LAT 2:26 (Stella) 
[3.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Newsday 13:39 (pannonica) [3.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 10:33 (Amy) [3.75 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) 
[1.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 18:23 (Eric) [3.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Paul Coulter’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “In Conclusion” — Eric’s Review
Paul Coulter’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “In Conclusion” — 9/6/25
I sometimes find 21X21 grids a bit taxing, especially when I’ve figured out the theme, but whatever squares I’m struggling to fill are not affected by any theme answer. That’s what happened here, when I got stuck with 85D and 86D, but already had 88A. Look closely and you’ll see that I had a wrong letter in 85A DALAI.
The theme answers are all well-known phrases in which the final letter of each word spells an exclamation that’s in the clue. And each theme answer clue contains something hinting at a “conclusion,” which gives some of the clues a cryptic quality that I don’t much care for. (Confession: I’ve tried to like cryptic crosswords and I just don’t enjoy them.)
- 23A [Hindenburg disaster cry, ending “Hey!”] OH THE HUMANITY
- 33A [Starting a conversation, concluding “Gee!”] BREAKING THE ICE
- 43A [Heavy reading? Completing all the words? “Eek!”] COFFEE TABLE BOOK
- 65A [Reagan era “voodoo” policy? Ultimately, “Yes!”] SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS
- 88A [Finding after a long search, stopping with “God!”] RUNNING TO GROUND
- 97A [Colonial protest winds up: “Nay!”] BOSTON TEA PARTY
- 112A [“End of discussion!” (or a description of this puzzle’s theme) AND THAT’S FINAL My first thought here was AND THAT’S THAT. Not only doe it not fit, THAT doesn’t tie into the theme and title the way FINAL does.
I’m not sure why this puzzle feels a little off to me. The straightforward theme answers weren’t difficult to get, the fill is generally fine, though perhaps heavy on proper nouns. Many were ones that I could get quickly; a few weren’t.
And yet. Maybe it just comes down to having to scour that area around DALAI. Maybe I’m miffed that after all that scouring, I still had to check the last letter of DALAI, having forgotten the cardinal rule of non-English language answers — they’re almost never obscure words.
I don’t know how one goes about putting together this kind of theme set. Maybe just careful observation and listing possibilities for a long time?
Other stuff:
- 26A [Where one shouldn’t drive] HOV LANE “One” as in the number, not a single person.
- 50A [Bygone biscuit brand] UNEEDA These soda crackers were discontinued in 2009. I would have guessed it was much longer ago.
- 51A [Erich who wrote “Emil and the Detectives”] KÄSTNER The book was published in 1929, but it wasn’t part of my childhood reading. I recognized the title, but had no idea on the author.
- 103A [Flips one’s lid?] UNCAPS Literally, not figuratively.
- 118A [Nickname of jazz great Earl Hines] FATHA I don’t know his music, but his name was a gimme anyway.
- 119A [“You Don’t Own Me” singer Gore] LESLEY I only know her hit “It’s My Party,” but this was also a gimme.
- 2D [Co-star of Bolger and Haley] Bert LAHR I totally blanked on this for a few minutes.
- 10D [Dyeing art] BATIK This is the third time in the last week I’ve seen BATIK in a grid. Oh, well. It’s a neat technique. Cute clue, too.
- 37D [Douglas’s “Wall Street” role] Gordon GEKKO “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” See also 65A.
- 65D [California mission founder Junípero] SERRA A gimme.
- 69D [Literature Nobelist with 11 Grammys] Bob DYLAN Another gimme.
- 80D [Swimmer Vollmer with five Olympic gold medals] DANA A name that’s vaguely familiar.
- 93D [“Nightline” newsman] Ted KOPPEL I was mildly surprised to learn just now that he’s still alive. The Iran hostage crisis, which is when Nightline started, seems so long ago.
Rafael Musa & Geoffrey Schorkopf’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 9/6/25 by Rafael Musa & Geoffrey Schorkopf
This puzzle was too easy, but I liked the fill a lot. Wish I had time to say more! Favorite entries: ALL ABOARD, CHEESEBALL, DRY JANUARY, LOVE-BOMBS, MEGA-MERGER, NEBULA AWARDS, and TREBEK clued as [Host who fielded many, many questions].
Matthew Sewell’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 9/6/25 • Saturday Stumper • Sewell • solution • 20250906
So relieved this turned out to be a relatively easy exercise.
Started out by making good headway in the northwest, then expanded to the bottom half of the grid, leaving only the top right.
Now, if I hadn’t been able to dredge up the name of 9d [Garfield frenemy] NERMAL, this would be a very different report. That was the entry that allowed me to break open and progress through the whole section, starting with the completion of the grid-spanning 17a [Digitally overwhelmed declaration] EMAIL BANKRUPTCY, which is new to me as a term but not as a concept.
