Sunday, November 2, 2025

LAT tk (Gareth) [1.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 17:46 (Eric) [3.46 avg; 23 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) [2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 9:11 (Jim P) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 5:44 (Matt G) [2.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Rafael Musa’s New York Times crossword, “Open-Faced” — Eric’s review

Rafael Musa’s New York Times Crossword “Open-Faced” — 11/2/25

I was happy to see Rafael Musa’s byline here, because I enjoy his puzzles for their multicultural content (including LGBTQ-related answers), clever clueing, and overall sense of fun.

I’m not usually a fan of grid art, because it seems to result in a lot of three- and four-letter answers that can be tedious to complete. The bunny-like face in this grid made me think of the movie Donnie Darko, in which the title character (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) has a friend named Frank, a large bunny that only Donnie can see. I’m not sure that’s what Mr. Musa had in mind; the puzzle’s title suggests that this is one of the themeless Sunday puzzles that The New York Times publishes about twice a year. And Mr. Musa is a master constructor of themeless puzzles.

The bunny face means the grid has a lot of long answers, just like solving one of Mr. Musa’s more conventional themeless grids.

Many of the answers resonated with me for various reasons. I know that what’s in a grid doesn’t necessarily indicate what interests a constructor, but I feel like Mr. Musa and I share some interests.

Some highlights:

• 1A [Cause a mess, as with frying oil] SPLATTER My husband and I just agreed that I will make pumpkin pancakes for our Sunday breakfast. (The recipe in the NYT Cooking app is fantastic.) I’m sure to curse once or twice when my clumsy attempts to flip the pancakes result in hot oil getting all over the stove. It’s worth it.
• 17A [Offerings to prospective bicycle buyers] TEST RIDES I’ve done that many times, though my current bicycle was a warranty replacement when the frame of my previous bike broke while riding one of the poorly-paved streets in Austin.
• 19A [“Ben-Hur” or “Lawrence of Arabia”] EPIC DRAMA Not EPIC MOVIE/46A [Old-time theater item] MOVIE REEL One of the few things that I miss about living in Austin is that it’s a good movie town. Almost every film that I might read about in the NYT would get to Austin eventually. If new movies aren’t your thing, the nonprofit Paramount Theatre there has a summer film series that shows lots of great classic movies. Having seen their projection booth, I know they’re not using digital projectors.
• 31A [Wrong idea] FALSE IMPRESSION I’m good at inadvertently creating those.
• 34A [___ Jones, author of “How We Fight for Our Lives”] SAEED That name is only vaguely familiar to me.
• 35A [Tick off] MIFF I’m 99.9% sure that I typed this answer correctly, but when I got through with the grid, I got that annoying pop-up telling me something was wrong. If you have the NYT Games app on your phone, it has a List View feature that makes it much easier to find something that’s obviously wrong such as my MIFR.
• 44A [Agreements where one party takes some heat?] ARMS DEAL Cute clue, but I immediately knew “heat” referred to guns. (I could normally do without gun references in my puzzles, but I’ll cut Mr. Musa some slack because I liked his clue.)
• 50A [Evergreen pointer] PINE NEEDLE The most common tree around my neighborhood is the ponderosa pine. We’ve been raking up aspen leaves and pine needles for the last few days and still have a lot to do even though we have almost no land outside of what our house sits on.
• 61A [___ syndrome (allergic reaction to some bug bites)] SKEETER That phrase is new to me; another thing we left behind in Austin were the mosquitoes that made being outdoors unpleasant even when it wasn’t 100º.
• 62A [Actress and model Ali ___] LARTER Another semi-familiar name. [Update: I’ve been reminded that Ms Larter plays a major character on Landman. We’ve watched all of that. I used to be good at remembering actors’ names and matching them to the roles they played in movies and shows that I had seen. Not anymore.)
• 73A [Area with the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more] SILICON VALLEY That statistic doesn’t surprise me, but I read the clue sloppily and thought the answer was something more generic.
• 96A [___ Lupton, author of the 2010 best seller “Sister”] ROSAMUND Until today, the only ROSAMUND I could name would have been the actress ROSAMUND Pike. Odds are that by tomorrow morning, the only ROSAMUND I’ll be able to name is Ms Pike.
• 2D [Exams whose analytical reasoning sections were removed in 2024] LSATS I don’t know if the “analytical reasoning” section was the part of the LSAT that caused me so much grief way back in the early 1980s. Taking that test was a miserable experience — so much worse that the bar exams I took, both of which were at least two days.
• 6D [Typically red-coated toy figurines] TIN SOLDIERS
• 14D [Does the Narrows hike at Zion National Park, say] WADES I’ve not been very far up the Virgin River past the point where Zion Canyon narrows and there’s no trail. Man, that water is cold, even at the end of summer.
• 28D [Pride celebration] PARADE Technically, isn’t the big one in NYC a march?
• 31D [Child who refuses to put things away?] FUSSY EATER The term my parents used to refer to me was “picky eater.” My diet is much broader now.
• 33D [Olympic gymnast Nadia who was the first to receive a perfect 10 score] COMANECI At the 1976 Games, when she was 16.
• 38D [Absurdist philosopher born in Algeria] Albert CAMUS It’s from crosswords that I knew he wasn’t born in France.
• 43D [Lucy ___, African American slave narrator] DELANEY Another name that’s new or sort of new to me; I need to learn more about her.
• 47D [Sufferer healed by Jesus] LEPER Sometimes that Catholic upbringing comes in handy.
• 53D [Small protestation] PEEP Not YELP.
• 58D [Eccentric] BATTY Not NUTTY.
• 62D [Musical instruments that become other musical instruments when an F is added to the front] LUTES That’s a long clue for an answer that I waited to get some crosses for. At least I knew OBOES was wrong.
• 68D [Physics Nobelist Feynman] RICHARD Finally, a name I knew.
• 69D [Covert mission, familiarly] BLACK OP That will always look weird to me without an S on the end.

