LAT 2:10 (Stella) 
[2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Newsday untimed (Amy sitting in for pannonica) 
[4.10 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 8:10 (Amy) 
[2.57 avg; 23 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 17:43 (Eric) 
[3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Gary Larson & Amy Ensz’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “If I Ruled the World” — Eric’s Review
Gary Larson & Amy Ensz’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “If I Ruled the World” — 11/22/25
When I was solving this, I wasn’t sure what to think about it, other than it took me longer to complete than I would have expected, given that it’s not particularly difficult. While the theme does involve crossword wackiness, the theme answers are all actual phrases that could have been clued in a straightforward way.
In other words, the wackiness is all in the solver’s head. Common phrases and compound nouns are clued as if the letter I appears in a crucial spot:
- [*Dental woe that Horton might hear about?] WHO CARES The “Who” refers to the Dr. Seuss classic Horton Hears a Who; “dental caries” is just a fancier way to say “tooth decay.”
- 24A [*Fairy tale creature in no rush for victims to cross his bridge?] PATENT TROLL Wikipedia describes patent trolling as an attempt to “enforce patent rights against [an accused infringer] far beyond the patent’s actual value or contribution to the prior art.” My intellectual property class in law school didn’t cover patent trolling, which shows how long ago I went to law school.
- 44A [*Film with a cast of unknowns?] NOBODY MOVE
- 46A [*Strapless top to wear with a grass skirt?] SOD BUSTER
- 67A [*Two-faced Mensa members?] SMART PHONES
- 86A [*Money-laundering outfit in the hood?] HOME FRONT
- 90A [*Even lamer joke on a humor blog?] CORNER POST
- 109A [*Flea market kiosk with more pizzazz than the others?] SHOWER STALL
- 113A [Spelling rule you must apply to make sense of the starred answers] I BEFORE E Do they still teach this rule in elementary school? It’s practically useless, given how many weird exceptions it has.
Normally with this kind of theme, the answers would be spelled wackily, and I’d be rolling my eyes at something like SOD BUSTIER, HOMIE FRONT or CORNIER POST. But I like the idea to leave the I’s out — NOBODY MOVIE and SMART PHONIES amuse me. And I like the decision to not put quotation marks around the “I” in the title. That kept me puzzled because WHO CARES is a real phrase and PATENT TROLL is a real compound noun. So the more I think about the theme, the more I like it.
Part of my slowish time was struggling with the non-theme answers throughout the grid. The NW corner especially gave me a bit of trouble, where 1A could have been DIG, 18A could have been EYE, 2D could have been MAUI and 3D could have been AMOR. That got me off to a less-than-spectacular start.
Other stuff:
20A [Blue Origin rival] SPACEX “Blue Origin” didn’t sound familiar until after I’d gotten the answer. The less I have to think about people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the happier I am.- 41A [Nelson Muntz catchphrases] HA-HAS. Normally, I’d be mildly annoyed with a plural of this sort. But I’ll give it a pass because, though it’s been 30 years since I’ve seen The Simpsons, I can hear Nancy Cartwright’s obnoxious bully’s laugh. The voice talent on that show is just fantastic. If all you know about The Simpsons is what you’ve learned from crosswords, find some episodes and give them a shot. It hasn’t lasted for over 35 years for no reason.
- 43A [Oscar winner for “Tootsie” and “Blue Sky”] Jessica LANGE The only Tootsie stars I could think of were Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr and Charles Durning. I’d also forgotten Blue Sky, so what should have been a gimme took a few crosses.
- 64A [George of “Route 66”] MAHARIS A gimme; I was a bit young for that show when it was on, but its stars live in the part of my brain reserved for people with uncommon names.
- 71A [Capital of Cyprus] NICOSIA Another gimme, probably because Cyprus was a battleground between Greece and Turkey in the mid-1970s (when I still read the newspaper).
