Monday, September 8, 2025

BEQ untimed (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 2:01 (Stella) [2.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:28 (Sophia) [3.20 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 4:32 (Amy) [4.20 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.50 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 4:19 (Jim Q) [3.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it

Margaret Seikel’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s recap

Theme: I’M TAKEN – each theme answer is a two word phrase where both words can be “taken”

New York Times, 09 08 2025, By Margaret Seikel

• 16a [*Pad in a makeup kit] – POWDER PUFF
• 62a [*Assignment on a plane] – SEAT NUMBER
• 10d [*Bakery display piece] – CAKE STAND
• 33d [*Days off following October midterms] – FALL BREAK 
• 39a [Polite rejection at a dance … or a hint to each half of the answers to the starred clues] – I’M TAKEN

Great finds for different types of TAKEN things! (I’m tempted to put a picture of Liam Neeson in this write-up). I love how some of them are more literal phrases (e.g. take a number, take a puff) and some are based on idioms (take the cake, take the fall). “Take a powder” is new to me – the internet says it means “to leave in a hurry”, while solving I assumed it meant something like “going to powder your nose?” Either way, POWDER PUFF is a fun stand-alone entry so I’m not mad about it. I also liked FALL BREAK, although I went to a college on trimesters so we never got one of those :(

It’s been a hot second since we’ve had a pinwheel-shape arrangement of theme answers on a Monday. It’s a great way to center a shorter revealer and to include more theme entries without cluttering up the grid. The puzzle overall flowed really well for me and no part of it felt too closed-off.

EYE CANDY and FARM TEAM are fill standouts, but Margaret did a great job of finding short/midlength fill and clueing them in a fresh way. Monday puzzles are hard to make clean yet interesting – common words are in the puzzle so often that it’s hard to have new angles for them! But today’s crossword threads that needle beautifully. Highlights for me included [Flower symbolizing early love] for LILAC, [The “Y” of Y.A. books] for YOUNG, and [$7 million for 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, say] for AD RATE. 

Happy Monday all!

Zachary David Levy’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 9/8/25 by Zachary David Levy

39A [Rough estimates, and what can be found at the ends of 17-, 25-, 52-, and 62-Across] is BALLPARK FIGURES, because each theme answer ends with the name of a Major League Baseball team:

• 17A [Cheap wines at some restaurants] is HOUSE REDS.
• 25A [Large planets made mostly of hydrogen and helium] is GAS GIANTS.
• 52A [Some sinister siblings] is EVIL TWINS.
• 62A [Emissions that turned Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk] is GAMMA RAYS.

On the minus side, I’ve seen this theme trope a lot (I feel like I might even have done it myself at some point when I was working with Bruce Venzke in the 2000s), especially when you think of this trope as applying to other sports besides baseball. I also think there are enough other teams that might work (POWER RANGERS? FOREIGN NATIONALS? PORCH PIRATES?) that I’d like this better as a 21x.

(Oh yeah, and the fact that my baseball team, the Phillies, will never work in this theme trope? Not the constructor’s or the editor’s fault, but bah humbug!)

On the plus side, I don’t think I’ve seen this trope done with a revealer before, and I liked a lot of the mid-length fill: DIAL TONE, BENIHANA, GROUP DATE, and especially POLLIWOG, which is a fun word to say out loud. Pretty clean fill overall, which is what you want for a Monday, but I appreciate when the fill can be both clean and have a little extra zing.

Jeffrey Martinovic’s Universal crossword, “Life-Changing” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 9/8/25 • Mon • “Life-Changing” • Martinovic • solution • 20250908

The three-part revealer takes up as much real estate as the ostensible theme entries.

• 44a/49a/58a^R [… some biotech products … or the starred clues’ answers?] GENETICALLY | MODIFIED | ORGANISMS.
• 16a. [*Canine that originated in Germany, despite its name] GREAT DANE. Hence why it’s also known as the Deutsche Dogge.
• 20a. [*Wrapper that you can’t just throw away?] ANACONDA.
• 25a. [*Hominid on evolutionary diagrams] NEANDERTHAL.

So. We have three organisms, each featuring a rearrangement of the letters DNA.

It seems to me a conundrum of a theme. It’s clever enough, but obviously slight. The full revealer would be too long as a single entry in a 21×21 grid, and besides that there wouldn’t be enough variation among additional themers—just more DANs, NDAs, and ANDs, plus ADNs and NADs. What to do?

