BEQ 8:26 (Eric) 
[3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:41 (Stella) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:30ish (Sophia) 
[3.86 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 3:33 (Jenni) [3.64 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) 
[1.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) 
[2.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Ryan Mathiason’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Recap
Theme: Things that may be ON THE LINE, in various ways
New York Times, 08 25 2025, By Ryan Mathiason
- 17a [Fish commonly caught in the Upper Midwest] – LAKE TROUT
- 24a [Player protecting a QB’s blind side, often] – LEFT TACKLE
- 38a [Household chore traditionally done on Mondays] – LAUNDRY
- 50a [Salesperson making unsolicited phone contact] – COLD CALLER
- 62a [At stake … or where you may find 17-, 24-, 38- and 50-Across] – ON THE LINE
Great finds for different types of lines! LAKE TROUT might be on a fishing line, the LEFT TACKLE is part of the offensive line, LAUNDRY hangs on a clothesline, and a COLD CALLER is on the telephone line. I didn’t know where this puzzle was going while I solved it (did anyone else think from the first two entries we were in for an “LT” puzzle?), and I was happily surprised with the eventual reveal. I needed most of the crosses for LAKE TROUT (wanted “walleye” at first) and I didn’t know that LAUNDRY was traditionally done on Monday. I’m actually doing a load of laundry as I write this!
The puzzle flowed very well for me, and the fill felt very clean and Monday friendly with only a few pieces of crosswordese or tough proper nouns. That’s impressive with the big 5×5 corners in the northeast and southwest of the puzzle. Some highlights for me were SPARE TIRE and POKER TELL, and I also liked seeing MAMMA Mia, which just reopened on Broadway (although this was a missed opportunity for a cross-reference clue with DONNA!).
New to me from this puzzle: that Ohio University’s mascot is the BOBCAT (I mixed this up with Ohio State’s buckeyes), and that EVIAN water was discovered by a French nobleman.
Brent Sverdloff’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 8/25/25 by Brent Sverdloff
No revealer today, just an old-school theme, and a well-executed one IMO:
- 20A [Get down to brass tacks] is LAY IT ON THE LINE.
- 32A [Exhortation to someone building up to a tantrum] is DON’T MAKE A SCENE.
- 39A [“Get it together!”] is CLEAN UP YOUR ACT.
- 52A [“Join us for some fun!”] is COME OUT AND PLAY, which puts me immediately in mind of the Offspring song (but I realize cluing it as such would’ve been too hard for Monday).
Take the last word of each theme entry, and you have LINE, SCENE, ACT, and PLAY — that is, parts of a PLAY, ascending in length (length of the part of a play, not letter length of the word) until you get to the entire PLAY.
No nontheme entries longer than 7 letters, leading to a quick and unremarkable solve.
Drew Schmenner’s Universal crossword, “Lay Down Your Sword!” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 8/25/25 • Mon • “Lay Down Your Sword!” • Schmenner • solution • 20250825
It’s easy to see see the thrust of this theme, especially with the key letters already circled. It’s basically as if a single rebus square were extended horizontally.
- 6d. [*Briefly stops working] TAKE{S A BRE}AK.
24a. [“No need to stress] IT’S A BREEZE.
sabre - 4d. [*Standard unit of petroleum] BARREL O{F OIL}, which is a bit awkward when just BARREL is common parlance.
37a. [Girl Scouts’ cloverleaf emblem] TREFOIL.
foil - 41d. [Certain citrus fruit discards] ORANG{E PEE}LS.
64a. [Conical Native American home] TEPEE.
épée
I’m on the fence about this one. On the one hand, it’s a clever idea, but on the other hand the execution suffers from some constraints. Because the theme answers require a vertical component, it seems that it was not possible to get things remotely symmetrically placed in the grid. It’s also notable that the three different sword classes are not in weight order, which should be foil, épée, sabre. But honestly, if you’re going to be creative, why not lunge and push some boundaries, eh?
