Thursday, June 4, 2026

BEQ tk (Eric) rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [4.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) rate it
NYT 7:47 (ZDL) [3.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:25 (Eric) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) 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.

Fireball, June 2, 2026, Zhou Zhang, Thom Covert, “Laundry Day,” solution grid

• 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

Bharati Hemmady and Namita Shashidhar’s Universal Crossword “Limited Series” — 6/4/26 (Click to Enlarge)

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)

Joe Deeney’s New York Times crossword, 6/4/26, 0604

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