Monday, October 6, 2025

BEQ DNF (Eric) [2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:49 (Stella) rate it
NYT 3:10 (Sophia) [3.68 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 7:39 (Amy) [4.45 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [1.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 6:30 (Jim Q) [2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Hannah Binney’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s recap

Theme: PEOPLE FOOD – each theme answer is a phrase of the form [part of the body][type of food]

New York Times, 10 06 2025, By Hannah Binney

• 17a [Fancy one-handed basketball shot] – FINGER ROLL
• 25a [Good-looking companion on the red carpet, say] – ARM CANDY
• 36a [Punch in the mouth, slangily] – KNUCKLE SANDWICH
• 47a [Cat’s little pink paws, cutesily] – TOE BEANS
• 59a [What a dog desires from the dinner table … or a hint to 17-, 25-, 36- and 47-Across] – PEOPLE FOOD

I don’t have a ton to say about this puzzle because it’s just solid all around! I like the theme a lot – it’s easy to sum up in a sentence, has a great revealer in PEOPLE FOOD, and lends itself to a bunch of interesting answers. TOE BEANS is adorable, KNUCKLE SANDWICH is evocative, and I love how much FINGER ROLL changes the meaning of the food word. Even with five theme answers/revealer, the puzzle doesn’t feel overstuffed or compromised in terms of fill.

I also loved how much long down fill there was in this puzzle! SOLAR FLARE, ICE DANCERS, HIDEY HOLE, and DON’T GET UP are all answers I would love to see in a *themeless* puzzle… and here each of them cross at least two themed answers. Super impressive stuff. If I had to pick a small nit there might be a few too many proper nouns for a Monday, but all of them were clued fairly and from a variety of different areas of culture. (As a Mariners/Red Sox fan I’m rooting for an AARON Judge loss tonight – sorry Aaron!)

New fact to me from this puzzle: that SNL is TV show with the most Emmy nominations of all time (350+)!

Happy Monday all!

Agnes Davidson & Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 10/6/25 by Agnes Davidson & Zhouqin Burnikel

Insert lawyer joke here. The revealer, which is in the center of the puzzle at 37A [Proceeding that may follow a subpoena, and what the ends of 16-, 23-, 46-, and 59-Across can make?], is COURT APPEARANCE, because the last word in each theme entry is something you can find in a courtroom:

• 16A [Spot to paste a URL in a browser window] is ADDRESS BAR. I always thought of the BAR as, figuratively, the legal profession, but TIL that it’s also the physical barrier separating the participants in a trial from spectators.
• 23A [Holds firm against opposition] is TAKES A STAND, referring to the witness stand in its thematic meaning.
• 46A [Hall of Fame catcher who won two World Series with the Cincinnati Reds] is JOHNNY BENCH. TIL that the area where a judge sits is called the BENCH because judges used to sit on actual benches. At some point somebody figured out that chairs were a better idea.
• 59A [Place for oils and watercolors] is ART GALLERY, and in its thematic meaning the GALLERY is where spectators might sit.

The grid was nice and easy overall, and I thought the mid-length Downs (SIDE ISSUE, LAST PLACE, KOREAN SPA, and INTROVERT) were all great.

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Earth Movers” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: The word LAND can be found in common phrases and it visually “slides” from right to left

WSJ • 10/06/25 • Mon • “Earth Movers” • Mike Shenk • solution • 20251006

THEME ANSWERS:

• OIL GLANDS
• WHEEL AND DEAL
• SLANDER
• HALL AND OATES
• [Decisive victory, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme] LANDSLIDE

Only 72 words in this one! Themeless territory! This filled in smoothly for me until I hit the SW corner. It took me as many minutes to suss out that one corner as it took me to fill in the rest of the grid. Solved alongside some students, and luckily one of them is taking French, so she helped me with CEDILLA which finally helped to crack the rest open. Really wanted TOSH to be BOSH, completely unfamiliar with MASE and NELLIE Melba, and working in a school I’m rather averse to self-harm phrases such as KILL ME NOW! I know it’s meant jocularly, but at some point I started finding phrases like that cringey.

Not too much to say about the themers themselves or the theme concept. Both work just fine!

OTHER STUFF:

• Nice duel cluing for IDES [Bad day for Caesar] and MARCH [Bad month for Caesar]
• [Words spoken in many literal cliffhangers] DON’T LET GO! I suppose this is quite accurate! Fun clue.
• LA LAW. I know this show solely from crosswords and vaguely remember it being a thing. Feels a tad dusty.
• [Armand of 1996’s “Gotti”] ASSANTE. Filled this in with no crosses but I have no clue why I know that name.