- 1d [Medieval spiked weapon] MACE. A little cruder than the swords here.
- 2d [“Ditto”] AS AM I, not AGAIN.
- 9d [One of the “Stayin’ Alive” trio] BEE GEE. A singular Brother Gibb.
- 10d [Exactly] ON THE NOSE, where it isn’t possible to strike your opponent if they’re wearing a standard protective mask.
26d [Areas] ZONES.- 27d [Cupid, to ancient Greeks] EROS. Now picturing this deity with a flexible sword rather than a bow and arrows.
- 33d [Famed slicing-and-dicing infomercial product] VEG-O-MATIC, which I first entered as VEGEMATIC.
- 40d [Center of a nectarine] PIT. Or of a plum, for that matter: 32d [Dried plum] PRUNE.
- 50d [Long punctuation mark] EM DASH. Some say that use of an EM DASH is a reliable indicator of AI/Chat GPT use. I beg to differ, as I use both — and – in my writing. Also, regular reminder: don’t use AI if you can at all avoid it.
- 52d [They can march or rock] BANDS. And some can do both!
- 14a [Kangaroo’s “fifth leg”] TAIL. They are quite solid and sturdy.
- 30a [Mister, in Mexicali] SEÑOR. 7d [Counterpart of ma’am] SIR.
- 39a [Takes testimony from] DEPOSES. Also what should be done to tyrants.
- 51a [“Does my face ring a bell?”] REMEMBER ME. Unfortunate imagery engendered by that phrasing.
- 66a [Pun-loving parents] DADS. Would’ve appreciated a ‘stereotypically’ qualifier.
- 70a [Fall bloom] ASTER. Slowly easing into that season, as summer wanes.
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1812 — Eric’s Review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1812 — 8/25/25
I just never know what to expect in terms of difficulty with Brendan’s themeless puzzles. This one took me about a third of the time that last week’s took. Was it the gimme at 1A? Or did I just sleep better last night, despite the smoke alarm battery that chose 5:30 AM as the perfect time to die?
As usual, there are some nice things here:
-
- 1A [Classic candy asked to be left off in riders] BROWN M AND M’S Crossword answers that substitute AND for an ampersand are moderately annoying, but I’m used to it by now. The contract rider in the clue was Van Halen’s standard contract with venues where the band would perform. It allegedly had nothing to do with the unappealing nature of certain candies as with ensuring that the venue’s employees actually read the contract and complied with more important terms.
- 17A [“Beat it! That’s final!”] AND DON’T COME BACK
- 19A [Only___ ] FANS Is that more than porn?
- 32A [Heavenly body] SERAPH Nice misdirection. I was thinking of a planet, not an angel.
- 48A [Org. that might give you some pointers] SPCA Woof. Cute clue.
- 51A [Drummer Blaine of the Wrecking Crew] HAL I needed a cross to remember that name. The Wrecking Crew was a bunch of LA-based session musicians who played on hundreds of hit records in the 1960s and ’70s. You’ve undoubtedly heard them on some song.
- 59A [Question for someone who looks like they’re finished] YOU GONNA EAT THAT Yes, it’s rude, but we waste so much food in this country.
- 65A [Oldest winner for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, 88] CICELY TYSON The play was Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, in its 2013 Broadway revival.
- 2D [Started a campaign, say] RAN AN AD For green paint, no doubt.
- 11D [Meal enjoyed with a spork] STEW I almost put SOUP before I thought better of it. We eat a lot of stew-type meals, but don’t own a single spork or foon.
- 14D [List of all characters noteworthy to trainers] POKÉDEX Thank you, internet, for telling me this is a Pokémon thing. I feel better about not knowing it (or really caring about it, either).
- 28D [Bygdøy peninsula capital] OSLO Four-letter city? Clue that refers to something you’ve never heard of but that’s arguably Norwegian? OSLO. Always.
- 33D [Piazza dei Cavalieri city] PISA Not as easy as OSLO. It could have been ROMA (and probably some other four-letter Italian city that I can’t think of right now).
