LAT 3:18 (Stella) 
[3.08 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Newsday tk (pannonica) 
[3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 7:25 (Amy) [3.21 avg; 17 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) [3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) 
[1.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 17:25 (Eric) 
[2.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Alex Jiang’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 9/13/25 – no. 0913
Whew, can’t believe what showed up in 16-Across after I worked the crossings to fill in all the squares. 16A. [Italian pianist who composed the scores for “Nomadland” and “The Father”], LUDOVICO EINAUDI? Wild that 6 of the last 8 lettters are vowels. Scores are not my area.
I like the big ZZ/22 grid layout, Two triple stacks joined by those 5-square staircases. The triple stacks’ crossings are pretty darn good, and they’re mostly 5- to 8-letter words rather than heavy on the 3s and 4s.
Fave fill: CLOSED ECOSYSTEM, PLUM TUCKERED OUT (though I’m a PLUMB loyalist), AS LOOSE AS A GOOSE (… are they loose, though?), “WELL, IT’S NO WONDER,” 2025 Oscar winner Kieran CULKIN, DOSAS (which I finally tried for the first time earlier this year, and yum), COCAINE, RUTABAGA, the LAGER/PORTER crossing x-refs. TAKIS makes for a fresh junk-food entry, but it’s one I don’t intend to try.
I know A-OKAY and A-ONE aren’t really dupes, but they feel like dupes. They also embody the arbitrariness (not A-OK, A-1?) of those terms.
Jess Rucks’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 9/13/25 by Jess Rucks
I appreciated that this puzzle was considerably harder than the last couple of Saturdays have been.
Things I liked or loved:
- 6D [Place for a draft pick] is a SPORTS BAR. I’ve seen clues like [Draft pick?] for ALE before, but the freshness here comes from the fact that SPORTS BAR encompasses both meanings of “draft,” in a way.
- 12D [Affliction similar to spring fever] is SENIORITIS, an entry I feel like I haven’t seen before even though it has a letter pattern that means it should be all over crosswords.
- 21D [Planet entirely inhabited by robots] Absolutely loved this clue for MARS, which totally fooled me into thinking it referred to science fiction!
- 25D [Fault line?] is a nice clue for THAT’S ON YOU.
Things I was less into:
- The entries POOL NOODLE and I CAN RELATE, which are in the Venn diagram overlap of “good letter combos for filling” and “liked by contemporary crossword editors.” They’re fine, but I could deal with a moratorium on both.
- 37A [“The Subtle Power of the Red Carpet __”: Vogue headline] for DURAG. This didn’t quite feel like enough inferability in the clue to be fair.
- 7D [Jam band that holds the record for sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre] which seemed like too niche of a way to clue the longest entry in the puzzle, WIDESPREAD PANIC. I realize that I’m doing a bit of defining “niche” as “something I personally do not know,” but I think this kind of trivia in a mainstream themeless is best reserved for short and mid-length entries. Especially when this entry could easily have been clued without trivia!
Sam Koperwas & Jeff Chen’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Home Improvement” — Eric’s Review
Sam Koperwas & Jeff Chen’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Home Improvement” — 9/13/25
A punny sort of theme today, with common phrases repurposed as praise from a homeowner over some renovations:
- 23A [“What fantastic contractors! Our chandeliers are so much more secure after the installers ___”] REALLY SCREWED THINGS UP
- 37A [“And our temperatures! All year comfort, 24/7, because the HVAC crew ___”] BLEW HOT AND COLD
- 48A [“Goodbye wimpy showers! The plumbers definitely put us ___”] UNDER PRESSURE
- 66A [“No more stony topsoil to threaten our prize hydrangea! The landscapers clearly ___”] BEAT AROUND THE BUSH
- 85A [“With concealed backup batteries, no power failures to worry about! So clever of the electricians to include ___”] HIDDEN CHARGES
- 92A [“The audio techs solved our annoying feedback dilemma! They were ___”] A TOTAL BUZZKILL I like this one, though I’m not sure why.
- 110A [“And the final touch-ups: goodbye dull, dingy walls! The painters sure ___”] GLOSSED OVER THE DETAILS
If a theme of this sort has one or two amusing answers, then maybe that’s enough to sustain a solver’s interest. I didn’t dislike the theme, but it also didn’t wow me.
Other stuff:
- 61A [Poet whose best-known work is 14,233 lines long] DANTE I’ve never read the Divine Comedy. This answer could’ve been T.S. ELIOT, YEATS, KEATS . . . any poet with a five-letter name.
