Oscar season is upon us and so are our version of the awards for crossword puzzles, the ORCAS. Check out the nominated puzzles and vote for your favorites here on this page. Voting closes on Monday, February 17th with winners announced in a livestream a week later.
Rich Proulx’s New York Times crossword, “Letter Openers”–Dave’s recap
Dave here again, subbing for Nate this week. Nate will be off blogging duty for weeks or months after losing his home to the California wildfires. There’s a GoFundMe raising money to help Nate and Ben rebuild their lives in the aftermath.
NY Times crossword solution – 1/26/25
Very timely seeing this constructor’s name on today’s NYT puzzle as I have been working with him over the last few days to launch the ORCAS voting pages on this site! Will’s comment on the PDF version of the puzzle reads: “For this puzzle he [Rich] originally wanted the images to appear in circles in the grid, but those proved too small to make out. So he revamped the puzzle and placed them in the clues instead. Intriguing! So what’s going on here?
There are 7 phonetic clues in the down column that have an image paired with the text “Circled Letter +” and they are paired with crossing across entries at, unsurprisingly, a circled letter! They are:
19D: [R+CANE] (“arcane”) cluing 22A: CLEAR AS MUD
29D: [E+ROAD] (“erode”) cluing 29A: EAT AWAY (I first thought the image was pointing at the curb of the road not the road itself)
46D: [B+TRAY] (“betray”) cluing 42A: BACKSTAB
67D: [U+KNIT] (“unit”) cluing 64A: WORKGROUP (rather specific type of unit here, but it had to have a U in it)
82D: [S+CAPE] (“escape”) cluing 87A: SIDESTEP
101D: [E+MITT] (“emit”) cluing 98A: GIVE OFF
107D: [S+PIE] (“espy”) cluing 111A: HAVE EYES ON
And as an Easter Egg, the “circled letters” read REBUSES from top to bottom!
This reminded me of the old Concentration game shows where rebuses spelled out a word or phrase; kudos to Rich for finding 7 entries where the word started with a letter sound and that letter could also appear in an entry which referred to that word.
I did find it a bit gnarly to move from one section to another as it seemed the grid was segmented quite a bit with just a few letters joining separate areas. Despite the grid constraints on the crossing theme entries, Rich found room to add MADE A TOAST, TALKED SHOP, DOES A SOLID, ANYTOWN, U.S.A. and NO BRA DAY. SITREPS are new to me as was ALAINA Urquhart of the podcast “Morbid.” And I learned the INCAS were the first to freeze-dry food!
Enjoy today’s puzzle and the upcoming ORCAS awards!
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword, “Food Processing”–Matt’s recap
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Food Processing,” 1/26/2025
This week’s title promises “Food Processing,” an theme clues are noteworthy for their parenthetical hints to go with strings of circled letters in the grid.
Each string requires some decoding, but anagrams to a food item hinted at by the clues’ parentheticals:
- 23a [Court conflict (roll)] LEGAL BATTLE (bagel)
- 33a [Business affairs? (grain)] OFFICE ROMANCE (rice)
- 52a [Take part in a secret investigation (noodles)] GO UNDERCOVER (udon)
- 68a [Regimen that includes treats (fruit)] OBEDIENCE TRAINING (nectarine)
- 87a [State with info about a company’s assets and liabilities (dairy product)] BALANCE SHEET (cheese)
- 100a [Revered victor (fish)] CONQUERING HERO (herring)
While they’re not ingredients I’d put together myself, the first letters of the unscrambled foods spell BRUNCH, as hinted in the revealer clue:
- 118a [Preparing food, and an alternate title for this puzzle that hints at the word you’ll find by unscrambling the circled foods and taking their first letters] FIXING A MEAL
It’s a solid theme done well, with Evan’s trademark extra flourish at the end, spelling out BRUNCH. Each entry is plenty evocative, and [Business affairs?] for OFFICE ROMANCE is a particularly enjoyable clue. Not often we see a question mark in a themer!
