Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Jonesin’ untimed (Jenni) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
LAT 5:05 (Erin) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:00 (Eric) [4.05 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker untimed (pannonica) [3.67 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:23 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ untimed (much longer than average Tuesday) (Jim Q) rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Paste Test” — twice the sticking power – Jenni’s write-up

I really needed the title this time. I got about halfway through with no idea what was going on, checked the title again, and the light dawned. Each theme answer is a nonsensical two-part phrase in which both halves can precede the word “paste.”

Jonesin’, June 23, 2026, Matt Jones, “Paste Test” – twice the sticking power, solution grid

• 17a [Prawn breath freshener?] is SHRIMP GUM. Ick.
• 19a [Clone of a corn salsa bit?] is BLACK BEAN COPY.
• 33a [Beefsteak photo as a desktop backdrop?] is TOMATO WALLPAPER. Hah. Took me a minute to realize we weren’t talking about, say, a firefighter calendar.
• 50a [Where Grover and The Count can check out books?] is the SESAME LIBRARY.

I would happily eat BACK BEAN paste, TOMATO paste, and SESAME paste. I’m allergic to SHRIMP and have had my fair share of LIBRARY paste (hey, I was five). Fun theme!

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: never heard of rapper LIL Yachty.

Adam Shapiro’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Erin’s write-up

LA Times solution, 6/23/26

Hello lovelies! This Tuesday’s LA Times theme is the equivalent of nesting dolls for tabletop entertainment:

• 16a. [Disc-tossing team sport] ULTIMATE FRISBEE
• 23a. [Contest played on a star-shaped board] CHINESE CHECKERS
• 41a. [Pool hall activity] POCKET BILLIARDS
• 54a. [Nintendo player’s side quest, or what the circled letters of 16-, 23-, and 41-Across create] GAME WITHIN A GAME. Each of the theme entries is a game, and each contains a smaller game within (LIFE, CHESS, POKER).

Other things:

Thwomp the Chonk

• 40a. [Plump pet, slangily] CHONK. Please enjoy my 16-pound cat Thwomp. He is an indoor cat but will run out the door when given the chance and I have to either tackle him right away or wait for him to realize the indoors is much friendlier and come home. He decided to go on an epic adventure (aka climb a sawed log in our neighbor’s yard) and I happened to catch him mid-blep.
• 4d. [Sequences of tight turns on racecourses] CHICANES. The word stems from the Middle French “chicaner,” which per Merriam-Webster means “to quibble” or “to prevent justice.”
• 47d. [In-person fantasy event, casually] LARP, or live-action role-playing.

Aimee Lucido’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up

New Yorker • 6/23/26 • Tue • Lucido • solution • 20260623

As is common with these Tuesday New Yorker crosswords—billed as ‘moderately challenging’—this one played way easier than advertised.

• 5a [Playful response to “You’re going down!”] OH, AM I? Seems a weird clue/answer pairing.
• 15a [Nineteen-thirties cartoon character Betty] BOOP. I wonder if the New Yorker style guide proscribes using numerals at the start of a sentence. Also: in the news, with Quinta Brunson developing and starring in a forthcoming feature film.
• 16a [Party with a required cover?] MASQUERADE. Clue maybe too forced? It feels as if ‘cover charge’ would be more natural here, even though cover by itself can mean the same thing.
• 20a [Come alive] AWAKEN.
  
• 22a [Japanese term for a manga superfan] OTAKU. Even though I’ve encountered the word before, I needed nearly all the crossings before being able to fill it in correctly.
• 26a [“Ask away!”] HIT ME, not SHOOT.
• 32a [Business owners concerned with server costs?] RESTAURATEURS. Another instance where the clue feels as if it’s trying too hard for misdirection. Also, show of hands—how many thought there was an N in the word?
• 36a [2025 sports-romance series that, per the Times, shows “at least one posterior easily mistaken for a pair of blue-ribbon gourds”] HEATED RIVALRY. I’ve heard of the show, but that’s certainly a curious quote.
• 37a [Candy-coated treats sometimes given out at weddings] JORDAN ALMONDS. Am unaware of this tradition, but that isn’t wholly surprising.
• 60a [Ingredient in a Moscow Mule] GINGER BEER. Another is, as one might imagine, vodka.
• 2d [Stand by for] AWAIT.
  
• 11d [Herb whose name comes from the Latin for “dew of the sea”] ROSEMARY. Did not know this, but which made me think of the specific epithet for walruses, Odobenus rosmarus, but that seems not to be the case.
• 14d [Psychiatric conditions involving temporary amnesia] FUGUE STATES, also called dissociative fugues or psychogenic fugues.
  
• 25d [Theatre backdrop that changes transparency depending on lighting] SCRIM, which m-w.com indicates an unknown etymology.
• 36d [Off-road vehicle?] HOVERCAR. Okay, I like this one!
• 45d [Cocktails ordered alongside chips and guac, perhaps] MARGS, a shortened version of margaritas which I really dislike. Feel the same way about guac for guacamole (and I don’t even like eating guacamole anyway).