- 74A [“Shrinking” star Jason] SEGEL Not MOMOA. Shrinking is on our watch list, but not very high. Should we bump it up?
- 4D [Pipe cleaner brand] DRANO I know why the clue didn’t use “drain,” but to my mind, a “pipe cleaner” is “a piece of wire covered with tufted fiber, used to clean a tobacco pipe and for a variety of handicrafts.” (In my experience, almost exclusively used for “handicrafts.”) I defy anyone to, without using the internet, name a brand of that sort of pipe cleaner.
- 44D [Kevin of “SNL” and “Weeds”] NEALON Another gimme, but I lost time here because I thought the clue went with 44A.
- 50A [Formed a stalactite, say] DRIPPED If you have trouble remembering whether stalactite hang from a cave’s roof or rise from its floor: Stalactite has a C for “ceiling” and “stalgmite” doesn’t. And if you’ve never been to a cave like Carlsbad Caverns, they’re pretty cool.
- 57D [Herbs with Italian and Greek varieties] OREGANOS We’ve got some dried Mexican oregano in our spice drawer, though I don’t know how it differs in taste from the probably-Italian stuff we’ve got growing in a pot.
- 114D [Dearest] BAE Not BFF. Not HON. (See why I had so much trouble with the fill?)
Blake Slonecker’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 11/22/25 – no. 1122
Oof! Friday nights are tiring. Work all morning, get your blood cleaned all afternoon, find your eyelids dropping during the puzzle. Gonna call 8:10 a big win considering I was drowsing off towards the end of the puzzle. Nothing personal to the constructor! Just physically zonked out.
So! Fave fill: QUID PRO QUO, CENTRAL PARK, JUMP FOR JOY, ERASERMATE (which I grew to hate as a pen), KLEENEX BOX.
Feels unfamiliar: Darth Vader’s thing was called FORCE CHOKE?
45A. [Lead role in 1978’s “La Cage aux Folles”], RENATO. I was 12 then, never saw it. Good luck to anyone who didn’t know the character and doesn’t know the oral anesthetic brand name ORAJEL.
26D. [Certain miniature vehicle, informally], R.C. CAR. Remote control toy car, that is.
3.5 stars from me. Good night!
Ed Sessa’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 11/22/25 by Ed Sessa
Sorry to say I’m not a big fan of this puzzle, both because it needed more teeth (I almost didn’t stop typing, which is a feeling I associate with Monday more than with Saturday) and because I thought the fill was pretty badly ruined by a pet peeve of mine. A lot of the longs are fun: CANADIANA, MIDWEST NICE, SMASHBURGER, OYSTER BAR. But there were enough plurals and verbs ending in S — and especially ones that crossed each other at the S — that I noticed. We’ve got ERNS crossing ELS (ouch), ELIDES crossing AROMAS, SWAP MEETS crossing DOGHOUSES, KNEES crossing BUTTS (which I’ll admit is kind of funny), SOPHS crossing NYETS (oof), RAILS crossing MOWERS, RDAS crossing MACROS, and ORS crossing PAIRS. Maybe in the era when grids were mostly made by hand this would be fine, but with the level of accessibility of good word lists and constructing software these days, that many S/S crosses is a reason to start over with the fill IMO.
(And yes, I realize that a lot of this is coming from my experience as a constructor and what I consider elegant — but as a solver, an excess of plurals is pretty unsatisfying, since you can fill in that S without actually understanding any of the rest of the clue.)
Rafael Musa’s Newsday “Saturday Stumper”–Amy’s recap
Newsday crossword solution, 11/22/25 – “Saturday Stumper” – Musa
Not sure I remember seeing Rafael Musa’s byline on a Stumper before. I like it. Made it through the puzzle without using the “check letters” function at all, and it felt like maybe 12 to 15 minutes, not terrible at all.
The toughest section for me was the center left:
- 24d. [[Drill bits?] is a great clue for FLASH CARDS, though it took working the crossings for me to make sense of things.
