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Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword “Dice Game” — Eric’s Review
Drew Schmenner’s Universal Crossword “Dice Game” — 7/16/26 (Click to Enlarge)
Same old story — I didn’t see the theme until I was finished filling in the grid. It’s a bit subtle, with a repeated three-letter pattern:
- 17A [Parting words in “The Sound of Music”] ADIEU ADIEU The Sound of Music is probably the best-regarded classic movie I’ve never seen. I blame the easy-listening radio station my dad listened to circa 1970, which used a treacly version of the theme song as its promo music.
- 27A [Academic field for which you may learn Old English] MEDIEVAL STUDIES
- 43A [With 50-Across, classic hit] AN OLDIE/50A [See 43-Across] BUT A GOODIE If I’d figured out sooner how the theme worked, I might not have spent time trying to think of a specific “classic hit.”
- 66A [Ideal vacation spot … or a phonetic hint to a word hidden twice in 17-, 27- or 43-/50-Across] PARADISE
I’m not sure how many valid crossword words there are that repeat DIE — probably not many. The ones here work well enough; I got lucky and managed to spell MEDIEVAL correctly the first time.
Other stuff:
- 1A [World’s top-selling cookie] OREO I’m not going to fact-check that clue, but man, it explains a lot about the sorry state of the world.
- 36A [“Jerry Maguire” star Zellweger] RENÉE We went through a spell a few years ago of watching a bunch of 1990s rom-coms that we’d never seen. Jerry Maguire was pretty good, even for a Tom Cruise movie.
- 55A [Palindromic Korean word for “dad”] APPA I’m moderately smug about having remembered that from previous crossword appearances.
- 61A [What Taylor Swift has more of than geological time] ERAS That’s a pretty cheeky clue (even if it is most likely true)! More of that sort, please.
- 29D [Sanders who played for the Falcons] DEION He’s the only Sanders from the NFL who I know of, though in my mind, he played for the Dallas Cowboys. (If you’re curious, he played for Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington and Baltimore in his 16-year playing career.)
- 44A [Spain’s peninsula] IBERIA My money is on Spain winning their second World Cup. They got off to a rocky start with the draw with Cabo Verde, but since then, they’ve been playing like they usually do.
- 60D [Emilia’s husband in “Othello”] IAGO “Pro” Tip of the Day: A four-letter character from Othello is always going to be IAGO.
Zachary David Levy’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Drop Dead Gorgeous” — Eric’s Review
The WSJ seems to be doing its best to confuse me. It appears that part of the redesigned puzzle page is to date the puzzle according to when it’s posted online and not when it’s published in print. (So if you experience déjà vu reading this, it’s because it earlier appeared under the Wednesday post.)
Zachary David Levy’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Drop Dead Gorgeous” — 7/15/26 (Click to Enlarge)
It’s Fiend’s own Zachary David Levy with the Thursday puzzle. He’s given us a theme that restricts the constructor because the theme answers (if that’s what you want to call them) run on diagonals. It’s also a theme that’s frankly a bit of a pain to review, as it affects so many of the Across and Down answers.
So I’ll take the lazy way out and just hit some highlights. The theme itself is explained by 61A [Encampment site of 1778, and a hint to what was done three times in this puzzle] VALLEY FORGE. Circled letters in vaguely U-shaped patterns contains the names of some American valleys: Napa, Shenandoah and Silicon.
This didn’t feel like it was taking nine minutes to solve. I never got stuck anywhere, though a few answers needed a lot of crosses,
Other stuff:
- 1A [Reaches out with one’s fingers] TEXTS Anyone besides me remember the old telephone ads urging you to “Reach out and touch someone”? Even back then, it struck me as a bit creepy.
- 14A [“Schitt’s Creek” matriarch] MOIRA I foolishly put Catherine O’HARA first.
- 15A [Welcome at Daniel K. Inouye International] ALOHA/34D [Gift at Daniel K. Inouye International] LEI Have pity on the poor crossword solver (not me) who doesn’t know where that airport is.
