Saturday, June 13, 2026

LAT 3:41 (Stella) [2.86 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Newsday 23:33 (pannonica) [3.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:40 (Amy) [3.88 avg; 12 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:25 (Adam S) [4.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today untimed (ZEB) rate it
WSJ 16:24 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Attention, cryptic crossword lovers! Patrick Berry’s got a new suite of puzzles in his “Crypt” series. It includes 13 new cryptic puzzles, including 5 block-style cryptics and 8 variety cryptics. Cost is $15. Available from Patrick’s website.

Ryan McCarty’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 6/13/26 – no. 0613

Surprisingly zippy for a Saturday NYT, and not far off from yesterday’s solving time.

Fave fill: CAIMAN (I’ve watched too much Naked and Afraid not to have a soft spot; never saw the clue word alligatorid before but it makes sense), “THE HEAT ISON,” VAPE JUICE, LOS ALAMOS, BAG CLIP (so useful!), DATES UP, REGGIE JACKSON, SLUSHIES, AC MILAN, VLOGGER, EEYORE.

Three more things:

• 19A. [“Right?,” in British lingo], INNIT. Being American, it can bug me when INNIT follows something that’s not an “it.” Like “My sister’s annoying, innit?” “My parents are bonkers, innit?” This is how you can tell I’m not British.
• 44A. [Fishing accessory], CREEL. One of those words I rarely encounter. But I’m reading John of John, by Douglas Stuart, set on the Isle of Harris (Outer Hebrides, Scotland), and it’s got creel, creeler (a boat), and creeling (the verb). Smattering of Scots Gaelic vocab peppered throughout, and not all of it is findable in Wiktionary. Have also been watching How to Get to Heaven from Belfast on Netflix, and there’s a good bit of Irish dialogue that goes unsubtitled. I have Irish and Scottish ancestry but don’t know the languages at all.
• 3D. [Many a modern chess-playing program], AI MODEL. *shrug* If you say so.

Four stars from me.

Kareem Ayas’s Universal Crossword “Universal Freestyle 227” – Adam S’s write-up

Kareem Ayas’s Universal Crossword “Universal Freestyle 227” – June 13, 2026

Very impressive grid today. A very un-Universal 68 words (Universal themelesses can be up to 74 words, and most are 72 or 74), but with characteristic Universal accessibility and liveliness. That 4-6 words may not sound like a big difference, but as a very rough rule of thumb, themeless construction difficulty roughly doubles for every two words you take out of the grid.

Lots to love in the long stuff today. My favorites were INNER PEACE, BOOGIE BOARD, FROZEN PIZZA, DIAPER GENIE, ROAST MASTER, TUNA HELPER, BEER KOOZIES, HOOP SKIRTS, and FIRENADO. The italicized entries on that list have never previously appeared in outlets tracked by the Crosserville database, which is an incredible amount of super-fresh material.

The grid shape is fun, too, creating the feeling of following a path through the grid. It does lead to the corners being a little bit cut off, but it felt like a good tradeoff, especially as it also helps separate the stacks and allow for the colorful entries. It played a little tougher than a typical Universal for me – I actually solved yesterday’s NYT quicker than this, which almost never happens – but the puzzle was so good that spending a bit of extra time on it was a feature, not a bug.

A few notes:

• 33A FROZEN PIZZA [Humble pie?]. Chef’s kiss!
• 49A ROAST MASTER [Foremost burner?] Contrast with the above. Doesn’t quite land for me. The wordplay works, but since I’ve never heard anyone say “foremost burner,” it didn’t land for me.
• 56A STATE SEALS [Idaho’s and North Carolina’s feature cornucopias] TIL that a cornucopia is “a symbol of plenty consisting of a goat’s horn overflowing with flowers, fruit, and corn.” Had only heard it in the metaphorical sense previously. Good clue to elevate a duller entry.
• 16D OAST [Brewer’s kiln] One of the many things that David Steinberg does very well as an editor is to grade expectations for fill on a curve based on the difficulty of what is being attempted. He once asked me to regrid to remove OAST in a much more forgiving grid than this. That was totally the right call for that grid, as was letting it pass to hold up this excellent puzzle.
• 52E MES [Mayo, por ejemplo] Embarrassed to admit that I totally glossed over the very obvious Spanish tag and tried to make this about mayonnaise 🤦‍♂️

Kyle Dolan’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 6/13/26 by Kyle Dolan

I’ve been asking for a harder puzzle on Saturday, haven’t I? Well, here one is. I’m afraid I don’t have time for a more extended writeup, but I’ll say that I liked it and here are three memorable things to me:

• 38D DIGS DEEP, because I watch a lot of Survivor and it immediately put me in mind of Jeff Probst yelling “You gotta DIG DEEP!” at the contestants.
• The multiple entries clued [Couple] (TWO, DUO) or, cleverly, [A couple] for GOING STEADY.
• 63A A BIENTOT, which I think is fun to say out loud.

