LAT untimed (pannonica) 
[3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 9:52 (Jim P) 
[4.29 avg; 24 ratings] rate it
Universal 7:24 (Jim P) 
[2.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) 
[1.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Gia Bosko’s New York Times crossword—Jim P’s review
Jim P. here sitting in for Amy.
NY Times crossword solution, 8 22 25, no. 0822
We have a lovely themeless grid with plenty of meaty entries to sink our teeth into today, so let’s get started. I love nearly all of those grid-spanning entries: REVERSE ENGINEER, FAIRY TALE ENDING, RAISE THE CURTAIN, TRADITIONAL IRAS, and TAKE NO PRISONERS. What a lively set! BINGO PARLOR is another fun entry, and while I didn’t know the name SAMUEL CHASE, it fell fairly easily with the crossings.
That said, the bottom half of the grid was much easier than the top for me. I got bogged down at 1d with GABS instead of ARFS for the clue [Yaps]. Adding to my troubles I kept trying to work “feathers” into the peacock entry which eventually became OSTENTATION. I was happy to see AMANDA Gorman at 31a, and I’m sure our tech guru Dave enjoyed PET GOAT. My one misstep in the middle was going with NAKED instead of TONED for [Buff]. About the only clunky entry I saw was LA RAM [Super Bowl LVI winner, in brief].
Clues of note:
- 15a [Disassemble in order to understand]. REVERSE ENGINEER. I’ve been doing the Minute Cryptic puzzle nearly every day now, and quite often I find myself getting the answer then having to REVERSE ENGINEER the clue to understand it.
- 21a [Becky on “Full House” and Esther on “Sanford and Son”]. AUNTS. Never watched Full House, but Sanford and Son was on in our house back in the day. I had to recall who Fred Sanford always called out to when he pretended to have a heart attack (it was his late wife Elizabeth). Esther was his sister-in-law and aunt to his son Lamont.
- 28d [Its national anthem has no words]. SPAIN. So, what, do they just hum along?
Fun, smooth puzzle. Four stars.
Brian Keller & Katie Hale’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 8/22/25 • Fri • Keller, Hale • solution • 20250822
- 55aR [Increase pressure, or an apt title for this puzzle?] TURN UP THE HEAT. Could’ve sworn I saw a theme like this years ago, but a search of the DoaCF site doesn’t turn up anything similar. In any case, it’s nicely executed here.
- 20a. [Diamonds can cut glass, corundum can scratch most other minerals, et al.?] COOL HARD FACTS. cold → cool
- 34a. [Director’s guidance to be more affable?] PLAY IT WARM. cool → warm
- 41a. [Stuffed animals that go viral?] HOT FUZZIES. warm → hot. This was the first theme answer I got, so I naturally thought the play was on the 2007 Edgar Wright film Hot Fuzz, the second in the so-called Cornetto Trilogy.
So as you can see, the increases are by degrees, and in order.
- 5a [Is into] DIGS. Filled this in, took it out when I saw 7d (mentioned above), then put it back in.
9a [Espresso or cappuccino, to Italians] CAFFÉ.- 45a [Brink] EVE. Best I could think of was the subpar RIM, so I wisely waited for some crossing information.
- 61a [Group concerned with ergonomics] OSHA. A gimme.
- 65a [Book maker] PRESS. Note that the clue is two words and not a gambling bookmaker.
- 2d [Series opener?] PILOT. Television, not sports. Absent the question mark, this would have been a stronger misdirection.
- 7d [Calendar page, maybe] GRID. Not the typical DAY or WEEK or MONTH.
- 11d [What one might Bumble into?] FIRST DATE. 1a [Signal and Line] APPS.
- 28d [Buffing and painting services] MANIS. No question mark this time. See also 16a [Group calling strikes] UNION, 37a [Staff leaders] CLEFS.
- 31d [Shade in the desert] OCHER. Nice one.
- 32d [Orange studder, at Christmas] CLOVE. Took me a couple of beats to process ‘studder’.
- 36d [“Gosh darn it”] WELL, SHOOT. 26d [Consigns to hell] DAMNS.
- 38d [South-facing gardens, perhaps] SUN TRAPS. Not a term I’ve heard, but easily inferable.
- 42d [“Pillowtalk” singer] ZAYN Malik. Is he mononymic now? I don’t believe so? The clue should at least have a ‘familiarly’ qualifier, then.
- 54d [Bambi and others] STAGS. At the end of the story, yep.
Chad Hazen and Jeff Chen’s Universal crossword, “Movin’ On Up”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar words and phrases that feature the letters STAR, except said STARs are found in the words below the asterisked answers. The STARless entries are still valid—though unclued—crossword words. The revealer is RISING STAR (55a, [Person whose stock is climbing … or what each asterisked clue’s answer receives from the row below it?]).
Universal crossword solution · “Movin’ on Up” · Chad Hazen and Jeff Chen · Fri., 8.22.25
- 17a. [*San Jose resident] COPERNICAN with 20a CUSTARD => Costa Rican.
- 23a. [*Letter-writing and map-reading, these days] LOOKOUTS with 27a UPSTART => Lost arts.
- 47a. [*It’s smaller than a blackbird] LISA LING with 62a STARK => Starling.
Very nice. I struggled in that NW corner before I realized what was going on. I also struggled with that third entry when I went with PSATS for the clue [Trials before trials?]. In hindsight, LSATS is the obvious correct answer there, giving us the correct theme answer of journalist LISA LING. Overall, it’s an effective theme, and I especially like that no entry uses STAR with any of its traditional meanings (i.e. a bright object in the sky, a famous person, or a 5-pointed shape).
