Thursday, July 23, 2026

BEQ tk (Eric) rate it
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NYT 8:21 (ZDL) [4.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
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Today’s Fireball puzzle is a contest. We will publish a recap after the entry deadline.

Damon Gulczynski’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 8m21s

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

Damon Gulczynski’s New York Times crossword, 7/23/26

Today’s theme: DARK ENERGY (Proposed cosmological phenomenon that could make up 70% of the universe — and six squares in this puzzle’s grid?)

• DEATH STARe / eSPOUSE
• nAPE / nASCENT
• eQUIPPED / eSTAB
• rOLE / rAMBLED
  
• SWANSONg / THINg
• DENy / UNREADy

For a moment, I misread the revealer and thought that 70% of the black squares in the puzzle were concealing letters — an impossible feat, constraint-wise.  Instead, we get something much more manageable here, with some lively fill like IDLE GOSSIP and EPIC DEFEAT.

Cracking: DEATH STARe

Slacking: eSTAB, woof

Sidetracking: Ron SWANSONg