AV Club 5:57 (Amy) 
[2.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:22 (Gareth) 
[3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:50 (Amy) 
[2.50 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (Kyle) 
[3.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [4.00 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today 6:51 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 6:57 (Eric) 
[3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Love Interest” — Eric’s Review
Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Love Interest” — 10/22/25
I’m not a fast solver (not competitively fast, anyway), in part because my typing skills have atrophied since I retired. (I used to type a lot in my job, on a PC with a larger keyboard than my iMac has.) Still, I was surprised that this puzzle took me as long as it did. There were plenty of gimmes, none of the theme answers is a term I haven’t seen before — maybe there was just enough ambiguity in the clueing that I had to actually think about some of the fill.
Anyway, we’ve got five potential boyfriends described by what intrigues them, with punny answers:
- 17A [Boyfriend who loves heavy metal?] ROCK STEADY
- 25A [Boyfriend who loves picking up the tab?] CHECK MATE
- 36A [Boyfriend who loves carnivals?] FAIR CATCH This one may have taken me bit longer than the other theme answers because I don’t watch much baseball and “fair catch” lives in the periphery of my vocabulary.
- 51A [Boyfriend who loves the zoo?] CAGE MATCH
- 61A [Boyfriend who loves department store shopping sprees?] TARGET DATE
The theme answers have one music genre, a chess term, a baseball term, a wrestling term and a bit of business speak. I would like to have seen more consistency — much as I hate to say it, all sports terms, maybe? All business buzzwords?
On the other hand, the solver doesn’t need to have any idea what a “cage match” is or to be able to name a single rock steady artist. It’s enough to know these terms exist (or even enough to just be able to figure them out.)
Other stuff of note:
- 4A [Female follower of Bacchus] MAENAD That’s one of those mythological terms that I’ve heard before, but couldn’t really define.
- 14A [Former Bolivian president Morales] EVO A gimme; he left office more recently than I would have guessed (2019). I’m not sure I knew before today that he advocated in favor of coca growers, but I now remember reading about the rape allegations against him. I’m not sure he’s someone I would want in my crossword.
- 15A [Director with a distinctive style] AUTEUR Another gimme. When I was about 16, my brother gave me François Truffaut’s Les Films de ma vie (The Films in My Life), in which he discusses auteur theory. I should reread that book some day, because I’m sure I’ve since seen a lot of the movies Truffaut wrote about.
- 24A [Pebbles’s pet] DINO From The Flintstones, of course. Also a gimme; I had a stuffed dog when I was a preschooler and named him Dino.
- 27A [Nickname for a Tuskegee Airman] RED TAIL I didn’t remember this, though I probably learned it when I first learned about the Tuskegee Airmen. I can’t imagine that many of them are still alive.
- 66A [Sax great Beneke] TEX That probably should have been a gimme, but he’s hanging around in the same part of my brain as the cornettist Bix Beiderbecke. I’m not that knowledgeable about jazz.
-
A 19th-century busby
11D [“How fancy!”] OOH LA LA/13D SADDENS 11D reminds me Annie Hall, which makes me think of the recent death of Diane Keaton. If you’ve never seen that movie and can put aside the ick factor from Woody Allen’s private life, it’s really quite funny.
- 38D [Blitzer’s base] CNN As in the anchorman Wolf, who I’m mildly surprised is still working.
- 43D [Busbies, e.g.] FUR HATS I didn’t recognize that word, but with a few letters in place, it was worth taking a chance that the answer was headwear.
Dan Schwartz’s AV Club Classic crossword, “An Effort Was Made”–Amy’s recap
AV Club Classic crossword solution, 10/22/25 – Schwartz
Ah, a mathematical theme this week. The main revealer is 56a. [Makes an impossible effort, or what each theme entry does, mathematically speaking], GIVES 110 PERCENT with numerals also working with the crossings. The capper is 70a. [Word aptly spelled by the extra letters in this puzzle’s theme answers], MORE. The Down theme answers are 10-letter words or phrases where M, O, R, and then E are doubled to make an 11, which is 110% of 10:
- 3d. [What you might be on when headed to the salon for desperately needed curls?], PERM MISSION.
- 6d. [“This artwork? Yes, it’s by the star of ‘The Substance'”?], “THAT’S A MOORE.” Side note: Just watched The Substance the other day, did not at all expect what was coming.
- 8d. [“That German dude makes unreal schnitzel, if you could just get out of his way”?], “LET HERR COOK.” Not sure you’d use HERR as an object without an article, but “let” and “cook” aren’t in German here.
- 11d. [Like a bassoonist who would die for their instrument?] REED-BLOODED.
Neat theme, though I’m docking points for the SS, OO, and OO that are additional double-letters in three of the themers.
Did not know:
- 22a. [Franz or Pete from the punk band Scream], STAHL.