- 82A [Eschews modesty] BOASTS STRIPS would have fit, too.
- 90A [When repeated, a classic Mardi Gras tune] IKO A gimme.
- 102A [Cohen who wrote “Hallelujah”] LEONARD Jeff Buckley’s cover of the song may be the best known one; there are over 700 versions of it.
- 15D [Big brand in laptop sleeves] CASE LOGIC Computer brand, OK. Computer case brands? Really? (But this was easy enough to get with a few letters.)
- 31 [Bounded, in Bristol] LEAPT So American English would use “leaped”? I think I prefer “leapt.”
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Despite the prior ratings, I was big fan of today’s NYT. A good Saturday morning struggle!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Well, I knew the music but not the composer’s name. Now I will remember it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN_q-_nGv4U&ab_channel=LudovicoEinaudiVEVO
Fun puzzle!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Felt very/too easy for a Saturday, especially given all the long, uncommon entries.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Can’t believe it’s Einaudi’s debut on NYT.
NYT was mostly easy except that I struggled in the section with ELGIN Baylor, TAKIS and AOKAY, although I got there eventually.
I don’t like PLUMTUCKEREDOUT — clearly should be PLUMB, but I’ve no doubt both versions exist. And I will never care for plural OKRAS, despite anything Martin has said and may say again in defense.
ASLOOSEASAGOOSE is new to me, although it was pretty easy to guess.
PLUM TUCKERED OUT worked okay for me. I’m very familiar with the phrase, and have used it myself, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in print – so I’ve never thought about how the first word is spelled.
I stalled for a bit on AS LOOSE AS A GOOSE. Again, a familiar phrase, but I don’t usually hear it with the first “AS.” I’m loose as a goose. He’s loose as a goose. Just don’t usually need the first “AS.”
I was a little annoyed by LUDOVICO EINAUDI. Not exactly a household name (at least in MY household), and not much of it easily inferable. Kind of a PITA to need just about every single crossing to get a 15-letter entry.
For me, the first 2/3 went in pretty quickly and smoothly, then it just took a while to finish it off. Didn’t know ELGIN, and had originally put AS ONE in instead of ALONE, which made much more sense. JOUST for “tilt” still has me a little confused, as does A ONE for “supercalifragalistexpialodocous (sp?)” but whatever. Pretty good Saturday!
https://www.britannica.com/sports/tilting This clue took me a REALLY long while, along with some others.
ELGIN was a gimme for me – he was in his prime when I was a kid in the early 60’s.
For “tilt,” I thought of Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
I know some of the lyrics to “Super blah blah blah,” but I’ve never seen the movie, so I don’t know if the “extra special” meaning comes from the movie or is something that has evolved since.
Stumper: What a weird grid shape! One snaking path through the whole thing. Did not at ALL feel “less ruff.” I’ve said this before: I don’t think that moniker should be used on any of these. But I don’t come to the Stumper for an easy puzzle, so I enjoyed the struggle!
Bottom right was by far the hardest for me. Took a long time to see LOADED (wanted cookie for a long time), but once I took out cookie and commited to EYES, INDO, and TERRY GROSS, things cleared up. But I really don’t like that cross of ASTOR and LOTTE LENYA. First of all, I’ve never heard of LOTTE LENYA, so that T could have been lots of things (I didn’t even know where the first and last names split). But more importantly, I feel like the clue on ASTOR isn’t how clues work. ASTOR is not defined as the rise and fall of an american fortune. The book is about the ASTORs, and presumably their life embodies that rise and fall. But the person ASTOR is not themselves the rise and fall. Does that make sense?
Not that that matters — I’ve never heard of the book or the person — but I wasn’t looking for the name of a person when thinking about the clue.
I agree about the cluing for 43D — didn’t like it.
The Title is Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune.
Yeah I know, but Astor isn’t the rise and fall. Astor’s life might embody the rise and fall, but the clue/answer pair implies that the book title means that Astor is the rise and fall.
No, it conveys that “The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune” is the subtitle of a book titled “Astor.”
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I just finished listening to Anderson Cooper’s (he of CNN) book: The title is “The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune ASTOR”: It’s not clear on the cover whether ‘the rise’ is the subtitle or part of the title; it’s printed above ASTOR. Interesting book, and quite well-written, but Cooper should stick to writing and reporting the news, not narrating an audiobook. His intonation borders on monotonous.