Happy Saturday!

David P Williams’ Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

Newsday • 6/13/26 • Saturday Stumper • Williams • solution • 20260613

My experience with this one was high highs and low lows. Started off getting the entire upper left corner, which is unusual for me with a Stumper. After that there was some headway in spots throughout the grid, but nothing nearly as substantial.

About midway through, I got the central long down entry, which allowed me to nearly complete the lower right section. Bushwhacked my way though the southwest, then moved on to the northwest where the cluing and answers were especially tough. And finally I returned to the single square in the lower right that had stymied me for so long, et voilà!

• 1a [Changing places] CABANAS. The first clue read, and because it’s the Stumper I strongly suspected that it was going to be a noun rather than a verb. A glance at 1-down [“Dirty snowballs”] COMETS, which was a gimme, confirmed that suspicion and handed me the answer here.
• 6d [Zee-surrounded getaway] ARUBA. Zee is Dutch for sea.
• 19a [Start to squirm] ESS. Didn’t really fall for the misdirection here.
• 14a [Industry leader] OLIGARCH. Boo, hiss, et cetera.
• 20a [Conch cousin] ABALONE. I knew what I was after here, but it took some time and a couple of crossings to summon the name of this marine gastropod from memory.
• 21d [Informal extension] -OLA. Having -ITY here for a significant period, mis-parsing the clue, held things up for a time. It also dissuaded me from going with my gut instinct on 25a [ __ named] APTLY.
• Lastly, in this section, 4d [New __ ] AGE was subversively straightforward. Damn you, Stumper! »shakes fist«
  

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• 47a [Its euros have eight-tipped crosses] MALTA. With the connective tissue of 15d [Disorderly] HELTER-SKELTER already in place, it seemed a pretty safe bet that MALTA, famous for its namesake cross, would be the entry here.
• 48d [He’s enthralled by Cartier] ARTIE. Am getting better at spotting the cryptic-style entry in Stumpers. Helps that they tend to be names, are seemingly always hidden words, and frequently appear in the bottom third of the grid.
• 56a [All] ENTIRELY. The crossing of this with 44d [More that lessens] ET ALII was that final square I mentioned earlier. Right up until the end I had ENTIRETY and was also looking askance at the -II ending for the down entry. Certainly didn’t help that I’d consistently misread the clue as [More than lessens]—my original attempt was ERASES.
• 42a [Word from the Latin for “little book”] LIBEL. Stopped myself from putting in NOVEL because of course I know that it contains the root meaning ‘new’, but at least that helped me see the -EL ending. Then I simply paused for a beat and knew that libr- was Latin for book.
• 37d [Got straight] NEATENED. Sheepishly admitting that I had to run the alphabet to get the first letter here.

• With enough crossings in place—somewhere between a third and half—it was evident that the central across entry 34a [Little lightweights] WHIPPERSNAPPERS was the apt, reduplicative partner for HELTER-SKELTER.
  
• 24d [Basic stuff] STAPLES was a rather easy one, which helped my solving foray in this section.
• 35d [Recession indicator] HAIRLINE. Meh clue here.
• 38a [Road hog] HARLEY-Davidson motorcycle. Took me a time to abandon the -ER ending I wanted.
• 36d [Turn red] IRRITATE, 60a [Turn red] SEETHE. Got these roughly together, roughly ¾ of the way through this corner.
• 58a [Funny stuff] ANTICS. Once I had a crossing or two, it was apparent that it wouldn’t be COMEDY.
• 47d [Multitude, in a phrase] MASSE. That phrase being en masse.

• 11d [Small tie] ONE TO ONE. As I said above, this northeast section had the lion’s share of tough clues and answers. ONE TO ONE doesn’t feel like a natural phrasing, as opposed to ONE ALL, ONE EVEN, or ONE-ONE.
• 26a [Spring wind] COIL. Oof! Really, really tricky. ZEPHYR didn’t fit, nor did NOTUS, EURUS, or BOREALIS for that measure. I even considered OBOE, with Vivaldi in mind.
• 33a [Job with net income] SEINER, 12d [Sedimentology device] STRAINER. Mildly reminiscent of the pairing of 36d and 60a.
• 30a [Cruise pathway to Roman ruins] RHÔNE. Also very tough.
  