(It cuts off abruptly because it’s part of a suite.)

Kathy Bloomer’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Kathy Bloomer’s New York Times Crossword — 6/23/26

I like this theme! I sometimes am put off by puzzles with circled letters in them because the circles can make the letters you’ve written in harder to read. And since circled letters seem to be particularly prevalent in early-week puzzles, I don’t often slow down enough to see what the circled letters are doing.

Here, four nouns associated with honesty show up in circled letters that go across, then down (and in two cases, across again). The revealer at 50A [Doesn’t lie, exactly … or a hint to this puzzle’s circled letters] BENDS THE TR/56D [The “R” of R.B.G.] RUTH (together, bends the truth) is great: Take a metaphorical usage and make it literal.

Normally, I wouldn’t care for BENDS THE TR — unlike the preceding theme answers, TR does not (to my knowledge) mean anything. I can overlook that because it’s easy to spot and because I absolutely do not mind seeing 56D [The “R” of R.B.G.] RUTH in a grid.

About the only thing about this theme that I don’t like is that, were I to follow my usual blogging practice of mentioning every answer that’s involved in the theme, I’d be here all morning. Y’all are smart people and can for yourselves pick out verity, candor, facts and honesty. So I’ll move on to some other highlights of this grid (and some other puzzles I need to review).

• 1A [Swiss currency] FRANC If your first thought was the Euro, keep in mind Switzerland’s famed neutrality. I doubt they will ever join the European Union or the Eurozone, though they are in the United Nations. (A quick glance at Wikipedia suggests there has been at least one Swiss referendum on joining the EU, and as Brexit shows, anything is possible.)
• 6A [Kind of clef used for the viola] ALTO My ability to read sheet music is extremely limited — EGBDF and FACE help me identify the notes, but that’s about it. But I do read enough about music-making that I know of the different clefs used to get all those instruments on a reasonably-sized piece of paper. But for a bit, BASS was the only four-letter clef that came to mind.
• 22A [Judgmental sounds] TSKS That could have been TUTS. I’m more judgmental than I should be, but I’m working on it. If you want to improve in this area, the New York Times has some advice. And if you don’t, I won’t judge you.
• 39A [Target of Glade or Febreze] ODOR Shout-out to my friend pannonica. A nonjudgmental clue for a word that simply means “a distinctive smell.”
• 59A [“Blue” locale in a 1977 Linda Ronstadt classic] BAYOU I don’t know who was more responsible for picking Ronstadt’s material throughout her career — Ronstadt herself, her long-time producer Peter Asher, someone else or multiple someone else’s — but she covered a lot of great songs, including the Roy Orbison classic about Louisiana. (A belated happy birthday to Peter Asher, born 6/22/44.)
• 62A [Montréal traffic sign] ARRÊT The last time I was in that city, we were driving through and got stuck in a freeway traffic jam. In an adjacent lane, separated from us by a Jersey barrier, a SEMI was on fire. We could feel the heat in our car. (The rest of our trip was great, thanks.)
• 65A [“Geez-o-Pete!”] YEESH Never ever have I heard the clue’s euphemism plus a non-rhyming “Pete.”
• 4D [Number of digits in a Social Security number] NINE I’m old enough that my student ID number in college included my SSN (which will tell you roughly where I was born, since the Social Security Administration had yet to adopt random SSNs).
• 11D [One might involve false accounts] TAX SCANDAL I like that theme-adjacent clue, playing on two meanings of “account.”
• 28D [Bad calls?] PHONE SCAMS I’ve set my phone to ring only if it’s someone who’s in my address book. That sometimes causes me to miss important calls. I’d switch my settings — if the phone tells me a call is “Potential Spam,” no way am I answering — but I get lots of calls where my phone doesn’t recognize the number and the caller doesn’t leave a message. I don’t want to pick up of those calls and get stuck talking to a telemarketer. Any suggestions?
• 29D [It took more than 70 yrs. to complete its first edition] O.E.D. A gimme thanks to The Professor and the Madman and Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.
• 31D [Follower of the Gospels?] ACTS of the Apostles. That Catholic upbringing comes in handy once in a while.
• 32D [Most dangerous animal in Maine, it’s said] MOOSE My husband and I are going to spend almost a week on Megunticook Lake near Camden, Maine. Two long flight days from SW Colorado, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s been 26 years, I think, since we last visited that state.

4.5 stars.

Shmuel Schmell’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Partial Compensation” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Various forms of earned payment are split across two answers

WSJ • 6/23/26 • Thur • “Partial Compensation” • Shmuel Schmell • solution • 20260623

THEME ENTRIES:

• SALLOW / ANCESTOR. Allowance. 
• TIKKI MASALA / RYE. Salary.
• NEWS TIP / ENDMOST. Stipend. 
• HEW / AGES AND AGES. Wages. 
• (revealer) [Unions might oppose one, and a hint to the circled letters] PAY CUT.

