LAT tk (Gareth) 
[2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 18:20 (Eric) 
[2.15 avg; 23 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) rate it
Universal (Sunday) untimed (Jim P) [2.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) 
[2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 4:02 (Matt G) 
[3.60 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
John Kugelman’s New York Times Crossword “All Too Wise” — Eric’s Review
John Kugelman’s New York Times Crossword “All Too Wise” — 10/5/25
I remembered to read the puzzle title this week, but I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought. Ah, well. To steal an answer from the Saturday New York Times puzzle, baby steps. (If you haven’t done that puzzle, it’s pretty nice.)
The nine theme answers are compound nouns, “all” modified by “two Ys (or, if you prefer, ‘two wyes’).” If that pun amuses you, than these theme answers might:
- 22A [Sailor who drinks only the finest grog?] CLASSY MATEY
- 24A [Knockoff version of a sweet treat?] GOODY COPY
- 43A [Convenient spot for a cat nap?] HANDY BELLY
- 62A [Suitable for the middle-aged?] FORTY-WORTHY “Cowtown” seems a bit out of place with these other compound nouns. Forty was a memorable birthday for me: I worked for the Texas Legislature and “celebrated” that milestone on the floor of the House chamber. When the clock ticked past midnight, the speaker of the house called everyone’s attention to my birthday. Which was, I guess, the best I could hope for then. Somewhere on the internet, that moment is preserved on low-resolution video.
- 80A [Suspicious absence from school?] FISHY HOOKY
- 102A [“How sad. You actually think you can win,” e.g.?] COCKY PITY I actually kinda like this one.
- 104A [A locksmith getting stuck in bedroom handcuffs, say?] STEAMY IRONY And this one, too.
- 34D [Actor Affleck when he needs a nap?] CRANKY CASEY I half-expected to find Ben here instead of Casey, as I hadn’t yet figured out the theme. The younger Affleck brother has been pretty impressive in movies like Manchester by the Sea.
- 39D [Half-woman, half-bird, all attitude?] MOUTHY HARPY
I found most of these punny answers only moderately amusing. I found none of them hilarious, but fortunately, I don’t look for hilarity in The New York Times crossword. I’m impressed that Mr. Kugelman worked nine theme answers into his grid without the fill suffering too much. I figured out the theme halfway through my slowish solving experience, which helped in the bottom part of the grid.
The clueing seemed a bit more challenging than the typical NYT Sunday, which isn’t a bad thing. Or maybe there are a lot of shorter answers, which could have slowed me down.
Other stuff:
- 1A [Classic target of a troll] BILLY GOAT One of the three Billy Goats Gruff, which I’ve just learned was a traditional Norwegian folk tale.
- 18A [Hard to understand] CLEAR AS MUD I detest abstruse writing, but I like that phrase.
- 27A [End-of-level showdown] BOSS FIGHT I don’t play video games, but I picked this concept up from a crossword puzzle or two.
- 29A [“When in the ___ of human events …”] COURSE Every July 4th, the NYT runs the text of the Declaration of Independence. I used to make it a habit to reread it. It’s a marvelous set of aspirations. Maybe someday, the United States of America will live up to those ideals.
- 46A [Official hand gesture of Hawaii 🤙 SHAKA Another thing I learned from crosswords. Make a shaka with your arm up over your head and you’re supporting my alma mater, the University of Texas. Hook ’em.
- 49A [Wild] AMUCK Doesn’t that clue need some indication that the answer is a variant?
- 51A [The 4,765-year-old “Methuselah” is one] PINE Not TREE.
- 53A [Prominent feature of dubstep music] BASS My first “How the hell do I know?” answer; as I got a letter or two, I realized that yes, I did know the answer.
- 73A [Huff and puff?] VAPE Cute clue.
- 74D [Gimlets and screwdrivers] TOOLS Nice misdirection. A gimlet is a small hand drill. That might be the only hand tool my dad did not teach me the name of. I’m sure he had one, since he had everything else like that.
77A [Twisted do] LOCS More crossword learning!- 78A [Global currency market, for short] FOREX Foreign exchange. The short form is a playable word in Scrabble®.
