Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Jonesin’ 5:16 (Erin) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT 5:30 (Eric) [2.50 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:50 (Eric) [3.19 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker untimed (pannonica) [3.33 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Universal 7:21 (Eric) [2.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ 5:01 (Jim Q) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “On and On” — two things follow on. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 10/14/25

Hello lovelies! Our Jonesin’ theme this week involves two-word phrases in which each word can follow “on” to make a new phrase.

• 17a. [Sponsored product used only for testing purposes?] TRIAL BRAND (“on trial” and “on brand”)
• 65a. [Intermission of a play?] STAGE BREAK (“on stage” and “on break”)
• 11d. [Chess game with no pieces?] EMPTY BOARD (“on empty” and “on board”)
• 30d. [The nose of a folded airplane?] PAPER POINT (“on paper” and “on point”)

Other things:

• 22a. [One-named “Queen of American Folk Music] ODETTA. She was the voice of the Civil Rights Movement for many and sang at the March on Washington in 1963. Odetta also released several albums and had numerous film roles, both as an actress and as herself.
• 71a. [Docs that use endoscopes] ENTS. Other docs use endoscopes for other tubes, but ENTs cover most of the upper orifices.
• 26d. [Ube, for one] TUBER. I never realized that this purple yam could be found in the term for the broader category containing potatoes and yams.

Until next week!

Rena Cohen’s Universal Crossword “Winter Is Coming” — Eric’s Review

Rena Cohen’s Universal Crossword “Winter Is Coming” — 10/14/25

“Winter is Coming” is a phrase that makes me happy because to me, winter means ski season. I’m hopeful that the snow in southern Colorado will be better this season than it was in 2024–25.

I needed a couple of theme answers to see what was going on here, because while the theme itself is consistent, the way it works with each theme answer is a little different:

• 36A [Seasonal avian phenomenon represented in this puzzle] BIRD MIGRATION
  1D [With 53-Down, worsening … or what 26-, 39-, 44- and 58-Down are doing] GOING/53D [See 1-Down] SOUTH
• 11D [*Breastbone]/26D [See 11-Down] STERNUM 11D was obviously STERNUM, and the crosses got me SUM. The TERN came mostly from the crosses, too.
• 15D [*Brewed bits]/39D [See 15-Down] TEA LEAVES That one took me a little longer to get, maybe because “brew” can also mean beer or coffee.
• 23D [*He took from the rich]/44D [See 23-Down] ROBIN HOOD This pair is perhaps the least satisfying because the two names are simply flipped positionally in the grid, instead of the bird being removed from the longer answer.
• 36D [*Sport with a maximum score of 300]/58D [See 36-Down] BOWLING This took me the longest to figure out because I haven’t bowled in about 35 years. Though I know what the maximum score is, it’s not a factoid that I can easily summon up.

I like that each bird is directly below the rest of the answer to the starred clues, and I like that every entry in the grid is a legitimate crossword answer.

Other stuff:

• 24A [Something awful] THE PITS I can’t remember the last time I heard someone describe something that way.
• 2D [Brand with a “Rabbit of Approval”] ANNIE’S I had no idea here. Annie Withey, who cofounded Annie’s Homegrown food products, once had a pet rabbit named Bernie.
• 48D [Arizona city with red rocks] SEDONA I’ve not really spent any time there, but it’s gorgeous.

Prasanna Keshava’s Los Angeles Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Prasanna Keshava’s Los Angeles Times Crossword — 10/14/25

Circled letters hold a chemical compound essential to life:

• 20A [Mug shot souvenir from an Old West tourist town] WANTED POSTER
• 29A [Spiritual serenity] INNER PEACE
• 46A [Influencers in a grassroots marketing campaign] STREET TEAM I hadn’t heard this term before. I don’t know why the concept of “influencers” annoys me as much as it does. Celebrity spokespeople don’t bother me, but I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything because a celebrity endorsed it.
• 56A [Geographic neighbors, or what this puzzle’s circled letters literally are] BORDER STATES

I was initially perplexed by the revealer: Was there a concept in chemistry or physics that I’d never heard of called a “border state” of matter? My brief Googling didn’t turn up anything relevant, which is when I realized the circled letter spelling WATER, ICE and STEAM are all at the ends — that is, the “borders” — of the theme answers. That seems more than a bit like a cryptic crossword concept.

