BEQ 9:35 (Eric) 
[3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) 
[4.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
LAT 10:36 (Gareth) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 14:29 (ZDL) [2.77 avg; 33 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:56 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:44 (Emily) 
[1.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 8:22 (Jim Q) 
[3.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Frnl Lng’s Frbll Crsswrd, “Vwllss Crsswrd 14” – Jnn’s wrt-p
Yup, it’s that time again! There’s not much to say about a vowelless crossword. I know they’re not for everybody and I find that I don’t enjoy them as much as I used to. This one felt like a bit of a slog and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the puzzle itself or my loss of patience with the format.
As you can see from the little green check-marks, I had some mistakes I didn’t bother to try and figure out.
Fireball Crossword, September 24, 2025, Frank Longo, “Vwllss Crsswrd 14,” solution grid
- 15a [Being discussed to iron out the details, as a contract] is NDRNGTTN (under negotiation ). It crosses 3d [Like things that haven’t been leased out] which is NRNTD (unrented). I thought it was UNTENANTED, didn’t count my N’s correctly, shrugged, and moved on. So it’s probably me.
- 13d [Any sooner than the point when] is NTLSCHTMS (until such time as). Both the clue and answer are a bit stilted. No idea what I thought it was. 18a [Outward features] is XTRNLS and I thought it was EXTRINSICS, again didn’t count my letters, and didn’t see EXTERNALS until afterwards.
- 41a [Keeper of fishtanks] is QRST (aquarist). That’s funny.
- 52d [Lacking solidity, as Jupiter and Saturn] is GSS which I actually got right without understanding that it’s GASEOUS. I knew it couldn’t be GASSY because these puzzles have no Y’s.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that WLKNGNMMPHS (Walking in Memphis) was nominated for a Song of the Year Grammy.
Billy Ouska’s Universal Crossword “Internal Clock” — Eric’s Review
Billy Ouska’s Universal Crossword “Internal Clock” — 9/25/25
I ignored the circled letters, as I too often do. Different types of timepieces are embedded in the grid-spanning theme answers:
- 17A [Is excited one moment and bored the next, say] BLOWS HOT AND COLD
- 41A [Sunbathes] CATCHES SOME RAYS
- 64A [Military unit established in 1775] CONTINENTAL ARMY
There’s no revealer, but the title should make the theme obvious to most solvers. Though I have to wonder: If you made a Venn diagram of people unfamiliar with the concept of a basketball “shot clock” or a “chess clock,” how much overlap would there be between the two groups?
The theme answers are pretty nice; I don’t remember seeing any of them in a puzzle before.
Overall, the longer fill seemed very fresh. Other stuff:
- 1A [“Frozen” character] OLAF (a snowman)/21A [“Frozen” character] ELSA (the Snow Queen) You’ve also got ANNA (a princess), SVEN (a reindeer), HANS (a prince). You’ve just got to wait for a cross with these guys.
- 34A [Jam band with a series of “Live Bait” albums] PHISH “Jam band,” five letters, ending in H? I didn’t need to recognize the album series.
- 69A [“Best Day ___” (Mac Miller mixtape)] EVER You sometimes don’t need to know anything about an artist or their music to get an answer like this.
- 6D [Midwest ___ (moody subgenre)] EMO I’d not heard of this subgenre (though it’s been around since the 1990s). But “moody” is such a giveaway. Just glancing at Wikipedia’s list of Midwest emo bands, the first one I recognized was Hop Along (whom I like). Since when is Philadelphia part of the Midwest?
- 9D [Problematic person] BAD APPLE
- 11D [Too prideful to participate] ABOVE IT ALL Nice phrase that you don’t hear too much.
- 30D [“Over my dead body!”] NOT A CHANCE I like this as fill, too.
- 42D [“… if you pick up what I’m putting down”] HINT HINT
- 66D [Number of countries that border Brazil] TEN Nice little fact to try and remember. I’m not even going to try and name them, though.
