Sunday, January 4, 2026

LAT 7:16 (Kyle) [3.50 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 19:30 (Eric) [2.74 avg; 19 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 8:12 (Jim P) [3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [2.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
WaPo 4:45 (Matt G) [3.20 avg; 5 ratings] rate it

Gene Louise De Vera’s New York Times Crossword “Base Pairs” — Eric’s Review

Gene Louise De Vera’s New York Times Crossword “Base Pairs” — 1/4/26 (Click to Embiggen)

It’s always kind of fun to see a crossword that plays with one of the conventions of crossword construction. This one violates the “rule” that answers are not duplicate in the grid:

• 3D [Name of Ohio State’s buckeye mascot] BRUTUS/30D [Believing his friend and ally had too much power, he led a party of conspirators to put an end to him] BRUTUS crossing 35A CAESAR
• 9D [Ready … or a word after ready] SET/13D [He scattered his brother’s remains across the land and usurped his throne] SET crossing 9A OSIRIS That tale of treachery is new to me. SET is sometimes spelled SETT or SETH.
• 33D [Like five Across answers by five Down answers in this puzzle, literally and figuratively] DOUBLE-CROSSED I didn’t read this clue until just now, getting the full answer from the letters I’d already filled in. The “literal” part refers to, for example, the answer CAESAR being crossed twice by BRUTUS. The “figurative” part refers to the character of Brutus from Julius Caesar — the man to whom the crossword staple “Et tu” is addressed.
• 50D [Traumatize] SCAR 52D [He led his brother to his demise by endangering his nephew] SCAR crossing 61A MUFASA, from The Lion King. (The Shakespearean vibe is not totally lost here, as the plot of The Lion King owes a lot to Hamlet.
• 69D [He sold out his master in exchange for silver] JUDAS/91D [2011 Lady Gaga hit] JUDAS crossing 61A JESUS.
• 105D [Jafar’s parrot in “Aladdin”] IAGO/107D [Driven by envy toward his comrades, he fabricated events that led to their downfall] IAGO crossing 119A OTHELLO

This is a fun theme, elevated to almost high-brow status by the two Shakespearean double-crosses, the backstabbing from Egyptian mythology, and the Biblical tale of selling out one’s friend.

Cramming all that theme material into the grid does have its price, with some truly unusual fill like 31A HADEN (a fine actor, but has he had a large role in anything since 2004’s Sideways?), 39A TELOS, 76A POP SUGAR and most especially 83A SINTER and 11D RAPINE. Normally, I like seeing words in a grid that I don’t normally see, but had Thomas Haden Church not been a gimme, I might’ve run into even more snags than I did. As it was, I had STERNUM before 1A RIB CAGE (I like my answer better) and ASLOPE before 96A ASLANT until I was rescued by the gimme of  77D GALADRIEL. And that was before I hit the aforementioned oddities.

There are some nice answers to offset the dross, especially 22A STOP IT YOU TWO and 109A LATE BLOOMERS.

Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword, “City Limits” — Matt’s Review

Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword, “City Limits” solution, 1/4/2026

This week’s puzzle is titled “City Limits,” and we have circled letters at the beginning and end of the longest across entries. The theme clues additionally provide a specific state, so there’s a good bit of help if you’re stuck:

• • 23a [“True Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)” composer (Pennsylvania)] ERIK SATIE
  • 25a [MOsquito-borne illness (Colorado)] DENGUE FEVER
  • 37a [Businesses involved in the mass production of clothing, collectively (Indiana)] GARMENT INDUSTRY
  • 51a [“No need to go on” (Oklahoma)] ENOUGH SAID 
  • 68a [Documentary photographer who’s considered a pioneer of South African resistance art] OMAR BADSHA
  • 72a [Critical moment (Michigan)] FLASHPOINT
  • 86a [2010 sci-fi sequel involving a virtual reality world called the Grid (California)] TRON LEGACY
  • 98a [“… but this might not be the case” (Utah)] OR SO IT WOULD SEEM
  • 116a [Dish featuring a bag of chips often filled with ground beef, cheese, beans, salsa and sour cream (Texas)] WALKING TACO
  • 120a [Currently out (Alaska] NOT AT HOME

I found myself looking forward to each successive themer, which is always a fun place to be. And being given effectively a triple-check for the beginning and end of each makes for a speedy solve, since the ends of a word or phrase are most helpful in remembering it. The nature of the theme also meant that several of the cities are crossword-ese delivered in a novel way. I enjoyed seeing them without feeling like I was regurgitating trivia by rote.