So while (once again) the theme did not particularly help me solve the puzzle, it holds together well enough and might help some solvers. And each of the theme answers is interesting enough on its own, even if the theme-answer clues are a bit prosaic.

Other stuff:

• 9A [Puff up, as pillows] PLUMP Not FLUFF. At least I had 2/5 of the letters correct the first time around.
• 15A [Fundamental skateboard jump] OLLIE This move is the only skateboard trick you need to know for crossword puzzles — at least, I don’t remember seeing any others.
• 19A [Martial art also known as kung fu] WUSHU I think I’ve seen that word before, even though I’d expect it to be something you’d eat.
• 32A [Legal pro: Abbr.] ATT No, it’s ATTY.
• 39A [Wacoal undergarment] BRA Not a brand I remembered hearing of before, but easy enough to get.
• 43A [Exam for a future 32-Across] LSAT Hands-down, the LSAT was the worst test-taking experience of my life.
• 54A [British beer with a red triangle logo] BASS ALE This isn’t the first time I’ve had trouble with a clue like that, though I can sort of picture the Bass label. I usually drink a domestic craft beer, though I’m sure I’ve had Bass.
• 1D [Do a butler’s job] SHOW IN My lazy butler keeps dumping this task on the footmen.
• 7D [Former Yankee Martinez who won the Home Run Derby in 1997] TINO The clue’s Home Run Derby trivia didn’t help me, but I suppose it further distinguishes Tino from Dave Martinez (who last played for the Atlanta Braves), José Martínez (Chicago Cubs) and Nick Martinez (Cincinnati Reds). OK, there are a lot of former and current MLB players named Martínez.
• 33D [Travels, sci-fi style] TELEPORTS It’s almost ski season (yay!). But it’s dismaying to realize how much time out of each ski day I spend not skiing. Teleportation to the top of the peak would be so much better than freezing my butt off on a chairlift.
• 55D [Poker-faced] STONY Not STOIC. My face is too often too easy to read.

Stella Zawistowski’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Stella Zawistowski’s New York Times Crossword — 10/14/25

Today’s puzzle, from one of Diary of a Crossword Fiend’s stalwart contributors, unfortunately reminded me of an annoying breakfast cereal commercial from my childhood (If you know, you know.) I’ll overlook that, because this was fun to solve.

Four more or less well-known phrases/compound nouns get clued as responses to questions, with both Q and A ending in an endearment:

• 17A [“In what season are the Olympics during leap years, sweetie?” “___”] SUMMER, LOVE Hitting this theme answer first, I first tried to squeeze in SUMMER OF LOVE.
• 26A [“Which ‘Little Rascals’ character has a cowlick, sugar?” “___”] ALFALFA, HONEY
• 42A [“What are oils and watercolors examples of, dear?” “___”] MEDIA, DARLING I like this one most of all.
• 56A [“What do you call a close-fitting hat, doll?” “___”] BEANIE, BABY

I’m not sure how much the theme helped me solve the puzzle; I know that I got DARLING with a few crosses before MEDIA popped into my head. But the theme is reasonably amusing.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Awards for athletic achievements] ESPYS There seemed to be a fair number of sports-related clues and answers in this one; fortunately, I’ve seen ESPY in enough grids that it’s a gimme.
• 23A [Heavily edit with beauty filters, as a photo, in modern lingo] YASSIFY That’s a new word for me; it comes (unsurprisingly) from the “Yass!” of drag culture.
• 35D [These are visible when you sport an updo] EARS Not EYES.
• 13D [One of seven in the Big Dipper] STAR The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper and Orion are about the only constellations I can identify anymore.
• 25D [Indicator of a penalty, in soccer] CARD Yellow as a warning, red for ejection. I’ve watched enough of the FIFA World Cup to know that, so why did I have FLAG at first?
• 31D [Avoiding the limelight, say] CAMERA SHY Every time I see this in a grid, I read it as CAME RASHY.
• 32D [Quality of a scholar] ERUDITION Great word that you don’t see often enough.(Maybe because it’s a quality you don’t see often enough?)
• 50D [Country whose national soccer team is nicknamed the Pharaohs] EGYPT A sportsball clue for the sports phobic!

Erik Agard’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

New Yorker, 10/14/25 • Tue • Agard • solution • 20251014

Truly the only thing difficult about this crossword was fighting with the Puzzmo interface as they tweak it. The grid was smaller (to accommodate the clues in two columns?) and the entire grid kept moving around slightly as I solved. Additionally, the navigation felt a little more sensitive, if that’s possible? Hard to explain.