Oops. Should be Stumper, not NYT
The title page makes it look much more like a title and subtitle.
Re Stumper: I thought the qualifier “per Wikipedia” for 24D was a little jarring. It’s not just Wikipedia that says that. You can also find it on, e.g., IMDB.
I think the clue is trying to hint at the new name, but yes, it could have been done better. That’s the person’s name now.
Agreed. And it’s not just that the name is written like that in some places. That’s his name. The end.
paused my solve to be annoyed by it, glad to see others have already made my comment
Stumper: I assume pannonica (or someone) is running late. I’ll be interested to see the grid later. I’m REALLY unsure of two. Is it really “from the non” for 13D and “semilog” for 37D?? Never heard of either before. I’ll also have to look up 1967 movies, which is what I’m assuming “Nero” for 54A’s “Chariot racer in the 67 Olympics” is a reference to.
Overall, despite my questions and quibbles, it wasn’t too bad of a solve. My husband (who starts us off) was able to get the right third top to bottom on his own. I then got the lower left from knowing South Sudan, but the upper left was hard until I landed on Miata for 7D, then it fell gradually into place.
P.S. Another question is about 41A — is that really the fabric softener’s slogan?? Why “whitest-white” for a fabric softener??
P.S. No, the clue for 54A is referring to the the year 67 AD (or CE, whichever you prefer). Apparently, Nero raced with more horses than his competitors to win it.
FROM THEN ON
Yes, thanks! My husband (who got it) just explined it. :)
SEMILOG refers to a kind of graph paper, where the X-axis is linear and the Y-axis is logarithmic. (If both axes are logarithmic, it’s log-log.)
Since pathogen progression might be geometric (say squaring, not doubling, with time), plotting it on normal linear graph paper would quickly go “off the charts.” So the vertical scale is made logarithmic (the inverse of geometric) to better convey the progression.
Humph! “Interesting” is all I can say! Never heard of it. Thanks for the reply!
The Wikipedia entry for “semi-log plot” has an example of the progression of the swine flu outbreak
i am missing pannonica
this was neither the hardest nor easiest stumper
quite enjoyable solve IMHO
please come back pannonica!!
Apologies for the blip. Quite a lot going on.
I just solved the Stumper, time = 13:43, so not so tough even though as usual there moments when it looked as if whole swaths of the grid would remain impregnable.
Glad to hear from you! You were missed. :)
Won’t someone please take on posting the solution to the Saturday Universal?
NYT
RE: loose as a goose… Amy, follow a goose and you will know what is loose about geese :D :D… frequent and yes, pretty loose droppings.
A lot of “learning moments” for me, and NE stumped me with the composer and the adenine thing.
I am definitely in the plumB sector… Professor Plum would be shocked to be so tiring!
p.s. what I call “learning moments” are things I have to either google or else just run the alphabet. I prefer learning something new over running random letters, so I search. Some call it cheating, but who am I cheating by googling? Not myself, and nobody’s paying me ;) . My payoff is new knowledge.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
Certainly a competent debut puzzle, unaccountably slotted on a Saturday by the editors.
That long and not-common-knowledge composer’s name in the middle of the top stack made it feel, at first, like this was going to be a tough, deep-trivia-laden puzzle, but nope. Everything else was easy-peasy and the unknown name filled in promptly from crosses. I do agree that one is “plumb” tuckered, not PLUM, a rather egregious miss on a once-common colloquial phrase. Maybe double-check these things before building a stack around them?
Faster than yesterday’s puzzle, which was itself fast for a Friday. The late-week slide in difficulty continues.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Kind of disappointed in the bottom spanners, all of which felt padded to reach 15 characters. I’m used to just “tuckered out” (no plum or plumb) and “well no wonder.” Plus OKRAS, and AONE and AOKAY in the same grid. Rounded up to 3, consider this a 2.75.
Side note, Paolo is absolutely crushing it on Jeopardy! Loved his story about the fun of seeing someone solve one of his NYT grids on the subway, until they Googled an answer.
LOL, his comment last night about that is what prompted me to write about my ‘learning moments’. Now he can describe himself as “teacher” for providing me and others with “learning moments”, not cheating :P .
Re: the Stumper:
If Pannonica were posting, I suspect that she might embed the YouTube video for Lotte Lenya’s recording of the “Alabama Song”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCdq2y7zhY4
’spossible, but who knows now?