- 96A [Purple fruit with a distinctive inner shape] STAR APPLE I’d never heard of this before.
- 112A [In which actors barely go through the motions?] SEX SCENES Cute clue. Body Heat and A History of Violence come to mind.
- 6D [Venues like New York City’s Stonewall Inn] GAY BARS I hope this one upsets someone somewhere.
- 33D [Proofreader’s mark] DELE Not STET.
- 40D [“Eureka!” shouter] ARCHIMEDES I knew this and still tried to get ARISTOTLE to work. Stuff like that added to my difficulty with this puzzle.
- 41D [Benny Hill theme song] YAKETY SAX My second “How the hell . . .?” clue, and yet I did eventually remember that annoying bit of music. I’m just glad there were no lyrics to get the tune stuck in my head.
- 46D [Hybrid sport played with a trampoline-like net] SPIKE BALL I’ve never heard of it.
- 94D [Bygone iPhone button] HOME We updated our iPhones and iPads to iOs 26. I kinda miss some of the old stuff.
- 97D [Rapper with a feline-sounding name] TYGA I initially tried DOJA (Cat).
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post crossword, “Secret Admirer” — Matthew’s write-up
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Secret Admirer,” 10/5/2025
A meta this week! Our title is “Secret Admirer” and we’re prompted to find a nine-letter word.
Notably, we only have six themers to go with a central revealer, which we’ll start with:
- 68a [“Toy Story” piece by Randy Newman whose title hints at how to solve this meta] YOUVE GOT A FRIEND IN ME
- 23a [Shelter one might need during a tornado] STORM CELLAR
- 38a [Liquid supplement derived from an aromatic spice] CINNAMON EXTRACT
- 52a [Where you can see many pictures] FILM FESTIVAL
- 89a [Not at all what we had hoped for] FAR FROM IDEAL
- 103a [Creatures in the Jaws franchise] MAN EATING SHARKS
- 118a [Archer of a Rossini opera] WILLIAM TELL
Initially, you might be thrown off by needing to extract a nine-letter meta answer from only six themers. But the revealer clue clearly tells us that we should start with it. The key insight is to recognize each themer has M-E pretty close to each other. We can reparse “IN ME” in the revealer to draw letters that come between M and E in each theme entry,
This gives us C-ON-F-ID-AN-T, “confidant” being a nine-letter word that might substitute for “friend”. In this puzzle, you’ve got a “friend” (CONFIDANT) in “M-E.”
There’s really only one step to this meta, but I enjoyed the realization that some themers provided multiple letters to the extraction. I usually get impatient on harder metas, so I don’t think I’ve seen that before.
I’m short on time this weekend, so no digging into the fill. Enjoy your Sunday!
Kareem Ayas and Will Eisenberg’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Where Did I Go?”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers in the top half of the grid have an I missing while those in the lower half gained an I. In other words, letters I “dropped” from the top of the grid to the bottom. The revealer is EYE DROPPERS (67a, [Devices for administering liquid medicine, or what four answers in this puzzle are?]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Where Did I Go?” · Kareem Ayas and Will Eisenberg · 10.5.25
- 22a. [Arctic fish dish with too much filling?] OVER-STUFFED CHAR.
- 33a. [Bouncer that deals with particularly avid fans?] STAN REMOVER.
- 41a. [Recently damaged?] JUST MARRED.
- 58a. [Marathons in Marathon?] GREEK RUNS.
- 80a. [Hindustani classical music battles?] SITAR WARS.
- 93a. [Expensive cab?] LUXURY TAXI.
- 102a. [Tales of mules and crocs?] SHOE STORIES.
- 116a. [Some anxious restaurant staff?] TROUBLED WAITERS.
Solid theme with a nice concept. I especially liked SITAR WARS as the most humorous of the bunch.
That said, I’ll go ahead and pick some nits. The theme is very loose, meaning there is a near-infinite supply of potential theme answers. In a case like this, I’d hope at least a couple of these were lol-funny. Also, given the revealer, part of me wanted the I’s to drop vertically (i.e. straight down) into the gaining phrases. That would have greatly complicated construction, but with so many potential theme entries, it seems like it might have been possible. Still, the theme works as is and it’s entertaining enough.