- For 31d. [It’s on a Mauna Loa flank], I first tried LAVA and then HILL. So close to the actual answer, HILO!
- 39a. [The best screengrabs?], A-LIST. Screengrabs? I don’t care for this playing fast and loose with the meaning of that term. Rather than a picture from a digital screen, the screen stars you want to “grab”? No.
- 43a. [Whom many a doctor charges], NO-SHOW. I don’t like that policy. Health care is so expensive as it is. You’re gonna charge more than a copay for a missed appointment, so now the patient has less money for copays and meds?
- 44d. [What can ready your roast], WOK. Huh? How? Here’s a recipe for wok-roasted pork. Not sure that it truly fits the definition of roasting. “To cook by exposing to dry heat.”
- 46a. [Perform well, to TikTokers], COOK. I’ve seent that usage, but I’m not in TikTok and didn’t know it was related to TikTok.
- The McCoys CLAN, Turkish/Mideast LIRA, CHILDCARE, and a scanned IRIS were the easier parts of this section.
Fave fill: sci-fi OMNIVERSE (don’t actually know what that is, mind you), VOICE NOTE ([Modern missive]), ATTENTION SPAN and ZEN STATES with partner clues, MEETUP, WALK A FINE LINE, SENT BACK (as a plate of subpar restaurant food), CROISSANT, SAT PREP, and PIRATE HATS.
Least favorite clue: 3d. [For whom Neety is a nickname], ANITA. You don’t say. Googling this took me to a sketchy-looking site listing over 200 nicknames for Anita. Nope, NEETY wasn’t there. Neet was, though.
Some tricky clues I liked:
- 4d. [Bed makeup], RICE. As in serving food on a bed of rice.
- 9d. [Silver accessories], PIRATE HATS. As in Long John Silver.
- 25d. [ACE, e.g.], TRIAD. Musical notes. Proud of myself for guessing right here! I don’t understand musical terminology, but A, C, and E are notes and there were three of them, so…
- 40d. [What may have multiple levels], TOOL KIT. Maybe carpenters and such have multiple levels in their tool box? Feel like most households would have one at most.
- 5a. [Quick study?], SCI. The study of X would be a science, “quick” connotes abbreviation. Is this the week’s quasi-cryptic clue?
4.25 stars from me. More enjoyable and less frustrating than many a Stumper.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
NYT 4*. fun themeless pangram with a nice wide cultural grasp i thought: from Plato’s OLIVE GROVE of millennia ago to EAZY E
I was disappointed when it became apparent that Plato had not held his Academy in an Olive Garden.
Guess he didn’t like the breadsticks.
I get the objections to the many proper nouns in this grid. They didn’t bother me, but that sort of thing rarely does.
What I disliked were the cross-reference clues, of which there seemed to be a lot.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
I think he held it at a Maggiano’s, I guess he wanted family style portions?
On a serious note, my aversion to SOME proper nouns crops up when I feel the named entity falls into the category of ‘had a convenient Google result when the constructor couldn’t make the crossings work’… looking at you DOERR and ZINN
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m saying “Farging ICEHOLE” a lot right now.
Here in Chicago, though the shorthand “ICE” is often used, the worst thuggery was from CBP, Border Patrol. Really upsetting and worthy of cussing.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
cell 18 is as close to a natick as I’ve seen recently if you don’t speak SPanish
The CARA / OTRA crossing? Yeah, that was a bit rough… I don’t know how you get there if you don’t know one of the two languages. MARLO / DOERR wasn’t great, either and RENATO / DOLAN and ELIA / VEZ, though I think for a Saturday it’s not completely out of bounds, and you can probably infer what they *should* be without necessarily knowing the language or name, but it’s tricky.
