BEQ 10:07 (Eric) 
[3.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:21 (Gareth) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 12:16 (ZDL) [2.81 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:47 (Eric) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 15:04 (Emily) 
[2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 20+ (Jim Q) [3.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
The Fireball is on vacation until September.
Adrian Johnson’s Universal Crossword “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” — Eric’s Review (and Unsolicited Driving Tips)
Adrian Johnson’s Universal Crossword “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” — 8/14/25
The theme didn’t really help me solve the puzzle, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway:
- 19A [Coach on the slopes] SKI INSTRUCTOR Adrian Johnson, you had me here. Ski season is coming!
- 28A [One using a rod and reel] FISHERMAN I’m all in favor of gender-neutral language (See Sec. 311.012, Texas Government Code), but “fisherperson” just sounds weird to me.
- 40A [Professional in a red truck] FIREFIGHTER Firefighters rock. And not just because they’re typically hunky as can be. (Does anyone else remember a movement in the 1970s to paint fire trucks an electric yellow green that was supposed to be more easily seen than red? Whatever happened to that?)
- 52A [Best starting spot in auto racing … or 19-, 28- or 40-Across?] POLE POSITION I like that the types of poles in the theme answers are so different.
The last time I took a ski lesson, the INSTRUCTOR noted that I almost never planted my POLEs in the snow. So we worked on that (among other things; my first “ski instructor” was my dad, so who knows how well I really learned to ski). The next season, on my first run, I attempted to plant my pole to turn and managed to stick it between my skis. If you ski, you know that was a mistake. If you don’t ski, think about it for a second and you’ll see why that didn’t work so well.
Other stuff:
- 13A [(Get out of the fast lane!)] BEEP Not HONK. Please don’t use your horn that way. I used to be that kind of driver and I’m glad I’m not anymore. (Guess who also taught me to drive.) Honk away if someone’s about to run into you.
- 17A [“My name is ___ Montoya”] INIGO Nothing against the 17th century English architect, but I’m always good with a Princess Bride clue. (But I miss the “You killed my father. Prepare to die.”)
33A [“Seeing red,” “feeling blue” and “going green”] IDIOM. I really wanted SYNESTHESIA to fit.- 39A [Get dealt 9-8-7 in blackjack, say] BUST I haven’t played blackjack in decades, but wouldn’t most players stand at 17?
- 49A [Beethoven’s “Moonlight ___”] SONATA I hope that was a gimme for you even if you don’t listen to much classical music.
- 3D [King of Spain since 2014] FELIPE I blanked on that until I had the F from ARFS. But I also can’t remember who the current prime minister of Spain is.
- 10D [What a sassy person has] SMART MOUTH I feel seen.
- 21D [___ the line (didn’t act up)] TOED Not TOWED. (But you knew that.)
- 30D [Part of a meaty rack] RIB I misread the clue and thought it said “meaty snack.” Which I suppose it could be, but ribs seem a bit heavy for a snack.
- 38D [“Full speed ahead!”] STEP ON IT One of the best things I learned in driver’s education was to imagine an egg between your foot and the gas pedal. Try it sometime.
- 53D [Perfect, as writing] EDIT A good editor is a wonderful thing to have, even if the end product is never perfect.
Just one question: What does the title have to do with the theme? Yes, poles have “ends,” but so do lots of things. (Not that it matters; if a puzzle is going to give me an earworm, let it be a good song.) UPDATE: North Pole. South Pole. Duh.
Gene Louise De Vera’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: On the slow side (12m16s)
Gene Louise De Vera’s New York Times crossword, 8/14/25, 0814
Today’s theme: IN JEOPARDY (At risk … or where one might hear the clue-and-answer pairs at 17-, 23-, 39-, 41- and 53-Across?)
- WHAT IS LOVE
- WHOS THE BOSS
- WHATS UP
- WHOS WHO
- WHATS THE TEA
- ALEX Trebek
I liked the conversational nature of the theme clues, which really do make you feel like you’re watching the show. I’m probably missing something, but I’m not sure what the relationship is between the different subjects and the corresponding questions. Great long fill though, including ARS POETICA, TWO FOR TWO, PR DISASTER, and…
Cracking: BANG UP JOB
Slacking: RAT TRAPs make me sad. We recently used a catch-and-release trap to relocate a wee mousey to a field a few miles away. No one had to die, everybody wins.