Especially when you look at some of the lively long fill like GARGANTUAN, PINE NUTS, VACATION, STATE MOTTO, PRETEXT, and “YES, DEAR.” I personally liked seeing ASHLAND [Oregon Shakespeare Festival town], as it’s my halfway stopping point when I drive from Tacoma down to my mom’s house in the Bay Area.
Clue of note: 74d. [Cookie brand with a Selena Gomez collab] OREO. Cheers to Nabisco for always looking for new varieties giving us crossworders an endless supply of potential clues. Here’s a Buzzfeed review of the Selena Gomez cookie which is apparently horchata-inspired.
Solid puzzle. 3.5 stars.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
Just bored with this style of Sunday. The theme wasn’t exciting. A lot of uninteresting fill. And MOUTHYHARPY is rather offensive.
Wait, what? How is MOUTHY HARPY offensive? It’s a creature that doesn’t exist.
It’s also a shrewish woman, although of course not as clued. But intention doesn’t limit offense for some.
I agree sometimes inoffensive words become sore spots — ask any bridge player these days. But adding “half-woman” to the clue took away the benefit of the doubt for me. It could have been clued specifically to refer to an eagle and it wouldn’t have had this issue.
The eagle is named for the mythological creature that Evan referred to in his clue, so I’m not sure that’s much of a solution.
But people know I am of the opinion that banning “chink in the armor” is unfair to the English language. Spelling Bee allows PAPPY but not MAMMY and CHICA but not CHICO. This means that those with the worst intentions have won, I fear.
But the mythological “harpy” is, in fact, half woman half bird (vulture). So … why does adding “half-woman” take away the benefit of the doubt? It seems like it’s specifically referencing the mythological creature.
I’m fine if harpy disappears from crosswords, but it doesn’t seem like the intention was to be offensive.
I hadn’t thought about the mythology, so I’ll stand down on that point.
I also understand the argument about needing gateway themes for beginners. But the whole puzzle felt like hard work (I was over my Sunday average) without being a lot of fun. If I could rerate I’d bump it up to 2*.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
NYT — I just… ugh. And I’m a hard no on “amuck” and “hiYo Silver.” We’re an “amok/hiHo” family all the way.
Okay I just did some googling in hiHo vs hiYo and it’s so much more complicated than I could have dreamed. This link includes ads that ran in the same paper in 1938, one with “hiho” and the other with “hiyo.”
https://medium.com/@nathanielhebert/hi-yo-silver-hi-ho-silver-and-the-murky-history-of-the-lone-rangers-catchphrase-9860e4433f23
Meep meep.
And thanks for the Medium article. Interesting reading,
I never knew there was dispute over HO/YO until a few years ago (to me, it was HO). But because it crossed a theme answer, I knew it would be YO in the puzzle.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
NYT was an unpleasant slog.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
couldn’t agree more. not a fun solve.
handy belly??
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
NYT: Impressive amount of theme material, but I didn’t find any of it that exciting. Do we need to rethink the Sunday NYT crossword? Any ideas?
In my view, the NYT should reconsider this type of Sunday theme- the wacky wordplay that ends up with non existent phrases (e.g. Goody Copy, Handy Belly). It might have been fun and amusing for a while, but since the novelty has worn off for most regular solvers, the execution has to be fantastic for it to be appreciated– the concept, the clues and the resulting phrases. It seems to me it’s pretty hard to pull off. I think constructors wind up paying the price for this sentiment, and it is fairer to encourage them to come up with different types of themes, or even themeless Sundays.
I don’t know what the feedback cycle is between editors and constructors but functionally, if the NYT sets a very high bar for accepting such Sunday themes, it would do the trick.
We see that in science all the time– something is cool and exciting, then it becomes a popular topic and is very well-trodden. If we are going to stick with it, we better be approaching it in very new ways- otherwise it’s incremental and not scientifically consequential (or fundable).
