Tuesday, July 28, 2026

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CJ Tan’s Universal Crossword — Eric’s Review

CJ Tan’s Universal Crossword — 7/28/26 (Click to Enlarge)

There was a lot in this themeless grid that was new to me, and the stuff that wasn’t new was clued loosely enough that little of it came quickly. Let’s DELVE in:

• 1A [Ease into it] START SLOW And I did, not getting the triple stack in the NW until well into my solving.
• 10A [Singer who dropped the $ from her moniker in 2014] KESHA A gimme, though I know very little else about her.
• 15A [Head honcho] NUMERO UNO Does the OUNO look as weird to you as it does to me?
• 23A [Stage name of “Clarity” DJ Anton Zaslavski] ZEDD This should have been a gimme; that song is one of the few pieces of dance music I have and enjoy.
• 34A [Party item that’s subject to inflation?] BALLOON ANIMAL Cute clue.
• 38A [Cartoon about Finn and his magical dog Jake] ADVENTURE TIME I had absolutely no idea on this one.
• 51A [Spanish word hidden in “chariot race”] OTRA I’m still getting used to seeing this sort of clue for words other than proper nouns.
• 59A [Disclaimer before a mean remark?] ON AVERAGE Cute clue.
• 61A [“Genuinely!”] NO LIE Not NO CAP.
• 1D [Flashiness] SNAZZ I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen the adjectival form, which goes back to the 1960s.
• 9D [Puzzle made of letters in a grid (wait a minute …)] WORD SEARCH I’m still waiting . . .
• 12D [Artistic portmanteau for unique NFL final tallies] SCORIGAMI I don’t follow gridiron football, but I might have come across that word in some other word search crossword.
• 21D [Symbol of watchfulness] OPEN EYE The —EN led me to try KEEN for a bit too long.
• 29D [Solidify, like cold gravy] CONGEAL Thanks for that lovely image, guys!
• 34D [Romantic getaway, colloquially] BAECATION Definitely never heard this one; BAE always irks me because is it really that hard to say “babe”?
• 35D [Something taken in moderation?] ADMIN ROLE Nice clue.

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “When They Go Lo” — you know what to do – Jenni’s write-up

As Michelle Obama famously said, “When they go lo, we go hi.” OK, I took some liberties with the spelling. Each theme answer has HI where LO should be.

Jonesin’ Crossword, Matt Jones, July 28, “When They Go Lo” – you know what to do, solution grid

• 11d [#1 songs that bring good fortune?] are HITS OF LUCK. Lots of luck.
• 17a [Head snake?] is HISS LEADER. Loss leader.
• 27d [Requirement to decode the jargon of a guy from the sticks?] is HICK AND KEY. Lock and key. Does that one really work? I guess you need the hick, too.
• 62a [Vacation spot full of bees?] is HIVE ISLAND. Love Island, which sounds to me like a truly wretched reality show. I took my kid and a friend to dinner a few weeks ago and was treated to an in-depth discussion of the current? recently completed? season. Ick.

Fun theme! A nice treat for a hot summer day.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that the last games for the WII were released in 2020.

And just because he appears in the grid, I give you Will RIKER and his – chairs.

Adam Vincent’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Adam Vincent’s New York Times Crossword — 7/28/26 (Click to Enlarge)

The theme answers all contain a different way of spelling something akin to “achoo.” And there’s a punny revealer to explain it:

• 17A [With 58-Across, dad-joke response to the answers for each of this puzzle’s starred clues] IT’S NOTHING/58A [See 17-Across] TO SNEEZE AT
• 25A [*Essential oil with a musky scent] PATCHOULI
• 31A [*Home of the lowest town-level ZIP code in the continental U.S. (01001)] MASSACHUSETTS
• 38A [*”Until next time!”] CATCH YOU LATER
• 49A [*Academy Award, e.g.] STATUETTE

As early-week themes go, this is solid enough. I like the variety of ways the “achoo” is spelled; I didn’t see what was going on until I got the second half of the revealer.

I’m prompted to think of other ways the revealer might have gone: “It’s nothing/to write home about.” “It’s nothing/to do with you.” “It’s nothing/personal.” What else?

Other stuff:

• 5A [Scott ___, author of “Island of the Blue Dolphins”] O’DELL I didn’t recognize the author or his Newbery Medal-winning kid lit novel. (I was a voracious reader as a boy, but few of the books I read seem to make it into 21st-century crosswords.)
• 64A [Rat (on)] TELL Not NARC.
• 34D [Org. mentioned in many zombie movies] CDC Interesting clue that I just now saw.
• 43D [Part of a country located entirely within another country] EXCLAVE I tried EXURBIA because I read too clue so hastily. I thought “country” was “county” and jumped too a wrong conclusion.