Monday, July 27, 2026, Aidan Deshong

In today's puzzle, we find a literal GRAYSCALE: the solfège scale - made famous by Julie Andrews - appears, in order, within shaded boxes, two in each of four of the longer Across answers. So we have DO and RE in IDONTCARE and MI and FA in SMILEYFACE. A number of the other answers felt like they could be part of it including SUMO, SOHO, KYLO, PESO, TODO, and LYSOL. O sole mio! I suppose I should LEGO of that now.

Some fine fill scored points with me, including GASLIGHT, SOOTHE, OUSTED, and COVET, but what makes this puzzle sing are the fun overlaps, intended or otherwise, between the fill and the theme. In the top left corner we have a Post-it NOTE. Also in that corner with DO, instead of a female deer, we have a "Male deer" or STAG crashing the party. The QMC, "Things to be taken on a walk?" (STEPS) could be considered theme material - in the whole or half sense, but the one that's off the scale is the QMC in the top left, "Pitch that's hard to hit?" (HIGHC). Ha! That one took me a minute because it looked so weird when at first I had only __GHC.

Another C/AP I had trouble with was EVEN for "All tied up." Instead of the sports category, my brain could think only of 'busy', or 'held together as with string'. Make of that what you will. 

The one element I found out of tune was the clue for 30A. I would have preferred that it read "Title for a married woman, maybe" (MRS).

~Frannie.

Sunday, July 26, 2026, Kim Alswager

DOWN THE TUBES

When I was a teen, video arcades were big. On the weekend, I would take the #2 bus downtown to the Silver Ball, and I would turn the money that I made on my paper route into tokens. My best game was Asteroids, but Donkey Kong was there too, and I played it sometimes when somebody else was on the Asteroids machine. Since then, Asteroids faded into a footnote, while Donkey Kong spawned a whole universe of characters and games, and now this puzzle.

I should maybe also add that after college I pretty much stopped playing video games altogether, and so my knowledge of all things Mario is pretty much limited to what I have picked up through previous crossword puzzles, and it turns out that didn't amount to much. I had no idea that he could use a FIREF LOWER (weird cut) to throw flames, that there was a character named PRINCESSPEACH, or that she was held captive in BOWSERCASTLE. I had never heard the name WARIO before, and I think I confused YOSHI with Yoshimi, from the Flaming Lips song. So, as you can see, I was not the target audience for this one. And that's fine. I still learned the words ENTHALPY (Total heat content of a thermodynamic system), VINYASA (Yoga style in which each movement is synchronized with a breath), and PEEPTOE (Shoe style with a small opening in the front), so that's good.

"Short hand?" (HOUR) was my favorite clue.

Frannie takes over tomorrow. For real this time! I'll see you in a while. Happy Summer! 

- Horace 

Saturday, July 25, 2026, Katie Hoody

YAY! It's a Katie Hoody puzzle! She's got the kind of record any wannabe constructor would dream of - she's done ten NYTX puzzles, one Thursday and nine Saturdays. 

It's all about the cluing. Fine examples today include "Let on a court, say" (CALL) (a decision on a tennis court - this one took me forever!), "It's made of diamonds" (ARGYLE), "Coach's lack, often" (ELBOWROOM) (so, so good), and my favorite of the day "Second person seen in 'Hamlet'" (THOU). I put that in and for a moment I thought, "I don't remember anyone named THOU." Sigh. Not a person, "you."

Speaking of misdirection, for "Fashionable spots?" I was thinking of a night club or a swanky restaurant, but no, it's POLKADOTS. Ha! And "Predigital recording devices" had me thinking of abaci and stone tablets, but it wasn't that far back, no, it was just PENS. And how about "One might check a box for it" (MAIL)? I just did that very thing yesterday, but did it come to me without crosses? No. No it didn't. I did, however, put HOSE (They might be thrown out if they run) in right away, and it's been at least a few years since I wore any. :)

It's always a pleasure seeing Ms. Hoody's byline, and this one didn't disappoint. I hope you enjoyed it too.

- Horace 

Friday, July 24, 2026, Geoffrey Schorkopf

The turn continues today with this stagger-stack themeless. Today I much preferred the non-QMCs to the QMCs. "Criminals in the oil industry?" (ARTFORGERS), "Not show-stopping" (BINGEWATCHING), and "Group with defining traits?" (WORDNERDS) were all trying pretty hard, but "It makes one red in the face" (CLOWNNOSE) and "Start of a protest" (BUT) were both solid. At least that's my take.