Other highlights: I haven’t seen ARTIE Shaw (28a) in a puzzle in some time. Nice reminder of a great artist there // I think I’m obligated to yell “PIVOT!” after reading 36a [Challenge for navigating a tight corner, on moving day] for SOFA // A new-to-me clue for ERIE, highlighting Ohio’s Kelleys Island, which is just north of Sandusky and Cedar Point // I’ve seen it before, but always enjoy the “leaves” double meaning when referring to the Whitman collection “Leaves of Grass.” Here, it points to PAGES at 3d
Don’t miss the nominees and writeups for this years ORCAS! Many thanks to Rich Proulx for coordinating this celebration of our community.
John Guzzetta’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Mind-Bending”—Jim’s review
Theme answers come in crossing pairs. The Across entry features a slang word for “head” (as in your cranium). The crossing Down entry (indicated by the circled square which also serves as the pivot point) is a word or phrase that requires the letters in the “head” word to make sense. The revealer is KEEP YOUR HEAD ON A SWIVEL (68a, [“Be wary!,” or a hint to understanding five Down entries in this puzzle]). So the solver can imagine swiveling the “head” word into vertical position to complete the Down phrase.
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Mind-Bending” · John Guzzetta · 1.26.25
- 23a. [Cutlery-storing object] and 7d. [*Piece of software that combats pop-ups]: KNIFE BLOCK and AD (BLOCK)ER.
- 30a. [Bit of candy in a guessing game] and 16d. [*”Given the opportunity, absolutely!”]: JELLY BEAN and “IT’D (BE AN) HONOR.”
- The revealer goes with Down entry 53d. [*Scoring one ends a tie, in baseball]: GO-A(HEAD) RUN.
- 109a. [Car’s interior illuminator] and 80d. [*Device that a vacationer may set before a long drive]: DOME LIGHT and TRIP O(DOME)TER.
- 120a. [Certain serving of udon] and 105d. [*People who kiss and cuddle]: NOODLE BOWL and CA(NOODLE)RS.
Really impressive theme! Consistently executed and with fun and interesting phrases all over. I caught on with the first entry, but the theme kept me engaged throughout. My only problem is that I’ve never ever heard the revealer phrase before. But it Googles well, so I’ll put it down to a gap in my wheelhouse. I’d be interested to learn if other solvers know the phrase or don’t.
Despite this involved theme requiring crossing entries, we still get fun fill like BOILERPLATE, VIRTUAL TOUR, TREE FORTS, HAT BOX, HOTELIER, and DAD JOKES. The rest of the fill is impressively smooth, too, though ERBE stands out as a clunker.
Clues of note:
- 46d. [Perform in “Primary Trust”]. ACT. Didn’t know this title, so I looked it up. It’s the 2023 stage play that won the Pulitzer for Drama.
- 90d. [“Oedipus ___” (Tom Lehrer song)]. REX. Oh, now here’s a song I haven’t heard in a long time. If you’ve never heard it, you’re in for a treat. In the video he sings it live as part of his comedy routine, so hang in there past the intro to get to the song.
Very good puzzle. 4.25 stars.
fun NYT! maybe my favorite sunday in quite some time.
If I go to the WAPO Sunday crossword drop-down, I get Evan’s crosswords, but today’s isn’t listed. What am I missing?
It’s there now, guess I was too early.
No, you weren’t too early. It was my fault, and a mistake I almost never make, though sleep deprivation and caring for a 15-month-old who’s been sick and having real sleep trouble for weeks didn’t help. Anyway, I’m sorry for the inconvenience.
Good luck with caring for the little one. It’s so hard to watch a little kid be sick. It feels unfair, somehow.
Evan, not a problem, your child is priority number one. Sorry to hear your little one is sick and I hope for a speedy recovery.
Nice idea for the NYT, but it could have used some polishing. SITREPS is weird, STEREOSETS is not a phrase I’ve come across (even in ancient times when we used to haul turntables and speakers around when we moved). I had no idea what the picture for EATAWAY/ERODE was trying to show — hillside, gutter…?
But my biggest objection is to ARCANE/CLEARASMUD. Just not the same thing. At all.
It’s a very original theme, so PROPS for that.