Sidetracking: LITHE
David Y. Lin & Sita C. Palepu’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Misplaced” — Jim Q’s write-up
*These constructors have not been previously tagged on this site, so it’s likely this is a debut. Congrats!
THEME: Capital cities are hidden in common words to make up a common phrase
THEME ANSWERS:
- [*Ordered from Peru] RAN LIKE MAD. LIMA (Peru) is hidden in RANKED (ordered) to make the phrase RAN LIKE MAD.
- [*British museum in France] PATRIATES. PARIS (France) is hidden in TATE (British museum) to make PATRIATES.
- [*Cookware from Italy] PROMOTES. ROME (Italy) is hidden in POTS (cookware) to make PROMOTES.
- [*Club from Ghana] BACCARAT. ACCRA (Ghana) is hidden in BAT (Club) to make BACCARAT.
- [*Sample from Morocco] DREAM BOAT. RABAT (Morocco) is hidden in DEMO (sample) to make DREAM BOAT.
- [Places to discover, and a hint to the answers to the starred clues] LOST CITIES.
I’ve only been doing the Thursday WSJ for a couple of months, but they’ve already carved out a spot as some of the most challenging puzzles of my week. This one was no exception.
The hardest part for me was the theme execution. Without circles to show where the city letters landed, I had no foothold. Would circles have made it too easy? Personally, no. I think it still would’ve had a nice bite if I knew where either the city letters or the common word went. That way, knowing one could help uncover the other. If the city was spelled out consecutively, sure, circles might make it a breeze. But here? Ouch. Whether I knew the capitals or not was irrelevant — the theme clues might as well have been written in invisible ink.
Add to that some very tough cluing in the fill, and this one pushed me into “painful but stubbornly persistent” mode. Twenty-something grueling minutes later, I finally finished. Victory? Yes. Enjoyable? …not so sure about that yet.
New to Me / Stumbles / Out of Memory’s Reach
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BEN Casparius — Never met a sports name I couldn’t forget instantly.
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TAKE ON for [Challenge] — Works like: “The Yankees will challenge the Red Sox” / “The Yankees will take on the Red Sox.” Not my first thought.
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SIZERS for [Jeweler’s tools] — I see “jewelers,” I type “LOUPES.” Old habits die hard.
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OLEGS [Boxers Grigoryev and Saitov] — Haven’t bumped into a couple of Olegs in a while.
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AERO [Bubbly Nestlé chocolate brand] — Not a stumble! Had just solved an NYT with AERO, so it was a gimme.
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MECH [Large piloted robot, in sci-fi] — If you say so.
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LOL CAT [Meme making fun of “hoomums,” perhaps] — Not my meme of choice, but crosswords sure love them.
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BAR SOAP [Hotel amenity] — My brain went for champagne fountains; the grid went for Super 8 basics.
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EMAILER [Keyboard correspondent] — This still doesn’t feel like a real word.
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TCU [The Horned Frogs’ sch.] — At least the U is always a gimme. Usually it’s an S before the U in the sch. clue though. Not this time.
Impressive theme answers and finds, but I think the circles (or some indication as to where to find the city letters in the themers) would’ve been a game changer for me, enjoyment-wise.
2.5 stars from me
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1809 “Watch Out!” — Eric’s Review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1809 “Watch Out!” — 8/14/25
We’re staying with friends this week in a rented cabin on the edge of the Weminuche Wilderness Area and want to get out for a hike before it’s too hot. I’d hoped to be able to at least explain the theme, but since I haven’t yet figured it out, I’m just going to post the solution grid.
More later.
______
The hike was nice, thanks. We didn’t actually get into the Weminuche, just the Rio Grande National Forest.
Based solely on grid symmetry and letter counts, I assume we’ve got six theme answers:
- 17A [Start of a coin flip call where the outcome is fixed] HEADS I WIN
- 22A [“Yucky!”] EW GROSS
- 26A [Start the job] GET DOWN TO WORK
- 43A [Sailing vessel whose sails are aligned with the keel] FORE-AND-AFT RIG We used to own a 14-foot sloop (a fore-and-aft rigged vessel) that was a lot of fun to sail. I’m partly glad we got rid of it and partly sad that I may never sail again boat again.
- 48A [Charge from an idling cab] WAIT FEE I’ve never lived in a city where cabs were a predominant form of transportation and don’t know that term, but it was easy enough to figure out.
- 57A [Some IG poses with pouty lips] DUCK FACES “IG” is presumably Instagram. I’ve seen young women in these poses and I just don’t get it.