I love that SW stack of “I GET IT NOW” and “OH, SUSANNA“. In the NE, INPOURING is meh, but MEANT TO BE is plenty fun. STETSONS, GEMINIS, and “WAIT A SEC” are also assets as well. Never heard the phrase VIN ROSÉ [Pink French wine], but it was inferable once I got enough crossings. Good long fill despite stacked theme answers in three of the four corners.
Clue of note: 21a. [Small steak]. T-BONE. I don’t generally think of these as small. Just me?
Good puzzle. Four stars.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
nice smooth Friday NYT. also had NAKED and YAPS like Jim hah. 4* for me
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Clean, well clued and total pleasure to solve. Enough clever cluing to give a solver plenty of Aha smiles.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Enjoyed this one too. The long answers were really nice. NACRE/NOOR was basically a natick or else I think I would have scored it even higher.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
I started with PEARL/POOR there, along with SAMUEL ADAMS, but eventually fixed it with the crosses.
I had _ACRE/_OOR and eventually had to look up Queen NOOR. Whereupon I saw some wildly upsetting (but not at all surprising) things about the current Queen of Jordan.
Funny to call that a Natick when those clues were practically the only things I knew when I began. Then again, my great-nephew worked in Natick for a few years.
Same — NACRE and NOOR were the first answers I was absolutely sure of on my first pass, followed by ROTH and TRADITIONAL IRAS. Getting those in quick succession pretty well broke the grid open for me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT: I enjoyed this puzzle. I had never heard of SAMUEL CHASE before today. Even after I finished the puzzle, I had him confused with Salmon P Chase, who was Chief Justice and Secretary of the Treasury at a somewhat later time period.
From Wikipedia, it appears that SAMUEL CHASE was impeached for political reasons. He was a Federalist. Jefferson, who was a Democratic-Republican and the President at the time, wanted him gone. Interestingly, although there were enough Democratic-Republicans in the Senate to have been able to convict him potentially, enough of the Senators of the time voted their own conscience that none of the votes were even close to conviction. The defeat of Chase’s impeachment reinforced the independence of the judiciary.
Is it a coincidence that Gia Bosko, the constructor, and Will Shortz decided to have SAMUEL CHASE in the puzzle, when there are definite echoes of Chase’s situation in today’s political climate (except our Republican Senators seem to be made of different stuff than those in the 1800s)? Only they know, and I imagine The Powers That Be at the Times might not be happy about their introducing a political element into the Crossword page if it had been done deliberately. But whether purposeful or not, I thank them for helping educate NYT readers, reminding us that things weren’t always the way they are now, and that we can work towards a day when things are different again.
NYT: agreed. Nice smooth Friday.
There was some chatter about whether the Wednesday puzzle was a ‘coincidence’ or not to plug the new Pips puzzle.
One need only do today’s mini(by Ian Livengood, of course) to answer that question.
Nice NYT. I held off on the NW section until the end, because I wasn’t sure what 1D or 1A were going to be. And I was pretty sure I knew Camil(l)a CABEL(L)O except I wanted a second ‘l’ in her first name and only one in her last name.
I generally go with log on(to) rather than long in(to), which caused a small delay. And I had _UNTS for 21A and thought, no, it can’t possibly be that! And it wasn’t.
lol
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT – Great Friday crossword! Terrific cluing.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Lovely NYT themeless from Gia Bosko. 5 stars
Got to join in the praise for the NYT. Great grid, leading to many entries of serious length without compensating by lots of 3-letter words. Some good misdirection and learning experiences like CHASE, too, with virtually no pop trivia except for maybe CABELO.
Agreed with Jim that the top, or at least the topmost stack, was harder than the bottom. Starting with the first to spring to the eye, I naturally wondered if I’d ever get a foothold.
I too ran through the bottom to get stymied at the top. I had ADAPTeR instead of ADAPTOR which slowed me down with OSTENTATION; “fast” instead of LENT too. But eventually it all came together, slightly faster than average. Really nice Friday!
This was my experience almost exactly (except that I was further slowed down at the top by having no idea about CABELLO).
TRADITIONAL IRAS was kind of a boring answer, but also very easy to get, so it really opened up that bottom section, and from there I worked my way back up to the top fairly quickly.
FAIRY TALE ENDING and TAKE NO PRISONERS were the highlights of the grid, IMO.
On the easy side for a Friday, but a very clean grid.
I had “windy” before GUSTY, and I thought of LENT right away. But I couldn’t enter it until I took a second look at the crossing. It took only a second. I had lots, though, that took me longer!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Very smooth and well clued puzzle today.
Loved the Oreo cow clue. Real name is Belted Galloway. Learned that a couple years back when we noticed a ranch near us raising them.
Am I missing an inside joke, or is this comment as cruel as it seems?
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 2.5 stars
The Universal puzzle was built around a good idea, but had some fatal flaws.
RISING STAR as the revealer makes sense, but the clue’s wording is tortured: “what each asterisked clue’s answer receives from the row below it?” If the themers “receive” a STAR, what happens to the PERN, OKOU, and LISA? Are they overwritten? Do they evaporate? In the grid, it looks like the answer jogs down to include part of the answer below it, rather than the STAR rising. This needed more work to make sense, IMO.
And that SW corner also needed help. BAREST clued as “Most sparse” incredibly weak, and crossing that with the name of a TV news person was deadly. Not being a TV watcher, I had zero idea what LISALING was supposed to be.