- 1a [Outmoded agenda savers] PDAS. A gimme. Likewise 1d [Capsule summary] PRÉCIS, a term I invoke instead of ‘write-up’ when there’s only time (or energy) for an attenuated crossword recap. With both of these in the bag, things began auspiciously and—as I implied—pretty much stayed that way for the duration.
- 5a [Frequent John F. Kennedy connection] LOGAN. Airports, New York and Boston. (47a [About an hour’s flight from MAD] LIS: Madrid and Lisbon.) 37d Legendary castle and court] CAMELOT. As opposed to Scamalot.
- 10a [Bouncer’s check] CARD. ID card? Invitation card? Seems insufficient as an answer.
- 14a [Legislative remnant] RUMP. New sense of the word to me.
- 15a [“It’s yours”] I LOSE. Not gettable without enough crossing letters.
- 20a [Patagonian scavenger] CONDOR. Needed just one crossing here, but I forget which one it was.
- 21a [Pacific Province neighbor] GEM STATE. These must be British Columbia and Idaho, respectively. 61a [Gretzky Pinot Grigio measure] LITRE.
- 24a [New arrival’s outburst] WAH. Neonate.
- 25a [What’s read in most daily papers] SOY. Was mystified by this until just now, when I realized that most newspapers are printed using soy-based ink. Impossible clue.
- 26a [New Testament guide] STAR. Or meteor, whatever. Anyway, tricky.
- 27a [“You shouldn’t have!”] TUT. Another pivotal bit of fill for my solve, especially when I was able to eliminate TSK as a possibility.
- 31a [Tear-down artists] HATERS, who are invariably gonna hate.
- 35a [MLB debut in 2025’s spring training] ROBOT UMPIRE. Didn’t know this, but it was guessable after several crossings were in place.
- 39a [Most recently from] LATE OF. Made the mistake of filling in the superlative suffix -EST here, which hamstrung progress for a short while.
- 41a [It plugs away 24-7] HSN, Home Shopping Network. ‘Plugs’ as in spiels and sells.
- 49a [Bits of chaff] HAYSEED. Deceptive plural.
- 55a [Carter Center observer] ELECTION MONITOR. Was pretty sure from the start that this would be the answer, and confirmed it via 56d [Antonym of “adorn”] MAR.
- 57a [What a diagonal may symbolize] DON’T. Think of those public warning signs with the red slashes (and often circles as well).
- 58a [“Is there anything … dangerous as __”: Franklin] A LIAR. Well that’s certainly the truth.
- 60a [Half of sedici] OTTO. I suspected sedici meant sixteen, and I played the odds that 39d [I-35 terminus (just north of Mexico)] would be a place ending in -O, and it was: LAREDO.
- 62a [Verbe avec vous] ÊTES. hmph, >shrug<
- 2d [Marxes’ frequent female foil] Margaret DUMONT.
4d [Soldier’s camouflaged hiding spot] SPIDER HOLE. Presumably modelled on trapdoor spider technology.
- 6d [Informal intensifier] -OLA. Thankfully this was automagically filled in via crossings.
- 8d [Listing] ASKEW. Another clue that I twigged to right away, and proved useful in expanding the frontiers of my solve.
- 13d [Stoic spectator, so to speak] DRY EYE. The last entry filled, completing 10a CARD and 25a SOY.
- 18d [Shuttle propeller] LOX, liquid oxygen, space shuttle. Not an OAR, as I first suspected (and the misdirection intended the solver to think).
- 23d [Two bits?] DUETS. Tough but easy, easy but tough.
- 32d [Liquor brand adjectivized in ads] ABSOLUT. 48d [Liquor called “Tsar”] in ads] STOLI.
- 33d [Coup de theatre] SMASH.
- 40d [Ball atop a flagpole] FINIAL. Would have gotten this much more readily had I not had a T rather than an F for the start.
- 52d [Syllabic starter] OCTO-. Random!
Kunal Nabar’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 9/6/25 – no. 0906
After 20 days in the hospital rehabbing after a femur fracture, I am home! And able to blog this puzzle, albeit on the late side.
I like the grid with its 12/13/14 stacks. Atypical corner blocks, but with good results.
My solving time suggests that I am rusty. I slowed myself down by putting in GOBS instead of MOBS for 1d. [Packs]. Then when I figured out SHARK (17a. [Animal that’s born with a full set of teeth]), I mistyped the R as a T and couldn’t suss out the crossing. I also plunked in NNEKA (WNBA player Nneka Ogwumike) for EMEKA Okafor, despite the long clue very clearly indicating he’s an NBA player. It worked with two of the crossings so it took a while to straighten that out. And no, I do not follow sports too closely. I avoided such pitfalls in the rest of the grid but that corner took its toll.