Based on the title “Watch Out,” I further assume that each theme answer has a word that works with OUT: Heads Out, Gross Out, Get Out (or maybe Work Out), Rig Out, Wait Out and Duck Out.
Meh. If that’s the theme, it didn’t help me solve the puzzle and it’s not particularly amusing. (Readers, if you have a different idea as to what the theme is, please speak up in the comments.)
Treating the puzzle as a themeless one, it’s fine The first four theme answers are all relatively interesting. WAIT FEE makes me want to go to sleep (or maybe that’s the hike). DUCK FACES? You decide.
Other stuff:
- 9A [Ignore texts, emails, calls, etc.] GHOSTS Unless the person you’re cutting off contact with has serious psychological problems, ghosting is just chickenshit behavior.
- 19A [Jeff Tweedy’s band] WILCO Well, Uncle Tupelo didn’t fit. And it corrected my spelling of 9D GEWGAWS, which I had spelled with a double E (a legit variation).
- 21A [Music purchases that come with download codes] LPS I own two turntables, but haven’t bought an LP in decades. I’ve seen download codes with CDs, though.
- 38A [Olfactory hint] SMELL. Not SCENT. Not AROMA. Not even an Anglophilic ODOUR (hi, pannonica).
- 61A [Arthur who raised a racket] ASHE That’s a cute clue. Maybe too cute.
- 4D [Coach Lasso with a “Believe” wall poster] TED The poster is an important plot point, but “Coach Lasso” would have been a sufficient clue. If you’re going to refer to the poster, don’t give us the surname.
- 8D [Number of Grammys Queen won] NONE That doesn’t particularly surprise me. The Recording Academy has notoriously bad taste (not that I am a big Queen fan).
- 23D [Fingerprint mark] WHORL When I was a kid, I read about some career criminal who attempted to avoid capture by using sandpaper to remove the whorls on his fingertips, which he hoped would leave him with unidentifiable blank fingerprints. It didn’t work because he ended up with distinctive scars on his fingers. He probably had trouble picking up small objects, too.
- 41D [Styles worn by Art Garfunkel and Bob Dylan] JEWFROS I’m not Jewish. Is that term offensive?
Shannon Rapp & Will Eisenberg’s USA Today Crossword, “Light My Fire” — Emily’s write-up
No matches needed!
USA Today, August 14, 2025, “Light My Fire” by Shannon Rapp & Will Eisenberg
Theme: each themer begins with a component for starting a campfire
Themers:
- 17a. [Meetup for those who swiped the right way], TINDERDATE
- 38a. [Activist Amariyanna Copeny’s hometown], FLINTMICHIGAN
- 62a. [Establishment whose patrons are masked], OXYGENBAR
This set has a fun through-line with the theme: TINDERDATE, FLINTMICHIGAN, and OXYGENBAR. Loved the title hint that started this blaze. A fun “end-of-the-summer” final bonfire! Who brought the s’mores?
Favorite fill: COMEONIN, FISTBUMP, ERRATA, and LILACS
Stumpers: GENE (mis-directed by the cluing—very clever!), PASSE (only “blasé” came to mind), and MOSS (tried “fern” and “reed” first)
I may have had an off day, since I found this puzzle very challenging. The cluing was tough for me but everything was fairly crossed, though some sections were slower to fill in than others. Overall, the fill isn’t particularly difficult so perhaps it was just me today. How’d you all do?
3.5 stars
~Emily
Kathy Lowden’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
This LA Times crossword by Kathy Lowden features an unusually visual high-concept theme. There is one central revealing answer: SPLITLEVELHOUSE. Then, spelt out in circles, we have VILLA, COTTAGE, MANSION and RANCH, all split across three rows. Ms. Lowden resisted the urge to use RONDAVEL…
Gareth
NYT: I think the point is the themers are correct questions to the answers. And the themers themselves mean others things when they stand alone.
I warmed up to the theme after I finished. But I still am turned off of Jeopardy! since now it seems everyone needs a jumping around strategy that, to me, makes the show unwatchable. But that’s just me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Yeah, James Holzhauer kind of broke the game as a viewing experience. He’s not the first champion who ever jumped around the board like that, but he was on for like a month straight and won a ton of money, so now everyone does it. It makes the whole game hinge on who stumbles across the Daily Doubles, and it’s a bit annoying to watch. It’s a bummer when games or sports get “solved” like that. For instance, basketball.
