Wednesday, September 16, 2026, Peter Gorman

0:12:20

Tricksy Wednesday! I didn't see it coming, and even once I came to the revealer - "State whose outline can be made by connecting the seven particular squares in this puzzle" ([UT]AH), I didn't use that information to place what was then for me the only remaining rebus square in the NE. I blame the fact that I was out at a show last night until about 11:00 and then walked most of the four or five miles back to my house. But we've all got our reasons. La chose terrible sur cette terre, c'est que chacun a ses raisons, as Jean Renoir put it. Sigh.

Anywhoo, it's a pretty nifty feat to have the state abbreviation rebus squares positioned as the corners of the featured state - one that can be drawn with all straight lines. (I don't think it's a coincidence that the answers in the Mini today use only letters that can be made with straight lines.) 

In addition to the rebus and the cool drawing, there were plenty of quality entries. TOPPLE, with it's confusing clue "Fall or fell" was tricky, PROTOTYPES (Early models) is strong, "The remotest of remote jobs? (ASTRONA[UT], was fun, and NECTARINES (Fruits named after a mythical drink) was interesting. I have never heard of a BASENJI (Small hound that doesn't bark), but it's nice to find out about, and I have heard that for some anyway, folding a fitted sheet is not an ORDEAL. 

If you were here on Sunday, I mentioned that I liked the clue "Chilling" for the answer ATEASE. Today that same clue appears, for an answer in almost the same spot in the grid, but this time it clues ONICE. Nice.

Lots to like today. Really solid Wednesday. What'd you think?

- Horace 

 

Tuesday, September 15, 2026, Nate Cardin

0:03:27

A thick theme today of six "blank-R-something" answers that rely heavily on television shows, some very old. I never watched, but have have heard of HRPUFNSTUF, and I watched and remember JREWING, but I needed several crosses for "Many characters on 'The Pitt'" (ERDOCTORS). So it goes.

 

The C/AP "The 'R' in R.I." (RHODE) got me wondering about the etymology of that name. From the RI.gov website I can tell you that RHODE Island "was named by Dutch explorer Adrian Block. He named it 'Roodt Eylandt' meaning 'red island' in reference to the red clay that lined the shore. The name was later anglicized when the region came under British rule." Interesting! At least for those readers not native to the Ocean State. :)

In other clue-related trivia, Paddington, who comes from deepest PERU, was inspired by the only bear native to South America, the Andean, or spectacled bear. Strangely, Paddington doesn't retain the spectacled look, but has a more general teddy bear coloring.

And why are PEP rallies called that? It's short for "pepper," which has been used since at least 1847 to mean "spirit" or "energy." The first attested use of "PEP rally" is from the "Daily Review" out of Decatur, Illinois in 1915, according to the crossworder's favorite reference, the OED.

And so ends our daily review.

- Horace 

Monday, September 14, 2026, Andrea Carla Michaels and Dena R. Verkuil

0:03:14

Well, Dear Reader, Frannie and I spent the weekend with Colum et uxor, and I unloaded on them about all the things that have been worrying/bothering/upsetting me lately. I won't go into all of it with you (You're welcome), but I imagine that they will now be checking this site for proof of life, so I'll be trying to get the posts up early. :) ( :( )

 

Happily, the puzzle week starts with a fun one. GOBANANAS is the revealer, and it reveals that the word "banana" can precede the first word in all the theme answers:

BOATHOUSE - Crew building
BREADBOX - "Is it bigger than a ____?" (Nice to hear this phrase again)
SPLITDECISION - Close boxing match outcome
and
SLUGFEST (All-out boxing match) (Banana slug ... gross)

SLANG (Word hidden, aptly, in "teen's language") was an interesting find, and IBEFOREE (Lead-in to "except after C") is one of the strangest entries I've seen in a while. And did you notice that EGGS lit up when you were on 62-Down "Things traveling through fallopian tubes" (OVA)? That was a nice little Easter egg. 

Let's see, what else? There's a nice old-timey crossing of EVA Gabor and Dale EVANS, the poetic, long-distance pairing of ERE (Before, in poetry) and ANON (Soon, in poems), and my favorite C/AP today - Pinocchio's are easily exposed (LIES). Hah!

- Horace 

 

Sunday, September 13, 2026, Henry Lin-David and Frank S. David

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

Greetings, Readers! It's Horace, here, back for another week of talking with you about the puzzle. I hope you have all been happy and healthy. Me, I've been busy with a lot of things, primary among them, cleaning out my old family home in preparation for selling it, which will, of course, be traumatic. So let's talk about the puzzle instead.

Today we have a puzzle within a puzzle - a totally walled-off 4x4 square in the very center - and the clues for those eight four-letter words are answers within the grid, which must first be filled in as answers to the original clues. It's not a style of crossword that I particularly like or enjoy, but today's went smoothly enough. Is there a reason for the walled off square? Do the central answers make any sense on their own, or give an extra level to the whole thing? STEM, TAXI, AKIN, YETI, STAY, TAKE, EXIT, MINI.... no. None that I can see. 

