LAT 3:40 (Stella) 
[2.70 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Newsday 18:00 (pannonica) 
[3.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:23 (Amy) [3.60 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) 
[2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 22-something (Eric) [2.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Michael Lieberman’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 11/1/25 – no. 1101
What a good themeless crossword!
I learned some things. I’d heard of the sculpture in question before (thanks to my crossword editor job) but sure didn’t recall the name TILTED ARC for [Controversial Richard Serra sculpture once seen in N.Y.C.’s Foley Square]. I most certainly had not heard of 27A. [The Rock’s signature W.W.E. move], PEOPLE’S ELBOW. Here’s a short compilation of Dwayne Johnson doing his move. Highbrow, lowbrow.
Fave fill: MOM FRIEND, BEYOND PARODY, PAID ACTOR, “MAYBE” PILE, “I GUESS NOT,” COPY-PASTE, PONIED UP, “PASS IT ON,” ALPHA-BITS, PAPER OVER, PROXY WARS. Not keen on E-TEXT, 60A. [Nook book, e.g.].
Clues of note:
- 1A. [They’re often engaged in engineering], GEAR TEETH.
- 35A. [Only mammals that can crack Brazil nut shells with their teeth], AGOUTIS. Big rodents. Just learned that their genus name, Dasyprocta, is from the Greek for hair + anus (!).
- 9D. [Greek goddess whose name becomes a Mexican beer if you change the first letter to T], HECATE.
- 42D. [Does self-checkout?], PRIMPS.
- 57D. [Prez with a V.P. nicknamed “Cactus Jack”], FDR. This seems like history trivia I should know, but didn’t. John Nance Garner of Texas.
Ryan Patrick Smith’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Apologies, folks: I am having technical difficulties posting the grid for this puzzle, so this is a text-only discussion.
This was for the most part a pleasantly difficult puzzle, with a one-square exception noted below.
- 1A [“For me? You shouldn’t have!”] is AW, HOW SWEET. I’m not a fan of AW/OH/AH answers because I find the ambiguity unsatisfying — it doesn’t fool you, but you have to leave those two squares blank until you have a crossing.
- 21A [Product line?] is a nice clue for SLOGAN.
- 36A [Plan for a night out?] is STAR CHART, as in a night out under the stars. Great clue!
- 60A [Animated musical film set in a theater] is SING. I’m told this movie is huge with kids in the right age range!
- 61A [Radiohead album with the single “Paranoid Android”] is OK COMPUTER, which by contrast is for the Gen X and elder Millennials among us.
- 12D [Follow-up start] is HI AGAIN, and I liked the deception here.
- 37D [Number for a letter?] is RENT. I’ve seen “letter” used as a synonym for “tenant” enough times that this didn’t fool me, but I thought it was a cute clue nonetheless.
The one-square exception: DREMEL [Milwaukee rival] crossing LAIN, which was clued very hard [Edward R. Robinson’s “Hymn for Soldiers Who Have __ in the Snow”], such that DREMER/RAIN is actually kinda plausible and a solver who doesn’t know either trivia bit has to run the alphabet. If this had been a tournament puzzle, I’d have been angry about it; since it’s not, I’ll take this as an opportunity to learn the name of a new-to-me line of power tools. (And…Milwaukee is a line of power tools? Also a TIL.)
Lester Ruff’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up
Newsday • 11/1/25 • Saturday Stumper • Ruff, Newman • solution • 20251101
Even though I finished with a respectable time, this did not feel like a ‘less rough’ offering.
Solve sequence: random desultory entries, then a coalescing in the lower left and part of the center section; top right, more of the center; bottom right then top left. Finally, I had to hunt down a tricky incorrect letter which turned to be in the lower right.
- 1a [Where tiles may be put down] WORD GAME. I dismissed roofs and bathrooms early on, but held on to the notion of SCRABBLE for a while.
- 16a [Searches or schmoes] YAHOOS. Very deceptive. And do people actually call Yahoo searches yahoos?
- 18a [Last of the Oldsmobiles] ALEROS. Was a time when this was a common crossword entry, but I guess it lacks currency as 2004 slips into the greater ocean of the past.
- 19a [Malaprop, for one] MRS. One of my first entries.
- 22a [Outdoor elevator] TEE. Oof.
- 25a [Hill diggers for dinner] ANT BEARS. An informal term for various myrmecophagous mammals which are not all that closely related.
- 29a [Conversation stopper] TA-TA. I had TA-DA before hitting on the correct answer.
- 34a [“Reward us, __ we think or write!”: Carroll] ERE. This felt like a what-else-could-it-be answer, but I diligently waited for crossings.
- 35a [Disneyland ride since Opening Day] AUTOPIA. That sure sounds very ’50s. Is there a similar attraction at Disneyworld?
- 39a [First with transatlantic jet service (1958)] BOAC.
