BEQ 10:56 (Eric) 
[2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) 
[1.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 11:35 (ZDL) 
[4.22 avg; 32 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:47 (Eric) 
[3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:40 (Emily) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WSJ untimed (Jim Q) [3.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Kevin Bhavsar’s Universal Crossword “Professional Chic” — Eric’s Review
Kevin Bhavsar’s Universal Crossword “Professional Chic” — 10/2/25
Congratulations to Kevin Bhavsar, who appears to be making his crossword debut in a Fiend-reviewed publication! Constructor debuts are always fun to see, especially when they’re as strong as this one.
I’m not the fastest typist and have never been interested in tournament solving, but I do try to solve puzzles quickly. I’m happy any time I get below five minutes, even on the easiest puzzles. So maybe I was predisposed to like this one, but I like to think I’m a bit deeper than that.
We get four familiar phrases that have nothing to do with each other except that they’ve been cleverly clued as adornments that might be worn by persons in certain occupations:
- 20A [Accessory for a fry cook?] FAST-FOOD CHAIN
- 34A [Accessory for a meteorologist?] TORNADO WATCH
- 41A [Accessory for an astronomer?] ASTEROID BELT
- 56A [Accessory for a luchador?] WRESTLING RING
My only complaint about the theme is that “professional” might be a bit of an overstatement for some of these jobs. I greatly and sincerely appreciate how hard it is to work in a restaurant — my first job was in a long-gone Dallas barbecue place. (My many duties included making the French fries that had no business being in any self-respecting barbecue restaurant, but damn! They were some of the best fries I have ever had.) And I recognize that “professional” can mean “engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation.” So maybe it’s elitist of me to want “professional” to be reserved for people who (as I did) spend several years getting the type of education they need to get some sort of license to do whatever it is they’re going to do, in a job where they could cause some real harm if they don’t know what they’re doing.
That quibble aside, the theme is great. The four theme answers are all very much in the vernacular, and only “tornado watch” is a bit of a downer. I’ve never seen a tornado, but I’ve seen the damage they can do. “Wrestling ring” almost makes up for it, mostly because it always amuses me to think of luchadors.
Other stuff:
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- 17A [Bark sound] WOOF It’s a word you learn before you know how to read. I cannot explain why it took me as long as it did to fill that in, except that I’m more accustomed to seeing “yip” and “yap” in crosswords. Or maybe it’s that I use “Woof!” as a an interjection more than a representation of a canine sound.
- 46A [Squirrel relative] MARMOT About six months ago, I was driving up near Ouray, Colorado, and saw a largish-animal by the side of the road. And then another. It wasn’t quite as cool as having a saw-whet owl in the tree outside my bedroom, but it was pretty cool.
Marmota flaviventris (Yellow Bellied Marmot)
- 54A [Country song?] ANTHEM Cute clue.
- 2D [Not attracted to others, casually] ARO ACE For “aromantic” and “asexual.” But you knew that.
- 5D [Clip of an actor messing up and then swearing, say] BLOOPER I was interested to learn just now that this sense of “blooper” goes back to the earliest days of radio broadcasting. If you have some favorite blooper reels, share them in the comments. It’s always fun to see professionals screw up.
- 43D [Soul singer Redding] OTIS If you say there’s a better pop record than “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” I’m gonna have to meet you in a wrestling ring.
Aidan Deshong’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Average (11m35s)
Aidan Deshong’s New York Times crossword, 10/2/25, 1002
Today’s theme: MINESWEEPER (Classic computer game whose players avoid hazardous items in a grid … as suggested by this puzzle?)
I really like this puzzle. And, full disclosure, I’ve never played a game of MINESWEEPER in my life.. not because I’m the wrong demographic, but because my first computer (with a real user interface, ignoring the Commodore 64) was a black & white Macintosh Classic II. So growing up in the OSX ecosystem, I had plenty of shareware (Glider, anyone?), but no mines to sweep.
That being said, I’m vaguely familiar with the mechanics of the game, and this all seems to check out.
Cracking: MINE ALL MINE, the piece de resistance
Slacking: ESCOOTER looks estupido
Sidetracking: POIROT
Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crossword “Themeless 182” – Jenni’s write-up
This one made me work, particularly in the NW. I am grateful for Peter’s habit of making the first and last entries somehow connected. It helped.
Fireball, October 1, 2025, Peter Gordon, “Themeless 182,” solution grid
- 65a [Nickname of 6’5″ Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz, who’s from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania] is BIG AMISH. I knew that from watching the A’s play the Yankees earlier this year. It’s my favorite baseball nickname!
- I did know know 1a [Man in the St. Ives riddle, e.g.] is BIGAMIST, so getting 65a gave me a good hint. The whole riddle is here.
