Thursday, June 4, 2026

BEQ 6:54 (Eric) [3.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [3.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:04 (Gareth) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 7:47 (ZDL) [3.00 avg; 18 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:25 (Eric) [2.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today 8:14 (Emily) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ DNF (Jim Q) [3.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it

Zhou Zhang & Thom Covert’s Fireball Crossword “Laundry Day” – Jenni’s write-up

This is the first time Thom Covert has been tagged in a Fiend review! Nice debut (if it is). I figured out what was going on fairly quickly – sort of. It took me longer to understand why. There are two theme entries with blank squares and a revealer that tells us why. Sort of.  41a [Laundry pretreatment that you must apply to some of the crossings of 18- and 66-Across] is STAIN REMOVER. I thought that meant the blanks contained the word STAIN. Nope.

• 18a [Garment in the “Flashdance” poster] is a SWEATSHIRT.
• 66a [Hula garment] is a GRASS SKIRT.

SWEAT stains and GRASS stains have been removed. A very satisfying aha! moment. The Down crossings are correct with the blanks – 1d [Gibbons, e.g.] is AP ES, for example – and when you put missing stain back, the Downs are still real words: APSES. Very well done – and a lot of fun to solve, which is not always the case with great feats of construction.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that Vogue called the PEEP TOE the “Frankenstein of footwear design.”

What I did know: that the song “Glory” was featured in the movie SELMA. The tenors and basses of the Lehigh Valley Chorale brought the house down at our concert last year.

Bharati Hemmady and Namita Shashidhar’s Universal Crossword “Limited Series” — Eric’s Review

I needed the revealer to see what was going on here. Titles of some TV/streaming series are truncated, to wacky effect:

• 17A [Show about biblical shipbuilding?] ARK MATTER Dark Matter, a still-extant sci-fi story about a Chicago physicist who is warped into an alternate version of his life.
• 29A [Show about important women in the dairy industry?] CREAM QUEENS Scream Queens, a 2015–2016 dark comedy about a serial killer on a university campus.
• 48A [Show about learning how to get over old flames?] EX EDUCATION Sex Education, a 2019–2023 comedy drama about enterprising English teenagers who start a sex counseling practice at their school. Of the three shows, that’s the only one I’ve seen.
• 66A [Netflix feature that’s helpful for binge-watching, or a theme hint] SKIP INTRO

Other stuff:

• 9A [Excuse, in court] ALIBI I know that it’s a pointless objection, and I know that word meanings evolve. But “alibi” literally means “elsewhere” in Latin, and that’s what the legal meaning is: “I couldn’t have committed this crime because I was somewhere else at the relevant time.” That’s completely different than an “excuse.”
• 61A [Airline based in Abu Dhabi] ETIHAD That’s only vaguely familiar.
• 5D [Pummeled] BATTERED Why not clue this in the culinary sense?
• 26D [All the world, according to the Bard] STAGE As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII. I’m glad I looked that up, because I misremembered it as being from Hamlet.
• 27D [Big time company?] ROLEX Cute clue.

Joe Deeney’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 7m47s

Difficulty: Breezy (<8m)  |  Easy-ish (8-9m30s)  |  Working on it (9m30s-11m)  |  Rough going (11+m)

Today’s theme: BIG BOX STORE (Large retail establishment … and a hint to four squares in this puzzle)

• LOC(AL DI)VE / VIV(ALDI)
• S(LOWES)T / (LOW ES)TIMATE
• L(IKE A) CHARM / ST(IKE A) POSE
• ME(GAP)LEXES / YO(GA P)OSES

The boxes are indeed big, apropos of rebus entries.  Not sure I ever thought of GAP as a “BIG BOX” store — even their XXXLs will fit in a trim little bag.

Cracking: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any GRAVEN IMAGE, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:”

Slacking: CLI staring down NOS

Sidetracking: fact is, most OBITs are mixed reviews / life is a lottery / a lotta people lose / and the winners, the grinners, with money colored eyes? / eat all the nuggets, then they order extra fries

 

Howard Neuthaler’s USA Today Crossword, “Pinch Me! (Freestyle)” — Emily’s write-up

Am I dreaming?

Favorite fill: POOF, CATNAP, and TIMESAWASTIN

Stumpers: COCATEA (needed crossings), HARDCAP (new to me), and SHEAF (also needed crossings)

This freestyle gave us a bit of everything today! The grid design allowed for lots of lengthy entries and fresh fill. It feels a bit like a junk drawer, in the best way, finding surprises and rediscovering others. A fun puzzle for end of the week!