- 34a. [“Reluctant empress” of 19th-century Austria], SISI. The Egyptian president’s name appears to be transliterated as Sissi now?
- 44a. [Yoga apparel brand], ALO.
- 47a. [e, ___, eim], EIR. Newer pronouns. Never saw the clue while solving, so its unfamiliarity posed no problem.
I must mention 54d. [Stylization for an increasingly inaccurately named NCAA conference], B1G. I only got this one because on TV, they had a pair of announcers with the two-line B1G SATURDAY logo behind them and, well, what showed said B1G TURD. B1G stands for the Big 10, which now has 18 teams.
Aldis HODGE was also in One Night in Miami… with Eli GOREE. See how the answers are waving to each other?
I reject 24a. [“Here’s the word on the street …”], “RUMOR IS.” “Rumor has it…,” sure.
3.5 stars from me.
Jesse Guzman’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY TImes crossword solution, 10/22/25 – no. 1022
It’s a polyglot theme:
- 34A. [Climactic baseball event … or what the starts of 17-, 26-, 44- and 52-Across form?], WORLD SERIES. The words at the start of each themer are foreign-language numbers in the doubling series 2, 4, 8, 16.
- 17A. [Some basic guidelines [2, Spanish]], DOS AND DON’TS. Dos is also 2 in Spanish.
- 26A. [Fluorescent gemstone [4, Danish and Norwegian]], FIRE OPAL. Sure didn’t know that fire was 4 in those Nordic languages.
- 44A. [Chemist who co-discovered 26-Down [8, Italian]], OTTO HAHN.
- 52A. [Carpe diem [16, French]], SEIZE THE DAY.
Fun angle involving cross-language homonyms.
Some answers like CBD OIL, “SING IT,” MUTATED (tried MORPHED), and GROUPIES didn’t come to me from the clues at first glance. Are groupies really just [Fans of a band]? Merriam-Webster says yes, but I thought the term had a more obsessive bent, maybe targeting one member of a band. And PROP BET, [Certain sports wager]? I think it’s short for proposition. And if you watched that recent South Park episode (the topical satire is on point this season), prop bets and the prediction market played a key role. Proposition bets involved any- and everything, not just the outcome of a game.
3.75 stars from me.
Robert E.L. Morris’ Universal crossword, “Transmission Transition” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 10/22/25 • Wed • “Transmission Transition” • Morris • solution • 20251022
- 34aR [Moving on to an unrelated subject … and a hint to how the last words of 15-, 22-, 49- and 58-Across can be scrambled] SHIFTING GEARS. There was discussion in the comments recently about a tangentially similar clue in a recent BEQ crossword. I don’t believe it’s controversial here.
- 15a. [Underwater explorer with no special suit] SKIN DIVER (drive).
- 22a. [Extremely sage] WISE AS AN OWL (low).
- 49a. [Safari site] GAME RESERVE (reverse). I will always call out the cruel implications of using ‘game’ in this manner.
- 58a. [In one’s birthday suit] AU NATUREL (neutral).
(1) This is a theme that’s been done several times previously, but perhaps not recently. (2) It refers to the gears of a vehicle with automatic transmission. Neither of these are explicit criticisms.
- 5d [Lake on “Arizona’s West Coast”] HAVASU. It’s human-made. The name comes from the Mojave word for ‘blue’.
- 33d [You need them to listen!] EARS.
- 41d [Govt. pollution watchdog] EPA. Not as currently constituted.
- 14a [Part of TCB or TLC] CARE. Taking care of business, tender loving care.
Rafael Musa’s USA Today Crossword, “Daydreaming (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up
On the same wavelength today!
USA Today, October 22, 2025, “ Daydreaming (Freestyle)” by Rafael Musa
Favorite fill: ZOOMIES, POSTDOC, DEEPEND, and HERESTHETHING
Stumpers: CASHAPP (needed crossings–it’s just not one I think of), DORK (really? lol maybe this one hit too close to home and so I couldn’t get it), and NOTGONNALIE (also needed crossings)
Smooth solve with tons of great fill, excellent cluing, and a fun grid design too! Nicely done!
4.0 stars
~Emily
6:51
Emma Oxford’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
Emma Oxford’s LA Times crossword features a relatively rare “stealth theme” with no obvious explaining answer. A careful perusal of the longest across answers, however, shows a sequence in the final parts. Each is used as noun in the phrase, but is also a verb describing, in order, a hypothetical preparation to play cards:
- [1977 Top 20 Single by Boz Scaggs], LIDOSHUFFLE
- [“Love your work!”], IMAHUGEFAN
- [Engagement ring option], PRINCESSCUT
- [Aspiring musician’s goal], RECORDDEAL
- [Dramatic presentation often staged during lent], PASSIONPLAY
Gareth
NYT: The theme fell a little flat for me. I speak a little Spanish, and so when I got DO’S AND DON’TS, I thought “this might be fun.” I know almost nothing of Danish or Norwegian, but I have heard of FIRE OPALs, so that was okay. SEIZE THE DAY is very familiar, but the French 16 part of it was lost on me. And I haven’t heard of OTTO HAHN, nor is the Italian for 8 familiar – so that was a bit of a downer.
