Wednesday, August 6, 2025

AV Club 7:18 (Amy) [2.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:03 (Gareth) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:54 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (Kyle) [3.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:35 (Emily) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 7:04 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Lynn Lempel’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Pardon Me” — Eric’s Review

Lynn Lempel’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Pardon Me” — 8/6/25

Today’s theme is moral failure (shown below in red) thrown into some common phrases:

• 17A [Beginner-level job openings?] NOVICE VACANCIES
• 24A [Lousy swimmer in a school?] SINKING FISH
• 35A [Ian McEwan novel, and what’s needed in solving this puzzle?] ATONEMENT I’m not sure why it’s “needed in solving this puzzle,” given that the wacky theme answers satisfy the wacky theme clues. But the novel is quite good.
• 51A [Do what Elmer does tirelessly?] BEDEVIL BUGS That’s Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, for anyone unfamiliar with the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.
• 58A [Thanksgiving chef’s disaster?] COLLAPSED TURKEY

This theme might be more satisfying if the clues fit the original phrases, not the wacky ones (for example, if the clue for 17A were something along the lines of [Motel sign] and the solver had to figure out why VICE was in the middle). I solved by filling in gaps in the theme answers and finding the moral failures afterwards.

Other stuff:

• 6A [Invitation initialism] RSVP I lost a little time by starting with BYOB. Maybe next time I’ll wait and see what the crosses dictate.
• 10A [Skinny] DOPE, not INFO and definitely not THIN.
• 46A [Cape northeast of Boston] ANN I’m used to seeing a more ambiguous clue along the lines of [Massachusetts cape].
• 55A [Grand Canyon mount] MULE It took me longer than it should have to get this, given that I’ve hiked into the Grand Canyon three or four times, dodging mules and their waste every time.
• 3D [Monaco’s locale] RIVIERA Maybe that V is just too hard to work around, but you’d think that answer would be in more crossword puzzles given all those vowels.
• 11D [Hole in the head?] ORIFICE
• 63A [British aristocrat] EARL/13D [End for count or baron] ESS The British rank of “earl” is known as “count” in other countries (but you knew that).
• 40D [Buttercup’s cousin] ANEMONE I didn’t know this, but I don’t know all that much about botany.
• 45D [Dissolute behavior] LECHERY You’d think that great word would be more common given the prevalence of such awful behavior.
• 53D [Round units?] BEERS A kind of cute clue that I feel like I’ve seen before.

Hanh Huynh’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

A theme running in the Down answers today, with a bit of gentle wordplay:

Hanh Huynh’s New York Times Crossword — 8/6/25

• 3D [Item that has to be blown up before being filled with water] INFLATABLE POOL
• 9D [Rejuvenating break] POWER NAP
• 17D [Quick throw in football] SCREEN PASS
• 34D [Minor office injury] PAPER CUT What bugs me about paper cuts is not the pain (which is disproportionate to the injury), but getting blood all over the offending piece of paper.
• 11D [“You’re overthinking this” … or what might be said about 3-, 9-, 17- and 34-Down?] IT’S NOT THAT DEEP

I’m beginning to think I’m never again going to see a theme that’s essential to or even a little helpful in solving a puzzle. Like so many themed puzzles I’ve solved lately, this is a perfectly fine idea for uniting the theme answers. And I wouldn’t have thought to take the figurative “depth” of an intellectual concept and apply it to things that a more literally shallow.

But I solved the puzzle as if it were themeless, and I imagine many solvers did.

Still, the grid is generally nicely filled:

• 1A [Cursed look] EVIL EYE This superstition is found in culture all over the world and goes thousands of years. I like that answer as a start to the puzzle.
• 8A [Kia sedan renamed the K5 in 2020] OPTIMA About the only attention I pay to cars is whether they’re likely to hit me. I’m sure I’ve seen a K5, but that badge isn’t familiar to me.
• 15A [Major arteries] AORTAS In a crossword, it’s always the AORTA. The only question is what the last letter will be. Where’s the love for the pulmonary artery? The carotid arteries? The femoral arteries?
• 18A [Dances to a Chubby Checker song, say] TWISTS Who dusted that one off?
• 46A [One of just two original Monopoly tokens still made today] HAT I started with CAR. At least I was ⅓ right.
• 54A [Beethoven’s Third] EROICA Beethoven originally dedicated that symphony to Napoleon, but thought better of it when Napoleon declared himself emperor.
• 59A [Lose one’s shirt, say] UNDRESS A bit of misdirection that was lost on me, as I got this entirely from the crosses.
• 6D [Hurl, in modern lingo] YEET I’m bummed that I didn’t see this until just now. It’s a bit of “modern lingo” that I like, as crossword puzzles so often tempt me to yeet my iPad across the room.
• 24D [Peter Pan transport] BUS Perhaps a tough one for solvers who haven’t lived or traveled in the Northeast. Their routes are in New England and the Atlantic seaboard down to Washington, D.C.
• 35D [Animal on a “Hang in there!” inspirational poster] CAT I vividly remember that poster from the 1970s. Is it still around?

