LAT untimed (pannonica) 
[3.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 7:26 (Amy) 
[3.71 avg; 14 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:21 (Jim P) [3.57 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) 
[2.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Adam Wagner & Rafael Musa’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 1/2/26 – no. 0102
Nice puzzle! I don’t think my solving time reflects the actual difficulty level. Probably a regular sort of Friday difficulty.
Lots of zippy fill, such as INTERNET-FAMOUS, HABANEROS, “I CAN’T LOOK!”, MOONWALK, GUILT TRIP, AIR KISSES, VEGENAISE, ENERGY BAR, FIBONACCI, “NOW WE’RE TALKING!”, “UP AND AT ‘EM!”
Three more things:
- 4A. [Tolstoy book whose title asks a question], WHAT IS ART? Don’t know this one. Have you read it?
- 17A. [H.S. class for tough life lessons?], A.P. BIO. Tough academically, and biology is life science.
- 44A. [German stock market index], DAX. I don’t think I knew that term. I know who Dax Shepard is, though!
4.25 stars from me.
Nate Curry and Kevin Curry’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s précis
LAT • 1/2/26 • Fri • Curry, Curry • solution • 20260102
- 61aR [“Cut that out!,” or an apt title for this puzzle] KNOCK IT OFF. The theme answers lose the -IT at the ends of their phrases.
- 18a. [Warning on a note passed in a seminar?] NOT FOR PROF (not for profit).
- 25a. [Crystal ball consulted atop Mount Everest?] HIGH-EARTH ORB (high-Earth orbit).
- 37a. [The discovery of the Lucy fossils, for one?] SIGNIFICANT DIG (significant digit).
- 52a. [Beauty school treatment?] LEARNER’S PERM (learner’s permit).
It’s a fun little theme and well executed. The grid expands to 16×15 to accommodate everything, especially the 14-letter central entry which would be asymmetrical otherwise.
You can’t say that the themers GO TOO FAR (41d [Push beyond acceptable limits])!
Jake Halperin’s Universal crossword, “Beyond the Surface”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are phrases that formerly featured 2-D geometric shapes but they’ve been changed to their 3-D counterparts. The revealer is SOLIDIFIED (62a, [Like confirmed plans … and the ends of the starred clues’ answers?]).
Universal crossword solution · “Beyond the Surface” · Jake Halperin · Fri., 1.2.26
- 17a. [*Toy block that anyone can play with?] PUBLIC CUBE. Public square.
- 29a. [*Pharaoh’s romantic spot?] LOVE PYRAMID. Love triangle.
- 46a. [*Snowball?] ARCTIC SPHERE. Arctic circle.
Good theme which befuddled me to begin with, but the revealer provided the satisfying aha moment.
The grid is one square off from being symmetrical since the 2nd and 3rd theme answers are 11- and 12-letters long each. I don’t know that I’ve seen asymmetry used in quite this situation before. Typically, a constructor will build the grid around symmetrical theme answers, and then if the grid doesn’t play nice, they might resort to asymmetry to get smoother fill. But perhaps these two theme answers were the best choices available, and a one square difference was viewed as an acceptable compromise.
I WANT MORE [Greedy demand] tops the fill, but I needed all the crossings for MOMO [Himalayan dumpling] and HAREDI [Like Hasidic or Yeshivish Jews].
Three stars.
Friday Universal:
https://herbach.dnsalias.com/wsj/uc260102.puz
Thanks!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Couple CLUNKY entries in here like DEFATS, but a good time overall.
Clunky? Not really.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defat
I’m aware it’s a word, though not an elegant one.
Also I’m guessing I’m the only one here who learned all about the FIBONACCI sequence from Square One TV and Mathnet.
https://youtu.be/hrLjLeGUjio?si=81wdHj0i2v6s5CNx
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT: I used to teach high school math, so Fibonacci was a gimme for me. Loved seeing that clue! Very enjoyable Friday puzzle Oh, and I also smiled as I was writing in “Up and at em”.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I find UP AND AT ‘EM pretty hard to parse.
On an unrelated note, it’s been a while since the last time I solved a WSJ meta, but today I’m quite confident that I have the answer, and it will make you admire the genius of Matt Gaffney. The grid itself is also not bad by WSJ Friday standards, so I encourage everybody to try.
NYT was tough to get a foothold but FIBONACCI opened things up for me. Ended up on the tough side for a Friday, had to do alphabet runs a few times to finish.
I was Naticked at DAX and XYLEM. Could have been MYLES as in Myles Standish and then you’d have DAM and MOS, clued Mos Def or shortened months or modus operandi.
For reasons unknown, I have always remembered XYLEM and PHLOEM from school ages ago.
I found it to be a fun and breezy Friday.
Mutman, you are not alone. Biology was the only school subject I disliked, but weirdly, I find that I still remember terms I learned more than 50 years ago in seventh-grade science class. Just last week, I “found” EUGLENA in Spelling Bee and was thrilled to have recalled that word. Now don’t ask me where I left my keys…
Or what you had for dinner last night …
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 5 stars
UC – It took me just a second to get the revealer. But it was worth it.
I found the NYT much harder than a typical Friday, partly because of a couple of missteps. I hard DARN before DAMN, which made it tough to come up with SELFESTEEM, and I had FUROR before the horrible AROAR. Not familiar with the Tolstoy book, so that whole section took me some time.
In the SW corner, VEGENAISE and PURGE (as clued) were difficult too.
I have to assume it’s a trademarked name, but VEGENAISE is about the ugliest entry I’ve seen in a while. Actually questioned the spelling of TANKER to make it the more sensible VEGAN. Oh well. Otherwise, great puzzle (even if FIBONACCI and DAX x XYLEM made the puzzle easier for me personally, rather than harder, as was probably intended).
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT….Nonmath person in me thought there was an R in fibonacci (fibronaci)which threw it off, and this after I got over Ola for the havanese greeting (someone from havana?) I wanted part of the educational STEM where xylem went. Lots of little things made it challenging for me… which I like. It was Saturday difficult for me, with the long answers taking quite a while to get.
I had the same reluctance to go with VEGEN but ran up against TANKER. I found DAX / XYLEM a hard crossing. I’d have said the latter is in my vocabulary, but I guess I didn’t know enough about it after all.
That section of the puzzle was hard, too, because of A-A-A AND SCENE for improv. I don’t get it. Is it a quote?
Put another hyphen between A-A-A-AND SCENE. It’s stage direction from a director.
.
Can someone please explain the answer poser to the clue try-hard.
It’s a poser as in imitator, not enigma.
To me, a poser is a faker, someone pretending to be cooler or hipper than they are. That doesn’t quite correspond to what I think of as a ‘try-hard’ — a poser affects an air of nonchalance, whereas a try-hard is someone who is ostentatiously overdoing things. But I thought the clue/answer were close enough for crosswords.
I distinguish between poser and poseur. (Yes I know.)
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 4 stars
I had to come here to understand the revealer, and it’s a very clever puzzle!
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 5 stars
Great puzzle.
One little technical nit –
63 down: Nonmetric mass units: Abbr.
LBS
The pound is a unit of weight (force), not mass. Subtle difference here on the surface of Earth, but it can slug you out in space.
I thought that while solving. I’m afraid the ship sailed on that distinction long ago. As long as gravity is the same the confusion matters little beyond some very specialized professionals. From what I can tell the force of gravity is virtually a constant for a very large majority of Earthlings.
It used to bug me more than it does now