A solid puzzle built around a familiar but dependable theme type. These “split answer” constructions can look deceptively simple, but fitting nine theme entries into a 15×15 is no small feat. That’s considerably more thematic material than a typical daily puzzle, and it inevitably places extra constraints on the fill.

To this puzzle’s credit, those constraints still leave room for some lively entries. OGS, “WOW ‘EM!”, and “OH MAMA!” all added some welcome personality.

The biggest challenge for me came from the proper nouns and lesser-known entries. LIANG, LEONA, SDI, and REMORA all slowed me down, particularly in the eastern section of the grid. That area was by far my toughest stretch, and the cluing felt closer to Thursday than Tuesday.

When you’re already struggling, clues like SIDE [Flank] and ENDMOST [Last] don’t exactly throw a life preserver. The theme eventually rescued me. Once I inferred STIPEND, the -END helped lead to ENDMOST eventually. But it was more of a grind than an “aha!” moment, and the payoff never quite compensated for the effort.

THAN [Compared with] and MEANS [Financial wherewithal] took me longer than I care to admit as well.

My broader concern is whether this puzzle has a bit too much bite for its place in the week. I can easily imagine newer solvers getting bogged down by abbreviations/short fill such as COS, CTR, LOA, and ATT, alongside crossword regulars like OLEG, HANA, and TSOS. That’s a lot of specialized crossword vocabulary packed into an early-week grid.

Maybe I’m underestimating newer solvers, but this struck me as the sort of Tuesday that could convince someone they’re having a bad crossword day when they’re really just facing a tougher-than-advertised puzzle.

3 stars

Ricky Sirois’ Universal Crossword “Secret Meeting” — Eric’s Review

Ricky Sirois’s Universal Crossword “Secret Meeting” — 6/23/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I breezed through this (maybe I should always solve puzzles before breakfast instead of in the afternoon or evening). So I didn’t pay attention to the starred clues until I had to figure out the theme for this review.

And those are:

• 19A [*Wishy-washy commitment words] DEFINITE MAYBE
• 33A [*Lab rodents] WHITE MICE
• 38A [*Evidence of vampire attacks] BITE MARKS Much as I love the movies of Paul Thomas Anderson, I’d have chosen Sinners as Best Picture this year. But I’d like to see both that and One Battle After Another again.
• 50A [Ulterior motive … or what you’ll find in the starred clues’ answers, collectively?] HIDDEN AGENDA

For a few minutes, I thought I’d need to fall back on the crossword blogger’s last resort of asking the editor what’s going on. (I’ve been lucky enough to have puzzles edited by both David Steinberg and Taylor Johnson, and the Universal crossword editing team has always been quick to respond to my cries for help. My biggest regret about not getting into ACPT this year was missing out on a chance to meet some great constructors and editors. Maybe next year.)

ICYMI: The first three theme answers contain ITEM, and of course a meeting agenda is a list of items.

All the theme answers are fun in and of themselves.

Other stuff:

• 5A [Talk like Natasha Lyonne] RASP We loved her in Orange is the New Black, Russian Doll, and His Three Daughters, but she always seems to be playing a variation on the same character. I think we’ve seen American Pie, but I can’t remember her in that. Poker Face intrigues me greatly, but not enough to add yet another streaming service.
• 26A [“Just Like Jesse James” singer] CHER That’s not one of her songs that I remember, though I’d probably recognize it if I listened to it. Which I am not going to do lest it worm its way into my head and stay there all day.
• 43A [Letter after upsilon] PHI Not RHO That slowed me down a bit.
• 44A [The “T” of LGBTQ+] TRANS Happy Pride Month, my fellow queers!
• 5D [Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Bonnie] RAITT I stopped really paying attention to her in the 1980s, but I still like her old records.
• 14D [Fire-starting rock] FLINT My Facebook post for Father’s Day was a list of some of the many things that my father, a mechanical engineer who was the poster boy for DIY. He was also an Eagle Scout who was a troop leader as an adult. What was then the Boy Scouts is a mixed set of memories for me. But at least I can (maybe) start a fire with flint and steel should the need arise. Thanks, Dad!
• 26D [Crack under pressure] CHOKE Did Lionel Messi choke when he missed that penalty kick Monday? Not that it ultimate mattered, either for Argentina or Messi himself. Congratulations on becoming the all-time leading World Cup goalscorer! (Query to those more into the World Cup than me: Will the record books have an asterisk to denote that the Cup has been expanded to 48 teams and six rounds?)
• 34D [Public declaration of policy goals] MANIFESTO I used to draft bills for the Texas Legislature. We hated when a member wanted us to put a “Statement of Purpose” in their bill. If we couldn’t talk them out of it, they would get, since we worked for them.