Sunday, December 7, 2025

LAT tk (Gareth) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 11:34(Eric) [3.75 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) rate it
Universal (Sunday) 9-something (Jim P) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 3:54 (Matt G) [4.00 avg; 7 ratings] rate it

Kate Jensen’s New York Times Crossword “Original Thinkers” — Eric’s Review

Kate Jensen’s New York Times Crossword “Original Thinkers” — 12/7/25

Congratulations to Kate Jensen on what appears to be her debut puzzle in a venue covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend.

Each clue for a theme answer has one or two names of pioneers in a variety of fields of human endeavor, with a well-known phrase acting as a punny description of the person or persons:

• 23a [Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison?] POWER COUPLE
• 25A [John James Audubon?] BIRDBRAIN
• 38A [Samuel Morse?] CABLE GUY
• 43A [Sir Edmund Hillary?] MOUNTAIN GOAT
• 59A [Sir Isaac Newton?] MOTION DETECTOR
• 80A [Gregor Mendel?] SEEDY CHARACTER
• 93A [Henry Ford?] DRIVING FORCE
• 98A [Orville and Wilbur Wright?] AIRHEADS
• 115A [Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung?] DREAM TEAM
• 118A [Galileo Galilei?] STAR WITNESS

The theme answers are all solid enough. I was amused by a few of the clue/answer pairs, especially MOUNTAIN GOAT (GOAT,  in the context of the answer, being the Greatest of All Time), MOTION DETECTOR and DREAM TEAM. Overall, the theme has a retro feel, as if it could have been published any time in the last 50 years.

Other stuff:

• 28A [They’ll make it up to you] LIARS Cute clue.
• 31A [Pittsburgh-to-Buffalo dir.] NNE I sometimes try to get these directional clues just by picturing a map of the relevant area. Too bad my mental map of Pennsylvania and western New York put Buffalo NNW of Pittsburgh. Fixing that W was one of the last corrections I had to make.
• 50A [Suffix with hypn-] OTIC Not OTIS; this was the last correction I had to make. Random prefixes and suffixes seem like another throwback to an earlier era of crosswords.
• 64A [TV tavern visited by Mayor Quimby] MOE’S From The Simpsons.
• 67A [It’s often rapped but never spoken] GAVEL Cute clue. Maybe a little too cute.
• 87A [Sister to Lex Luthor] LENA I hadn’t known that Superman’s foe Lex Luthor had a sister.
• 

  “Fountain” — Marcel Duchamps, 1917

  91A [A urinal, according to Duchamp] ART

• 4D [Pest whose name is a homophone for what you might do when you see it] FLEA This week’s winner for the clue-to-answer imbalance award.
• 26D BLINIS/37D OGLALAS Both those words seem incorrect with the esses, but my dictionary accepts them as variants.
• 56D [Like many Russian housing blocks] SOVIET ERA Not BRUTALIST.
• 96D [___ Lannister, “Game of Thrones” queen] CERSEI I don’t remember hearing of that character before.

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “I’m Thinking of a Number” — Matt’s Review

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “I’m Thinking of a Number,” 12/7/2025

A meta this week. We’re looking for “a two-word phrase,” and our title is “I’m Thinking of a Number.” Ten clues are asterisked, so that’s our theme set:

• • 20a [*Christmas carol gift that’s “in a pear tree”] PARTRIDGE
  • 22a [*Colorful stone that serves as a wedding anniversary gem] BLUE TOPAZ
  • 26a [*Better Breakfast Month] SEPTEMBER
  • 31a [*President who approved the Louisiana Purchase] JEFFERSON
  • 46a [*Old Testament book consisting of Moses’s farewell speeches] DEUTERONOMY
  • 65a [*George R.R. Martin novel that introduced the priestess Melisandre] A CLASH OF KINGS
  • 76a [*Locale of the Great Red Spot] JUPITER
  • 79a [*Lightest metal on the periodic table] LITHIUM
  • 87a [*State admitted to the Union on Jan. 9, 1788] CONNECTICUT
  • 104a [*1983 “Skywalker Saga” installment] RETURN OF THE JEDI

Not much in common among these themers, but our title does hint at numbers, and each of these are part of an ordered list. Grabbing “1” for PARTRIDGE, “4” for BLUE TOPAZ, etc, our list of numbers contains nothing higher than “9.” So it’s unlikely they correspond to squares in the grid, and as a list of digits they don’t make much sense. But the first digit of PARTRIDGE is “P,” we get “E” from BLUE TOPAZ, and “R” from SEPTEMBER, and that’s an encouraging string. 

Following that out, after a quick Google to confirm A CLASH OF KINGS was the second book in that series, and CONNECTICUT was the fifth state admitted to the Union, our meta answer spells out PERFECT TEN, a two-word phrase fitting with the “number” title. 

Not coincidentally, this puzzle runs on the ten-year anniversary of Evan’s first in the Post. Many congrats and gratitude to him! I first started solving these in spring 2017 unaware that he was so new to the position.

Other highlights: I loved NUMB as 1-Across after reading the title. Nothing but an Easter Egg, however // Appreciated the “wedding anniversary” nod in the clue for BLUE TOPAZ, though I’d like to think that would have been my first look after realizing the commonality among the other themers, anyway // [“Get on with your life?”] for AGE is a great find. Serious whiplash between the usual, evocative emphasis of the phrase and the relatively mundane AGE // There’s a nitpicker out there who knows the differences between FEN and “swamp,” which appears in the clues. I can’t remember them right now, so today I am not that nitpicker 

Cheers!

CJ Tan’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Bundles of Joy”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers are circled words that spell out synonyms of “happy” although the needed letters are found in two or even three different consecutive entries. The revealer is HAPPY TOGETHER (123a, [1967 Turtles hit, or a hint to the circled letters]).

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Bundles of Joy” · CJ Tan · 12.7.25

• CONTENT: MALTESE FALCON / TENT PEG.
• UPBEAT: DAVIS CUP / “BEATS ME“.
• ECSTATIC: OLMEC / STAT / “I CAN TAKE IT“.
• DELIGHTED: HEY JUDE / LIGHT / EDIT WAR.
• EXUBERANT: GOOGOLPLEX / UBER / ANTES.
• MERRY: STREAMER / RYE GRASS.

Quite nice! There are some fun choices for theme entries here that aren’t strictly necessary, but they make solving much more interesting. For example, you can get the DE in DELIGHTED from the word MODE, but HEY JUDE is a lot livelier and gives the theme much more heft. Same with MALTESE FALCON, DAVIS CUP, “I CAN TAKE IT”, and GOOGOLPLEX. Overall, a very colorful and engaging theme set.

The grid is almost but not quite symmetrical, but with a fair amount of theme material, the small amount asymmetry seems like a decent trade-off. It allows for some good fill too, like TOP-SEEDED, HOT STONES, “OK DEAR“, ART SCENE, CLINICIAN, PEP TALK, EPIC HERO, and IRISHMEN. Didn’t know KATYA Komisaruk at 1a, but the crossings made quick work of the name.

Clue of note: 32d. [Guys from Galway]. IRISHMEN. This looks like an excellent point at which to include one of my favorite Christmas tunes: The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York”. (Warning: some potentially offensive lyrics. See the Wikipedia page for more details.)

Nice puzzle. 3.5 stars.