Jesse Goldberg’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Hard, then easy, then medium (did I cover all the bases?) (14m29s)
Jesse Goldberg’s New York Times crossword, 9/25/25, 0925
Today’s theme: FIRST TWO LETTERS (What each Down answer needs from its clue in order to make sense)
Take a look at my rebused version of the puzzle — just entering all those extra characters was a big chunk of my 14:29 finish today. However, I couldn’t get the NYTXW site to accept the puzzle as completed, even after changing all of those rebus squares to their third letter (completing the across entries, but now making the downs look like gibberish.) Someone tell me where I went wrong!
Other thoughts: this grid (if you accept my screenshot version) would set some kind of rebus record. It also must have been a beast to construct, as an entire set of answers (either the downs or crosses) will be nonsense, depending on whether you’re including what’s been SKIMMED OFF THE TOP.
Fun (terrible?) fact: Pat Riley owns the trademark for THREE-PEAT. People should not be allowed to own wordplay.
Cracking: SCUSI, va bene, ciao. That’s all the Italian you acquire during your semester in Florence.
Slacking: LIENEE
Sidetracking: The Grand Ole OPRY
Jill Singer’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Heady Stuff” — Jim Q’s write-up
THEME: Phrases that include types of hats “drop” at the end
WSJ • 9/25/25 • Thurs • “Heady Stuff” • Jill Singer • solution • 20250925
THEME ANSWERS:
- 1A/4D [Onetime Nissan subsidiary] DAT[SUN]
- 9A/13D [What might send you over the edge] LAST[STRAW]
- 58A/59D [Lacking layovers] NONS[TOP]
- 49A/53D [Popular way to celebrate Halloween] COSTUME[PARTY]
- 21A/22D [1980 John Travolta film] URBAN[COWBOY]
- 38A Without hesitating, and a hint to five answers in this puzzle AT THE DROP OF A HAT
SUN HAT, STRAW HAT, TOP HAT, PARTY HAT, COWBOY HAT
Nifty theme with lots of theme material and a fairly clean grid to boot! The idea was fun to uncover. I grokked it with NONSTOP, but put TOP as a rebus square. I had STEEL instead of the correct STEEP for [Hard to climb]. I mean, STEEL sounds hard to climb for me I suppose… so changing the down to TOP didn’t seem right at the time.
The only other area that tripped me up was ARCH vs. INCH for [Foot part]. That and the TRAPPISTS / CHANTEUSE crossing. I spent a good minute up there.
4 stars from me today!
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1821 “Halfbacks” — Eric’s Review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1821 “Halfbacks” — 9/25/25
An easier one today, and one in which the theme actually helped me figure out some of the wacky phrases that make up the theme. Each theme answer is a pair of almost anagrams in which the second word is more or less the reverse of the first:
- 17A [Leafy Texas meal?] DALLAS SALAD
- 53A [Singer Styles’s red wine?] HARRY’S SYRAH This was where I caught on to the flip-flopping of the theme answers, which allowed me to double back and fill in the first half of 17A.
- 11D [Put a roof on a train station?] TOPPED DEPOT
- 35D [Award accomplishments for Larry, Moe, or Curly?] STOOGE EGOTS “Accomplishments” signaled the Emmy/Grammy/Oscar/Tony combination that shows up so much more frequently in crosswords than in real life.
In each theme answer, there’s a doubled letter in the first half, which is what keeps it from being a true anagram of the second half. I’m not sure if this is coincidence or an actual part of the theme.
Other stuff:
- 28A [Kick the ball between your opponent’s legs in soccer] NUTMEG Association football is one of the few sports I pay any attention to, and I picked up this term somewhere along the way.
- 30A [Animal that’s foaming at the mouth] RABID DOG Not really what I want to see in a crossword, but better here than in real life. Pet lovers, please keep your animals vaccinated.
- 42A [“She’s a Beauty” rock band] THE TUBES I don’t know the song, but I am vaguely aware of the band. Crossing 37D [Beastie Boys song that begins “I can’t stand it”] SABOTAGE — another musical answer I didn’t know — was a bit challenging, but the letter pattern made B more likely than, say, N.
- 45A [German bar tender?] EUROS I missed that the clue didn’t use “bartender.” If I’d gotten the monetary twist sooner, I might’ve shaved a minute or so off my solving time.