- This puzzle is full of entries for “what I didn’t know before I did this puzzle,” including 19a [Director of the 2024 film, “Blink Twice”] ZOE KRAVITZ. Kudos to Peter for working her very Scrabbly full name into the puzzle.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: so many, many things. I’ll close with “the high one,” in Athabascan: DENALI.
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1823 “As Per Unusual” — Eric’s Review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1823 “As Per Unusual” — 10/2/25
I look at the theme answers and I see wacky anagrams, but nothing more. Let me know what I missed.
- 16A [Protection for a broad-ended cravat?] ASCOT GUARD Coast Guard
- 24A [Greek cheeses that aren’t stationary?] MOVABLE FETAS Moveable feast
- 37A [With 39-Across, unbendable Egyptian snakes?]/39A HARD/ASPS Hard pass
- 45A [Where Lewinsky worships?] MONICA’S TEMPLE Masonic temple (I needed an online anagram unscrambler for this one. Oddly, I was just thinking about the weirdness that is Freemasonry a few days ago. Also, I have to wonder how familiar the name Monica Lewinsky is to anyone born in this millennium.)
- 56A [Concepts for stairs?] STEPS IDEAS Steps aside
I’m sure there’s more to this theme than I see, but I don’t have a lot of time now to ponder this theme.
Other stuff:
- 1A [Time off from the daily grind] VACAY I suspected right away that this was the answer, but I really did not want to type it. Some newer coinages grate. That’s one of them.
- 2A [Mountain in the Karakoram range] K-TWO I didn’t recognize the mountain range, and I’ve never seen the second-highest mountain as anything but K2. That answer is just plain bad.
- 42A [Samurai’s weapon] SWORD I expected this to be some Japanese word that I couldn’t remember.
- 44A [2017 film The Playlist called “the ‘Goodfellas’ of figure skating”] I, TONYA I knew immediately what movie this was, but couldn’t remember the actual title until I had the Y.
- 6D [“Sing, Sing, Sing” drummer Gene] KRUPA I don’t recognize the song, but “drummer Gene” was enough for me.
- 38D [Takes second behind the pitcher’s back] STEALS ON Baseball fans: Is this answer as green-painty as it sounds to me?
- 49D [Jimmy V Award for Perseverance and Best Record-Breaking Performance] ESPYS I misread the clue and thought the answer was singular; now, I assume these are two separate award categories.
Ben Zimmer’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Moveable Feast” — Jim Q’s write-up
THEME: Theme answers only make sense if you remove a food item from them
WSJ • 10/02/25 • Thurs • “Moveable Feast” • Ben Zimmer • solution • 20251002
THEME ANSWERS:
- 17A [Tattooist’s job] PAINSTAKING (remove PASTA to get INKING)
- 11D [Door fastener] SOUL PATCH (remove SOUP to get LATCH)
- 23A [Where pizza originated] NAMEPLATES (remove MEAT to get NAPLES)
- 31D [Title for Macbeth] THE GANGES (remove EGGS to get THANE)
- 50A [Leader overthrown in 1955 and re-elected in 1973] PERSONAL AD (remove SALAD to get PERON)
- 58A [Alternative to home cooking, or what should be done to the answers with circles] TAKE OUT FOOD
Unfortunately I don’t have time enough to give this puzzle the write-up it deserves. Clever, fun theme today. Once I figured it out (I jumped to the revealer earlier than I would’ve liked) it was easy to fill in, knowing I had to avoid considering anything in the circled letters. The base phrases filled in easy enough after that.
Interestingly enough, I had a puzzle published in AVCX not terribly long ago with the same revealer, albeit an entirely different approach! Happens all the time :)
Things that stuck out other than the theme: 1) Christopher Nolan is knighted! 2) I think TGIF should retire. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that in the wild… possibly ever. But it certainly hasn’t been a thing for a couple decades now. 3) I don’t understand the clue for AXEL [Cold feat?]. Oh wait… yes I do. It’s a “feat” accomplished on ice in a skating rink. Good one!
Solid puzzle!
4 stars.
Jake Halperin’s USA Today Crossword, “Bi-ble Reading” — Emily’s write-up
Two is better than one.
alt=”Completed USA Today crossword for Thursday October 02, 2025”
USA Today, October 02, 2025, “Bi-ble Reading” by Jake Halperin[/caption]
Cap
Theme: each steamer contains two (aka “bi”) —BLE—
Themers:
- 19a. [Made soapy spheres], BLEWBUBBLES
- 39a. [Meds you don’t swallow whole], CHEWABLETABLETS
- 49a. [Bounce a basketball with both hands], DOUBLESDRIBBLE
You might need a double take for this themer set today! Though it’s a variety with BLEWBUBBLES, CHEWABLETABLETS, and DOUBLESDRIBBLE, they all filled in quickly for me which is always a treat. Plus, the first themer begins with —BLE— and the last one ends in —BLE—. It’s almost like it dribbled its way across the grid!
