Sunday, November 9, 2025

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Amie Walker’s New York Times Crossword “Swing States” — Eric’s Review

Amie Walker’s New York Times Crossword “Swing States” — 11/9/25

For once, I noted the title of the puzzle — possibly because the Universal puzzle this past Thursday had the same title (and a completely different trick).

Four two-way rebuses are the postal codes for various states on my side of the Mississippi River:

• 23A [Iconic line from Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver”] YO{U T}ALKIN’ TO ME crossing 3D [Chance for supporters to induct athletes into the All-Star Game] FA{N V}OTE Utah and Nevada
• 41A [“I’ve had it!”] ENOUG{H I}S ENOUGH crossing 12D [“Treat me like an adult, MOM!”] I’M NOT {A K}ID ANYMORE Hawaii and Alaska
• 57A [Certain expectant parent] MO{M-T}O-BE crossing 44D [Scarce] FE{W A}ND FAR BETWEEN Montana and Washington
• 91A [“Put your wallet away”] IT’S O{N M}E crossing 87D [All sales final”] N{O R}ETURNS New Mexico and Oregon
• 117A [Telegraph pioneer, or a description of four squares in this puzzle] WESTERN UNION

When I figured out the Utah/Nevada pairing, I thought that the remaining pairs would be states that share a border. They’re not, but that’s probably too much to ask. I liked the theme, though figuring out where the rebuses went and then entering five characters (counting the slash) for each rebus slowed me down a bit. I also lost a bit of time because  “Telegraph pioneer” made me think of Samuel F.B. Morse, who I was taught invented the telegraph. (Wikipedia suggests that there was an earlier invention by a Frenchman named Claude Chappe; that’s a name new to me.)

I’m mildly disappointed that the two “Western” states I’ve lived in — Texas and Colorado — didn’t make the cut. I’m sure TX would have been hard to work into the grid, but CO seems doable.

I like that so many of the theme answers are things that are just fun to see in a grid, especially YOU TALKIN’ TO ME, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, I’M NOT A KID ANYMORE and FEW AND FAR BETWEEN.

Other stuff:

• 32A [Reminder to oneself] MENTAL NOTE Nope. I need to write it down or I’ll forget it.
• 36A [M.L.B. shortstop Miguel] ROJAS Not a name I recognized. He’s played for both the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Miami Marlins. As he’s currently with the Dodgers, I probably saw him during what little I saw of this year’s World Series.
• 65A [Sam of “Jurassic Park”] NEILL A pure gimme.
• 67A [Was gone in a flash?] STREAKED Cute clue.
• 74A [Elevated seabed] SHELF Not SHOAL.
• 87A [Traveler’s check, in brief?] NBA REF Cute clue, although from what I’ve heard, players rarely get called for traveling in most NBA games. I had a bit of trouble parsing this as I was trying to get the answer.
• 97A [Any activities on them need to be wound up] CASSETTE TAPES Cute clue. When we moved last year, I trashed dozens of cassette tapes, mostly homemade ones of LPs I’d gotten rid of in the previous move. I don’t miss the tapes, but I wish I still had some of the records.
• 109A [1990s ABC sitcom about kids growing up without their parents] ON OUR OWN That sounds maybe vaguely familiar, but in any case, it wasn’t too hard to figure out with a few key letters.
• 7D [Peace Nobelist Kofi] ANNAN Another gimme; it’s hard to believe his tenure as United Nations Secretary-General ended in 2006.
• 24D [“The ___ Smith Show” (Apple TV offering)] KAMAL I didn’t recognize that title; it appears to be a talk show.
• 66D [Language in which “one, two, three” is “neung, song, sam”] LAO I got this completely from the crosses, but I might’ve been able to figure it out anyway.
• 72D [Paul ___, “There Will Be Blood” actor] DANO Another gimme. If you’ve not seen the movie New York Times critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis once named the best movie of the 21st century, be warned that it lives up to its title.

Pam Klawitter’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Breakables”—Jim P’s review

Circled letters spell out items that are commonly broken in real life. Further, the circled words themselves are split between two long entries.

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Breakables” · Pam Klawitter · 11.9.25

• GLASSES: 23a/25a, CHIP DOUGLAS / SESAME OIL.
• PHONE SCREEN: 45a/49a, PERSOPHONE / SCREEN TEST.
• RECORD: 68a/73a, POP CULTURE / CORDON BLEU.
• CONTRACT: 98a/100a, ARCHDEACON / TRACT HOMES.
• WINDOW: 121a/123a, NARROW WIN / DOWN THE ROAD.

Solid. I was going for time, so I ignored the circled letters and solved as a themeless which worked quite well. The theme doesn’t wow me, but should a solver need a nudge of assistance from it, it’s there.

Fill highlights start with CARL LEWIS, ALL AT ONCE, and “ASK AWAY“.  Any difficulties mostly stemmed from proper names including ROSALIE, KNOPF, and SCOTTO.

Clues of note:

• 105a. [Jane, to Daria]. PAL. No idea on this one. It comes from the animated show Daria which was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead.
• 114d. [Cheese “de Meaux”]. BRIE. Not my favorite cheese, so I didn’t know its origins. The town of Meaux is outside of Paris to the northeast.

Three stars.

Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword “As the World Turns” — Matt’s Review

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “As the World Turns,” 11/9/2025

We have a meta this week from Evan, inviting us to find an eleven-letter word. The title “As the World Turns” hints pretty strongly at something geographic, and we have eleven theme entries and an asymmetric grid, suggesting one letter from each, likely in order:

• • 22a [*Pool game that uses just one striped sphere] NINE BALL
  • 24a [*Insects also known as blackflies] BUFFALO GNATS
  • 31a [*MIT climatologist who provides forecasts for the Arctic Oscillation and Polar Vortex blog] JUDAH COHEN
  • 51a [*Actor who said, “Mark my words, Seinfeld! Your day of reckoning is coming” on the finale of “Seinfeld”] WAYNE KNIGHT
  • 53a [*Lottery winnings] MEGABUCKS
  • 63a [*”Be with you soon” IN A MOMENT
  • 72a [*First president of Egypt] MUHAMMAD NAGUIB
  • 86a [*___ Kenneth Dwight, birth name of Elton John] REGINALD
  • 95a [*Like a certain 19th-century revivalist architecture movement] NEOGOTHIC
  • 101a [*Secure home financing] OBTAIN A MORTGAGE
  • 118a [*Chairman of the Federal Reserve who purchased The Washington Post in 1933] EUGENE MEYER

The first bit of geography I saw in these themers was that NAGUIB anagrams to BANGUI, the capital of the Central African Republic, but I didn’t see any others quickly and moved on. I then saw CHAD backwards in (new to me) JUDAH COHEN. Reversed country names are indeed the way to go.

If you’ll forgive me for not typing up another bulleted list or spoiling the mechanism in the above, the countries in order are BENIN, ANGOLA, CHAD, KENYA, CUBA, OMAN, UGANDA, NIGER, TOGO, ROMANIA, YEMEN.

The first letters of each spell our apt meta answer BACKCOUNTRY. A solid, accessible meta, I’d say, pretty well telegraphed by the title and only really requiring one insight to get to the extraction.

Other highlights: [Price offerings?] to ARIAS is a nicely-hidden reference to operatic soprano Leontyne Price, who made an appearance in one of the theme clues last week // As is typical in many clues for EDU, “Bard” is a disguised college name // Similarly, “Cake” and “Cream” are bands, so their creation would be an ALBUM 

Cheers!