Really nice puzzle, Mr. Musa. (Now, will you please accept my Facebook friend request?)

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Inside Out” — Matt’s review

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Inside Out,” 11/2/2025

Last week we had “Cry Out,” while this week’s title is “Inside Out.” Our themers are arranged in pairs, with circled letters in the first of each:

• • 26a [*Excessive use of government power] OVERREACH
  • 28a [**Dull pain experienced by a generically named dog?] ROVER ACHE
  • 49a [*Speed of transferring digital information, often measured in bytes per second] DATA RATE
  • 51a [**Homer hit by poet Limon?] ADA TATER
  • 65a [*The singer Jessye Norman or Leontyne Price, e.g.] OPERA STAR
  • 67a [**Actress Reid’s nickname when she goes to an outdoor obstacle course?] ROPES TARA
  • 80a [*Citrus-flavored soft drink] ORANGINA
  • 82a [**Announcement you might make to director Ephron that you complain constantly?] NORA I NAG
  • 103a [*Was penitent about] ATONED FOR
  • 106a [**Have a meal while sitting atop a Bronco or a Mustang?] EAT ON FORD
• 112a [Turned inside out, say … and a synonym of the word spelled by the circled letters which, when moved to the outside, create the double-starred answers] ALTERED

That’s quite a wordy revealer, but what we’ve got going on is: pairs of themers where the outer letters of one themer are the middle (or near-middle, for even-lettered entries) of the other. Those circled letters spelled REARRANGED, a fitting synonym for ALTERED.

By necessity to create that last layer, those second themers are all pretty silly – ADA TATER perhaps the most. It’s probably easier said than done, but I think I would trade the REARRANGED aspect for more in-the-language themers. But an enjoyable solve, and the type of theme that lets you really drop letters in fast once you see it.

Other highlights: It’s a bit funny to me to see EMORAP (22a) and EMOPOP show up in grids. I’ve learned from fact checking clues for EMO that a lot of bands used as examples don’t view themselves as EMO. Not sure if it’s different for EMORAP // I don’t know if prior to the clue [Had unhappy feet, maybe?] for STOMPED, that I’d considered that the presence of “happy feet” implies unhappy ones // ITALO disco is new to me, but the clue including “European” does plenty to help narrow it down, I think

Cheers!

Jared Cappel’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Tree Hugging”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers are pairs (and in one case, a trio) of answers with circled letters that spell out types of trees. The groups of trees are stacked together, hence the title.

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Tree Hugging” · Jared Cappel · 11.2.25

• 4d FLOP-EARED and 5d SAPPINESS featuring PEAR and PINE trees.
• 14d STEFFI GRAF and 15d PASTA SHELLS featuring FIG and ASH trees.
• 33d PRANCED AROUND, 58d OLIVE (clued as the color), and 35d TICKLE MONSTER featuring CEDAR, OLIVE, and LEMON trees).
• 65d SENATE AIDES and 75d HOTEL MAIDS (love that they rhyme) featuring TEA and ELM trees.
• 90d STEAK PIE and 85d DELI MEATS featuring TEAK and LIME trees.

Very dense theme with all those stacked answers. This must have been a difficult construction with a lot of constraints, aligning the trees and still making sure all the crossings allow for a fillable grid. Having trees be the same number of letters doesn’t seem like it would be a requirement, but it is an elegant touch. Impressively done!

And we still get some fun long fill like SNIFF TEST, BIG MISTAKES, MEAL PLAN, INDIA.ARIE, COLD SAKE, TIGER CUB, and BEERGARITAS (though it’s new to me and I think I’d pass on the actual thing). With all those stacked theme answers, you’d expect the fill to suffer, but it’s managed quite well. The most difficult area for me was the proper names in center-lower-left with PAAVO and LOREN, but the crosses fixed those easily.

No doubt the fact that the grid is not completely symmetrical helped with smoothing the fill. It’s not much, but there are a few black squares here and there without corresponding partners.

Overall though, an impressive theme and fun fill. 3.5 stars.