41a [Monarca britanico] CARLO. - 45a [Cuba’s first vice president (1978–2008)] CASTRO, Raul. The site of my wrong letter, because I somewhat reasonably had SHORELINE for 31d [It borders Pennsylvania] SHORT LINE. I mean, SHORELINE would have been terrible but not unbelievable for a Stumper entry, and I just didn’t see CASERO as one letter off from CASTRO.
- 46a [Beeginning?] API-.
- 54a [Aerial self-portrait] DRONIE. Not known to me but rather easily guessable.
- 55a [Potter title partner] PRISONER. Gratuitous. There should be a blanket ban.
- 56a [Ecclesiastical councils] SYNODS. Another early entry, especially with a crossing or two already in place.
- 1d [One with site might] WEBMASTER, not POWER USER, which I believe the clue is intentionally misdirecting us to.
- 4d [Very small portion] DAB. 53d [Very small portion] DOT. Symmetrical.
- 6d [Aesop fable conclusion] ADAGE. I fell into the big trap of putting MORAL here, and held onto it for quite a long while.
- 8d [What a halo hasn’t] END. An answer that I put in rather early, later took out, and finally accepted again as correct.
- 9d [Western novel (1918) highly praised by Mencken] MY ÁNTONIA. Subtly sneaky clue, playing on our unconscious biases.
- 14d [Pair of sixes] ESSES. These are just a couple of the letters in ‘sixes’.
- 24d [“Quentin’s muse”] UMA. Thurman, Tarantino.
- 25d [Oregon’s oldest city] ASTORIA. Yes, those Astors. I learned this from reading Annie Dillard’s The Living (1992). A foundational railroad line ended up going to Bellingham, Washington instead of Astoria, Oregon, thus shaping historical development.
- 26d [Urban FD division] EMS. Are they restricted to larger, urban areas?
- 30d [Vegan Thanksgiving entrees] NUT LOAVES. Had LOAVES for quite a while, but just couldn’t think of the NUT part.
- 35d [Tick or mite] ARACHNID. Invoking spiders or even scorpions might have made this too easy.
- 42d [They’re in your hand] CARDS. PHALANGES and CARPALS certainly didn’t fit, let alone METACARPALS.
- 44d [Blame for] PIN ON. Another early fill, along with 51d [PEACE is POWER artist at the Nobel Peace Center] ONO, both of which helped me to confirm the aforementioned SYNOD.
Randolph Ross’s Wall Street Journal “Make It A Double” — Eric’s Review
Randolph Ross’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Make It A Double” — 11/1/25
The Wall Street Journal recently updated its online crossword puzzle interface. While the new interface is better than the old one, that’s not saying a lot. And the change has apparently made it difficult for the wonderful folks who make .PUZ files available to the rest of us that I had no choice but to solve on the WSJ site.
My biggest gripe is that I can’t find a keyboard command that allows you to switch directions. Using the mouse to select which answer slot is active slows me down. (The computer mouse is a technical mistake about on a par with Daylight Saving Time.)
I groaned just seeing Randolph Ross’s byline. He’s certainly a competent crossword constructor, but his punny sense of humor doesn’t appeal to me. And his puzzles often feel like they could have been published 30 or 40 years ago.
Today, we’re taking common phrases, doubling a consonant and adding the letter A, all to hilarious effect. Well, at least the title is appropriate.
Today’s theme answers:
- 23A [Liaison in the lab?] SCIENCE AFFAIR
- 38A [Texter’s assault?] THUMB ATTACK I actually sort of liked this pun.
- 54A [Verbal contract?] VOCAL ACCORD
- 79A [Change of clothes?] SPARE ATTIRE
- 97A [Stop for a St. Louis sightseeing group?] ARCH ARRIVAL Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch is rightfully considered a masterpiece of 20th century American design.
- 114A [Allergy season report?] POLLEN ACCOUNT
- 16D [Florist who works solo?] LONE ARRANGER
- 61D [Invitation info?] PARTY ADDRESS
Because I knew the theme answers wouldn’t be straightforward phrases and because I was having trouble navigating the grid, I jumped around, going first for the little gimmes scattered throughout the grid. That’s not how I prefer to solve crosswords. It worked well enough today, though I had an unusually high number of answers that I had to replace as the crosses filled in.
Except for 38A, none of the puns amused me much. But maybe you enjoyed them?
Other stuff:
- 1A [Something you shouldn’t give away] ENDING Not SECRET. I hate movie reviews that contain spoilers, but I know that it’s almost impossible to say something interesting about a movie without discussing the plot twists.
- 12A [Like some sofas] MODULAR Not SLEEPER.
- 26A [Shore soarer] ERNE A nice addition to the retro vibe.
- 19A [A’s pitcher Sean] NEWCOMB Not a name I recognized; it reminds me to check and see if the World Series has ended.
