Wednesday, June 10, 2026

AV Club 8:11 (Amy) [3.67 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:46 (Gareth) [2.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:56 (Amy) [2.73 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 3:40 (Jim Q) [4.21 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (pannonica) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it
WSJ 8:13 (Eric) [2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Peter A. Collins’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “A House Divided” — Eric’s Review

Peter A. Collins’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “A House Divided” — 6/10/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I suppose it’s a sign of just how long it’s been since divorce was a taboo that a theme like this gets published. I’m old enough to remember when many states didn’t have no-fault divorce, and being raised Catholic certainly colored my perception of what’s now a fairly common thing.

But anyway, various styles and types of house get split across two answers, as indicated by circled letters:

• 17A [Caesar’s accusation] ET TU/ 18A [Golden-bodied fish] DORADO
• 21A [Goal in certain rooms] ESCAPE/22A [App makeup] CODE
• 36A [Tribal healers] SHAMANS/38A [“Rhinoceros” playwright] Eugène IONESCO
• 53A [Persia, today] IRAN/54A [Church groups] CHOIRS
• 58A [With 59-Across, byproduct of divorce, and a clue to each set of circled letters] BROKEN/59A [See 58-Across] HOME 

This was an easy enough puzzle, and getting the revealer halfway through allowed me to fill in some of the circled letters without reading the clues. It seems somewhat inelegant that three of the theme answers are specific architectural styles but a “mansion” is just “a large, impressive house.” And there’s also the question of whether people still use “broken home” to refer to a marriage that ends in divorce; to me, it’s pretty musty-sounding.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Cutter or clipper] SHIP That clue didn’t fool me at all.
• 25A [Hound in the heavens] CANIS Imagine my befuddlement when I got the last three letters before I’d read the clue.
• 27A [Los Angeles suburb] EL MONTE I’ve heard of it, but didn’t know where it is. It’s in the San Gabriel Valley, east of LA proper.
• 44A [Consumes without enthusiasm] PECKS AT I tried “picks at” first; I could have been the poster boy for picky eaters. I’m happy to say that my palate has broadened over the years.
• 5D [Team that had an 86-year World Series championship drought] RED SOX Boston went from 1918–2004 without winning the series, though they one four American League championships during that time. My first thought here was the Chicago Cubs, and even when I was pretty sure 26A was LEX Luthor, the Red Sox didn’t come to mind.
• 7D [Colorful wraps] SERAPES Not SARONGS.
• 46D [Trumpet’s cousin] CORNET I need to work harder at noticing the cornet’s “mellower tone quality.” Every time I hear one on a recording, I think it’s a trumpet.

David J. Kahn & Ethan Quigley’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 6/10/26 – no. 0610

At first I saw the circled letters with country abbreviations and a 15 starting with WORLD and fretted it would be something dry like the World Economic Forum. Okay, it’s more topical and entertainment-oriented, with WORLD CUP WINNERS (maybe slightly green-paint?). The circle countries are BRAzil, FRAnce, ARGentina, URUguay, GERmanu, ITAly, ENGland, and ESPaña, using the standard three-letter country abbreviations. Just eight teams have one in the first 22 Cups. While the embedded countries aren’t what’s clued, their World Cup title years are in brackets in the clues.

PELE is a bonus themer, 56D. [Only player on three victorious teams in this puzzle]. That means three Brazilian teams, not three different countries.

Fave fill: FOOT WARMERS, JIGSAW (I think some people strictly call them jigsaw puzzles, since the jigsaw is what can be used to cut the pieces, but I call them jigsaws), KICKSTARTER. I’ve bought jigsaws via Kickstarter but my foot-warming socks come from other places. Oh! FOOT WARMERS and KICKSTARTER both begin with soccery words, so quasi-thematic when only two entries are acutely theme-related.

To get the central 15 crossed by entries containing the eight country codes in rows 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 required some compromises in the fill. Not so keen on SKAT, ASKA, -INE, ELY, GET WET, TYS, NUDGER.

3.5 stars from me.

Caitlin Reid’s New Yorker crossword — Jim Q’s write-up

New Yorker • 6/10/26 • Wed • Caitlin Reid • solution • 20260610

FAVE ENTRIES:

• MEA CULPA
• THE LORAX
• MOM JEANS
• “SAME HERE!”
• “JEEPERS!”

A fine Wednesday. Not the flashiest of entries, but smooth as always. My biggest hangup was entering SCAM for SHAM, which righted itself quickly.

ERRATA:

• “JEEPERS!” This word can’t not be adorable ever.
• [Dr. Seuss title character described as “shortish. And oldish. And brownish. And mossy”] THE LORAX. Seuss in top form with those descriptors.
• [“Gotta Catch ‘Em All” franchise] POKEMON. I missed the trend in 2016 as I was doing a cross country bicycle tour and completely out of the loop news/trendwise, but I very much remember how odd it was that suddenly people were circling public places (where I often slept) all of a sudden with their phones, seemingly not caring about me at all, yet lurking. So weird if you didn’t know what the trend was.
• [Maternity pants?] MOM JEANS. Excellent clue.
• [Arm muscle, informally] TRICEP. That’s as formal as I’m ever gonna get to calling it by its actual name.

3.5 from me! Enjoy the day.

Aidan Deshong’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

Aidan Deshong’s crossword features a well-worn theme subject, but with a small quirky twist. Each of four answers have a circled area that spells out an American sports team, except the first letter isn’t part of the name, and it’s an ‘A’. Why? Because each set of circles spells out A+TEAM. The answers are:

• [Sharp reply to unsolicited advice], DIDIASKYOU
• [Rib cut with a long bone], TOMAHAWKSTEAK
• [News that may interrupt regular programming], BREAKINGSTORY
• [Bodies beyond the solar system], EXOPLANETS

Is it good or bad form for a constructor to include their own first name? If it’s AIDAN, it’s a mighty handy pile of vowels to use though…

Gareth

John Hawksley’s AV Club Classic crossword, “AVCX Themeless #88”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 6/10/26 – “AVCX Themeless #88”

Sorry this one’s late. Usually the AV puzzle arrives Tuesday evening, while this one came Wednesday afternoon while I was at dialysis, and I didn’t look at my email till Thursday.

Fave fill: SLEEP MASK (that clue worked me over, as I wanted 1a. [Retirement coverage provider?] to be BEDSPREAD), IRELANDER (which is new to me), AMERICANA, PLAYED OUT, KESTRELS, SINGLE DAD, KARST.

Other new-to-me things:

• 33a. [Furry Russian hat with earflaps], USHANKA. Of course it has a Russian name other than “Russian hat with the fur and big earflaps.”
• 44a. [1990s experimental subgenre related to sludge, doom, and others], POST METAL. Pro-o-obably not for me.
• 6d. [Project planning diagrams], MIND MAPS. Have you seen this in person?

Quite a low word count (62), so there are some compromises in the fill to make all four corners mesh. Plural TA-DAS and EHS. Green-painty NOVEL IDEA. New-to-me actress EMA Horvath (while not in all the seasons of the LOTR series, she is destined for crossword fame). The worst square was the middle of ANE, 30d. [Suffix with hex- or oct-], crossing USHANKA. I sure don’t know hexane, but we do see octane at the gas pump.

3.5 stars from me.