I may be the only one but there is an inconsistency in the theme that bothered me.
In four of the theme entries: The circled letter is truly the opener (consistent with the title “Letter Openers”), and together with the pic, it makes the sound needed to complete the word”
29D: [E+ROAD] (“erode”)
46D: [B+TRAY] (“betray”)
67D: [U+KNIT] (“unit”)
101D: [E+MITT] (“emit”)
However, in three others, the circled letter is the second one. And the letter that precedes it is not needed to create the sound of the relevant word.
19D: [R+CANE] (“arcane”) A not needed- R- CANE alone sounds like ARCANE.
82D: [S+CAPE] (“escape”) E not needed
107D: [S+PIE] (“espy”). E not needed
I understand that it’s hard to find examples of such words/images/clues. So I’d say at least the title of the theme should have been different.
PS. I did not have a big problem with CLEAR AS MUD. ARCANE can mean obscure, so that overlap makes sense even if it does not map perfectly.
Good point about that inconsistency. I sort of noticed it but let it slide. The letter ‘S’ can be written ESS, and ‘R’ can be written ARR (maybe), so those answers sort of work. But not like the others, as you say.
(Though it is the case that ar and es are accepted spellings for the letters R and S.)
Seemed consistent enough for me. Either way, you say aloud what’s in the picture, starting with its standalone letter, and you get a word defined by the actual entry. There’s then the aha of answering simultaneously where the clue is for the unclued entries and where the definition is for the pictures (which are a bit like the wordplay half of a cryptic clue). I also found the theme fresh and interesting. The definition of ARCANE isn’t off enough to bother me either.
SITREP puzzle me for a long time, but gotta say that WS since his return seems more eager to find phrases that clues can label “modern.” It can stretch my patience but I imagine is not wrong, just new to me.
It was a clever (and ironic!) idea to use actual pictures as rebus crossword clues.
But I’ve gotta agree with David L on the need for some additional polish, and on the question of ARCANE/CLEARASMUD. The first denotes mysteriousness or secrecy; the second, non-clarity. Kind of adjacent, maybe, but just not the same thing.
There were just too many such odd answers and not-quite-right clues for my taste. STEREOSETS was the worst. Who says that? Nobody that I’ve ever heard.
That, plus the names, plus the inconsistency in the structure of the theme entries, made this a puzzle that just didn’t land for me.
Also: what kind of futon has a SLAT as a component? I slept on a futon for several years at one point in my life, and loved it. All cotton, no slats. I guess if you buy one of those folding frames that they use to make futons into sofabeds, those have slats. But those aren’t futons.
I had the same thought.
NYT: I actually wanted to come on here and proclaim that the proper plural of rebus is rebi, but turns out that’s completely wrong. Rebus already is plural, because—hey, wait, where are you going?
NYT: Soft A is not really a thing. We have the (bizarrely named) “long” and “short” vowels (rake vs rack) — bizarre because they really don’t vary in terms of length — but there are two things wrong with “soft a”: (1) The wiki definition of it calls it a schwa sound. That’s the sound at the end of the name Oprah. (2) Even if we change the stress of the word, it’s still not that sound. Schwas sound like /i/ or /u/ (the “short” versions), but we don’t say “fuh-ther”. The “ah” sound is not considered ‘short’ by anyone.
I did enter SCHWA right away and then grumped, but I could live with it in the end.
Yeah, the “a” in “father” is definitely no schwa. But the “e” arguably is. This one failed for me, since I’m not sure what a “soft a” even is. I am used to “soft” consonants, not vowels.
NYT: I wasn’t fond of the pictures, etc., but I will say that it basically worked. I also didn’t like “sitreps,” but my main quibble is with 8D, “largest public sch. in the U.S., by enrollment” — the term “public school” where I live is more commonly used for el-hi, not a university. Thus, I would have preferred “largest public u. in the U.S….”
Agreed.
Uni Sunday (@Jim) … I’m familiar with HEAD ON A SWIVEL from sports, particularly hockey. It basically means to keep a keen eye on all of your surroundings or you’re likely to end up on your keister. I don’t recall hearing it in other contexts.