- 63A [Anxiety medication] XANAX Surely there are other drugs commonly prescribed for anxiety. Despite X being such an uncommon letter in English, I plunked XANAX down without hesitation.
- 3D [Veronika Slowikowska’s show] SNL Wikipedia says that 172 comedians have been in the cast of Saturday Night Live in its 50 year history. Ms Slowikowska is a new name for me; I figure there are at least 75 other cast members I’ve not heard of. Yet.
- 4D [Sporty shirt brand] POLO I considered IZOD and decided to wait.
- 8D [Talk while waving?: Abbr.] ASL This strikes me as a bit dismissive of American Sign Language. I tried to learn some basic ASL vocabulary 35 years ago and never got it down well.
- 13D [It smells] ODOR/34D [They smell] NOSES Cute. Maybe too cute.
- 30D [Monks’ attire] ROBES Not COWLS.
- 38D [Zebra rival] BIC Pens, not cigarette lighters. Zebra is not a brand I’d heard of.
- 40D [Musical comedian Bo] BURNHAM I recognized his name only after I’d gotten most of the letters.
- 41D [Luxury crossover SUV from Toyota] LEXUS UX I didn’t recognize that model, though I’m sure I’ve seen them around. The UX is for “Urban Explorer.”
- 51D [“___ Breckinridge”] MYRA One for us older solvers, I guess. Gore Vidal’s novel was published in 1968; the movie adaptation is from 1970. Today I Learned that Myra starts out the story as Myron.
Sally Hoelscher & Jess Rucks’ USA Today Crossword, “Tail End” — Emily’s write-up
Bringing up the rear!
USA Today, September 25, 2025, “Tail End” by Sally Hoelscher & Jess Rucks
Theme: the last word of each thermer is a synonym for a “tail end”
Themers:
- 19a. [Cushion that can give a child a lift], BOOSTERSEAT
- 36a. [SpongeBob SquarePants’ city], BIKINIBOTTOM
- 53a. [The Eagles’ Saquon Barkley, e.g.], RUNNINGBACK
A fun themer set today! BOOSTERSEAT filled in easily for me while I needed some crossings for BIKINIBOTTOM and RUNNINGBACK.
Favorite fill: NOVASCOTIA, ONTARIO, ASTERISK, and PODCAST
Stumpers: ARMOIRE (needed crossings), TRAPSET (new to me), and PROAM (new to me)
Loved the grid design which made for a smooth flow of the puzzle for me today. Great cluing and overall fill plus enjoyable lengthy bonus fill.
4.0 stars
~Emily
Rebecca Goldstein’s LA Times Crosswords – Gareth’s theme summary
Rebecca Goldstein’s offering is a rare LA Times Thursday that felt more like a NY Times Thursday gimmick. Each clue is kind of a rebus. You need to read [Mer(c)y] as [What the [c] of Mer[c]y is], and it’s a SEAOFHUMANITY (or a synonym for humanity). Similarly the (T) of Tyke is a KIDSTEE; THE (I) of Brain is a MINDSEYE; The (B) in Benefit is a BEOFSERVICE; and the (Y) of Trajectory is a WHYOFCOURSE.
Gareth
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I entered each Down entry starting with the third letter (ARE, GELS, REAK, etc.) and the Games app accepted it.
Really don’t know what to make of this one. It’s an amazing feat of construction for sure. On the other hand, the solving process was baffling until I caught on to the trick. After that it was really easy because you’re getting the FIRSTTWOLETTERS of each Down for free. It was like feeling the rush of someone giving you a present, and then you open it and see what it is and the rush is over.
I still solve the old-fashioned way, doing each of the Across clues in order and then each of the Down clues in order. So I got to the revealer before seeing any of the Down clues, which took quite a bit of fun out of the puzzle. I wish that the puzzle had been constructed so that it was the Across clues that needed the extra two letters.
Yeah, tough puzzle, until I finally caught onto the trick.
I hate entering rebuses on my iPhone. Thankfully, the program accepted simply putting in the third letter (which at least allowed the across answers to make sense).
