BEQ 12:44 (Eric) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 9:28 (ZDL) 
[3.50 avg; 21 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:46 (Eric) [3.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 11:33 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 11:43 (Jim Q) 
[2.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
The Fireball crossword this week is a contest puzzle.
Sam Brody’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Average (9m28s)
Sam Brody’s New York Times crossword, 7/17/25, 0717
Today’s theme: MATRYOSHKA DOLLS
- PE(ER[REV]IE)WS
- CU(LI[NARY]AR)TS
- TI(ME[MACH]IN)ES)
- DO(MA[INN]AM)ES
The hardest part of this puzzle was trying to remember how to spell the transliterated MATRYOSHKA. I speak a little Russkiy yizk, and I still whiffed on my first few attempts. That’s the way the potato crumbles. Or maybe I should say, that’s the way that MIR deorbits.
Cracking: SEE SAW
Slacking: I think technically it’s only FILIAL respect when it’s from southeast Pennsylvania, otherwise it’s just sparkling obeisance
Sidetracking: MYST
Sala Wanetick’s Universal Crossword “Second Helping” — Eric’s Review
Sala Wanetick’s Universal Crossword “Second Helping” — 7/17/25
I didn’t read the title before starting, and was a bit confused when the first theme answer seemed to be completely straight-forward. Maybe if I’d heard of the next theme answer, I’d have understood the theme before I reached the revealer. It’s simply a menu of dishes with reduplicative names:
- 17A [*Tray of American Chinese or Hawaiian appetizers] PU PU PLATTER
- 29A [*Spicy Sichuan dish] DANDAN NOODLES
- 44A [*Mediterranean side dish] COUSCOUS SALAD
- 56A [Two food deliveries at the same time … and a hint to the starred clues’ answers] DOUBLE ORDER
It’s a pleasant enough theme, and I like the slightly exotic nature of the theme entries. (I know, these aren’t the most unusual dishes from the wonderful variety of world cuisines, but there are places in this country where you can’t get these dishes — or not all of them.)
If the theme doesn’t make you hungry, there are also PEA-filled samosas, chips and SALSAS, ATTA for your naan or roti, Tater TOTS, Lorna DOONE cookies, and some MUESLI to finish up. That’s a lot of food (and the meal isn’t over yet).
Other stuff:
- 1A [Sunglasses, informally] SHADES/35A [They’re cast by the sun] SHADOWS Duplication in a grid doesn’t really bother me, but I notice it more often than I used to. Still, I have to wonder how many casual solvers (those who don’t read crossword blogs) realize such duplication is considered a defect.
- 32A [Gritty layer found in Humboldt Fog cheese] ASH I’d never heard of this cheese, but knowing that some cheeses are covered with ash, I made an educated guess off the A.
- 38A [Yellow-orange gem] CITRINE Not exactly a word on the tip of my tongue. Or any part of it, really.
- 51A [Like a Slurpee lid] DOMED Well, STICKY didn’t fit.
- 65A [“Las Culturistas” co-host Bowen] YANG I haven’t watched Saturday Night Live in years and know of Bowen Yang mainly from crosswords. Having not heard of the podcast in the clue, I rashly assumed Bowen was a surname.
- 8D [Selects the “I agree” box, say] OPTS TO OPTS IN cost me a bit of time.
- 11D [Where a couple heading south might end up?] SPLITSVILLE I like the idiomatic nature of “heading south” being echoed in the slanginess of the answer.
Mike Shenk’s WSJ Crossword “Cheap Trick” — Jim Q’s Review
Cool looking grid today- looking like a themeless (70 words!) though there is plenty of theme!
THEME:
In each theme entry, the word RATE must be mentally removed from the answer to match the clue — some Thursday-style sleight of hand… trick indeed!
THEME ANSWERS:
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal Crossword * “Cheap Trick” * 7/17/25
17A: [Milker’s mouthful] CURATED. CUD. Assuming the ‘milker’ is the cow in this case, chewing its cud. Though technically the cow would be the milkee, no? Either that, or some dairy farmers are really into cud.
18A: [Small quibble] NITRATE. NIT.