Favorite fill: POPSICLES, CLOBBERED, BELIKETHAT, and ALOHA
Stumpers: AMPM (first tried “am/fm”), EARNS (misdirected and was thinking of baking initially), and BABKA (new to me)
What a fun grid! Loved the overall fill and lengthy bonus fill. Great cluing too that made for a quick solve, especially with the smooth flow of the grid.
4.5 stars
~Emily
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
I had been thinking of leaving a comment about how I felt a creeping sense of mediocrity with the NYT Crossword lately… especially the themers. How they were stale and safe and kind of boring. How I wasn’t having much fun doing them every day.
But this one… wow!!! It is *spectacular.* The theme was super clever, the fill was clean, and the trick actually helped me finish the grid, once I remembered how to play the game.
This is my favorite NYT Crossword of the year, and probably longer than that. Take a bow, Aidan.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Agreed! I never comment but this one deserved it!
Really fun Thursday. I was originally thinking the numbers were to have something to do with the starts of words, but as I got MINECRAFT (first as _CRAFT) it dawned on me what was happening, and it locked right in. Great puzzle!
NYT: Yikes! Has anyone played this game in the past 30 years? Last time I recall playing was in the early 90’s while on a long conference call when I’d gotten bored with solitaire.
I solved in AcrossLite, so I didn’t see the numbers in the black squares. It didn’t really matter though, because the rules of the game are a long-lost memory. It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out where the MINEs belonged without that. So for me, it was just a rebus puzzle with randomly located MINEs – befitting the game, but not all that entertaining.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
For me, that I had played Minesweeper a LOT at one point in my life but hadn’t thought about it for years was one of the best things about the puzzle. Once I understood the theme, all these memories that I didn’t really know that I had of being in my room late at night playing Minesweeper came rushing into my head.
The closest comparison I’ve had to a similar sensation from a piece of art (and I would say a crossword can be a piece of art) came from a production of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town in a small theater, directed by the great David Cromer. At one point, one of the characters asks to go back to her childhood, and she gets transported back to the kitchen of her childhood home, where her mother is frying bacon. In this production, the actress playing her mother is frying actual bacon, and you hear the grease spitting and you can smell the aroma of bacon cooking as it fills up the room. As an adult, I never cook slabs of bacon, but my mom did for weekend breakfasts when I was little, and the smell and sound of bacon cooking opened up an association and a memory that I didn’t know I had. I was transported back to my own childhood, just like the character was transported back to hers.
So I thought this puzzle was fantastic. Especially because Aidan is a college student, who presumably isn’t of that age where Minesweeper has a hazy nostalgia. I’m surprised a college student would have even heard of the game. I hope there’s a follow-up with Freecell!
My nostalgia for Minesweeper kicked in even though I didn’t get a lot of chances to play it as a kid. We were an Apple household growing up and I mostly missed out on Minesweeper, Freecell, and that Space Cadet pinball game. On the rare occasions I could play at a school computer lab or something, I had an annoying habit of immediately clicking on a mine, because I didn’t understand the rules then.
“Has anyone played this game in the past 30 years?”
I’m told the Minesweeper game on Netflix is fun.
https://www.netflix.com/games
I’ve never played it and probably never will.
Ditto, Gary … You said pretty much exactly what I was thinking about this puzzle. A very clever theme, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the numbers part of Minesweeper though I misspent many, many hours of my early 30s playing it.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Fun NYT puzzle, trick helped out with the solve, clever. Five Stars
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I’ve never played Minesweeper and didn’t understand the significance of the numbers in the black squares until I read the Wordplay column. So the puzzle didn’t evoke any pleasant memories for me.
But it’s a nice-enough rebus puzzle even without fully understanding the theme. I ignored the numbers in the black squares and eventually hit on 69A UNDER{MINE}/49D DETER{MINE} after DEDUCE wasn’t getting me any where. I circled back to the top of the grid and plugged in the other rebuses in my average Thursday solving time.
Same here. I solved it as a typical Thursday rebus puzzle, and liked the execution, but the numbers meant nothing to me. I came here to figure it out, and was still in the dark. Finally, on Wordplay it said: “The numbers indicate how many bombs they are adjacent to,” Christina Iverson, a puzzle editor, said. “So the two means that square is touching two bombs”.
Cool. Sadly, I had no idea.
So, we probably represent some percent of the solvers, with no Proustian remembrance of things past and no understanding of a major feature of the puzzle… Nevertheless, a very nice puzzle.
Ah! Thanks! FINALLY, someone explained the numbers! I print the puzzles to solve them and didn’t see the number until I went to the NYT Games site to check my answers on a couple. I’ve never played Minesweeper, so had no idea what the numbers were for.