The big feature of this grid is the quintuple stack of long across entries in the center: STRIP MALLS, ESTHER ROLLE, PAPER ROUTES (with the excellent clue [Journalism courses?]), GET AROUND TO, and MAKES SENSE.

• 17a [Put together together] CO-CREATED. Took a while to parse the clue correctly.
• 40a [Nickname for the singer of “Driver’s License”] OROD. I vaguely remember hearing about the song—probably via crosswords—but have no idea how the nickname works or what the full name is. Let’s check … aha, it’s Olivia Rodrigo.
• 49a [Four-square figure] TETROMINO. Wavered on what letter to put in the fifth spot, but honestly I didn’t need to.
• 51a [Hawaiian hand gesture] SHAKA. That’s the extended thumb-and-pinky thing.
• 54a [Tortilla-chip substitute in some nacho-inspired dishes] TATER TOT. hmm.
• 1d [Palms off] FOISTS. Took several passes before I parsed ‘palms’ correctly.
• 4d [Won plus two?] THREEPEATED. >groan< Also, I was actually thinking of Korean currency at first. 53a [Big cat often seen with a magpie in Korean folk art] TIGER.
• 7d [Bashment __ (Barbadian music subgenre]) SOCA. I’ve heard of SOCA, but not of this particular kind, or at least if I had it washed over me. Nevertheless, I was able to get the answer with just one crossing letter in place.
• 34d [Smoke-hood inventor Morgan, who used his own product in a rescue operation after a tunnel explosion] GARRETT. This sounds like interesting-trivia-someone-recently-learned-and-wants-to-share, right?
• 37d [Cheese on a bagel] ASIAGO. That’s just wrong.

Difficult to judge this puzzle honestly, because the technical aspects of the solving experience were so annoying. But I guess it’s on the easier side of “moderately challenging”. The northwest and southeast were a little bit isolated, but still integrated enough to gain access via other sections.

Dan Zarin’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “What’s the Matter With Movies?” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Movies with the four elements in their titles

WSJ • 10/14/25 • Tue • “What’s the Matter with the Movies?” • Dan Zarin • solution • 20251014

THEME ANSWERS:

• 4D [Kevin Costner sails a trimaran in search of land (1995)] WATERWORLD.
• 6D [Harrison Ford fights off Kazakh hijackers (1997)] AIR FORCE ONE. 
• 8D [Brat Pack members attempt adulting with mixed results (1985)] ST. ELMO’S FIRE.
• 10D [Will and Jaden Smith crash-land on an unforgiving (but familiar) planet (2013)] AFTER EARTH.
• 56A [Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich’s chemistry makes this 1997 film the perfect finale for a movie marathon with 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-Down] THE FIFTH ELEMENT.

Fun concept and a nifty construction with L/R symmetry kept this lively for me, despite not having seen three of the five featured movies. The ones I missed seeing are the iconic ST. ELMO’S FIRE… which I know absolutely nothing about except the soundtrack. AFTER EARTH, which I have a vague recollection of seeing a trailer or two, and the revealer THE FIFTH ELEMENT, which seemed a bit bizarre for my tastes at the time it debuted.

The mega-flop WATERWORLD though… that’s a gem. I saw that in theaters. Once I saw a WATERWORLD themed pinball machine in a bar, and I’ve never wanted to own a pinball machine more in my life.

Plenty of theme squares and still enough room to include some other fun-to-uncover longer answers: ROAD AHEAD, CIA ASSETS, UNION SHOP, and HELLMANN’S (is there any other brand?). Might not be the sparkliest longer answers, but I did enjoy uncovering them.

STUMBLES / OTHER STUFF:

• A little unintentional Broadway theme with [“___ Vista Social Club”] BUENA (really fun show with outstanding musicianship. Currently playing!), Mary TODD Lincoln who is the central character in Cole Escola’s hilarious “OH, MARY!” and TRU.
• [Best Picture winner in 2025] ANORA. Bummer to have an outlier film in a film-themed puzzle, but how else can one possibly clue this title?
• [Paris accord?] OUI. Cute.
• [Some iPods] NANOS. I feel like there should be a reference to their bygone-ness status somewhere here

4 stars from me today!