Monday, September 1, 2025

BEQ 23:48 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:54 (Stella) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 2:39 (Amy) [4.12 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 8:35 (Eric) [3.79 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ N/A (Jim Q) rate it

There is no WSJ puzzle today.

Lynn Lempel’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 9/1/25 – no. 0901

“SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?” Other ways to spell the “new” sound, in NUDIST CAMP, NEUTRAL ZONE, NUISANCE TAX, NOODLE SOUP. I don’t pronounce it “nyew” so the theme works great for me.

Quick and easy, as expected for the queen of Mondays, Lynn Lempel.

Fave fill: SEA SALT.

Clue I liked: 44D. [Expose at a costume party], UNMASK.

Just a quick recap to cover for Sophia, as I’m in a hospital bed in a rehab ward. Word to the wise: Try not to break bones in the hip vicinity! Between physical therapy, occupational therapy, dialysis, and sleep, my days are booked and my energy gets used up fast, so I’ve not been blogging here. No therapies on Sundays, so here I am.

Fours stars from me.

Lynn K. Watson & Katie Hale’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 9/1/25 by Lynn K. Watson & Katie Hale

This is a pretty simple theme with a very short revealer at 73A [“Oui! Oui!” in Oaxaca, and a phonetic description of the answers to the starred clues], which is SÍ SÍ, a homophone for CC. Each theme entry is a two-word phrase with initials C.C.:

• 17A [*Grinning creature in Wonderland] is CHESHIRE CAT.
• 29A [*Only “Friends” star never nominated for an Emmy during the show’s run] is COURTENEY COX.
• 48A [*Gingerbread shaper] is a COOKIE CUTTER.
• 65A [*”A Chorus Line” event] is a CASTING CALL.

There were a couple of bits of fill I wasn’t crazy about: NEW AT and I ROCK, which as clued could equally likely be NEW TO and I RULE depending on what crossings you have. Having two of those in the same puzzle on a Monday is not my favorite. I also feel like TWINSIE, singular, is not a thing. I liked PHYSICIST, AUTO PARTS, and YUCATAN, on the other hand.

Kareem Ayas’ Universal crossword, “Division of Labor” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 9/1/25 • Mon • “Division of Labor” • Ayas • solution • 20250901

Synonyms for ‘work’ are split across key entries.

• 17a. [Pit crew?] ORCHESTRA.
  19a. [Ludicrous] INANE.
  strain
• 26a. [“We’d hate to forget”] REMIND US.
  31a. [Lovers’ meetings] TRYSTS.
  industry
• 45a. [“Did you just lump me in?”] WHO’S WE. Reminds me of an old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto.
  47a. [Water world?] ATLANTIS.
  sweat
• 62a. [Most important] CHIEF.
  63a. [Triumphant cry] FOR THE WIN.
  effort

Timely.

• 1a [Like Sherlock’s “game”] AFOOT. A very appropriate first clue and entry for a crossword.
• 6a [Block letters?] ABC. As in a child’s building blocks.
• 9a [Ton, for one] UNIT. Say, sixteen?
• 20a [Kind of seed on a bagel] SESAME. Poppies are better, just saying.
• 23a [Filmmaker __ Lily Amirpour] ANA. A newer ANA than Ms de Armas?
• 43a [Makers of Cullen skink soup, likely] SCOTS.
• 53a [1991 thriller set in North Carolina] CAPE FEAR. A remake of the 1962 classic.
• 57a [They have eight arms] OCTOPI. Let the plural wars commence.
• 5d [Bad guy in charge] THE MAN. As in, working for THE MAN. Odd choice for this Labor-Day-themed crossword. It reinforces one interpretation of the theme answers in terms of ‘divide and conquer’ rather than the positive implications of the title phrase, where ‘division of labor’ creates efficiency.
  