I think they meant VEZ/ZINN crossing. At least that’s the one that got me
Ah yes; I knew the author right away but you’re absolutely right; VEZ is quite tricky with two proper name crossings.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Dallas mentioned all of my problems. I love crosswords, I love wordplay, I love the English language, but… if you don’t know all these names then how are you supposed to solve the puzzle? Not my cup of tea
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I’ll bump it up for the fact it’s a double pangram, which must be incredibly difficult to build. But that might also be the reason it ended up being too much of a trivia contest for me. I thought this one was more impressive than enjoyable.
Agree with this analysis.
+1
Jamie, I’m sure the double pangram does increase the construction challenge. But does it add anything to the fun of solving the puzzle?
I am an experienced, knowledgeable solver. I’m also not the most observant person and I miss things like that all the time. I suck at meta crosswords, probably because of my failure to notice such unusual things.
Still, I enjoyed the puzzle overall and would have solved it in less time than Friday’s NYT if I hadn’t made a typo in QUID PRO QUO.
I noticed the double pangram callout when I struggled across the finish line and checked XWordInfo to see if I usually have a tough time with this constructor’s work.
I don’t think pangrams make a weekday grid more fun. (Probably makes them less fun for what it does to the fill.) But I do remember that fairly recent Sunday that highlighted the pangram letters and made it into a quasi-theme. So at least then you could narrow down what letters you had left and use it to help you solve a little.
I’m more interested in words, not letters
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Inexcusable crossings, didn’t seem designed with solver in mind
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
How many dozens of naticks are in the puzzle? Sorry I lost count.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 4 stars
My stalagmite/tite remembrance. Stalagmites MIGHT reach the cave ceiling. Stalagtites hang TIGHT to it.
Thanks.
I’d heard that before, but had forgotten it. (Which isn’t particularly useful with mnemonics.)
The mites go up, the tights come down.
Spelling: Stalactite maybe?
Yes, and my mnemonic is stalaCtites come from the Ceiling. It’s worked for me for 70 years.
BTW, the other half of the mnemonic is that stalaGmites come from the Ground.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
NYT: Fun puzzle despite all the semi-nonsense entries (ELIA, MARLO, RENATO et al.), but I don’t think I can forgive ICEHOLE. I know lots of folks who ice fish, and I’ve augured holes in the lake many times, and I’ve never heard anyone say “ice hole.” I didn’t notice the pangram thing until coming here, which explains the fact that it is pretty awkward. Am I the only one who just doesn’t care that all the letters get used (even if twice)?
You are not the only one who doesn’t care about crosswords that use every letter of the alphabet.
“Am I the only one who just doesn’t care that all the letters get used (even if twice)?”
I rarely notice such stunts myself. I don’t see any benefit to doing something like that. It’s already difficult to fill a grid cleanly (at least it is for me). Why make it harder for so little added joy?
On the other hand, a few people commented on Wordplay that they realized it was a double pangram and that knowing they needed two of each Scrabble-y letter helped them out.
NYT: Challenging puzzle, which I like on a Saturday – but not a lot of fun to solve. Lots of names. Too many cross-reference clues (one is actually too many). Not a lot of clever cluing (clue for QUID PRO QUO was pretty good).
“Too many cross-reference clues.”
That’s the only thing that I really disliked about the puzzle. Having a cross-reference clue for 1A should be illegal. (In hindsight, maybe it shouldn’t have take me as long it did with the CENTRAL PARK pair. But my memory for numbers like that is bad.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4.5 stars
A Stumper that I could actually finish! What fun!
NYT: Too many names made it hard but not enjoyable. The section with RENATO, DOLAN, KOBE, TKTS, FORCECHOKE, ACELA, RFK, RCCAR was the worst. I pieced it together eventually but it was a slog.
Eric, I like Shrinking a great deal. To me it’s a Ted Lasso type show – funny, heartwarming, and a bit raunchy with a stable of interesting and likable characters. Ted McGinley stole a few scenes in a supporting role in the first season and got his screen time increased in season two
Thanks, PJ.