- 40D [Festival poster information] LINE-UPS Much as I like music, festivals just don’t do it for me. Short sets, bleed-over sound from other stages, crowds, overlapping performances by the people I really wanted to see . . . No thanks.
Mollie Cowger and Andy Kravis’s New Yorker crossword — Jenni’s write-up
This is not the usual difficult Monday themeless we’ve come to expect from The New Yorker. It’s a themed puzzle that goes with the double issue of September 1st and 8th (which also has a theme and I can’t seem to get back to the screen that tells me what that is. I’m tired). The theme is “monoculture.”
New Yorker, Monday, August 25, 2025, Mollie Cowger and Andy Kravis, “Monoculture,” solution grid
- 3d [No. 2 hit for Céline Dion that begins, “When I was young / I never needed anyone”] is ALL BY MYSELF.
- 5d [With 9-Down, Queen Latifah sitcom from the nineties about a group of unpartnered friends] is LIVING/SINGLE.
- 40d [With 41-Down, essay in which Virginia Woolf asserts that women need privacy and independence in order to write fiction] is A ROOM OF/ONE‘S OWN.
- 56a [Christmas movie starring Macaulay Culkin as a kid who foils two burglars unassisted] is HOME ALONE.
And a revealer: 11d [Venture undertaken after leaving the band . . . or an apt description of each of the works with italicized clues] is SOLO PROJECT. I prefer a chewy themeless to a fairly easy themed puzzle and this was still fun.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that Celine Dion recorded ALL BY MYSELF. This is the version I remember:
Gary Cee’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Matchups” — Jim Q’s Review
Gary Cee’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Matchups” — 8/25/25
Question for speed solvers – when solving crosswords on a computer, do you read clues by looking at the lists to the side, or do you rely on the display above the grid? I do the latter exclusively, and I suspect that’s what’s really holding me back (by doing so, I can’t do the thing where I read clues while typing in an answer)l I’ve had a goal of a sub 2 minute NYT Monday for a while (my best is 2:22) and I’m wondering if changing how I solve will make the difference. I tend to get lost of where I am when I look at the lists and I’m slower when doing so – maybe I need a lot more practice with that.
i’d highly recommend focusing on the former (ie reading the clues by looking at the list to the side). i’m nowhere near the real speedsters but have several sub-two mondays (1:41 is my best i think)
NYT:
Sophia, are you not a fan of Kurt Vonnegut?
https://www.jeffkaplanarts.com/book-blog/breakfast-of-champions-or-goodbye-blue-monday-by-kurt-vonnegut
(See the third paragraph’s explanation of the title and subtitle/alternate title.)
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Sophia, I thought exactly the same, but thanks to Ryan and Eric, now we know!
When I was a kid (60+ years ago), Monday was always “wash day.” I was never sure why it was Monday, but it was a big undertaking. We were a family of five, so there would be four sets of bed linens and seven days’ worth of clothing for the five of us.
Mom had an automatic washing machine and an electric dryer, but she was sort of “old school.” Liked to finish stuff in an old-timey wringer washing machine and hang it on a clothesline in the backyard to dry. Have to admit, laundry line-dried outdoors always smelled better than stuff dried in the dryer (but of course, you always had to watch out for something that had been decorated by a passing bird).
I, like Sophia, had never heard of Wash Day being Monday before today.
Cat’s Cradle is a great book, but I haven’t read Breakfast of Champions yet. I will add it to the list!
I haven’t read much Vonnegut in the last 40 years, but I remember Breakfast of Champions as being one of his best novels. Hope you enjoy it.
My understanding was that Monday was the first chance the occupants of the Mayflower had to do their laundry after their long trip, and – of course – laundry has been done at weekly intervals ever since. Gee, could that be a myth?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Enjoyed the play on various meanings of the revealing phrase. Nice Monday material!