I’m in the not Proustian camp, too, but admired the puzzle. And I too couldn’t understand the numbers. I’d have preferred if the review had explained more, but so it goes.
This isn’t strictly, or solely, about using the NYT site for puzzles. It encompasses that, but it applies to logging in, period.They seem to have switched to two-factor ID, which I don’t prefer for non-essential activity like reading the Times, as it adds a few steps (and opening another app). Except that maybe they haven’t.
A bit more than half the time, I just click to log in (where LastPass has remembered the ID and password). But a fair amount of the time, by the time I’ve reached that action, the page has switched to telling me to submit a code.
I suppose that’d be only a minor nuisance, maybe even more secure. But it also displays a bright alert then, saying they’re having a problem and I need to try to log in again later. Just a mess. Still less than a majority of the time, but there we go. It’s behaved like this (where I use Firefox and use the NYT more than once a day) for at least a week.
I really dislike the need to put in a verification code from my email. I can’t access my personal email at work, so I can’t read the NY Times at work when the verification code comes up.
You don’t get your personal email on your phone?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Very neat fills with minimal amount of proper nouns and trivia. I find the theme entertaining enough even though I couldn’t see the numbers in AcrossLite.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Big wow factor today! Loved MALLM in particular.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Loved this one. Super fun!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT — Just wonderful. I was delighted when I figured out what was happening.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I have never heard anyone actually use “kale” to refer to money, although it was guessable.
I thought the theme was really cool although I would have loved a little more complexity with the mine-hunting. But as it is I’ll bet it was already tough to construct.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT: One of my favorite Thursday puzzles ever. Great idea and even better execution.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Sadly the numbers don’t show up if you print the crossword from the website so missed that part of the puzzle but still was a great solve regardless
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT:
I knew nothing about the Mine Sweeper game (or what the numbers in the black squares meant), but this puzzle was a lot of fun as a pure Rebus adventure. Well done, Aidan!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT: Loved it. Influenced by an obsession with minesweeper (which I recently got back into, with trepidation, given how much time it ate up during college). Though there’s gotta be a better way to clue kale than with way out-of-date slang.
Thank you for the review on my Universal! This is my second published, but first accepted puzzle ever.
I will say, the title was very much an afterthought to the theme, but it was close enough to accurate that I rolled with it. And I agree, TORNADO WATCH is a bit of a downer.
I hate NYT for trying to lure you to solve on their inadequate website. The “features” they wanted you to see were irrelevant to the solve — and rather dumb to boot IMHO.
BEQ: the anagrams all move AS to either the start or end of a new word, hence the title.
Thanks. I noted the AS of ASCOT and thought that might be relevant to the theme, but I didn’t feel like spending any more time on it than I already had.
HARD/ASPS seems a bit of a cheat on that count.
WSJ … TGIF is well-ensconced among my family and friends, but I’m old (66) and my language and pop culture preferences are less and less seen in CrossWorld these days. It seems like only yesterday that my preferences were au courant. Currency is so fleeting.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
2. Down Clue: ”What might come after many years?”
Correct Answer: “ago”
17. Across Clue: “How something distinctive appears”
Correct Answer: “prom·i·nent·ly”
Def: with an important role; to a large extent.
I suggest an alternative, if not better especially for 2 Down
2. Down: “Age”
17 Across: “pre·em·i·nent·ly
Def: “above all; in particular.
I wanted AGe there at first also, but then realized when I circled back around to that section of the grid, that it was a cleverly worded clue. “What may come after many years?” … AGO may come after “many years” in a common phrase, “Many years AGO”.
Another hand up here for trying AGE before AGO. But after I straightened that out, I appreciated the word play sanfranman points to. And as I thought about it more, it’s not really “age” that comes after many years – that would be “old age.”
Re: PROMINENTLY vs. PREEMINENTLY – American Heritage Dictionary offers “Immediately noticeable; conspicuous” as one definition of prominent. I think that works fine with the clue. (And of course, PREEMINENTLY has too many letters.)
NYT – Can someone explain the gimmick to me, like I’m 5 (or maybe like I’m 75)? I read Wordplay and still don’t get it. Who/where are the “players”? How do they avoid the hazards, which I assume are the mines? TIA!
Minesweeper is a logical deduction game. You’re given a grid of boxes. Each box either contains a number or a mine. When you click on a box and it shows you a number, it means that’s how many mines that box is touching, either across, down, or diagonally. (The most mines any one box can touch is 8.) if the box is blank, then it’s basically a 0 and it’s not touching any mines.
You’re trying to flag all the mines (with the right mouse button) and not click on any of them (with the left mouse button), or else the game is over.
Thank you! I see now why people were so impressed with the construction.