24A: [Confined, with “up”] COOPERATED. COOPED (up).
51A: [Stabbing, in medieval combat] PIRATE KING. PIKING.
54A: [Garden section] BERATED. BED.
56A: [Cheap, and what you must do to five Across answers to make them match their clues] CUT-RATE.
Thursday WSJs are usually tough for me — today was no exception. A mix of tip-of-the-tongue entries, oblique clues, and general knowledge gaps. But I like the workout!
NEW TO ME / TIP-OF-TONGUE:
- DARA Torres. I should know this by now. I keep forgetting if it’s DARA or DANA.
- TATER. Clued not as a tot, but as slang for a home run. I can’t be the only person who confidently wrote in GONER, can I?
- STADIA — the plural of ‘stadium,’ apparently. I think it sounds like a failed tech product.
- Bobby SEALE. Another name I definitely should know by now.
- The TAGUS River of Toledo (Spain).
- MERLE Oberon. I’m so bad with names!
- PIKING — another word I’m sure I’ve heard in
an episode or two of Game of Thrones, but don’t use often. I PIKE approximately never. - VEGETAL as an adjective!
- Supine in the LUGE clue means ‘lying face up’ — not something you want to mix up mid-run.
- And to be quite honest, the revealer CUT-RATE I’m sure I’ve heard but haven’t used. I keep wanting it to be a synonym for CUT-THROAT.
HIGHLIGHTS IN FILL:
-
- ADSENSE. Fun to uncover! That’s the Google service that lets websites earn a little coin by showing you ads for things you mentioned aloud five minutes ago.
- UP A TREE. Difficult to uncover with the clue [Cornered] as my mind’s-eye has difficulty looking “up” to visualize someone being cornered, but totally accurate.
- IPAD APPS clued with Photo Booth and Image Playground. Fun
- TOP SEEDS after watching Wimbledon.
DIDN’T MUCH LIKE:
“Avenue Q’s” Trekkie Monster LOVES the internet
- A RUT, A DRAG and THE AIR. The latter was trying pretty hard not to be a partial, but you can’t fool me, THE AIR.
- Just when I thought I’d finally exorcised ‘The Internet is for PORN’ from my brain (it’s an earworm for me), there it was again, honking its horn all the way through the solve. I’d much rather have ‘There’s a Fine, Fine Line’ on loop, thank you.
EMBARRASSING MISSTEP:
- I wrote in GETS OFF for [Leaves] and totally accepted that there was a GUN in Argentina’s flag. I mean, I cocked my head for a second, but then shrugged it off. Took me a long time to find my error at the end (SETS OFF / SUN). “Suns are better than guns” should be Argentina’s motto.
All-in-all I liked this one and appreciated the workout. 4 stars.
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1801 “Whatever, Man!” — Eric’s Review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1801 — 7/17/25
There are puzzle themes that make perfect sense, there are puzzle themes that make no sense, and there are puzzle themes that make enough sense that I feel like I’m missing something.
This theme was in that third category, but in the course of writing this, it finally clicked. The theme answers repeat the letter string UDOU:
- 17A [Solidly hit balls, usually directly at a fielder, in baseball] LOUD OUTS I’m not a baseball fan, and while this phrase sounds vaguely familiar, I tried LINE OUTS first. I assume they’re called that because of the smacking sound of the ball hitting the fielder’s glove.
- 29A [“Ondine” playwright] JEAN GIRAUDOUX I’ve heard of the play (1939), but couldn’t have told you who wrote it or when. Fortunately, I know enough about French spelling that I could sort the answer out with enough crosses.
- 49A [Virginia area whose seat is Leesburg] LOUDOUN COUNTY I plunked COUNTY in almost immediately and waited for a few crosses to suggest something that sounded like a county in Virginia.
- 65A [“Whatever suits!” … and a phonetic hint to this puzzle’s theme] YOU DO YOU Or, as a hint, U DO U.
The theme works, and I can see it helping solvers figure out the most likely unknowns, Giraudoux and Loudon. But it’s not particularly exciting. (Whatever, man.)