• 22d [App for writing down crossword ideas] NOTES. A little creator insight.
• 28d [“God, Country, King,” for Morocco] MOTTO. Don’t like it and certainly don’t want it here.
• 49d [HS science course] AP CHEM. The abbreviated HS in the clue effectively signals that there’ll be an analogous abridgement in the entry, namely CHEM for chemistry. Arguably AP for ‘advanced placement’. Hm, actually, for the clue to be rigorous it should have been [HS sci. course].
• 56d [Garment stolen from a hotel, perhaps] ROBE. More creator insight, perhaps?
• 58d [Brand of hiking sandals] TEVA. “Geophysicist Mark Thatcher invented Teva (pronounced /ˈtɛvə/ TEH-və not /ˈtivə/ TEE-və in English; the name is based on Hebrew: טבע, meaning ‘nature’).” –Wikipedia

Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker Crossword — Eric’s Review

Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker Crossword — 9/1/25

I found this very much on the easy side for a puzzle labeled “challenging.” But like any puzzle from Ms Gorski, it was smooth-solving and all my unknowns were gettable with a cross or two. OK, maybe three crosses.

The NW and SE corners are somewhat small and isolated; I had a little trouble getting to the SE because memorizing the order of books in the Bible has not been a priority for me.

But there are lots of things here to like (and a few that didn’t thrill me):

• 1A [Virile] MACHO I think of virility more as a natural trait and machismo as more of an attitude (one that I don’t particularly like).
• 10A [The title character of the short story “Tobermory,” for one] CAT I had no idea; the answer could easily have been DOG, ELF, ORC . . . This 1909 story, which deals with a cat that learns to talk, is by Saki (a/k/a H.H. Munro). I’ve certainly read some of his stories, but having the author in the clue would not have helped me a bit.
• 14A [Grant] VOUCHSAFE Nice, somewhat vague clue for a word you don’t see every day. Or pretty much any day.
• 18A [Neighbor of Draco] URSA MINOR I know my constellations like I know my Biblical books: Names, yes; specifics, no.
• 21A [Talking points?] ROSTRA Cute clue. Awkward (but legit) plural.
• 30A [Performers with impressive foot work?] SLAM POETS Thanks to whoever put that question mark there. I didn’t think of metrical feet for a long time.
• 34A [Nibbled] BIT AT Not BIT ON. Fair enough.
• 35A [“Fantastic work so far!”] YOU’RE CRUSHING IT I find these conversational phrases difficult to get without a few crosses because so often, they’re phrases that are not likely to come out of my mouth.
• 40A [Itinerant’s sack] BINDLE Not BUNDLE.
• 53A [Onetime White House nickname] SILENT CAL As in Coolidge, who became president about 100 years ago when Warren G. Harding had a fatal stroke. They had to track Coolidge down in his native Vermont to tell him he was president. (Take all this with a grain of salt; I’m just off-the-cuff digging through my brain for Coolidge trivia.) In any case, it’s not a particularly useful clue, given the number of inhabitants of the White House in its 225-year history. (That factoid I did look up.)
• 56A [Bad actors] EVIL DOERS What is this, an episode of Batman?
• 3D [Word in a Debussy title] CLAIR Not quite a gimme, since Debussy wrote lots of music. The other relevant words are “de” and “lune.” It’s formally the third movement of his Suite bergamasque.
• 8D [Peter Pan conveyance] BUS This feels like the fourth or fifth time in the last month I’ve seen that bus company — which hardly has a national presence — in a clue.
• 10D [Mariah Carey hit with the lyric “But still you remain on my mind”] CAN’T LET GO I don’t know Ms Carey’s music, though I do sort of recognize that title. But I don’t usually mind unknown song titles or lyrics as answers, because they’re so often predictable.
• 11D [Previously mentioned] AFORESAID That’s not quite as musty-sounding as “vouchsafe,” but who besides bad legal writers uses that word?
• 27D [Spanish footballer Ramos] SERGIO I somehow became a fan of the Selección Española de Fútbol in 2010, when they won the FIFA World Cup. Ramos, a center back, played every minute of that tournament.
• 32D [Mount Kosciuszko is its highest peak] AUSTRALIA How did I not know that until today?
• 40D [Home of Berklee College of Music] BOSTON A useful gimme.
• 46D [Bull mascot seen in the art-supply aisle] ELMER A bit of a side-eye for this one; I’m married to a guy who’s pretty artistic and I can’t imagine him using Elmer’s Glue for any serious art project.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1814 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1814 — 9/1/25

Yep, I cheated a bit in that SE corner. (Hey, those dumbbells in the garage aren’t going to lift themselves!)

