 23a [Image from a drone] – AERIAL PHOTO
• 39a [“Keep dreaming!”] – AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN
• 53a [Outlet from the heart’s left ventricle] – AORTIC VALVE
• 62a [Poet with the essay collection “Sister Outsider”] – AUDRE LORDE

Vowel progression puzzles are never that thrilling for me, but I liked this spin on it – it’s cool how many different letters can follow A after the start of a word. Plus, because the rest of the word is different, the puzzle didn’t feel repetitive to me, which can sometimes happen with this type of theme.

Great theme answer choices for this set as well. AUDRE LORDE shows up a lot in puzzles as either first or last name, so it was cool to see the full name today. AERIAL PHOTO feels modern and AARON JUDGE is one of the biggest names currently in baseball (although I’m not sure cluing the crossing ROGER with another baseball reference is best on a Monday, even though they are very different eras!). AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN is fun colloquial spanner as well. Overall, a good mix of entries that felt Monday-friendly.

As expected from an expert like Patti, the fill is very clean, with ALPACA FARM and JPOP as modern standouts. My only write-overs were “aloes” for CACTI and “t-down” for TD RUN.  There were a couple things that felt hard for a Monday – ARIL, UPC, ANAG – and one thing I had never heard of, the app ANGI (although the internet tells me this is the updated name of “Angie’s List”, which I have heard of). Has anyone ever used this?

Clue of the day: [Musician Brian who has an asteroid named after him] for ENO – I did not know this! A fun fact for a classic crossword name.

Happy Monday all!

Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 8/4/25 by Zhouqin Burnikel

For all readers of this blog who have ever been pregnant, I salute you. The very idea of losing control of my body to the extent that one does while pregnant is terrifying to me. It’s not the only reason I don’t have kids, but it’s a big reason! Anyway, this puzzle cutesily clues ATE FOR TWO as [Dined with a bun in the oven, or what can be found in 17-, 26-, 40-, and 51-Across]. In the theme of this puzzle, that means that the three-letter string ATE appears TWO times in each theme answer:

• 17A [Future time] is LATER DATE.
• 26A [Tank often found near a furnace] is WATER HEATER.
• 40A [Like some raisins and truffles] is CHOCOLATE-COATED. I do love me a CHOCOLATE-COATED truffle.
• 51A [Chamber that sends laws to the governor] is STATE SENATE.

Some nice longer Downs in this one — CAT PERSON, ZUMBA CLASS, TACO STANDS, and IT WASN’T ME.

Noelle Griskey’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Surround Sound” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Sounds that a bell can make “surround” a common phrase

WSJ • 8/4/25 • Mon • “Surround Sound” • Noelle Griskey • solution • 20250804

THEME ANSWERS:

• RIGHT A WRONG. RING.
• KNOW FULL WELL. KNELL.
• CHILDHOOD HOME. CHIME. 
• PREPARE A MEAL. PEAL.
• TOTAL RECALL. TOLL. 

Standard Monday theme-type. All perfectly valid bell sounds (KNELL is a tad dark to start my day) in perfectly valid– if not the most colorful– phrases. CHILDHOOD HOME and KNOW FULL WELL were my favorite of the bunch, despite the KNELL in the latter. PREPARE A MEAL feels a bit bland as a phrase. And I totally failed to recall the movie TOTAL RECALL from 1990. I’m frequently surprised by movies that stay crossword-worthy (this one definitely does) despite being meh. Maybe that’s just me though… it does have 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty solid.

NEW TO ME / TIP-OF-TONGUE:

•  I had momentarily forgotten of the PAWPAW (papaya) tree’s existence.
• Didn’t know that MY GIRL was The Temptations first #1 hit. I played keyboards with The Temptations once at a last minute gig in Disney World circa 2000. When they were introducing the band, the lead singer had no clue what my name was. He said something like “We just met this kid. Don’t know who he is, but I have underwear older than him.” I was 20 and in a too-large sequin jacket that they threw on me last minute. At the end of the show the bandleader pulled out a thick wad of 100 dollar bills, peeled off five of ’em and sent me on my way $500 richer. Surreal little moment.
• LEA Thompson of Back to the Future (she was Lorraine).

My only nit is DIR [SSE or NNW, e.g.]. Not too many options to go with, but I think I would’ve preferred the German article DER (making EON) over DIR / ION.

Solid Monday! 3.5 stars from me.

Paul Leistra’s Universal crossword, “What’s in a Name?” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 8/4/25 • Mon • “What’s in a Name” • Leistra • solution • 20250804

To answer the title’s question: a bunch of meaningless intervening letters.

• 40a^R [Goes Dutch, or what this puzzle does four times] SPLITS THE BILL. The surnames of celebrities named Bill are formed by the beginnings and ends of the theme answers. Not sure, but I believe using the phrase ‘go Dutch’ is passé and considered by some to be offensive.
• 17a. [Outings for multiple couples] GROUP DATES (Gates).
• 25a. [Natural vision] NAKED EYE (Nye).
• 52a. [Imbibed at a ballgame] HAD A BEER (Hader). Kind of a dull phrase for a crossword entry.
• 62a. [Tennis shot hit right after the ball bounces] HALF VOLLEY (Haley).

Decent theme and a super easy and smooth grid. In fact I solved much of the puzzle using acrosses only, a technique I rarely use.