Other stuff:
- 4a [Like those who might think things are cap or cheugy] GEN Z Crosswords have taught me “no cap.” I have no idea what “cheugy” might mean.
- 24A [Three Gorges ___] DAM Officially, it’s 长江三峡水利枢纽工程 — the Yangtze River Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project. You’d have thought that the Chinese would have learned from the United States’ example that dam projects like this are at best a mixed bag. Apparently not. This project got a lot of press before it opened in 2003, but I haven’t heard much about it since.
- 26A [Scottish dish made with sheep innards] HAGGIS Thanks, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, for introducing me to that dish. I read a description of it the other day by a Scotsman I sort of know that made it sound almost tasty. Apparently, you cannot buy the real thing in the United States nor import it here.
- 35A [Home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame] CANTON, Ohio The National Baseball Hall of Fame is frequently referred to as “Cooperstown,” but there’s less of an association between the Football Hall of Fame and Canton. I must have read this somewhere because it dropped right into the grid.
- 41A [They’re worn by those who go undercover] PJS Cute clue, but since WIRES didn’t fit, I got it almost immediately.
- 42A [German city on the Ruhr] ESSEN Is Essen the Oreo of German industrial cities?
- 45A [Jamaican dialect, e.g.] PATOIS In French, it means “rough speech.” Great word.
- 68A [Painter Bonheur] ROSA I should have remembered her first name more readily, given how few female artists from the 19th century were successful enough to be in modern museums.
Rosa Bonheur, “Plowing in the Nivernais” (Musée d’Orsay)
- 1D [“Boo’d Up” singer ___ Mai] ELLA I don’t know the song and know the singer only from crosswords. It took a bit to come up with the answer.
- 11D [“They’re onto us!”] THE FIX IS IN I’m not sure how I would clue that answer, but it’s never meant “they’re onto us” to me.
- 30D [“A Day Without Rain” singer] ENYA Another song I don’t know, but the Y gave me Enya.
- 31D [Business branches] AFFILIATES I had the two F’s and assumed it had to be OFFICE something.
- 32D [2019 NBA champs] Toronto RAPTORS Another place where I needed some crosses.
- 43D [Location of many busts?] STUDIO I’m sure we’re supposed to read that clue and think of arrests. It didn’t fool me.
- 52A [Ancient Greek poet] PINDAR It took way too long to get that.
- 54D [Eric Trump’s wife] LARA No idea here, and I don’t appreciate having to think anymore about the Trump family than I already do.
- 59D [Places where some drop a lot of plates] GYMS As in plates on a barbell.
Amanda Rafkin’s USA Today Crossword, “Twist and Shout (Freestyle?)” — Emily’s write-up
Let’s dance, like we did last summer!
USA Today, July 17, 2025, “Twist and Shout (Freestyle?)” by Amanda Rafkin
Theme: each themer contains an anagram of the phrase “AND SHOUT”
Themers:
- 20a. [“Do you hear something?”], WHATSTHATSOUND
- 57a. [Vanessa Carlton hit with the lyric “Makin’ my way downtown, walkin’ fast / Faces pass and I’m homebound”], ATHOUSANDMILES
Not quite a freestyle, yet theme-lite, hence the question mark in the title. Still an impressive pair with WHATSTHATSOUND and ATHOUSANDMILES. h/t to Sally with the USA Today’s “Off the Grid” write up since I wasn’t seeing the connection for the two themers.
Favorite fill: ONLEAVE, NORUSH, META, and INCASE
Stumpers: BALATRO (new to me), PROWL (needed crossings), and SUREYOUARE (also needed crossings)
I bit of a stumper for me today. Not my longest solve, but one of my longer ones–which there’s nothing wrong with that, though I found the cluing fairly challenging so it was more of a “hunt and peck” solve for me today, making slow progress to work through but I got there in the end. How’d it go for you all?
3.5 stars
~Emily
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
Another weekday NYT themeless, I guess. Not a fan.
The theme’s there. You might want to go back and look at it again.
I thought it was one of the best Thursday NYT puzzles in a while.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT: I agree with Eric! Such an ingenious puzzle! I am not a computer programmer, but I seem to remember the concept of “nested loops” from my one programming course back in the dark ages (yeah, we were programming in FORTRAN 😎). Anyway, thanks Sam for the delightful Thursday puzzle. 5 stars from me!