4.0 stars

~Emily

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1893 “Photo Booz” — Eric’s Review

A fairly common theme type for Mr. Quigley, and fairly signaled by the puzzle’s title. Take phrases/compound nouns that have a TH and substitute Z, to wacky ends:

• 17A [German tank you can’t see in the dark?] BLACK PANZER
• 21A [Aykroyd bringing down the house?] DAN RAZER Dan Rather was a long-time CBS correspondent and anchor. I’ve forgotten the details of his departure from the network, but it was not an amicable separation.
• 39A [“No, that comment was intended to be taken seriously!”?] IT DON’T MEAN A ZING
• 59A [Ending at achieving nirvana?] UNTIL ZEN I kinda like that answer.
• 64A [Medieval drinking bowl made of natural fabric?] COTTON MAZER Cotton Mather (1663–1728) was a Puritan clergyman and author in colonial Massachusetts. I can’t say that I knew “mazer” before today.

For once, the theme helped me finish the grid. Most of the NW corner was empty until, having gotten PANZER, I focused on thinking of a word that might precede “panther” and that’s suggestive of “dark.” Boom! Done!

Other stuff:

• 14A [Unsophisticated hick] YOKEL I’d like to see us get beyond the stereotype of rural people as unsophisticated.
• 48A [Cooking oil brand] MAZOLA That’s a name I don’t think I’ve seen since I was a kid. Corn oil; I assume the name is from “maize” plus “oil.”

Bryan Cheong & Zachary Edward-Brown Wall Street Journal crossword “Defeatist Attitude” — Jim Q’s write-up

 

THEME: Some entries “take an L” from another entry below them. The clues only make sense before the alteration.

THEME ANSWERS:

Pairing 1:

• [Abruptly dismiss] / [One dimension, e.g.] = AXEL / INEQUALITY
• Should be AXE / LINE QUALITY

Pairing 2:

• [Vegetable with a dinosaur variety] / [Pirate’s lament] = KALEL / OSTRICHES
• Should be KALE / LOST RICHES

Pairing 3:

• [Go on a pub crawl] / [Books for financiers] = CAROUSEL / EDGERS
• Should be CAROUSE / LEDGERS

Revealer:

• [Accepting defeat, slangily, and what four answers in this puzzle are doing, from the answers above them] TAKING THE “L”

What a cool idea for a puzzle.

The revealer feels fresh, the mechanic is easy to explain, and there’s something inherently satisfying about literally watching entries lose an L to create new answers below. That’s the kind of gimmick that makes me wish I’d enjoyed the solve more than I did.

Because I absolutely had to TAKE AN L on this one myself.

That middle section, which bears a striking resemblance to a mushroom, completely wrecked me. CHA for [Tea, in British slang] was new to me. As a public school teacher, ISS means exactly one thing and it isn’t a space station (In School Suspension). ISO for one-on-one basketball play wasn’t coming to mind either.

Most critically, I couldn’t see LOST RICHES despite recognizing OSTRICHES as a plausible standalone entry. I still don’t quite understand the clue [Pirate’s lament] for LOST RICHES.

NINA RICCI wasn’t helping me either. Vaguely rings a bell in retrospect.

So I suppose my own limitations got in the way today.

OTHER THINGS:

• [Chopsticks source] PIANO. As in the song “Chopsticks,” presumably. A fun clue, though I found it surprisingly tough. A question mark might’ve helped.
• [Jeromes Dream’s genre] SCREAMO. Fun entry despite my longstanding aversion to the genre.
• [Experiencing post-roller-coaster effects, say] AREEL. This doesn’t strike me as a reel word.
• [First reads for website newbies] FAQS. For me these are usually the last reads, consulted only after I’ve clicked every other possible thing.
• [Lowest pinochle card] NINE. This clue reminded me that I know absolutely nothing about pinochle despite its apparent popularity.
• [Franchise begun with 2008’s “Iron Man,” for short] MCU. I confidently had MIB for a while. Wrong cinematic universe.

I really admire the concept here. The theme is clever, consistent, and nicely executed. Unfortunately, the solve itself never quite clicked for me, and that central section became more of a losing battle than a satisfying challenge.

3 stars.

Kathy Lowden’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

Kathy Lowden’s puzzle features a now rarely seen theme type, the AEIOU set. This puzzle features phrases starting with D?ST using each of the five vowels. All five are part of longer words, and the choice of phrases was definitely ambitious. I’m not convinced that all of the phrases are exactly “in the language” as it’s said, but at least they weren’t humdrum. So:

1. [Evil actions…], DASTARDLYDEEDS
2. [Having no chance of success], DESTINEDTOFAIL
3. [Forty-second cousin], DISTANTRELATIVE
4. [Alyosha Karamazov, for one], DOSTOEVSKYHERO
5. [Final touch for some desserts], DUSTINGOFSUGAR

Gareth