Thursday, September 11, 2025

BEQ 9:33 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) rate it
NYT 7:11 (ZDL) [3.57 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal 7:41 (Eric) [3.20 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today 10:34 (Emily) [2.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Geoffrey Schorkopf’s Universal Crossword “Bite Club” — Eric’s Review

Geoffrey Schorkopf’s Universal Crossword “Bite Club” — 9/11/25

The title’s pun on the movie Fight Club might have helped me with the theme, but as I too often do, I started solving without reading the puzzle’s title. The theme answers are familiar two-word phrases, each beginning with a movie title and ending with something you might nosh on:

• 18A [Fruits for a 1994 Keanu Reeves action film?] SPEED DATES Medjool dates filled with Nutella are awesome. They’re even better with dark chocolate peanut butter.
• 23A [Cubes or slices for a 1988 Tom Hanks comedy?] BIG CHEESE
• 37A [Los Angeles amphitheater …or a dish for 18-, 23-, 51- and 59-Across?] HOLLYWOOD BOWL This doesn’t quite work for me. Cheese in a bowl? Who does that?
• 51A [Salty snacks for a 2011 Ryan Gosling action film?] DRIVE NUTS
• 59A [Sweet spread for a 2000 Michael Douglas drama?] TRAFFIC JAM

This theme works well enough, though I wonder if younger solvers recognize the movie titles. I’ve seen all four and would rank Traffic pretty high, but none of the movies are too bad.

Other stuff:

• 30A [Grp. making snap decisions?] NFL TEAM Cute clue.
• 32A [T’Challa’s kingdom] WAKANDA From the comic book/movie franchise Black Panther.
• 63A [“___ It Fun” (Paramore hit)] AIN’T I recognize the band’s name but not the song title. I should have been able to guess it, but I mostly got it through the crosses.
• 64A [Heavy animal in a crash] RHINO “Crash” is the collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses.
• 5D [Frontwoman of the fictional Pussycats] JOSIE Almost a gimme; I couldn’t remember if it was -IE or -EY.
• 7D [Fortnight couple] WEEKS I spent much too long thinking this had something to do with the computer game Fortnite.
• 11D [Bee’s knees] CAT’S MEOW Was it just because both phrases are old-fashioned that I had a bit of trouble in the NE corner? Or was it that uncommon EO combination?
• 13D [Beers for the sober curious: Abbr.] NAS Non-alcoholics. Anyone have any recommendations, especially for an alcohol-free brown ale?
• 14D [Like some citizenships] DUAL I couldn’t see that answer for far too long.
• 38D [Like most tennis serves] OVERHAND Not OVERHEAD. It’s been a long time since I have played tennis, but I’m having trouble imagining serving underhanded.
• 59D [Safari navigation aid?] TAB “Safari’ as in Apple’s browser. Cute.

Gia Bosko’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Easy (7m11s)

Gia Bosko’s New York Times crossword, 9/11/25, 0911

Today’s theme: DOUBLE HEADER (Back-to-back sporting events … with a hint to the answers to the italicized clues)

• W/T ALKIE
• T/W EENSY
• R/D AZZLE
• H/D UMPTY

A dual-rebused HEADER leads in to each theme entry.  I’ve always loved a little bit of the RAZZLE DAZZLE myself.  Finished it fast, but still stared at the NE corner trying to understand what WEN TAPE was, especially with the “unglued” angle in the clue.  Is that what holds a basket case together?  (I get it now, by the way, but I leave my original parsing for posterity.)

Cracking: NASTY HABITS

Slacking: Don’t love the weird partial NEED A NAP, it sounds like you’re offering me one!

Sidetracking: AA MILNE

Kevin Shustack’s USA Today Crossword, “Meh Trick Ewe Knits” — Emily’s write-up

Measure up!