A shout out to all the FORTRAN programmers! Cecil E. Leith, a pioneer in climate modelling, called it the “mother tongue of scientific computing”.
I thought it was splendid, too. The theme made it harder than it would otherwise have been (especially for those like ZDL and me who will never remember the exact doll’s name), but all to the good. (I think I always remember it as simply nesting dolls so that I don’t have to remember how to spell it.)
It’s one thing not to like it, but claiming there’s no theme is patently false. It doesn’t even play like a themeless.
Yeah … I don’t get this comment either. Do you really believe that there’s no theme here or are you just trolling?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
I never heard of dem dolls and still don’t know if they belong to Matry Oshka, Mat Ryoshka, or Ma Tryoshka.
Nor could I figure out the theme until I got 3 of the 4 of them through the crosses, and was forced to figure out the theme in order to get the fourth, 22D.
I see it’s an amazing construction feat for which it deserves 2 stars, but that’s all I can give it cause (1) the dolls mean nothing to me, (2) the parenthesized clues have no logical meaning, and (3) the theme answers have no logical connection to the clues, and (4) I found the ordeal annoying.
“[T]he parenthesized clues have no logical meaning.”
That’s simply not true. Each set of parentheses correlates to an answer. For example, in 5D, (not any) clues NARY, the next set of parentheses correlates (false witness) clues LIAR, and so on.
You’ve probably seen MATRYOSHKA dolls, even if you don’t recognize the name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll
(I had seen them long before I knew what they were called.)
Sorry you found the puzzle an annoying ordeal. I thought it was fantastic.
Agreed—great Thursday puzzle. If I could remember how to spell MATRYOSHKA it definitely would’ve been faster :-) I knew it was the Russian nesting dolls, and the theme idea came pretty quickly. Really interesting to see, and fun to solve to boot.
I am definitely in the fanclub for this puzzle. I found it wicked fun to solve, after I finally spelled the dolls correctly!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I want to add that it’s a a charming nesting dolls theme. Remembering that I would add a * to my eating.
NYT was ingenious — it took me a while to untangle the theme clues and answers, but understanding what was going on helped me with the MOANA/ARMOR/INONE/TARTT section (I would have known the last if the name had been clued with ‘Donna’…)
23A: APP. Really? Look, I know app as a thing you install on your phone, and I have come to learn that young people today use it as an abbreviation for ‘appetizer.’ But now I’m supposed to accept that it’s also short for (I assume) college application? C’mon…
TARTT and MOANA nearby were a drag for me, too. With AR, I was also drawn to ARROW but, fortunately, wasn’t confident enough to enter it.
David L, I reacted the same way to APP. However, I saw it used this week in a New Yorker puzzle, so I guess it was just a Thing We Learned.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
surprised at the hate this nyt is getting.
yes i struggled with spelling that word. but o found the theme gettable even so, and clever.
the theme entries are all solid on their own that i’d be happy to see in a themeless. and the film was remarkably clean i thought. maybe I PRAY is a little eh, and it is long past time to stop cluing REN in reference to the 90s cartoon that younger solvers won’t have heard of when you have the Star Wars heroine and “__ Faire” as alternative s.
4 stars for me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Wait, I thought the theme was really obvious? One of my fastest Thursdays, even. And of course it helps when all four theme entries are in the language, instead of some punny nonsense.
Yeah this was my problem, the theme was easy for a Thursday. There was no “aha” moment, it was just immediately obvious.
Nice NYT, I’m on the ‘+’ lobe of the bimodal distribution here. Pretty theme, well-done.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I’m right in the middle of that distribution. Clever theme, but I agree completely with ZDL that “the hardest part of this puzzle was trying to remember how to spell the transliterated MATRYOSHKA.” I knew what it was, but had to wait (briefly) for the crosses to fill in the middle bit.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
At first I thought the NYT was going to be some algebra thing. Then I thought the downs would be nonsense. Then I threw down MATRYOSHKA and realized what was going on. Delightful.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Excellent NYT puzzle. The fact that I completed the puzzle with no errors, despite not knowing the answers to 14A (BAIDU), 36D (TARTT), and the correct spelling of 7D (MATRYOSHKA), means that the other clues legitimately facilitated the solve.