Anyway, the grid was fine. Side note, I’m not a prude but is there some kind of competition to see how many people can work ASS into their fill? It’s getting kind of ridiculous.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 2 stars
WSJ: Tough Thursday.
IMO 1A always sets the tone for a grid, and to use an obscure relief pitcher who has played in 40 career games for “BEN” seems unnecessary and unfair. There must be at least 50 Bens more famous than this one.
For 58A, I think “hoomans” is the correct term. I Googled “hoomum” and found no results.
I follow baseball pretty closely every day and have never heard of BEN Casparius until now. I’d be surprised if anyone other than his family, friends, and devoted Dodgers fans know who he is.
This puzzle was a real grinder for me. My solve time was more than twice my 6-month WSJ Thursday median and higher than all but 5 of 495 completed Thursdays in my solving database.
WSJ: That’s not today’s grid.
Oops. Damn. I’ll fix asap.
Fixed I think! Thanks :)
Thank you. This one was over the top for me.
Puzzle: BEQ; Rating: 5 stars
BEQ I think the theme answers are the first words of the long across answers:
Heads, Get Down, Fore, and Duck. All can be loosely interpreted to mean “Watch Out”. Anyone see a better explanation?
I like your explanation better than the review’s.
I too like Triggert’s explanation better than the review’s, although I’ve never heard HEADS as a warning, just HEADS UP!
I’ve heard HEADS as, you guessed it, an elision of HEADS UP.
Re BEQ: enjoy your hike, Eric.
I think the starred clues all start with synonyms for “Watch Out” – “Heads”, “Ew” (didn’t do it for me), “Get Down”, “Fore”, and “Duck”. I’ve heard “Heads” before but would be more comfortable with “Heads Up”.
I had to look up “IG” – I think that in the context of the platform having changed its name to “Insta”, this is a legacy word like “dial” is to “phone”.
I heard a comedian once suggest that he’d like to take someone with a “Duckface” pose and bring them home to clean his fish tank. Enough said.
Thanks. It was a pleasant hike slightly delayed by Google Maps routing us the wrong way to the trailhead.
And thanks for your take on the theme. It seems to work well with FORE and DUCK. I’m not sure it works with the others.
NYT: A fun theme, I thought – if a little less tricky than some Thursdays. I caught on to the theme after WHAT IS LOVE, and it helped with the solve while providing some smiles along the way. The fact that all the theme entries have a familiar meaning aside from the clue is a nice touch (actually, WHAT’S THE TEA isn’t familiar to me, but I assume it’s a request to “spill the tea.”)
Seemed to be going pretty smoothly until I got to the SE. I’ve heard of ARS POETICA, but couldn’t bring it to mind – kept wanting it to be AD-something. I didn’t know the Cassatt painting, nor the Canadian mountain. Went with CAN before CHA, and had a hard time seeing COAX. But still finished in what felt like a fast Thursday time.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
As a Jeopardy fan, I found this to be an enjoyable puzzle with an entertaining theme.
Sadly, I also thought it was lacking in terms of both general difficulty and Thursday “trickiness” – my fastest Thursday in over a year, in fact. In terms of solving time, it would’ve been on the easy side even as a Wednesday puzzle.
Right at the get-go, I patted myself on the back for remembering ATP from high school biology, and thought that was a risky play to start off with at 1A. But from reading the various blogs, it appears that lots of people recalled that acronym, so OK then. My condolences to those who had no idea.
One big problem for me: the revealer works with the “at risk” part of the clue, but absolutely not with the “where one might hear…” part. The answer to that would be “ON Jeopardy”, no ifs, ands, or buts.
The long downs BANGUP JOB and ARS POETICA were pretty great as added attractions, but otherwise the fill was rather “meh.” So all-in-all, a moderately entertaining puzzle that didn’t really live up to my Thursday expectations.
I agree that *ON* JEOPARDY is much better than IN, but IN is justifiable. To my ear, IN would be preferential in certain constructs, peculiarly, where the sentence begins with the phrase: “In ‘Jeopardy’, all the contestants have to pass a pretest.”; “In ‘Jeopardy’ the answers are questions.”; “In ‘Wheel of Fortune’ you don’t need to know that much trivia.”, etc.