USA Today, September 11, 2025, “Meh Trick Ewe Knits” by Kevin Shustack

Theme: each themer starts with a metric units

Themers:

• 20a. [Crunchy part of a s’more], GRAHAMCRACKER
• 40a. [Most valuable part of something], JEWELINTHECROWN
• 53a. [Contradictory exclamation when eating super spicy food, maybe], HURTSSOGOOD

A wide variety of themers in this set today. GRAHAMCRACKER was an insta-fill for me but I JEWELINTHECROWN and HURTSSOGOOD took me a little bit. Everything was fairly crossed though so they weren’t too tricky. With the title hint, we get homophones for gram, joule, and hertz.

Favorite fill: AMNOT, ROZ, and IMUP

Stumpers: TCBY (new to me), CIO (also new to me), and DROPTOWER (needed crossings)

Another sweet grid design! I really not only the look but also the feel, as many grids have a great flow for me and this one did too. I found the cluing a bit harder but not too challenging. I also enjoyed the theme and title hint.

Funny enough, in Montreal recently, I ate at Schwartz’s DELI and it’s so worth the hype–just go early if you want a table; the smoked meat sandwich was tasty (albeit a bit fatty), the poutine a la Schwatz was awesome and topped with their smoked meat, and the black cherry soda was delicious too.

4.0 stars

~Emily

Black cherry soda at Schwartz’s Deli

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1817 “Get a Clue” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1817 “Get a Clue” — 9/11/25

Brendan’s redesigned his website — I like it. The old design was a bit dated looking. The redesign probably explains why his Monday puzzle was posted late. I noticed last night that the Monday puzzle was up and wrote a cursory review of it.

This week’s themed offering seems like something The New York Times might run on April Fool’s Day — three grid-spanning answers are word-for-word the same as clues to three other answers:

• 17A [It’s around here … somewhere] PLAY BY SOPHOCLES/3D [Play by Sophocles] AJAX
• 37A [It’s around here … somewhere] BORDEAUX PRODUCT/53D [Bordeaux product] WINE
• 56A [It’s around here … somewhere] SPORCLE OFFERING/35D [Sporcle offering] QUIZ

I was bouncing all around the grid, so it wasn’t until the letter pattern made SPORCLE OFFERING obvious that I began to realize what was going on. It’s kind of an odd theme, but I don’t mind puzzles that play around with the conventions of crossword construction.

Other stuff:

• 1A [White whale pursuer] AHAB I’m not too proud to take a gimme at 1A. Maybe someday I’ll actually read Moby-Dick. (My memory of the Melville stories I read in high school English doesn’t exactly encourage me to pick up his most famous novel.)
• 2A [Prima ballerina’s jump] JETÉ Not PLIÉ, which is a completely different ballet move that does not involve jumping. My nephew has been a ballet choreographer for 25 years or more, so I should know the difference.
• 9A [Award won by the New York Times’s Connections in 2024] WEBBY I like that game. A lot.
• 29A [He owns Wrexham AFC alongside Rob] RYAN Reynolds, whose co-owner is the actor/writer/podcaster Rob McElhenney. It didn’t click until just now who RYAN was, but I’d read somewhere that Reynolds owned part of an British association football club.
• 31A [It may lead to a prophet statement] ESP Cute clue.
• 35A [King Charles’s mum, briefly] QEII I lost too much time wondering why LIZ didn’t fit.
• 41A [Guitarist Lofgren] NILS A welcome gimme in the somewhat sticky center of the grid. Lofgren had his own band Grin in addition to being a member of Neil Young’s band Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
• 62A [One who makes it count?] ADDER I hate those “verb+ER” nouns that no one but a crossword constructor would use.
• 23D [“The most powerful drug used by mankind,” per Rudyard Kipling] WORDS I originally had COULD instead of WOULD at 23A and took too long to make sense of the Kipling quote.
• 24D [NBA legend nicknamed “Clyde the Glide”] DREXLER I would have thought I’d heard of most NBA “legends,” but Drexler’s name doesn’t sound at all familiar to me.
• 30D [Sudden and unexplained loss of ability among athletes] YIPS One of the funniest sequences of Ted Lasso is when the striker Dani Rojas gets the yips. It led to the introduction of Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, a sports psychologist who was one of the best characters on the show.
• 44D [Activity for goal-oriented people?] SOCCER Cute clue.