• 9d [Play it cool] ACT NATURAL. The opposite of what’s implied by GMO technology.
• 28d [Sir or madam] NOUN. 29d [Sir or madam] TITLE.
• 33d [On edge] TESTY. Appropriately, the only entry where I had to wait for crossings to decide between potential answers, the other being TENSE.
• 1a [Plane that may be private] JET. Strange clue framing, to me.
• 4a [Send raunchy messages] SEXT, paired symmetrically with 65a [Raunchy writing] SMUT.
• 12a [Ritualistic heap] PYRE. I think that clue could quasi-poetically describe some people.
• 24a [Actress/country singer Kramer] JANA. 2d [Jane of fiction] EYRE.
• OH! It’s only as I’ve run completely through the grid that I see this final across entry, which makes explicit the theme conceit: 66a [Double-helix molecule rearranged in the starred clues’ answers] DNA.

Will Nediger’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 9/8/25 – Nediger

My first Monday back home from the hospital, and my Internet is lagging. Took almost as long to load the puzzle as it did to solve it! It was unusually speedy for a Monday New Yorker.

Fave fill: MOPPED UP, SENIOR PROM, LITTERBUGS, NOODLE BARS, PEQUOD, “ALL BETTER!”, MARBLE RACES (have seen these on YouTube, such goofy commentary treating the marbles as sentient competitors), ZOLAESQUE (sorry, Al), and MORDOR. Least favorite: TEHEE, which aptly crosses UGH.

I could see the MCU/MORDOR crossing being tough for those who eschew both Marvel and Tolkien, but a flat-out couple of gimmes for the rest of us. A little tricky to cite Thunderbolts* and Eternals rather than an Avengers movie, I’ll grant you. But editing pop culture crosswords exposes me to most of the Marvel movies I haven’t watched, as well as sports trivia and happenings.

Four stars from me.

Zachary Edward-Brown’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Putting Two and Two Together” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Common two-word phrases where both parts of the phrase can follow the word “Double”

WSJ • 9/8/25 • Mon • “Putting Two and Two Together” • Zachary Edward-Brown • solution • 20250908

THEME ANSWERS:

• 17A CROSSCHECK / DOUBLE CROSS, DOUBLE CHECK
• 25A DATE BACK/ DOUBLE DATE, DOUBLE BACK
• 38A SPACE TIME / DOUBLE SPACE, DOUBLE TIME
• 54A TAKEDOWN / DOUBLE TAKE, DOUBLE DOWN
• 64A [Chemical link with two pairs of shared electrons, or what each starred answer forms] DOUBLE BOND

Solid! Sometimes with these theme types, they can really stretch the definition of what is considered a common phrase after the word is added, but all of these “Doubles” are very in-language. Can’t always say the same for the base phrases though (SPACE TIME doesn’t stand alone I don’t think… and I know the phrase more commonly as BACK DATE). It works just fine though.

STUMBLES / NEW TO ME:

• 59A [Marine Corps cry] OORAH! Really? Never ever heard this. It Googles extremely well though.
• 23A [Condescend] DEIGN. I think I completely forgot the definition of this word.
• 41A [Like some wasps’ nests] PAPERY. Interesting. I try to avoid touching wasps’ nests, so excuse me for being ignorant of the texture!
• 3D [Person with an “I” problem] EGOTIST. I thought it was spelled EGOIST. Though that does indeed look wrong now.
• 12D [Annual Orlando event for sci-fi and comic fans] MEGACON. Sounds fun. I won’t be going.

I enjoyed the [Regretting a workout, maybe] and [Regret a workout, maybe] pair. Cute.

3.5 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1816 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1816 — 9/8/25

Brendan rolled out a new website Monday, which explains the late appearance of his puzzle. Some quick thoughts:

• 41A [Revolutionary War hero Ludington also known as the “female Paul Revere”] SYBIL I hadn’t heard of her but will try to learn something about her.
• 55A [Tired robots?] DRIVERLESS CARS Clever clue. We used to see those when we lived in Austin. At least once, we were biking and a self-driving vehicle just stopped in the middle of the street because it didn’t know what to do. I’ve read that’s not an uncommon thing.
• 65A [1991 Best Director Oscar winner] Kevin COSTNER I continue to be appalled that Costner and Dances With Wolves beat out Martin Scorsese and GoodFellas.
• 64A [One who has a lot of junk food?] FREEGAN Another clever clue.
• 66A [Political cartoonist who wrote the book “Revenge of the Latchkey Kids”] TED RALL I don’t recognize the book title, but I can easily picture Rall’s minimalist cartoons, which were pretty funny.
• 6D [Voting, likely] IN A BOOTH This answer gets my vote for Green Paint of the Week.