- 17A [What Billy Joel claimed to be, in a 1984 Top 10 hit] INNOCENT MAN That’s not one of the Billy Joel hits I remember, though I’m sure I’ve heard it.
- 19A [Twins pitcher Bradley] TAJ That’s a new name for me.
- 35A [Construction crew] ERECTORS I’m sure that word in the dictionary. I’m also reasonably sure that it never gets used.
- 68A [Cocky way to solve a crossword puzzle] IN PEN Not IN INK.
- 6D [Montana moniker] HANNAH Maybe the overall jock-y vibe made me think this was about the quarterback Joe and not the TV show character played by Miley Cyrus?
- 7D [Resort near Park City] ALTA Define “near.” In a straight line, it’s five miles; by the highways, it’s at least 40 miles.
- 40D [Michael with a Super Bowl ring and Daytime Emmys] STRAHAN Another athlete I’ve not heard of.
Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crossword “Themeless 190” – Jim P’s review
Jim P. here sitting in for Jenni for a couple weeks.
Fireball crossword solution · “Themeless 190” · Peter Gordon · Thu., 7.16.26
Today we’re treated to a classic Peter Gordon-style themeless. What that means to me is there are two long symmetrical Across answers with almost identical letters, along with a plethora of additional excellent fill.
Our two corresponding answers this time are PENICILLIN and PENCILED IN. Very nice. Other goodies are SEDER PLATE (which coincidentally is two rows up from SEDATE), EYE PATCH, “COUNT ME IN,” DUCK CALLS, CRASH DIET, POWER GRAB, LATRINE, and ON AVERAGE. New to me was ARIANATORS [Fans of singer Grande]; I had most of the back half filled in and made a logical guess with the beginning, but it was that second A that threw me for a while. Especially given the opaquely clued MACE [Bring to tears, in a way], which doesn’t seem that opaque in retrospect.
RETROACT was another tough one since I’ve only ever seen that word used in its adjective form of “retroactive.” MED FLY I knew because I grew up in the Bay Area in the 80s when there was a huge infestation of the bugs which caused all kinds of havoc. And whoa! Today I learned that was a bioterrorist act, not a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Plenty of sneaky, chewy cluing to enjoy. Let’s dig in…
- 19a. [Jobs in the modeling business]. EVE. At the start of the solve, this sure seemed like it wanted to be stEVE with those first two letters missing and hinting at some sort of theme. But no, EVE Jobs is Steve Jobs’s daughter.
- 24a. [Bazooka Joe accessory]. EYE PATCH. I was expecting some sort of weaponry. I would never have guessed this.
- 29a. [Tough nut to crack]. POSER. I went with my Pacific Islander roots on this one, and based on the E I went with BETEL. That slowed me down quite a bit in that SW corner (along with other toughies down there).
- 35a. [Callas lover]. ONASSIS. I knew nothing about Maria Callas’s life with Aristotle ONASSIS, and the subsequent love triangle involving Jackie Kennedy. It all just seems so sad.
- 37a. [Downloadable form, often]. PDF FILE. Lest you think the F is for “file”, it’s not. The initialism is Portable Document Format.
- 59a. [Demo while dozing, perhaps]. RAZE. Demolish while bulldozing, not demonstrate while snoozing.
- 4d. [Kick off]. DIE. Hmm. Is this newer slang, because I’ve never heard it used this way?
- 5d. [Dutch role, with “the”]. GIPPER. Ronald Reagan’s nickname of “Dutch” was given to him by his father. He was later known as “The GIPPER” after playing the role of George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne All American.
- 12d. [Sound noisemakers]. DUCK CALLS. I was aided by the fact that I live near the Puget Sound.
- 29d. [Move in a smoke-filled room, maybe]. POWER GRAB. Tough one. I was picturing someone trying to find their way through the haze.
- 36d. [First name of the founder of the production company Hoorae Media]. ISSA. I’m happy to see a different cluing angle for someone who has become a crossword staple.
Good puzzle. Four stars.