Over-the-plate Monday today! 3 stars.

Philip Wolfe’s Universal crossword, “Chemistry Set” — pannonica’s précis

Universal • 10/6/25 • Mon • “Chemistry Set” • Wolfe • solution • 20251006

I’ll admit that the theme eluded me until after the grid was completely solved. I hadn’t looked at the title, and I was looking for the wrong sort of thing after encountering the revealer.

• 39a^R [Sailor’s foul words … or 17-, 24-, 54- and 64-Across, based on four letters they all contain?] SALTY LANGUAGE. Those entries contain NaCl, the chemical formula for table salt, in sequence.
• 17a. [Novel in which real events are fictionalized] ROMAN À CLEF.
• 24a. [When it isn’t cloudy] ON A CLEAR DAY. Somewhat greenpainty. Might it have been better to clue it as a partial title?
• 54a. [Cabinet for fine dishes] CHINA CLOSET.
• 64a. [Curved hair accessory] BANANA CLIP.

Those are all good finds, but my favorite is the first one.

Most remarkable clue, but not in a good way: 43a [Certain __kname] NIC.

Kameron Austin Collins’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 10/6/25 – Collins

Good news for New Yorker solvers: I’ve been in touch with their staff regarding the new puzzle interface. They’re actively working on smoothing out the print options, making the online grid a bit bigger, and so on. Feel free to comment with any issues you’re having with the current PuzzMo format and I can direct the New Yorker folks to them.

Kameron’s puzzle is right in the sweet spot of expected Monday TNY difficulty. I found almost no gimmes running through the Acrosses, filled in some more via the Downs, and next thing you know, after plenty of back-and-forth work, the deed was done.

The five 15s are a colorful batch: CORPORATE SHARKS, ROGUES’ GALLERIES, ALTERNATE ENDING, SALVADOR ALLENDE, THINK THINGS OVER, ALL-TERRAIN BIKES (with the great clue [They’re used to cycle through different settings]), and LIE DETECTOR TEST. Overall the 15s’ crossings are smooth, with the exception of RIP AT.

New to me: [Norwegian novelist Solstad], DAG. Thanks to Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza being in the publisher address for plenty of things I read as a kid, that first name’s at least familiar to me.

Fave fill aside from the 15s: PRETTY WOMAN, SCREAM POODLE (okay, those are two separate answers, but if you put them together …). Mostly more ordinary stuff surrounding all those 15s.

Threw me off: [___ delusion (false belief that one is being targeted for harm by others], PERSECUTORY. Tried persecution first. Not sure I’ve seen the adjectival form before.

Four stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1824 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1824 — 10/6/25

I didn’t enjoy this – there seemed to be even more unknowns than usual, and even when I made a little progress in one part of the grid, I kept getting stuck in other parts. If Brendan’s goal was to make a Saturday Stumper, he succeeded.

New to me (in many cases, “new” only as clued):

• 19A [Word game played on a 4×4 grid] BOGGLE If I have ever played it, it’s been a very long time. At least I knew WORDLE would have been wrong.
• 22A [Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium city] OMAHA Is this a particularly well-known zoo, or is this just a new way of clueing a common answer?
• 44A [Health org. headquartered in Chicago] AMA Lots of big organizations are headquartered in Chicago. Taking a guess with AMA helped me see 39D AM I EVER.
• 47A [___ C. Evans (publisher of the first comic magazine drawn by Black artists)] Maybe I should know this, but since I don’t care much for comics, I don’t.
• 24D [Home perm brand] OGILVIE Never heard of it.

Other stuff:

• 17A [Entry code?] ENTRY CODE Cute.
• 34A [Foreign aid method] LEND-LEASE Has this really been used since the United States used it to provide naval vessels to Great Britain before the US entered WWII?
• 36A [Words said while making a “so-so” gesture] SIX-SEVEN Why not FIVE-SIX or SEVEN-EIGHT?
• 43D [“Quit fronting!”] This clue makes no sense to me.

Update: With a bit of checking and revealing, I “finished” the puzzle.

Most of the reason I couldn’t finish that SE corner was the two incorrect answers:

• 50A [Ready to go] FUELED Not PRIMED.
• 53D [Average name] DOW Not JOE. That’s not the first time I’ve made that mistake, and it was probably in one of BEQ’s puzzles.

Never have I heard of anyone named HARLENE (38D).