• 8a [Rain report] SPLOSH. Yes, okay, sure.
• 16a [Trip starter] POINT A. Seems that it took me far too long to get this.
• 13d [Star guides] HANDLERS. Iffy clue, but nothing else seemed to work.

Got to run! Haven’t got time to handle the WSJ write-up today, so let’s hope that a generous Fiendster steps in/steps up to help.

Kapil Mehta’s USA Today Crossword “A Twist in the Tale” – Zachary Edward-Brown’s write-up

Kapil Mehta’s USA Today Crossword “A Twist in the Tale” – 6/13/26

Anagrams – the word TALE is twisted in each themer.

17A – [Words before a grand finale] = LAST BUT NOT LEAST
36A – [Ink that might be covered by a sock] = ANKLE TATTOO
57A – [“Tell me something I don’t know”] = SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW

I like that each TALE gets a different twist, and I think this is generally a fun set. Particularly the first and last themers, both spanners, are very nice. ANKLE TATTOO, I mean, it’s nice its way, but I don’t love it. I will say, the clue made me go “Huh?” for a second. Ink? Covered by a sock? And then with a few crossings I was able to figure it out. In hindsight, my crossword instincts should have kicked in and told me that any clue with “ink” is most likely talking about a tattoo.

The grid is very smooth and easily clued, so I zipped through this one. I like SCOOTER and DINOSAUR and UKULELES – a lot of fun one-word answers in here. Nicely done!

Favorite clue: It’s a tie this week between two clues: 22A [Lindsay Lohan song with the lyric “I’m tired of people lying”] RUMORS and 12D [Chappell Roan song about a nonserious relationship] CASUAL. Very fun pair! I also liked the quote “A dream you dream alone is only a dream,” which was in the clue for Yoko ONO.

4.5 stars

Alex Bajcz’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Her Remixes” — Eric’s Review

Alex Bajcz’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Her Remixes” — 6/13/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I just saw that pannonica wasn’t able to get to this puzzle, so here’s a quick recap.

A bunch of pop divas get scrambled, sometimes wackily, sometimes less so:

• 23A [Nancy’s tour merch designer?] SINATRA ARTISAN
• 33A [Meghan really cut loose in her performance?] TRAINOR RAN RIOT
• 42A [Barbra’s habit of starting her sets fashionably late?] STREISAND TARDINESS
• 64A [Sheena sets things right for missing a show?] EASTON ATONES
• 79A [Ariana’s favorite Manhattan arena to perform in?] GRANDE GARDEN This is probably my favorite, because it’s one of the least forced-sounding and because “the Garden” is such familiar shorthand for Madison Square Garden (occupied this week by a bunch of people wearing navy and orange).
• 94A [Sara’s trustiest roadies?] BAREILLES’ RELIABLES
• 105A [Gwen’s online tribute?] STEFANI FANSITE This one’s pretty good, too.
• 122A [Avril’s act when the encore’s over?] LAVIGNE LEAVING

It helped that my pop music knowledge is fairly robust; even though only one of these singers is in my music collection, I know all the names. I’m sure this was a bit more challenging for solvers who ran across unfamiliar names.

It helped even more that I’d seen Seattle DB’s comment below about the anagrammed names (though I’d like to imagine that, once I’d gotten one of the anagrams, I’d have know what do with the others).

I’ve been working for a few years on a rock star anagrams theme and I know how frustrating making something like this can be. Unless you find a website that lists amusing anagrams, you’re stuck with thinking up a likely name, plugging it into an anagram generator, and seeing if anything works. Take an easier name, say “Stevie Nicks” and you get nothing (at least from her surname).

Normally, my anagram-solving brain maxes out at about six or seven letters (the Scrabble effect?). I had a bit of trouble figuring out what could be made from STREISAND, BAREILLES and LAVIGNE, at least until I got a few letters from the crosses. Still, this was kind of fun to solve.

Other stuff:

• 22A [Namesake of Australia’s smallest state] Abel TASMAN, hence Tasmania. Thanks, Looney Toons!
• 31A [A pilot may start one] SEASON Not SERIES.
• 60A [Home of the NBA’s Mavs] BIG D I lived in Dallas for four years the 1970s and never heard anyone use that supposed nickname — possibly because by that point, almost every square inch of land between Dallas and Ft. Worth was occupied by some sort of human-made thing, and “the Metroplex” was all anyone cared about.
• 111A [Milano of “Charmed”] ALYSSA I don’t know that name or that movie or show.
• 126A [Where the One Ring was forged and later destroyed] MT. DOOM I had the M and one of the O’s and couldn’t figure out why MORDOR didn’t work.
• 8D [Person coming out of the pool] JUROR Cute clue.