• 23d [Mosaic tile, or an anagram of “reseats”] TESSERA. Probably the hardest/most obscure entry in the crossword, made easier by giving the solver all the letters she needs.
• 26d [Song at a sporting event] ANTHEM. Is this true worldwide, or just in the US and Canada?
• 38d [“__ be nice if …”] IT’D. A different fill-in-the-blank phrase than we typically see for this answer (“__ be an honor”).
• 45d [Author Rand] AYN.
• 54d [Place to park a camper] RV LOT. 31a [RV connectors?] STU. I like it.
• 5a [Puccini piece] OPERA. 10a [Pollution portmanteau] SMOG. Alliteration in the clues.
• 44a [“Voila!”] TA-DA. 58a [Cello’s relative] VIOLA.
• 70a [Bread growth] MOLD. Many breads freeze and thaw well.

Anna Shechtman’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 8/4/25 – Shechtman

New to me: 22a. [Critic Terry who incited a public feud when he accused Martin Amis of Islamophobia, in 2007], EAGLETON. Do even 2% of New Yorker solvers know this?

Fave fill: COINTELPRO ([F.B.I. operation that attacked social-justice movements using “tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society,” per a 1976 Senate report]–depicted in the film Judas and the Black Messiah), Isabella ROSSELLINI, TIGER MOM, FINANCE BRO, FRUITARIAN (I met a teenage fruitarian when I was in high school, haven’t met one since), EARMUFFS.

Not keen on ANIL, -ESE, NIM, STORERS, ETCHER, TERCE, TAIS, -ERN.

Happy birthday to LORI Lightfoot! Please don’t run for office again.

43a. [Erie Canal city], UTICA. Also a farm town in Minnesota, and the drag name of a RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant from said town. Utica is also known as Ethan Muntz, a designer competing on Project Runway this season. He lives in my area so I’m pulling for him.

3.5 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1806 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1806 — 8/4/25

This was more difficult for me than any of Brendan’s themeless puzzles in the last few months. There seemed to be a plethora of proper nouns that I didn’t know (or at least needed lots of crosses f0r).

Some of the clues didn’t make sense for a long time, some are questionable, and at least one doesn’t seem to fit the answer:

• 1A [Not marked up] AT COST I wasn’t thinking prices but of marked-up manuscripts.
• 14A [Dance with a repetitive name] CHA-CHA/56A [Dance with a repetitive name] NAE NAE I started out with NAE NAE in the wrong place.
• 19A [Riotous feeling?] UNEASE It’s a perfectly fine clue that took forever to click with me.
• 20A [Becomes highly developed?] CITIFIES Nice clue that also didn’t click easily.
• 30A [“Dizz Knee Land” band] DADA I’ve never heard of the band or the song, but at least it’s a change from clueing Dada as the early 20th century avant-garde art movement.
• 34A [Affix one’s John Hancock] SIGN ON THE LINE “Sign on the dotted line” seems more natural to my ear, even when the line is solid.
• 37A [Like some hospital wards] PRENATAL I stuck with NEONATAL for too long.
• 38A [Fed. accident investigator] NTSB One of my few gimmes.
• 42A [Punching Rousey] RONDA Of all the sports I don’t follow, women’s mixed martial arts might be the one that I don’t follow the most. I see that she won a bronze medal in judo at the 2008 Olympics, which is impressive — but also relatively speaking a long time ago. The H-less spelling of her name didn’t help me, either.
• 56A [(Come) out for all to see] INTO VIEW I see now how this clue works, but I’m more used to seeing parenthetical prepositions in crossword clues, not parenthetical verbs.
• 60A [Routed] PASTED I had POSTED for a long time, which seems to better fit the clue. There might be some sports context in which routed and pasted are equivalent, but it seems like a stretch to me.
• 2D [Certain championships for some student athletes] THE NCAAS Again, my lack of sports-watching hurt me. I’ve never heard anyone refer to a collegiate championship, in any sport, as “The NCAAs.”
• 3D [Lifetime overseas government employees] CAREER DIPLOMATS I don’t know why I needed so many crosses for this one. I have a cousin who was a career State Department employee and was consul or assistant consul (deputy consul?) in some pretty cool places all over the world.
• 5D [Soft drink brand named after a mountain] SHASTA This should’ve been a gimme, but wasn’t.
• 9D [Only rapper to win a Best Metal Performance Grammy] ICE-T I didn’t know this factoid, though I do know who Ice-T is.
• 11D [“C’mon! Can’tcha take a joke?”] GEE I DIDN’T MEAN IT Is that phrase really all that iconic?
• 16D [Singer of the only a cappella song to reach #1 on Billboard’s charts] Bobby MCFERRIN, whose “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was annoyingly inescapable for much of 1988. Another factoid that I didn’t know, but at least I was familiar enough with the name that I could fill it in with a few crosses.
• 25D [Material found in nuts] IRON I’m not sure whether “nuts” is the edible kind or the threaded counterpart to bolts. I suppose it works either way.
• 28D [“Happy Gilmore 2” actor Cutkosky] ETHAN I know that movie is out now, but it’s not the kind of movie that appeals to me. I’m slightly embarrassed that I didn’t recognize that name, as we enjoyed Shameless, on which Ethan Cutowsky played Carl, the slightly sociopathic son who (spoiler alert) eventually becomes a cop.
• 40D [Hannah’s best friend on “Girls”] MARNIE Another name I didn’t know.
• 43D [Capital with the Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport] ASTANA Based on a dated dictionary entry, I was about to complain that the city is now known as Nur-Sultan, but Wikipedia says that was only a temporary name change in 2019. (Crosswords can be so educational!)

It wasn’t until I started writing that I noticed how aesthetically unpleasing I find this grid. There are two oddly-shaped lines of 11 blocks that look like the kind of stuff I came up with in my first attempts at puzzle construction, when I couldn’t get a fillable grid. It almost makes the puzzle feel like five midi puzzles.