Zachary Edward-Brown’s USA Today Crossword, “My Stars! (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up

Goodness!

USA Today, August 06, 2024, “My Stars! (Freestyle)” by Zachary Edward-Brown

Favorite fill: TAJIN, AREWEDONE, ANYONEELSE, and GIVEADAMN

Stumpers: ASHE (new to me), AERIALYOGA (only “silks” came to mind; didn’t know about the yoga option), and STEWS (needed crossings since I make everything but stews in mine)

An enjoyable puzzle for midweek, with a fun grid and fairly smooth solve for me this morning. Tons of great, lengthy fill in this freestyle.

3.5 stars

~Emily

Dennis McCartney’s Universal crossword, “Make Ends Meet” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 8/6/25 • Wed • “Make Ends Meet” • McCartney • solution • 20250806

• 38a^R [Sport that includes the pole vault … or what can follow the respective halves of 17-, 31-, 45- or 64-Across] TRACK AND FIELD.
• 17a. [Dejected] BEATEN DOWN (beaten track, downfield).
• 31a. [It’s usually sunk last] EIGHT BALL (eight-track, ballfield); in the popular billiards game of that name .
• 45a. [Like socks after washing, often] INSIDE OUT (inside track, outfield). Hum, I don’t believe socks invert themselves in the wash, if that’s the implication of the clue.
• 64a. [Pursuit of a championship] TITLE CHASE (title track, Chase Field).

It’s a clever concept and I’m genuinely surprised there were enough answers for it to work as well as it does, even if one (64a) is significantly weaker than the others. It seems to me all of the ‘field’ components, with the possible exception of downfield are strongly if not exclusively associated with baseball, so that’s another notch down. Even so, it remains impressive.

• 2d [Chocolaty cereal] OREO O’S, which helped me correct 1a [Fill with cargo] from LADE to LOAD.
• 6d [Colorful brew] RED ALE. 20a [Floral brew] ROSE TEA.
• 12d [Like white mountains] SNOW-CLAD. Evocative.
• 13d [Spots for boarder collies?] KENNELS. Note the spelling of ‘boarder’.
• 38d [He was tormented with food and water that were just out of reach] TANTALUS. Whence ‘tantalizing’. As I learned it, his punishment in Tartarus was to stand in a pool of water under boughs laden with fruit; when he would bend down, the water would ebb, and when he reached for the fruit, a breeze would move the branches just beyond his grasp. Oh, and of course he was consumed with both hunger and thirst.
• 41d [Like a pilot with a fear of flying] IRONIC; 49d [Seasoned fighter pilot] AIR ACE.
• 54d [Cub Scout leader] AKELA. Named for a wolf in The Jungle Book.
• 63d [Obsolescent music holders] CDS. I still actively collect them, though I transfer them all to a digital library.
• 65d [Pearl Jam album whose title is a number] TEN. Their début, which I’ve just learned was named after the jersey number of the basketball player Mookie Blaylock.
• 10a [Siberian city] OMSK. You know you’ve been doing crosswords too long when you can fill this in with no crossings in place.
• 14a [Fictitious film used as cover in the “Canadian Caper”] ARGO. A Best Picture Oscar winner. Last night I watched another four-letter film with that distinction, Coda. There’s a third—can you think of it?
• 21a [Gothic leader?] NEO-. Interesting choice in the clue.
• 25a [Oates’ partner] HALL. Clue should probably specify ‘onetime’.
• 27a [It’s absurd] FARCE.
  
• 36a [Not at work, for short] OOO, out-of-office.
• 37a [Journalistic concern] BIAS. How quaint, alas.
• 60a [Cross-country vacation?] SKI TRIP. Even with the signalling question mark, the clue’s misdirection fooled me.

Paolo Pasco’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Work Breaks”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 8/6/25 – “Work Breaks”

Took me a while (after filling the whole grid) to grasp the theme. The revealer is 10d. [Place where “innies” work at Lumon Industries, in a hit Apple TV+ series … or what each theme entry in this puzzle has?], SEVERED FLOOR. I didn’t see the second half of the clue while solving. The bottom of the other three longest Downs (the “floor”) severs a letter into two vertical components. Athletic cup turns into ATHLETIC CUDI, with that P splitting into D and I, and the clue referencing rapper Kid Cudi. “AY, THERE’S THE RUDD” splits a terminal B into DD. And Meatless Monday becomes MEATLESS MONDAVI, Mondavi being a Cali vineyard.

Fave fill: SKYPE DATE of recent yore, JODHPUR.

Didn’t know this was a term: 36d. [“Without Me” (for the Detroit Red Wings) and “Puck Off” (for the Dallas Stars)], GOAL SONGS.

Four stars from me.

Chandi Deitmer & Claire Rimkus’ LA Times crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

Chandi Deitmer & Claire Rimkus have assembled a very cute list theme, four jobs that require expertise in smelling, tied together with the punchline NOSEJOB. They are:

• [Professional who makes a lot of scents], PERFUMER
• […who sniffs out crime], POLICEDOG
• […who helps you breathe easy], ALLERGIST
• […who stops to smell the roses], SOMMELIER

Gareth