Thursday, July 9, 2026

BEQ tk (Eric) rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) rate it
NYT 8:04 (ZDL) [3.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:13 (Eric) rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) rate it

Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crossword “First to Last” – Jenni’s write-up

I caught on to this one fairly quickly and enjoyed it. The clues are a bit wacky and each theme answer consists of a first name, a first initial, and another word. They add up to something completely different.

Fireball, July 8, 2026, Peter Gordon, “First to Last,” solution grid

• 3d [“Roseanne” costar clears his throat noisily?] is TOMAHAWKS. Tom A(rnold) hawks
• 18a [Onetime Argentine first lady gave a speech?] is EVAPORATED. Eva P(eron) orated.
• 25a [“Barney Miller” star had debts?] is HALLOWED. Hal L(inden) owed.
• 36d [Supporter of the creator of “Star Trek”?] is GENERALLY. Gene R(oddenberry) ally.
• 40a [Male sheep of a “Saturday Night Live” actress in “Delicious Dish” sketches?] is ANAGRAM. Ana G(asteyer) ram. That one doesn’t quite work – shouldn’t it be Ana G’s ram? And yes, I suppose it should also be Gene R’s ally, but for some reason that one doesn’t bother me.
• 53a [Sad 1958 timeline entry for the New York Giants baseball team?] is MELODIES. Mel O(tt) dies.
• 64a [Play parts for a member of the Mamas and the Papas?] are CASSEROLES. Cass E(lliot) roles.

That’s a whole lot of theme material for a clever, unusual theme. Fun! Remarkably solid with the one exception I noted.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that Selena recorded an album called “AMOR Prohibido.”

Paul and Heather Gearan’s Universal Crossword “Intermissions” — Eric’s Review”

Paul and Heather Gearan’s Universal Crossword “Intermission” — 7/9/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I didn’t recognize the constructors’ names and wasn’t quite sure what to expect (though I’ve done enough Universal puzzles by now to know the types of themes David Steinberg, Taylor Johnson and the other editors seem to favor). This appears to be Paul Gearan’s debut puzzle, at least in a publication covered by us Fiends.

This theme is typical of a Universal puzzle and is nicely telegraphed by the puzzle’s title:

• 20A [Square-shaped stuffed pasta] RAVIOLI/ 22A [Confirm to be true] VERIFY Oliver!
• 27A [Turned into] BECAME/30A [Scratch-off game, e.g.] LOTTERY Camelot
• 49A [Vehicle you might hail] TAXICAB/51A [Soul icon Franklin] ARETHA Cabaret
• 56A [Political refugee] EMIGRÉ/59A [The “A” in LGBTQIA+] ASEXUAL Grease

Those are all classic Broadway shows; fans of the genre might have fun uncovering them. Cabaret is the only one of the four I’ve seen, and I didn’t notice what was going on with the circled letters until I was finished. (Yeah, so what else is new?)

I do like that each show is more or less split in the middle, with a black square acting as the intermission between the shows’ two acts.

Other stuff:

• 40A [Car-stealing video game franchise, for short] GTA That’s Grand Theft Auto, for the two people less interested in video games than me. I’m probably lucky that video games didn’t really become a thing until I was in my 20’s. I can easily picture myself sitting on a couch all day, controller in hand. (As if I need another reason to sit on my butt and do nothing productive.
• 46A [El ___, Texas] PASO I’ll buy a beer for the first person to explain how the Nirvana song below relates to the furthest west city in Texas. (We stumbled across a cover band that was practicing in a park gazebo this evening — Nirvana, Modern English, some boomer-vintage stuff. They weren’t half bad.)
• 66A [Name that anagrams to “mare”] ERMA I guess Ms Bombeck is too far in the past for Universal solvers.
• 71A [Born earlier] OLDER That could have been ELDER. I’ve learned to just let that first letter come from the cross.
• 4D [Craftsperson] ARTISAN My hat’s off to anyone who takes their job seriously enough to get really good at it.
• 40D [“Peer Gynt” composer] Edvard GRIEG “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is pretty spooky, no?

Brad Wiegmann and Nat Wiegmann’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 8m04s

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

Brad Wiegmann and Nat Wiegmann’s New York Times crossword, 7/9/26, 0709

Today’s theme: FORGONE (Renounced … or a phonetic hint to reading the answers to the starred clues)

• STUTTGART = sugar
• TELLALLS = teas
• BASSISTS = baits
• APIA SAMOA = Pismo

Q: What do you get when you finish this puzzle?

A: A FORGONE conclusion!

Please clap.

Cracking: STRIPTEASE, clued as (Show that ends in disarray?)

Slacking: LOOPERS clued not invoking the great 2012 movie, or outfield bloops, or even sewing machine parts, but rather (Caddies, in golf slang), totally unknown to me as a (admittedly very amateur) golfer

Sidetracking: “Babe RUTH wasn’t really a sultan”