Fave fill: MOVIE TICKETS, OPEN MARRIAGES, unexpected MAMA BIRD, CLASS ACT, OCTAVIA E. BUTLER (nice trivia bit, [First science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship]), SILENT RETREAT, TALKING HEADS, CHAPATI (the chakla is a round surface for rolling dough).
Clues of note:
- 1A. [They help you see the big picture], MOVIE TICKETS. I was envisioning some sort of goggles here.
- 13A. [Swing states?], OPEN MARRIAGES. Ha! I had politics on the mind (despite the question mark) and the answer took me by surprise.
- 29A. [A little husky?], PUPPY. Siberian husky, say.
New to me: STEF, [Actress Dawson of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”]; SET PIECE, [Free kick, e.g., in soccer lingo].
Worst fill: plural EDEMAS. Unless you’re using the term to dehumanize people with edema, I don’t think the plural flies.
Four stars from me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Don’t know why, but I found MAMABIRD extremely unsatisfying. Last word to drop, and only with the crosses. Had MxxABIRD right off, and the only thing I could think of was myna, which made no sense. Otherwise, fun puzzle with lots of good stuff.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Fresh NYT. Pretty difficult with all the proper nouns, but they felt more like trivia than crosswordese so that made the solve much more fun. The middle initial of Octavia (?) Butler was a great throw, I swore I was wrong twice over before I wasn’t…
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 3.5 stars
Could not figure out the northeast. Not sure that Nermal would have bailed me out. Never heard of email bankruptcy. Kept wanting email box something.
Today’s Stumper was harder than those recently. I was taken in by so many misdirections. I was trying out Greek spectators for 13D. I tried milAN before GONG showed up. If CAMELOT, PINAFORE, LENORE, USHER IN with NERMAL hadn’t been gimmes, I’d probably have looked something up.
Stumper: Yikes! Agree with pannoica — a number of questionable stuff. “Card,” I understand, though — you’re “carded” when you buy liquor or enter a club (if you’re young looking, that is — most establishments don’t bother doing it with me any more). I also have never heard of “e-mail bankruptcy,” but I would also add “lox” for liquid oxygen. It took both of us today — husband started with a couple, then I got most of the rest, except for most of the top. After that, he did most — he recognized “Amanda,” given a couple of letters, though I helped with “soy” (knew it was vegetable dye) once we had “so_”, “dry eye,” and “card.” All in all, a bit of a slog, but at least we got it.
Stumper: A rare one when, after way way too long staring at the last two very small empty sections, I realized I was never going to get them.
First spot: LATE OF/LIS/FINIAL. 1. No one says LATE OF. Come on. Could’ve been LATE ON for all I knew. 2. LIS I realize now is LISbon, but airport codes are often weird, so MAD could be anything. 3. FINIAL is basically gibberish to me.
Second spot: Northwest. Had PDAS and AMANDA as my first two entries, but couldn’t get anything else for a long time. Even eventually got SPIDER and CONDOR and still got stalled. Couldn’t see EMAIL because I’ve never heard that term ever. I wanted something like “I SAID BANKCRUPTCY!” even though I knew that was wrong. LOX…ugh. I was even thinking along the right lines: space shuttle…gas…oxygen…but LOX??? That definition of RUMP is completely new. DUMONT is nobody to me, and I even discounted the clue meaning the MARX brothers because I thought it should be spelled MARXs’ or something. I could not care less about investor lingo, so INDEXED *shrug*. Never heard of PRECIS, and even after looking up the definition and reading the write-up, I still don’t get the word “capsule” in the clue. I was thinking like a medicine capsule, like a something you might see on the side of a medicine bottle.
Oh well. Glad I made it through the rest.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Tough one, but almost all gettable. The only one I needed help on was OCTAVIAEBUTLER, and even there at least I figured out it was Octavia something.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
So what is this rhyming game that includes ALAI?
Finished this one off in the center left, had a much easier time on the right and bottom. Lots of fun things to find!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
That one gave me pause, too: it’s a “rhyming (game name)”, not a “(rhyming game) name”, referring to “jai alai”.
Amy: best wishes from a stranger. That had to be grotesque for twenty days.
Was it anything like the stereotypical cartoon were the patient’s heavily-wrapped leg is hoisted into the air several feet?
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 3 stars
WSJ “I’ve tried to like cryptic crosswords and I just don’t enjoy them.”
Sometimes trying too hard to be cute turns a pretzel into a tangle.
Exactly. The tortured syntax of so many cryptic crossword clues offends my love of clear and concise writing. (I also don’t like the unchecked letters, because a big part of my crossword-solving process depends on letter pattern recognition.)
Good cryptic crossword construction, in my opinion, should strive to cross the less common letters.