Not sure why that didn’t work for you, Zachary.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
I appreciate gimmicks and the typical Thursday ingenuity as much as anyone. But this one rubbed me the wrong way – it was somewhat of a slog to wade through, and I simply didn’t enjoy the experience. Maybe it just caught me on a bad day.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
I’m with you, it wasn’t a pleasant solve. And to top it off, the program didn’t accept the rebuses.
Well, there AREN’T any rebuses. The extra letters you need for the down answers are in the clues – that’s the theme.
It was frustrating at first, because I also thought it was a rebus puzzle (which I often don’t like) – so I had rebuses all across the top row, and I could see that it was the last letter of each of those rebuses that made sense in the across entries. I initially thought that SKIM OFF THE TOP was the key, and I was supposed to do something with all those rebuses I had entered in the first row. But I couldn’t quite make sense of that.
Once I got to the actual revealer, it was all pretty clear. I got rid of all those rebuses, and the rest of the solve was pretty straightforward.
I’m usually not a big fan of puzzles with a “trick” involving the clues. But while I was thoroughly confused for a while, in the end, I thought this one was pretty good. Overall, a nice Thursday challenge.
I agree that this is not a rebus puzzle. The first two letters of each down answer are simply missing from the grid.
Also agree with “hard, then easy…” but not with “then medium.” Once I caught on to the trick, knowing the first two letters of every down answer made this very, very easy. Disappointingly easy, I’m sorry to say.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
For a non-english native speaker I think this puzzle was too much.. couldn’t and won’t finish this puzzle.
Wow! For a non-English speaker to tackle an English-language crossword puzzle, let alone the New York Times, is jaw-droppingly impressive in my book.
Just drop the first two letters which are the first two letters of the clue also. Hence skimmed off the top
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
This one played fun. I appreciated the natural cluing to get the down partials to work. I grokked the theme early on and didn’t enter the answers as a rebus. I’m a bit surprised my rating seems to be an outlier here.
Yeah, once I locked in it went pretty fast. I only briefly tried with a rebus, but after realizing I needed the FIRST TWO LETTERS, it was easy enough to fix. Would’ve been extra if the remaining words were all still words, but that seems like an impossible construction feat. Came in under my average Thursday time, so nice. I thought it was pretty fun, but knew it wasn’t going to be super popular. Oh well.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Tedious and boring. Plus, I hate puzzles where the “completed” grid is full of entries that are not words. It’s a crossWORD puzzle, not a crossJUNK puzzle. There are times when a theme makes that acceptable, or at least tolerable. This was not one of them.
TNY/Crossword Scraper update: The developer is working on a solution and says he’s had some success, though it’s going to take more work to get it to a point where he can test it thoroughly and then make a new version available. I’ll keep an eye on GitHub and will update here as there’s news.
I very much appreciate you, and the Crossword Scraper developer, keeping on top of this unfortunate change by TNY, and keeping the rest of us informed.
My thanks, too.
+1
Thanks from me, too, for your efforts. I hope any fixes to the Scraper situation will carry over to the problem with printing the puzzle from the New Yorker website. That’s all I ever do and haven’t been able to this week. Thanks, again! David
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Hated this one. Painful and not fun. I had to come here to get the gimmick. Like 2-DOWN for example: Where did the G come from? Wouldn’t it be ANA-ELS if you SKIM OFF THE TOP? So confusing.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
The full answer for 2D is ANGELS, so skimming off the top two letters gives GELS. Does that make sense?
No it wouldn’t. You SKIM OFF THE TOP 2 letters and get AN GELS. Pretty straightforward.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
4.5 stars from me. I loved the puzzle within a puzzle, converting all the Downs accordingly. You get the first two letters of every Down answer from the clue! You just can’t put them in the grid.
Yep! That really unlocked the grid, and went pretty fast at that point.
I loved this solve, personally. But — only b/c I skipped down to find a reveal, VERY early on.