TNY: Hoping this was a “one-off” and not another move away from “challenging” Mondays.
It was no challenge at all, and I bet we aren’t alone in that opinion.
Several times a year, to coincide with themed issues of the magazine, TNY runs a correspondingly themed crossword. These are always noted with a pop-up before the puzzle (today’s reads, “Today’s themed crossword appears in the Culture Industry issue.”). The difficulty of these themed puzzles varies and is not necessarily tied to the day of the week on which they run. Accordingly, the difficulty language that accompanies themelesses (e.g., “A challenging puzzle” for Monday themelesses) is omitted from its usual spot above the byline. Hope that helps!
Per the Info window, “Today’s themed crossword appears in the Culture Industry issue” so I think you can rest assured it was a special case.
(Also I thought it was a neat theme set.)
Well, it could hardly help being yet another Monday weighed down with pop culture, given the theme and the magazine issue’s theme that motivated it. Now I shall go look up the ones I got from crossings, but then I better look up the title, too.
Agreed it’s not as hard as some Mondays, but not for want of trying. But then TNY has a lousy record as well when it comes to the relative difficulty of Monday and Tuesday.
Thanks for reminding me to look up the title, “Monoculture,” JohnH, it’s a mild pun relating to the theme. You probably know at least two answers (one is in two parts, so the total is three clues) relating to the theme, so those culture references are not obscure and a lot of answers are available from the crossings. The crossword turned out to be pretty easy. I know some people feel mighty deprived, but I’m more deprived of New Yorker themed puzzles throughout the year, now that the New Yorker has become cheap with its puzzles. So I’m very happy and I think the crossword theme is very cute!
At some other sites, people seem to think “lake trout” are just trout that live in lakes. Actually, Salvelinus namaycush is a huge species that can exceed 100 pounds.
We’ve learned a lot about trout in the last couple of decades. The lake trout is a “char,” like the arctic char. We now know that the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and a couple of others are also chars. The brown trout (Salmo trutta) is closely related to the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Most surprisingly, we now know that the venerable little rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is closely related to the various Pacific salmons, like the Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).
Taxonomically speaking, “trout” is almost as meaningless as “bass.” DNA tells us the real story.
NYT: Thanks Martin! And wow, “trout” is even less specific than “scrod” — which seems to have disputed word origins, all somehow relating to how it’s prepared (more or less). And yes, “bass” is even less specific than either of those. snapper, grouper, rockfish, whitefish, bluefish, …I didn’t realize how vague we were in categorizing fish. (Respect the fish!)
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 3.5 stars
Universal: I was a bit surprised at 20D,”Eat at a booth, say” being DINE IN. Wouldn’t it be more appropriately DINE OUT? I don’t think most homes have booths.
It was pleasantly unusual to have a gimmick puzzle on a Monday.
DINE IN (the restaurant), rather than get something to go, or TAKE OUT.
pannonica:
“I’m on the fence about this one”
“…why not lunge and push some boundaries, eh?”
I see what you did there! :-)
There was a little more too.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 2 stars
Nothing against the constructor (or ANY constructor for that matter), but I think Shenk’s editing needs to be touched up a bit, and probably his choice of puzzles (remember the recent “Missing Children” fiasco?).
My rant is about the clue for 9D, which is “Talk in a bit” in a text, and the answer is “BBL”.
So WTF, are solvers supposed to know the billions of texting initialisms that are rampant in puzzles nowadays!
He could have clued it as “Abbr for a tush surgery” (Brazilian Butt Lift) or “Abbr for an OPEC quantity” (BBL=barrel).
Puzzle: The New Yorker; Rating: 3.5 stars
I’m giving this puzzle a tiny upward nudge strictly for Jenni’s Review because she included the Eric Carmen link for “All By Myself”, which is the best version ever!
And let’s not forget that Carmen had a total hit with The Raspberries’ song “Go All The Way”, which is still a timeless rock classic, and here’s the link:
https://youtu.be/rtp8WSAzrGw