One “nit” is 33D: “IS IT [?]” for “YOU SURE?” The relationship between the two queries is not sufficiently strong so as to warrant being a fair clue.
As for the theme, that became evident fairly quickly to me.
hats off to mike shenk for today’s construction
very impressive IMHO
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
At 34A/36D not knowing a Ted Lasso character cost me, since a NIB could also be (loosely) considered a sticking point.
And the themers were easily doable after some acrosses were done without taking the time to figure out what the cluing was all about.
re BEQ: I’ve been a baseball fan for most of my life, but I’ve never heard of a “Loud Out”. I tried “line out”, ‘hard out” and maybe one or two others. I looked it up and learned something. The theme didn’t help, because I didn’t understand it until I went back over the puzzle and figured it out.
However – in his Monday puzzle there was a clue “Only team to lose a World Series on a walk-off wild pitch”. The answer was “METS”. The Mets were the team that I followed for years and years, and I don’t remember this at all. I did a deep dive and could not find any reference to this anywhere – does anyone know when this happened? I spent way too much time on Google and ChatGPT, but came up empty. Maybe Brendan can weigh in here …
I posed the question about the Mets’ World Series loss on BEQ’s website Monday. As of now, no response.
I’m glad I’m not the only one unfamiliar with LOUD OUT.
According to a few sources, BEQ was correct in the part of the clue that there was only one World Series that ended on a wild pitch, but it was the 1927 series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees. The Yankees won in four games. In game four, the teams were tied through the 7th, 8th, and the top of the 9th. Johnny Miljus, the pitcher for the Pirates, led off the inning with a walk to Earle Combs, who advanced to second on a base-hit bunt by Mark Koenig. The next batter was Babe Ruth. Miljus threw a wild pitch, advancing Combs and Koenig to third and second, respectively. The Pirates’ manager ordered Miljus to walk Ruth, which he did. Lou Gehrig struck out, and after the first strike to Tony Lazzeri, Miljus threw another wild pitch, bringing Combs in to score.
Thanks.
Ruth and Gehrig I know a bit about. I’ve never heard of any of the others, though.
I’m more familiar with a Loud Strike. That’s when a batter really drives a ball that is home run length but is just foul.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I didn’t need the theme to solve the puzzle and never came close to understanding it until reading Wordplay. It’s very clever, just wish I had been able to engage with it.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
My only “nit” with the NYT was that I found the theme clues inscrutable, in the moment, figured that I would go back and grok them later, and completed the grid, without ever needing to rely on those clues.
After completing, I then took the time to assess 5,11,22, and 25, vis-a-vis the matryoshka, thought “okay, that’s clever”.
On the one hand, it’s laudable that the crossing clues provided sufficient information to fill the grid, but the clever clues wound up being Easter Eggs, rather than solving hints.
In other words, I solved it as a themeless, and it was a perfectly good one of those.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Love it! After the solve (hand raised for struggling with the spelling of the nested dolls) I stared at the grid with total admiration…and the theme clues are terrific. Add that the theme entries are fun and real-life phrases? This one’s a winner.
NYT: Most people here loved the puzzle and were amazed at those who didn’t, and several, maybe around eight people, were able to fill in the grid pretty easily but did not use the trick or theme–we didn’t get it or we didn’t need it to solve, so we didn’t enjoy the trick. The crossings were so solid that I didn’t have a great deal of trouble with the spelling of MATRYOSHKA, a term I don’t really know. My problem is with all the people who said the trick was obvious so of course they did not bother to explain it. Only Eric Hougland made an effort. I do have this problem with ZDL’s reviews. He’s pleasant, but he’s in charge of the tricky Thursday puzzles and finds the tricks so obvious that he often doesn’t explain them. Today, he did show how the puzzle works, but I could have used a bit more explication. Please, Zachary, do a little bit more explaining every week.