Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Jonesin’ 3:50 (Erin) [2.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT untimed (Jenni) rate it
NYT 9:56 (Eric) [3.66 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (pannonica) [4.00 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:48 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ 7:12 (Jim Q) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Zoom Lens” — people with the same initials. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 11/11/25

Hello lovelies! This week’s Jonesin’, which I’m guessing was inspired by recent elections, includes folks with the initials Z.M.

• 17a. [U.K. singer who left his boy band in 2015] ZAYN MALIK, formerly of One Direction
• 24a. [He played Max Bialystock in “The”] ZERO MOSTEL
• 35a. [New York City’s mayor as of January 1, 2026] ZOHRAN MAMDANI
• 48a. [Former Dallas Cowboys guard on the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team] ZACK MARTIN
• 56a. [Youngest of a set of comedic film brothers] ZEPPO MARX

Other things:

Thwomp with his Collar of Shame

• 21a. [Seafood in a “shooter”] OYSTER. It’s a raw oyster in a shot glass with vodka and cocktail sauce, usually swallowed whole.
• 50d. [Danny of “Machete”] TREJO. His story is amazing. From a childhood of abuse, addiction, imprisonment, to his work as a substance abuse counselor and building sober living houses, to getting his first acting job in his forties, to lead roles and opening restaurants…his story is fascinating.

Shout out to my cat Thwomp who sat on my hand to make it more difficult to write this. He’s getting back at me for making him wear an undignified collar while he recovered from surgery recently. Until next week!

Jonathan Raksin’s Universal Crossword “Press Clippings” — Eric’s Review

Jonathan Raksin’S Universal Crossword “Press Clippings” — 11/11/25

Each theme answer has two clues, only one of which (“DIGITAL”)  fits the answer in the grid. To make sense of the second (“PRINT”) clue, ignore the tree in the answer:

• 18A [DIGITAL: Savory British pastries, PRINT: MI6 members] STEAK PIES (Ignore TEAK and you have SPIES.)
• 23A [DIGITAL: Quick-tempered sort, PRINT: Malice] SPITFIRE (Ignore FIR and you have SPITE.)
• 33A [Version of the paper that could aptly feature the PRINT clues?] DEAD TREE EDITION
• 49A [DIGITAL: Soft wool, PRINT: Shortened summons] CASHMERE (Ignore ASH and you have C’MERE.)
• 54A [DIGITAL: Absorbing fully, PRINT: Activity in a Gene Kelly title] SOAKING IN (Ignore OAK and you have SINGIN’.)

The theme works well enough, but I figured out how it worked only after filling in the grid. All the theme answers feel relatively fresh, which is nice. And I’m always happy to be reminded of Singin’ in the Rain, which I first time saw in college and enjoyed much more than I had expected to.

Other stuff:

• 15A [Spots for hot dates?] OASES Cute clue. Maybe too cute.
• 65A [Garment whose colors were hotly debated in 2015] DRESS If you managed to miss it, the debate was whether the particular item was black and blue or white and gold.
• 1D [“Good Grief” director Levy] DAN He stars in it, too. I’m still not convinced he can act.
• 4D [Carpal tunnel preventer] WRIST PAD Doesn’t that clue need “syndrome”?
• 9D [Penn name?] SEAN Another clue that maybe tries too hard.
• 35D [“Paparazzo Extraordinaire” Galella] RON I remembered that name from when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a frequent subject of tabloid newspapers. That’s only been 50 years or so. (Galella himself died in 2022 at 91.)

Christina Iverson and Scott Hogan’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Christina Iverson and Scott Hogan’s New York Times Crossword — 11/11/25

The slightly smaller grid (14X15) should have made for a quicker than normal solving time, but I’m using a new laptop and still have a ways to go to learn the keyboard and trackpad.

The theme here is all in the almost identical clueing of the three grid-spanning entries:

• 16A [“It’s hard to say”] WHO REALLY KNOWS
• 37A [It’s hard to say] THAT WAS MY FAULT
• 59A [It’s hard to say] WORCESTERSHIRE I’m not sure I agree that the name is hard to say, but it does take a bit to learn to skip some of the letters.

On the one hand, having only three theme answers seems a bit skimpy. On the other, I’m not sure I can think of a fourth “hard to say” answer, especially one that’s 14 letters long. And the theme fits the early-week theme criterion of being easy for inexperienced solvers to understand.