In other words, I found this a bit tougher than the last few weeks. It was a good reminder to read every clue to be sure that you haven’t missed any gimmes. To work the crosses. To question every answer that you can’t be 100% certain of. If I weren’t reviewing this, I’d have walked away from it for a bit. (I highly recommend that strategy.)

The fill is all over the place (both literally, as one would expect, and figuratively):

• 1A [Drop in comedy] PRATFALL I was well into adulthood before I knew “prat” is just another word for “buttocks.”
• 15A [One with a lot of moves] LOTHARIO Oh, that kind of moves. Eew.
• 17A [Element #85] ASTATINE I lost some time on the erroneous assumption that the last three letters would be IUM. That’ll learn me. In my defense, astatine is (says Wikipedia) “the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth’s crust.” And as I’ve said here before, high school chemistry was a long time ago.
• 19A [Cowboys’ hats] STETSONS Pretty obvious with the S from 1D PLASMA.
• 25A [Russian boxer Beterbiev] ARTUR Not a name I knew.
• 32A [Drink that might give you a headache] SLURPEE Lots of drinks might give you a headache: red wine, champagne, beer . . . I hate cold-stimulus headaches, but it’s nice to know that you can avoid them by keeping the cold stuff off the roof of your mouth.
• 39A [“Let’s Twist Again” cowriter Mann] KAL I try to pay attention to songwriter’s names, by the guy born Kalman Cohen is new to me (even though he did write some of my Elvis wedding vows).
• 41A [Little sucker] STRAW Not APHID.
• 47A [Dancer’s group, e.g.] OCTET Santa’s reindeer, as you undoubtedly figured out.
• 56A [“The Content of Our Character” author Shelby] STEELE The only Shelbys I could think of were the historian Foote and a former coworker. But this name was familiar enough when I saw it.
• 58D [Made some cuts] CARVED Not EDITED.
• 59A [Relating to reflex messengers] NEURONIC Not a word that was in my vocabulary.
• 60A [They might provide greater detail] INSETS I put that in, took it out, put it in again.
• 61A [One juggling a lot of schedules] IRS AGENT I just couldn’t get my mind off a list of intended events. I should know better.
• 4D [You’re being mean”] THAT HURT Not DON’T something.
• 7D [“Ozark” star] Laura LINNEY I thought of her immediately when I saw that Justin BATEMAN didn’t fit. Maybe if I’d risked it, I’d have shaved off a few minutes. Maybe not. It’s a great show, by the way.
• 8D [Loam deposits] LOESSES Not TOPSOIL. I’m not sure I buy that word as a plural.
• 10D [’90s courtroom drama] THE OJ TRIAL This may be the most misdirecting clue in the puzzle; I couldn’t think of anything but fictional lawyer shows. I tried very hard back then to avoid anything to do with O.J. Simpson and Lance Ito and all the others, but some of that stuff was just inescapable.
• 13D [Adriatic port] TRIESTE My geography is relatively good, but the T from 9A STUNTS had me trying TBILISI at first, which (1) doesn’t fit and (2) is in Georgia, as I well know.
• 14D [Cotton club?] SENATE Nice clue. “Cotton” as in Tom of Arkansas. (No relation, so far as I know, to Tom of Finland.)
• 31D [2024 campaign word] BRAT As in the singer Charli XCX, not Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
• 33D [It has a big nose for cocaine] POLICE DOG I knew it was going to be something like that.
• 34D [Catan residents] SETTLERS I played Catan once. That was enough.
• 37D [State whose capital is Mérida] YUCATÁN I know the Mexican states’ names but not many of their capitals.
• 38D [Mayoral candidate who once rapped under the name Young Cardamom] Zohram MAMDANI I’m embarrassed how long it took me get that. I didn’t know about his past career as a rapper, but I do sort of read The New York Times every day, and I see his name often.
• 42D [Director Herzog] WERNER A welcome gimme for that corner. Fitzcarraldo; Aguirre, Wrath of God; Grizzly Man . . . All good movies.
• 44D [2017 US Open winner Stephens] SLOANE Another much-needed gimme.
• 45D [Didn’t take out] LEFT IN Not KEPT IN.
• 50D [“Must be somebody else”] NOT US ME, US . . .  Grr.
• 55D [ ___ C. Rubin Observatory (Chilean telescope)] VERA At least it’s a change from “aloe vera.”