An ideal version might either: (a) have had that long reveal WAY up higher, like ideally on the 3rd row? or (b) just dropped a clever “breadcrumb” of some sort?
otw, it’s like either you do or do not already know to “cheat” by jumping down to the reveal… But at that point – I mean – hmmm.
This is a tough call. I surely have no rating. I’d surely prefer if the puzzle had everybody happily looking for “the trick” earlier on, b/c then (regardless of how long your solve is), you’d have a ton of fun. But that’s a very hard ask! Again, I really loved the solve, personally – despite (and also because of) a little initial head scratching.
LAT: nice theme, and cluing that is more challenging than usual
Puzzle: Fireball; Rating: 4 stars
Oof! This one was a good bit harder than most vowelless puzzles for me. It may have been too much for my brain to go straight to this one after solving the bendy Thurs NYT.
I agree, I had done all the rebuses and couldn’t figure out why the Times app wouldn’t accept them, so I did the check puzzle (breaking my solve streak!!!) and just entered the 3rd letter and then it accepted it. Really unfair, but a very clever puzzle.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Z
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
I think this may be the second time I quit solving out of pure frustration and tedium of trying to figure out the elaborate theme and then correctly entering it. Shortz seems to be venturing further and further in this direction.
Am I correct that the across “rebus” fills are not words?
As noted in an earlier comment above, there *aren’t* any refuses. You don’t cram the first three letters of each down into a single square, you skim off the first two letters entirely (since they’re already provided in the clues).
NYT: not surprised with the negative comments, just the volume of them.
I liked this puzzle. On Thursdays, I typically look for a revealer early. Found it, then it didn’t take long to grok it.
Fun for me at least.
Maybe this is a cumulative effect. There have been a few of these showoff grids lately where the constructor did something really neat with the form, but didn’t factor in the solver experience. At least this one told you exactly what to do. There have been much worse than this.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
NYT 2.0 The first time in more than ten years of solving I quit. Too unpleasant to finish. No point other than total gimmickry. Must have been a bear to create, however. Hoping for a rebound Friday.
Pavel,
“,,,there *aren’t any refuses.”
I get it. Thats why I put rebuses in quotes. Is there a better term for cramming all those letters into one square?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
They don’t go in the squares. They don’t go in at all. That’s why part of the theme is SKIM OFF THE TOP. You remove the top two letters of each Down answer and then the Across answers all make sense (not all the Downs make sense but you can’t have everything). And the two letters you take off the top are the first two letters of the clue.
There was an obituary in the NYT yesterday for famed Puns and Anagrams constructor Mel Taub. It also includes one of his puzzles. See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/crosswords/mel-taub-dead.html .
I rated the NYT in one of my comments above and pretty much felt the same way Amy did. The puzzle gave me fits for a while and then I started filling in whatever I could which eventually brought me to the revealer. That was one of the most satisfying aha! moments I’ve had in a long time.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
I am amazed at the negative comments about the NYT puzzle. This is Thursday so you have to know there’s going to be something different. It’a a puzzle that was puzzling. Isn’t that the purpose of a puzzle?
+1
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I didn’t enjoy this one much – it took a while for me to get to the revealer, which clued me in to the fact that there were two missing letters in each down. If I’d read it more closely I would have known that the missing letters were at the beginning of each clue – I had to come here to figure that out! I agree that it’s an impressive grid, but it wasn’t a lot of fun for me.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 4 stars
Fun theme, well executed.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
I really liked this puzzle because of the aha moment, which took a while to get to. But yes, it became very easy after that.
That said, I hope to never encounter this sort of gimmick again :)
NYT was just annoying.
Threw it into the trash.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
I didn’t like this. I got everything right and entered three letters for each down clue but the Games page said iot was wrong and broke my streak. It wanted a letter for each box.
Lots of solvers, including the reviewer and my wife — in no particular order –, wanted to make this a rebus puzzle. Since either the acrosses (with rebus) or downs (without rebus) will be gibberish, how to choose?
I believe the revealer clue, “What each Down answer needs from its clue in order to make sense,” tells us. The downs are gibberish until we mentally prepend them with the first two letters of the clues. Inserting the letters into the grid makes the downs make sense, contrary to the instructions.