I don’t disagree – but to my ear, “in” refers to the actual meaning of the word, whereas “on” refers to the show. Although your construction is, as you say, “justifiable”, the context of your examples is different from the theme revealer. The answer to the clue “at risk” is clearly “in Jeopardy”, but the as the answer to the clue ” where one might hear the clue-and-answer pairs …” using “in” instead of “on” is a stretch.
Interesting that there would be a “Seinfeld” clip associated with this review, regarding the word “Lithe”. The Jeopardy question reminds me of one of his standup routines where he says that you can live “IN” New York, but “ON” Long Island – or you can ride “IN” a taxi, but “ON” a train.
The question of Holzhauer’s (and others’) strategy – this would make zero difference if the placement of the Daily Doubles was truly random – every clue would have a 1/n (where n=number of remaining clues) chance of revealing a Daily Double in the first round, adjusted accordingly for the second. But the DD’s are not random, they are placed based on an algorithm. Contestants know, for example, that two DD’s in Double Jeopardy are never placed in the same column – so they should always switch categories upon discovering the first one.
In Watson’s programming, an analysis of the placement of the Daily Doubles over ~3,000 games was programmed in to its game-play. According to ChatGPT,
“When IBM prepared Watson for the 2011 Jeopardy! matches, they didn’t just train it to answer questions — they also taught it where to hunt for DDs. They pulled historical clue placement data from the J! Archive and quantified things like:
Row bias: DDs are almost never in the top row, heavily clustered in rows 3–5.
Column bias: Certain columns (esp. #1) are more likely; others (#2, #6) less so.
Double Jeopardy rule: The two DDs never share a column.
Round 1 constraint: Exactly one DD, and it follows similar positional biases.
Watson’s game engine used a Bayesian model — updating the probability of each remaining clue containing a DD based on which clues had already been opened and the producers’ historical tendencies. That way, when it chose a clue, it was maximizing the chance of hitting a DD given the skewed distribution, not assuming every square was equally likely.
This is why Watson’s clue selection sometimes looked “chaotic” to human viewers — it wasn’t random, it was targeted DD-hunting based on these patterns.”
James Holzhauer didn’t “break” Jeopardy any more than a contestant that spends countless hours researching questions, or one who learns how to time “ringing in” on a question optimally. It’s part of the game.
If this is a problem for viewers, the responsibility is on the show. If they don’t want people jumping around the board trying to guess where the Daily Doubles are, they would place them in a truly random fashion.
The game is not just about knowing the answers to trivia, any more than football is just about being bigger and faster than your opponent, or baseball is just about hitting the ball and running. There are multiple levels of strategy involved.
Jumping around the board goes all the way back to Chuck Forrest, who would have lasted a lot more than five games if that was allowed in the 1980s. But currently we’re in an era of looking for the “meta” in games or sports – “meta” is borrowed from video games and it’s an acronym that stands for Most Effective Tactic Available. So Holzhauer got a lot more notice than Forrest or Watson or anyone else who did it.
The fix is as you say, place the Daily Doubles truly at random and try to realign the best play strategy with the most watchable TV show.
I also wonder if the show’s producers tried to discourage people from hopping around the board and Holzhauer just ignored them. If you watch Wheel of Fortune, the players have an annoying tendency to spin the wheel once and then try to buy vowel after vowel, which is an insane strategy. I bet the Wheel producers encourage that as well.
@Eric I am Jewish, and yes, it is offensive.
Thanks.
Me too, (Jewish), but I’m not offended. From “The Jewish Press”,
“In his 2010 special, “Hilarious,” Louis C.K. noted that the word “Jew” is “the only word that is the polite thing to call a group of people and the slur for the same group. … It’s the same word, just with a little stank on it, and it becomes a terrible thing to call a person.”
Curly hair is a very common trait among Ashkenazi populations; there’s an interesting discussion of the genetics here – https://hairspeaks.net/40541/why-do-ashkenazi-jews-have-curly-hair/
Although I have Ashkenazi blood, I don’t have curly hair – but if I did, whether or not I would be offended by the term “Jewfro” would depend on the amount of “stank” on it.
Thanks.
It never occurred to me that it would be offensive to Jews. I thought it might be offensive to black people.
That too.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 4.5 stars
This crossword puzzled the heck out of me at first, but I eventually figured out the capital cities hiding in the answers. And the review above explained the remaining letters spelled out a reference to the clue.
This is an amazing feat by creators David Lin & Sita Palepu!
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4 stars
I think creator Kathy Lowden did a great job in making the four theme answers spread across three rows. Good one!