Unfamiliarity with OTTO HAHN and MARMITE had me struggling for a bit in the SW.
Thought the clue for ASTEROID was nice. FUSION and FISSION in the puzzle, clued in different contexts, was cute.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
IRISHISM seemed clumsy to me, but the rest of the grid was really good. Fun and interesting theme, plus some nice medium-length fill like COALESCE, MAJORTOM, and ASTEROID.
WSJ: Eric, actually FAIR CATCH is a football term, not baseball. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the sportsball terms straight….
Thanks!
That was probably why I was having trouble coming up with the definition. (I still don’t have it down, but football makes more sense.)
I just read a bit of the Wikipedia article about FAIR CATCH. It actually seems like a rule with a logical basis.
Didn’t get the theme in the NYT — I know French and German but should have figured it out nevertheless.
The clue for ISOMER is wrong — isomers have identical chemical formulas but different spatial arrangements of the atoms.
Yeah, seems to be sorta backwards. Multiple molecules with a single chemical formula are ISOMERS.
Butane and isobutane share the formula C4H10. Therefore, butane’s formula is not unique. It’s actually one way to define isomerism.
I see what you mean but the phrasing of the clue still strikes me as back to front. The simplest reading of ‘molecule with a non-unique formula’ suggests multiple formulas for the same molecule, which would apply, for example, to DNA.
A common way to define isomers is “Two (or more) molecules that share the same formula.” That means that each one’s formula is not unique to that molecule. They really are equivalent statements. I accept that it’s not totally intuitive. You do need to think about it for a bit, but I think that once it clicks, the clue is reasonable.
Martin: My friend Greg is a retired physics professor (with a PhD from Stanford in chemistry). I asked Greg what he thought of the clue. He got the right answer, but he understands why people are complaining about it.
I thought it was interesting that no one mentioned that clue in the NYT Wordplay comments. (At least, not that I saw.)
Eric,
Lest anything I said imply otherwise, I agree completely with your friend. The semantic equivalence of “A and B have the same formula” and “A’s formula is not unique” is not intuitive. The clue’s trickiness is due to a logic puzzle and not a chemistry fact. I get that and hopefully said as much.
Whether that is “fair” on a Wednesday is completely subjective. I just hoped to explain why it wasn’t incorrect.
The clue is also, IMO, ambiguous, for the reason I said above.
All these languages in NYT theme originate from Europe…so it’s really more of “a specific part of the World” Series. Would be cool to see languages from other continents represented here.
You mean so the puzzle would be more like MLB’s “World Series”?
The foreign numbers also had to start an English-language phrase or at least start someone’s name, so that surely reduced the number of languages available for the theme.
There’s also the matter of how many foreign numbers will the average solver recognize. I remember a NYT grid from a year or two back involving foreign currencies. Unfortunately I don’t know when it was or what you had to do with them – I want to say they were either embedded in the answer, or you had to remove them? But several of the currencies they used were unfamiliar and I remember it made for a painful solving experience.
I remember the puzzle you’re referring to. If I get a chance, I’ll try to find when it ran.
I think this is the other puzzle you’re thinking of.
https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/05/21/thursday-may-22-2025/#ny
My thanks to Wordplay commenters Lewis and Cathy. They’re the ones who actually found it.
Yes, that’s the one. I must have also remembered it being a lot harder than it was since I still beat my Thursday average with that one.
WSJ. No rating, since it’s just me, but the weird theme and strange cluing ambiguities did me in. I cried “UNCLE” after 12 minutes of struggling. Way above my skill level for a Wednesday. Thanks Eric for plodding through it.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
No. No. No. It’s not a WORLD series if you leave out 90% of the earth. Add some inept cluing like 38A and you end up with a horrible puzzle.
You seem like you don’t actually like crosswords very much.
He doesn’t. What he does like, however, is the negative attention he gets for being a troll on a crossword blog, so here’s a reminder (to myself as much as you or anyone else) that nobody ever needs to give him that.
Mr. Grumpy is sometimes “Grumpy,” sometimes “Very Grumpy,” sometimes “A Little Grumpy,” sometimes “Not At All Grumpy.”
When he likes a puzzle (and yes, that happens), he’ll say so. When he doesn’t like a puzzle, or has specific issues with a puzzle, he’ll say so. I don’t always agree with his issues, but they also don’t usually seem to me to be unreasonable.