- 52A[Largest American labor union] THE NEA/94A[Something to hold, draw or toe] THE LINE Totally unacceptable duplication on that THE. Mike Shenk should be fired, tarred and feathered. (That’s a joke, guys.)
- 64A [Luxury hotel on East 55th St.] ST. REGIS I was glad I knew that name, though it’s probably out of my price range. Do the hotels that charge a lot for rooms still not offer free WiFi?
- 67A [“Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny” author] SUZE ORMAN I’m glad that I knew that name, too. But I’ve never read anything by her or seen her on TV. (She is on TV, right?)
- 72A [Semi squawker] CB RADIO Not AIR HORN.
- 87A [Wet floor?] SEA BED Cute clue.
- 92A [Universal donor category] TYPE O Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t O negative the universal donor type?
- 112A [Potter’s pedal] TREADLE I can’t explain why it took me as long to get that answer as it did.
- 118A [How some like their tea] UNSWEET. I’ll accept NOT SWEET. I’ll accept UNSWEETENED. But UNSWEET? Just no.
- 2D [Tissue death] NECROSIS Now, isn’t that the kind of fun answer that brings a ray of sunshine to your day?
- 17D [Guanaco’s home] ANDES Not TIBET. I blame my sleep deficit for that one; I know those camelids live in South America. I’d have had much less trouble with the NE corner if I’d had the right answer from the start.
- 29D [Was just awful] SUCKED Now there’s an answer you probably wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago. I always feel like constructors take a bit of risk in putting words like that in the grid. Why give your solvers the vocabulary to describe your work in anything other than a positive light?
- 49D [Liverpool’s river] MERSEY Shout out to Gerry and the Pacemakers. Why does Liverpool produce so many great musicians? (Not that I’m putting Gerry et al. in that group, though to be fair, I only know that one song of theirs.)
- 102D [“& Juliet” Tony nominee Courtney] LORNA Another name new to me, though I have heard of the play.
- 103D [2021 World Series MVP Jorge] SOLER Maybe I’ve heard that name before?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Had a lot of fun with this one. Great and eclectic long entries (I particularly enjoyed PEOPLESELBOW crossing ALPHABITS). Challenging, but very gettable.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Yeah, lots I didn’t know, yet gettable somehow.
I had never heard of PEOPLE’S ELBOW… I know WWE is very popular, but I generally have trouble watching it. And after looking it up and watching the videos, I still don’t understand that name. Those poor people are getting the Rock’s elbow in their chest…So, it’s his elbow, not the people’s… I hope someone will enlighten me.
PONIED UP and PAPER OVER are the kind of entries I love. They dont depend on specialized knowledge but are phrases that capture hidden layers of an action, and are clued very well. I get this very rewarding little “ping” sensation when I get them.
I think the name alludes to the theatrical setup. Rock takes off his elbow pads and generally makes a crowd-pleasing fuss in the run-up to the move, It may also refer to the very fact that it’s crowd pleasing.
The Rock was the People’s Champ. He gave the people what they wanted and that often included the People’s Eyebrow as well lol
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Is BEYOND PARODY something people say? I liked the puzzle overall. That entry made me raise an eyebrow.
Also didn’t know PEOPLE’S ELBOW. It was clear ATOMIC KNEE DROP didn’t fit….
re: BEYOND PARODY usage
In my experience, very much yes.
pannonica, thank you. I was also wondering this. I’ve heard Beyond Stupid and Beyond Absurd, but never Beyond Parody.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I’ve never heard anyone use BEYOND PARODY. Ditto for MAYBE PILE, MOM FRIEND, and PAID ACTOR. One of those in a puzzle might be fine, but all four?? (As a stay-at-home dad, I had plenty of casual friends who I happened to know only through daycare/play dates, and no one ever uttered “MOM FRIEND.”)
(Also, I copy-paste a LOT, but it’s always two commands when I do it. Maybe it’s a Mac thing?)
I think I’ve hear MOM FRIEND somewhere, and I think PAID ACTOR sometimes shows up as a caption in pharmaceutical and insurance ads on TV.
I’m with you on BEYOND PARODY and MAYBE PILE.
Can’t imagine how COPY PASTE would work as a single command. Closest I can come to a two-in-one command is when I copy a URL in Chrome and go to paste it in the address bar of a new tab, it gives me a Paste and Go option.
PAIDACTOR also refers to someone hired to take part in an astroturfed protest. More than once people have spotted Craigslist ads for these things.
Not sure I’ve used the term MOM FRIEND but it definitely evoked the friends I made at the school playground when my son was young. Brenda, Mariola, Erika, and Krystina.
For MAYBE PILE, I envisioned sorting through resumes (back when paper resumes were submitted) and making no, maybe, and yes piles.
For me it’s the pile of clothes I’m not sure I’ll keep and I’m not ready to donate yet. That’s still a physical pile.