Oh, and a note accompanying the puzzle encourages us to look at the first letter of each hidden city (which is also the first letter of each themer). In typical Birnholz-ian fashion, they spell an apt final layer: EDGE OF TOWN

Other highlights:

59a [Those enforcing rules that Kings must live by] REFS is a reference to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings // I believe most DUELs were not deadly, though certainly the most famous one nowadays was // OMAR BADSHA is new to me, but this is a great place to meet him, with half the entry triple-checked // I thought I didn’t like the song “I Want a HIPPOpotamus for Christmas,” until I heard the song “Dominic the Donkey.” Now the former doesn’t bug me as much // Martin LANDAU! Been quite a while since I’d seem him (or the carriage of the same spelling) in a puzzle // I spent about a year with DUOlingo recently, ultimately uninstalling it when I took a hard look at how much (little) I had learned against how much time I’d been sitting through animations. Curious if anyone has a recommendation for an alternative 

Cheers!

Doug Peterson’s LA Times crossword “CONFOUNDED” – Kyle’s write-up

LA Times solution grid – Doug Peterson – Sunday 01/04/2026

Doug Peterson brings us the first Sunday LA Times puzzle of 2026. This is a classic large-format crossword theme–adding CON to the beginning of a word to make a wacky entry–which Doug handles with aplomb:

• 27A [Bistro where diners rarely get what they order?] CONFUSION RESTAURANT. Watching shows like The Bear and Top Chef has given me an appreciation of the significant organizational challenges involved in running a restaurant kitchen. If you like culinary-themed entertainment and your tolerance for cringe/tension is high, check out Boiling Point, starring Stephen Graham (recently seen in the acclaimed series Adolescence).
• 37A [One who makes a huge profit in the gaming industry?] CONSOLE BENEFICIARY
• 50A [Museum employee who specializes in topographic maps?] CONTOUR GUIDE
• 67A [Well-secured garden vines?] CONSTRAINED PEAS
• 89A [Inflatables ridden in a river race?] CONTEST TUBES
• 97A [Inchworm with a successful YouTube channel?] CONTENT CATERPILLAR. I had to look up what a tent caterpillar is. I’m not sure we have these in the Chicago area.
• 109A [Remodel of a badly designed airport terminal?] CONCOURSE CORRECTION. Both of Chicago’s airports have undergone renovations to the terminals in recent years.

CONTOUR GUIDE and CONSTRAINED PEAS both appeared in a 2018 WSJ Saturday puzzle by Gabriel Stone with the same theme. CONTEST TUBES is not like the other themers in that the second word of the entry undergoes a change in meaning from the base phrase test tube. A slightly more challenging version of this theme might have involved all of the theme entries doing the same, e.g. tent flaps > content flaps clued as [Accusations of plagiarism among YouTube creators?].

Observations on the fill and clues:

• 1D [___ bar] SPACE. I first put in SUSHI off the “s” in STEAM.
• 15A [“Goldberg Variations” composer] BACH. Been a while since I listened to this piece. Speaking of which, there’s 76A [Concert piece] which is AMP, not a musical work.
• 21A [Cookie with six Thanksgiving-inspired flavors] OREO. Um, I’m not going to look these up. Are the makers of Oreo in cahoots with the crossword community to keep coming up with wild flavor combinations so that constructors don’t run out of new clues for the cookie?
• 107D [Apple centers] CORES. Interesting how this seems to work for both fruit and computers.
• 110D [Saxon foe] CELT. I tried DANE first.

Ryan Mathiason’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Splitting Hairs”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases with circled letters spelling out hairstyles in consecutive letters but for one “split”. The puzzle’s title serves as revealer for the theme.

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Splitting Hairs” · Ryan Mathiason · 1.4.26

• 22a. [“I Wanna Be Yours” band] ARCTIC MONKEYS. Conk. I didn’t know this word but am glad to have learned it. The style was in wide use from the 1920s to the 60s.
• 28a. [Security org. busts] FBI RAIDS. Braid.
• 35a. [Vipers that inflate themselves with air] PUFF ADDERS. Fade.
• 52a. [Computer data storage devices] TAPE DRIVES. Taper.
• 59a. [Drink quickly] GULP DOWN. Updo.
• 72a. [Stormproof space] SAFE ROOM. Afro.
• 81a. [Christmassy candy] PEPPERMINT. Perm. This one’s a little bit of a cheat since you could use the second of the two Ps and not “split” the hairstyle.
• 93a. [African plant that stores water in its trunk] BAOBAB TREE. Bob.
• 102a. [Swords, spears, etc.] WEAPONRY. Pony.
• 112a. [“Swish!”] “NOTHING BUT NET!” Bun.

Nice enough theme, though I completely ignored it during the solve, solving for time instead. Good set of theme answers, and let’s count them—ten of them—which is quite a bit even though some of them are only eight letters long.

Given the amount of theme entries, I appreciate that the constructor kept grid symmetry and was still able to provide some fun long fill like NEAR BEER, OPPOSABLE thumbs, and ADDICTIVE with nothing too far out there.

Clue of note: 96a. [Impractical Joker Vulcano]. SAL. Didn’t understand the clue until I looked up the TV show Impractical Jokers.

Edited to add: The “split” letters collective spell out MIDDLE PART which is an impressive feat. Thanks to Evan Kalish for pointing this out to me.

Four stars.