This is a response for you and Rick K, but I don’t agree about reconsidering this type of theme. Whether you found the particular theme answers funny is a matter of taste (I especially liked CLASSY MATEY and STEAMY IRONY, personally), but I think that Sunday themes with “basic” wordplay that may be well-worn territory for veteran solvers should still be considered valuable, even if only because they’re a good gateway for newer solvers who are getting into solving Sunday crosswords for the first time. In fact, I did a short talk earlier this year at Crossword Con which makes that point, and you can watch that talk here.
I would think if we want crosswords to continue being a going concern into the future, they have to still be welcoming to newcomers. I still feel relatively new to crosswords, having only done them seriously over the past ~5 years, and I do 8 / week, so I’m not so jaded to not enjoy some cute wordplay—and hope that I don’t ever get there. I assume Evan knows much better than I do, but I would think the NYT is probably among the most, if not *the* most, solved puzzle in the states, and so is trying to reach (and keep) a broad audience.
As a working scientist for 20+ years, I would humbly suggest that approaching crossword development in the manner we do for science is the *wrong* direction.
Both interesting and thoughtful perspectives. Thank you!
I totally agree with the importance of welcoming newcomers, and feel that “wordplay” is at the heart of puzzle solving. I also recognize that tastes vary. Finally, I didn’t mean to imply that approaching crosswords should be done in the manner we do science- I was simply trying to illustrate the idea that there comes a point where something that felt fresh and exciting can lose its novelty and needs to be evolved.
But I see the importance of maintaining a diverse portfolio, as well as some tradition. I believe that the NYT puzzles have changed a great deal over the years and I hope they will continue to do just that and attract people of all experience and ages.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
NYT: For anyone who cares, I wondered how the heck the STAR APPLE could be considered purple. As a kid on Guam, the fruit I knew by this name (or by the Chamoru name “bilembines”) was greenish-yellowish and was my favorite. Later in life, I learned it’s called “carambola” in other parts of the world. These days, I see it in my local Safeway in Washington state with the label “star fruit”.
The STAR APPLE the clue is referring to is completely different, is native to Panama, and is also known as “cainitos“. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or tried one.
I’ve never seen a carambola called a star apple. Always star fruit. I love their sweet/tart flavor too. They’re very refreshing. I’ve never seen a star apple in person. I did know of them, though.
NYT: A couple of the themers were mildly amusing, but most of them were strained and not very funny.
WaPo: I solved the meta! Hooray for me!
NYT fun Sunday! Felt very-dad joke to me, which I certainly appreciate but seems to be a perennial sore spot around here :-) Oh well. Went fast, felt pretty smooth.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
NYT: I didn’t mind the theme, but did mind that there was SO much esoteric stuff (star apple, spike ball, etc.) AND that some of those were crossed with esoteric stuff (i.e., spike ball with shaka and pine for Methuselah). I don’t mind a little esoteric stuff, particularly if you can get it from the crossings, but this was too much.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 5 stars
Yay! I solved the meta, too! Evan always manages to make me feel smarter than I really am.
Me too! Fun Sunday from Evan!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
NYT: “…without the fill suffering too much.” Were we doing the same puzzle? FANART (crossing OVERHOT, no less), AMUCK, MYMY, LOCS, STARAPPLE (a fruit that likely no one doing the puzzle has ever seen), CHINESETEA, ICKYPOO, and (saving the absolute worse for last) the never-used plural of incubus (I can’t even bring myself to type the unholy abomination I had to enter at 14d). I wonder if it’s even a real plural, or just laziness a la “octopi” w/r/t Greek vs Latin roots.
I guess I agree that this kind of lame wordplay with very little wow factor or hilarity should be fine on a Sunday, but not with terrible fill. Sigh.
After looking it up, at least incubus is Latin, so the i plural is technically correct. Still: awful to have to look at.
The superlative form of bad is ‘worst’ not ‘worse’.
Good catch! Fat thumbs on a small keyboard.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
How many four-letter names are there in the grid?
The theme is meh but I don’t find it bad either. At least the themed clues make sense. It’s not the reason why this puzzle is a slog.