“Mom friend” is definitely a thing around here – “Jenni is a mom friend” to distinguish from work friend or tennis friend or whatever.
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 4.5 stars
A nice visual theme – I thought the picture in the grid was really crisp and obvious in retrospect, and made a nice realization at the end of the puzzle. Nice consistent distribution of the theme clues making a symmetry around the image. Fun.
WSJ Acrosslite link not working.
Fixed.
Thanks, Martin. I hate to think of anyone else having to deal with the less-than-user-friendly WSJ interface.
I can usually make at least some headway with the Stumper but that was not the case today. I was amazed that TOFURKEY was wrong.
NYT: Slightly easier than yesterday’s, for me. Like everyone else, I had no idea about PEOPLESELBOW, but eventually filled it in from crosses. And also like everyone else, I don’t understand COPYPASTE as a 2-in-1 command.
I got about three-quarters of the Stumper before giving up. I find these days that I don’t have the patience to struggle through a lot of far-fetched clues and arcane answers. I put in PRISONER and SHORTLINE without the slightest idea what the clues refer to. I had MYANTONIA but wanted TORSO at 12D, and couldn’t make any further progress in that corner, so hit reveal. I don’t understand EMS; no idea what ANTBEARS are or how they relate to the clue. Couldn’t come up with MCCABE or CALABRIA but might have got them if I’d persisted.
The clue for YAHOOS is just plain silly — or half of it is, anyway.
FWIW, Urban FD division refers to the Fire Department, and they would have some staff who are Emergency Medical Services specialists. I don’t know if that means firefighters or others who just do EMS.
Short Line refers to the rairoad next to Pennsylvania Avenue in Monopoly, which I knew. Prisoner refers to the film “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” a film, which I didn’t know.
Thank you both. I’ve never played the US version of Monopoly, and I know very little about the Potterverse.
Stumper: This firms up my opinion that no Stumper should ever be called “less rough.” Also, the top left (easier) and bottom right (brutal) were so segmented, I was afraid I wouldn’t finish. And so many crossing proper nouns! MCCABE/MY ANTONIA/ALEROS/CALABRIA was tough, but the bottom right section that almost killed my solve was URAL RIVER/BOAC/CARLO/CASTRO/CASIO.
Back in the day, I could polish off a Les Ruff in under 5 minutes. This one took 15 minutes and a “check all letters.” Stan’s use of the Lester Ruff pen name has lost all meaning,
In the Stumper, MY ANTONIA was my entry into the NE. That UNA worked with it was my confirmation. But the NW was going nowhere and I finally caved and looked up EVE ARDEN because my 5D of PEARLS and 6D MORAL was really clogging that up.
So definitely not Lester Ruff for me today.
Yes, I had to look up Eve Arden for that corner, too. Also had “moral” like you. Don’t remember her in the film at all.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4 stars
Stumper was tough! EVE ARDEN I only got with crossings. Some really interesting clue fodder here. My favorite answers were probably WEBMASTER ASTORIA URALRIVER because they were right in that sweet spot for me of gettable v obscure relative to the clue.
Wapo/LAT was a quicker outing than usual but quite fun I thought. The DREMEL v LAIN clue was tough; having worked with enough tools, once I realized my auto ‘died’ was wrong for lain, though, it smoothed out. Definitely in the millennial sweet spot!
NYT: my solve time might be misleading the difficulty, while 80% of the puzzle fell squarely into place, the NW corner was definitely Saturday level for me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
This was tougher for me today than yesterdays. I had no idea on some, but even then some were eventually inferable. Tilted Arc, Peoples Elbow, Mom Friend, Agoutis… others, but they eventually fell after many trips around the grid. Just the way I like it on a Saturday :) . Hard crunch but getable. Oh lol, I did start with HARDC for the campus clue since I had the H… why not? because … NOT .
Love any puzzle that includes the Pieta… my maiden name was Piety so I feel some kind of “connection”. It is an incredibly beautiful sculpture.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 3 stars
In the Stumper: clueing My Ántonia as “Western novel” is just wrong, even if it’s Saturday. And who cares if H.L. Mencken liked it?
(I’ve read all of Cather.)
In the 19th century, the prairie is certainly “the west.”
Yes, but “Western novel”clearly suggests cowboy culture, at least to me.
That’s why I said what I said.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 2 stars
Eric, thank you for putting into words why I groaned through this one. Ugh.
Sorry. I’d have warned you away from it had I not been in a hurry to get out of the house after I finished my review.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I’m a fan of this one overall for many of the reasons explicated herein, but surely I can’t be alone in being troubled by example #147 in the ever-lengthening list of Will Shortz-condoned egregious dupes: GOT UP / PONIED UP (1- and 24-down). It’s almost like he’s noticed the flak he’s getting here at Fiend and is doubling down.