A favorable comparison to Ted Lasso is high praise in my book. I don’t usually get misty-eyed watching movies or TV shows, but a few scenes in Ted Lasso really moved me.
Both Ted Lasso and Shrinking are executive produced by Bill Lawrence, who’s maybe the best in the business at these big-hearted TV comedies. It’s a nice break from heavy drama, psychological torture, and teenage horror with Chips Ahoy marketing activations.
Wiktionary has a technical term for green paint: “translation hub,” and “ice hole” gets that tag. Pretty cool.
Why, why, why (!) is Matthew rating the Saturday Universal puzzle if they can’t/won’t post the answer at the very least!?
For the ready a roast clue in the Stumper, I took it as meaning you cook it a high temperature for a few minutes in a wok (to brown the outside) and then move it to the oven and cook it at a lower temperature.
Possibly, but how many do that with a wok? I use a saute pan for that and I think most people do.
I’m assuming that the clue for 27D was meant to misdirect us to the seven “Road to….” movies starring Bob hOpe? I’m still not sure how TOTO qualifies. Yellow brick road reference? Ouch.
9D got me good – I spent many moments trying to come up with Silver Anniversary gifts that were hats.
This was a (relatively) easy Stumper but it certainly was edgier than the super easy NYT Saturday puzzle. Nice job, Rafael Musa!
Yes, Bing and Hope were my first attempts for that one. Luckily, the “o” of Hope led to its crossing “phone,” which eventually got me to the right place. Like you, I’m assuming “yellow brick,” but it’s a bit of a reach.
I only understood 9D’s reference when I read Amy’s review.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 4.5 stars
I really enjoyed the Stumper and hope to see more Stumpers from Rafael Musa. But I see one glitch: IDEST as the answer to 60-A, “Illustration introduction.” The abbreviation i.e., id est, “that is,” introduces a clarification. It’s e.g., exempli gratia, “for example,” introduces an example or illustration. Merriam-Webster explains:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/ie-vs-eg-abbreviation-meaning-usage-difference
That introduces, &c. (“Click to edit” didn’t work.)
Stumper: COOK isn’t “related to TikTok” as you said, it’s just a slang term that’s primarily used by the TikTok generation.
I really liked “The best screengrabs?” for A-LIST! I was imagining a producer or director being psyched that they snagged an A-lister for their movie.
Stumper: Agree with everything Amy and others have said here. I’m glad she understood the “silver” reference in 9D because I sure didn’t — Long John Silver does not normally come to mind when I think of pirates. A lot of stuff here was a stretch — calzones and knishes aren’t very alike at all, how many people have heard of an “oviraptor,” etc. (Others have mentioned 27D and 44D and I agree.) I’m not understanding 25D — I know of Ace bandages and hardware, but “triad”? I guess that’s a reference to its three letters?? If so, ugh!
Overall, not too bad, but there were a lot of stretches.
I wondered about ACE as well. I searched on A C E triad and found it is the A minor triad (chord). I know nothing about music other than I like it but this seems Stumper worthy.
https://www.musictheoryacademy.com/understanding-music/triads/
Thanks! I never thought of musical triads! That’s my husband’s area of expertise, though. I think he was the one who filled it in and I didn’t think to ask about it. :)
It’s funny how people have different easy/hard experiences. I immediately thought of the Am chord and TRIAD was one of my first-pass toeholds. It’s one of the most basic chords and will give an edge to solvers with a bit of musical training.
Thanks! As I replied to PJ, music is my husband’s area, not mine. :)
I thought today’s LAT was pretty easy for a Saturday, so my first thought was “I hope Stella reviews it so I can see her time.” Damn, she almost broke 2 minutes!
Stella’s been a hero of mine for a long time.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 5 stars
Brilliant, humorous WSJ puzzle. Almost too tough for me, but I got there. Too much nitpicking in the comments.