This doesn’t strike me as troll-like behavior – just someone putting in his two cents.
+1
+2
Though in Evan’s defense (not that he needs it), it seems like it’s been a while since Mr. [Not at All] Grumpy has commented.
Oh totally, Gary. How could anyone possibly think a guy who calls himself Mr. Grumpy is a troll? It’s a complete mystery!
*************
May 11, 2025, in response to one of my puzzles: “One of the most stupid puzzles ever.” Nothing else to that comment, that’s all he wrote.
Nov. 11, 2024, in response to an Erik Agard New Yorker: “Not a crossword puzzle. Just a dive bar trivia contest. Ugh.” and “Let’s focus on encouraging constructors to create good puzzles. :-)”
Aug. 13, 2024, in response to an Erik Agard New Yorker: “STANKONIA? Superficial crap. NEHIYAW? Give me a break. CCH whoever the heck she is? Not a word or a legitimate entry. I wish Erik would go away.”
March 5, 2024, in response to a Brooke Husic New Yorker: “I want to thank Ms. Husic for validating my Monday post by creating such a mess of a puzzle. Brava. Or maybe there’s a non-binary word I should use that is not in my vocabulary. Bra-fae, perhaps?”
March 2, 2024, in response to a Natan Last NYT: “Dissenting opinion. No more Natan Last please.”
Feb. 11, 2024, in response to one of my puzzles that he admitted he didn’t even fucking solve: “Couldn’t be bothered to waste my time.”
*************
That’s just a small sample from 2024 and on. He’s been pulling shit like this for years.
Those comments of his above are not just “putting in his two cents.” They’re not insightful or valuable in any way, either. They’re outrageously nasty and personal remarks with no other purpose other than to get a big negative reaction — going so far as to demand that friends of mine who do really good work be fired from writing puzzles for the New Yorker. That’s exactly what trolls do.
Stop pretending that anything Norm contributes here is reasonable or offered in good faith.
Gosh, Evan – I stand corrected. I thought it was okay for people to have different opinions here – even when they express them somewhat rudely (see your above post).
Hahahahahahaha!!!!!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
NYT: This one was difficult for me but doable. Did not get a typical Wednesday time, much slower. I was pretty slow on last Wednesday’s as well so . I liked this puzzle because it challenged me and even though I didn’t know OTTO HAHN I was able to get there with the crosses and the Italian 8 clue. Good challenge even if I didn’t really love the theme.
I’m sorry, but the new rating system continues to dumfound me.
After making a few attempts to follow all the “rules” to get my message posted, I got a message saying my post was deleted. There was no explanation why. The message I was trying to write contained only my numerical rating, 2.5.
I just noticed that the ratings in the comment box now says “none’.
This may be the preverbal straw that will cause me to give up trying to post.
Since it’s unclear to me from your comment whether this is what you did, here’s what I do to rate a puzzle without leaving a comment:
1. Type a single period into the Comment box (i.e., type “.”).
2. Add name and email (if it doesn’t autopopulate for you).
3. In the “Add a rating with your comment” box, select the puzzle you are rating and the number of stars you are assigning.
4. Click the “Post Comment” button.
You (but no one else) should then see a post that says:
“Puzzle: [PUZZLE RATED]; Rating: [YOUR RATING] stars
Your rating has been processed and this comment will be deleted.
Click to Edit –”
This allows you 5 minutes after submission to edit.
I hope that helps.
I’ll give it a try, tomorrow. Thanks.
NYT: Toughest Wednesday for me in quite some time.
Ultimately fair, but challenging for me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
NYT: The answer to the 8-D clue “You got that right!”–“Ding it”– is new to me. I looked online to see if that phrase was one commonly used by young people in the same manner as people of my generation might say “Amen to that!” or “So true!” I came up empty. Even Urban Dictionary did not define the phrase in the context of the clue that was provided. Of course, I get the “sense” of the phrase, but to me it lacks the “inevitability” of a strong clue and answer.
I think the answer to 8-D is SING IT – which to me is not particularly idiomatic, but I guess I can buy it.
It’s not the same meaning but worth a listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMxyoPILs-U
Thanks for that link. Nice song!
I regret that, despite living in Austin for almost 50 years, I never saw Marcia Ball live.
You’re welcome! I first saw her at the Frog Island Festival in Ypsilanti MI in 1990 (I think). I’ve seen her many times since from Fitzgerald’s near Chicago to the Capitol Oyster Bar in Montgomery. I’d love to have been in Austin for music!
YouTube bonus: After the Marcia Ball clip, the autoplay gave me a 2016 John Prine performance from the GRAMMY Museum. Thanks again.
New Yorker: It’s an easier puzzle than I prefer, but man it’s smooth. Thanks, Ms Weintraub!
LAT: nice theme