But I'm in a bit of a SNIT, so perhaps you should take this all with that in mind. I'm not in a full RAGE, but I'll be surprised if I don't give myself an ULCER worrying about things I cannot control. I though OVERLONG about things last night, and I really need to tell myself to PUTTHATDOWN because LIFEISTOOSHORT. I'll be dead soon enough, but BEFOREIGO, and since I have mentioned paired clues all week, it seems, I'll say that I enjoyed that both HIRE (Bring on) and CAN (Fire) were in the grid together. And it's also nice that ARGOT and ARGON are symmetrical.

That is all.

- Horace 

 

Thursday, July 23, 2026, Damon Gulcynski

Greetings, solvers! Welcome to the Turn - those late-week puzzles that we love so much. It starts with Thursday, where there is often a trick of some sort, and today is no exception. Six letters in this grid are hidden in black squares and must be understood to exist while solving. If you are solving electronically, the letters will show up as white on black when you finish.

So what are we talking about? DARKENERGY (Proposed cosmological phenomenon that could make up 70% of the universe - and six squares in this puzzle's grid?). The "hidden" letters spell out "energy" in order, and are used in both Across and Down answers. And in typical, good-constructing fashion, the entries that use the letters end up being valid entries on their own without them, so while DEATHSTAR[E] is the actual answer to "More than just a disapproving look," the letters without the final E spell "death star." Really nice work, but then, I would expect nothing less from a veteran like Mr. Gulcynski.

In non-theme, I enjoyed "The Devil's radio" (IDLEGOSSIP), "Strong suit?" (ARMOR), "Sphere, e.g." (SOLID), and WACKO (Totally bizarre). We also get another set of paired clues: "Unleavened South Asian flatbread" for POORI (yum!) and ROTI. And I thought it was interesting that "unread" worked just as well as UNREAD[Y] for "Ill-prepared." But, of course, "den" did not work for "Not admit" (DEN[Y]).

How'd you like it?

- Horace 

 

Wednesday, July 22, 2026, Rebecca Goldstein

It's summer, and a traveling carnival could be coming to your town. Or, you might be vacationing in a seaside locale with an amusement park. If either of those things is true, you could find yourself going there on a HOTDATE (Organic chemistry experiment?) (excellent clue), and maybe you'll TRYYOURLUCK at the RINGTOSS. Well, I'd say you'd be better off doing this puzzle instead, because it looks like those circled letters are heading straight for the rebus bottle. And a big PLUSHTOY is just hanging there waiting for you at 11-Down. Hah! It's a fun little Wednesday theme. 

So, I was going to put up a photo of LOX (Deli supply), because I like it, but then while looking for a photo, I came across a page that told the difference between LOX and smoked salmon, and since it was something I didn't know before, I thought I'd share it with you. LOX is brined, never smoked, and smoked salmon is either brined or cured in some other way, and then smoked. So LOX ends up being a little saltier and a little less tough than smoked salmon. I mean, sure, now that I've said that it all seems obvious, but, well, I didn't know it.

In other news, UPC (Seller's bottom lines, for short?) got another cute clue. "Get in bad with?" was a fun one for ABET. And we always enjoy paired clues, as seen at 9-Down and 33-Across today, with "You are correct about that" cluing both TRUE and ITIS. My favorite clue today might be the non-QMC "They're typical" (NORMS). Sometimes those straightforward ones can be very satisfying.

And hey, did I mention that I was in Italy recently? While there, I drank quite a bit of APEROL.

Hope you enjoyed this puzzle. I'll see you again tomorrow for the start of the Turn!

- Horace 

 

Tuesday, July 21, 2026, Kenneth Cortes

Sometimes puzzles clarify the meaning of a phrase for me. Take BADABINGBADABOOM, for example. Would I have been able to say it was the equal of "Easy-peasy!"? I might have just said it meant something like "There's that thing, done." But yeah, I guess it usually does imply simplicity.

So anyway, that was the first answer in today's GOOUTWITHABANG theme. (I like it when the revealer also works with the theme.) The others were SANDBLAST, STARBURST, and REDWINESUPERNOVA, the Chappell Roan song. All solid entries, so full marks there, as I've heard them say on BritBox. 

I was not familiar with the HABANERA Cuban dance style. I see it was popular in the 19th century, which is longer ago than the AUGHTS. (OHYEAH, worked in another entry!) (OHGROWUP, I hear you groan, to which I reply, THATHURT.) 

Funny that RHINOS is in the grid, as I am just now reading Rhinoceros by Ionesco in anticipation of seeing a performance of same at the A.R.T. in Cambridge in a month or so. I am plowing through it in the original French, though the performance, I believe, will be in English.

HER/she (chocolate bar's pronouns in a corny joke) was amusing. I hadn't heard that before. And I'm not too familiar with the term "Backcomb" (TEASE), so that was interesting to learn.

Overall, a fine Tuesday.

- Horace