Other stuff:

• 13A [One of over 30 million used for farming in Iowa ACRE A gratuitous shout-out to constructor Christina Iverson’s home state?
• 41A [Stingy sort?] WASP Cute clue that’s a gentle reminder to look for wordplay when a straightforward answer doesn’t fit.

“The Little Mermaid” by Edvard Eriksen

• 52A [Copenhagen’s “The Little Mermaid,” for one] STATUE I’m not sure where I learned of this statue, but I knew it exists.
• 66A [First coin to use the $ symbol] PESO That’s a bit of trivia I had not known.
• 2D [Número de planetas] OCHO Knowing the numbers from one to 10 in a language like Spanish is useful in crosswords. The New York Times editors are good about clueing those answers by using words that have clear cognates in English.
• 11D [“Dirty Jobs” host Mike] ROWE That series sounds vaguely familiar at best.
• 33D [“I so did not need to hear that!”] EWW I’d definitely have put TMI if I hadn’t already had the initial E.
• 39A [1957 Danny & the Juniors hit about a school dance] AT THE HOP That’s before even my time, but the song was on some K-TEL collection of 1950s hits that was heavily advertised on local TV when I was in high school.

Jeff Stillman’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

I had no idea what was going on with the theme, so this solved like an easy themeless for me. The revealer made me giggle, so that’s a win.

Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2025, Jeff Stillman, solution grid

• 20a [Output of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions] is (are?) PARTY NOMINEES.
• 29a [Hose that may have a seam up the back] are NYLON STOCKINGS. Hmm. I think it was more often silk stockings that had a seam.
• 46a [Common conveyances between suburbs and cities] are COMMUTER TRAINS. Common in some areas. We don’t have them and I wish we did.

And the revealer: 56a [“Three Blind Mice” line, or what can be said of 20-, 29-, and 46-Across] is SEE HOW THEY RUN. Nice!

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that the Edmonton CFL team is the ELKS. What I did know: that Princeton University athletes are the TIGERs

Shmuel Schmell’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Double Setting” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Two-word phrases where the word “table” can follow both words

WSJ • 11/11/25 • Tue • “Double Setting” • Shmuel Schmell • solution • 202510230

THEME ANSWERS:

• DRAWING CARD (DRAWING TABLE / CARD TABLE)
• HEADLIGHT (HEAD TABLE / LIGHT TABLE)
• TEA TIME (TEA TABLE / TIMETABLE)
• TURN ROUND (TURNTABLE / ROUND TABLE)
• (revealer) TABLE FOR TWO

Played more like a Thursday for me difficulty-wise. Lots of mental gaps and I just had difficulty finding solid footholds.

Everything googles quite well, but DRAWING CARD and TURN ROUND weren’t on the tip of my tongue. I wanted TURN (A)ROUND, as I’m sure other solvers wanted as well. But alas, that wouldn’t fit the theme. That’s the only one that felt slightly shoehorned, but TURN ROUND is on my word list too with a high rating. And hey- I’ve seen this theme-type doing a lot more acrobatic bending than this grid does in order to accommodate the idea in the past.

The first themer I uncovered was TEA TIME, and shortly thereafter the revealer TABLE FOR TWO. So it had me thinking that I was looking for two-word phrases where both word started with T. I was sure of it actually, so that didn’t help with my bumpy solve at all.

OTHER FUMBLES / MUSINGS:

• ADDIS ABABA was tough for me to uncover, though I should definitely know that.
• [Prepares, as leftovers] REWARMS. I REHEAT my leftovers.
• [Ancient Incan capital] CUZCO. I know I’ve seen this before, but this answer could’ve been absolutely anything for me at the time.
• [Habitat with clear walls] ANT FARM. Cute clue. Just realizing that I haven’t seen an ANT FARM in a very long time. I had one as a kid for a day or two. Is it still a thing?
• [Hockey great Robitaille] LUC. New for me.
• [Comparable to “a day in June,” in a James Russell Lowell poem] SO RARE. Just seeing it now. I thought it was SORARE  and pronounced SO-RAWR-AY. Shrugged it off. Odd, the things you can convince yourself make sense mid-solve.
• [Astronomical shadow] UMBRA. New for me.

Been solving M-W with a lot of students lately. We have off from school today, but I’m relatively certain they would’ve struggled with this one. Tight