So it's a stunt puzzle, and I've already told the story of how Bruce Haight made me appreciate them more... and I do. I appreciate the fact that it's a technical feat, but I am writing about the solving experience - mine in particular - and when appreciation comes after the fact and not during the solve, well, ... I've said plenty already. 

There were some cleverly ambiguous clues, like "Pole, e.g." (SLAV), "Chilling" (ATEASE), and "Over" (ATOP). It's interesting to think about an OAR as a "Nautical lever." I like the idea of MONKMODE (Distraction-limiting lifestyle trend), and I'm storing away the fact that VIRGO is the "Largest zodiac constellation." 

See you tomorrow!

- Horace 

Saturday, September 12 2026, Adam Wagner and Michael Lieberman

Well, Saturday's here, it's been a long busy week and I seem to have tackled today's puzzle with a case of the "meh"s.  I didn't find it that hard, there weren't really any "aha" moments, and I didn't find myself staring at a blank corner of the grid waiting for inspiration to come.  Basically I felt it fell short of the typical Saturday-puzzle level of difficulty.

That aside, there were plenty of enjoyable clues, especially down in the SW corner, with the terse 57A "Stat" (ASAP), 60A "Acquire by default?" (REPO), 30A "Rolls out the green carpet?" (SODS) and of course 42A "'Schitt's Creek' matriarch" (MOIRA - played by the incomparable Canadian SCTV alum Catherine O'Hara).

I also liked the callback-type clues 4D "Wraps in the Mideast" and 24D "Wrap in South Asia" (PITAS and SARI, respectively).  This type of clue pair always tickles me.  

The neatest thing for me was a 4-letter square near the bottom of the grid - 'WH' stacked on top of 'PR', or from the Down perspective, 'WP' beside 'HR', two very unusual letter combinations.  I thought I must have erred with the Across answers, but no - the first one was inside LOWPH ("Acidic") and the other belonged to MOTHRA ("Godzilla adversary").  That's good cluing!!

Also good cluing is 34A "First full word sung in 'The Alphabet Song'", a very inventive way to clue the word AND.  On the flip side, I didn't love BLOCK as a "word with letter or grant".  BLOCK GRANT?  oo-kay..

That's all from me this week.  Wish me luck, bloggerverse.  This time next week I'll be rolling into Quebec City, wrapping up a 5-day, 960-km (sorry, that's "600-mile") bike trip from Toronto for Campfire Circle, a local organization that provides the camping experience for kids with cancer or other serious illness. 

Friday, September 11 2026, Robyn Weintraub

It is always a huge treat for me to see Robyn Weintraub's name at the top of a crossword.  I feel like we're on the same wavelength, and for me, her puzzles just pleasantly flow with great, witty cluing from top to bottom.  On the other hand, it's probably not just me - I bet most of you have the same experience solving a RW offering.

So, no exception in today's Friday themeless.  It being the anniversary of a truly awful event in your history, I was sort of expecting a bit of that to creep into the grid, but it doesn't look like it did.  Instead, it was just one great clue after another.  Nothing too hard, although entering SOLACES instead of SOOTHES at 43A "Comforts" caused a bit of a hiccup.  

My usual MO is to put ticks beside favourite or noteworthy (or questionable) clues as I go along, and now, my paper is festooned with little dots, too many to enumerate here.  Instead, here are a few of my faves:

• 45D "City where Shah Jahan built a monument to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal" - AGRA obviously - I love how elaborately spelled-out the clue is.
• 35A "Expert in worldwide fulfillment and distribution operations?" - SANTA - ha!!  Great QMC
• 42D "Ptolemy III?" - IOTAS - I needed a few crossers for this one
• 50A "Tool for adding sparkle to lackluster prose?" - GLITTERPEN - though I guess the prose doesn't really have to be lackluster..

When I saw "Drives for money?" (TELETHONS), I was hoping at first it'd be GOLFATHONS.  It wouldn't have fit anyway.  And "Fabric related to chambray" (DENIM) was good for me as I didn't know what "chambray" was.

So much for steely analysis of a crossword puzzle! This blog turned out to be little more than a well-deserved paean to Ms. Weintraub.   ("No jury in the land..", etc. etc.)

-philbo

Thursday, September 10 2026, Simeon Seigel

A fun Thursday puzzle with a neat, inventive theme involving a fairly elaborate bit of wordplay.   I've been mulling over how best to describe it.. maybe just dive in:

The five theme clues are easy to spot, being italicized QMCs with certain letters replaced with underscores.  Quick inspection reveals that in each clue, it's multiple instances of the same letter being replaced.  For example, in 51A "Grou_ of _or_oises?", the missing letter is clearly 'P'.  Well, I suppose it could be 'T', though the clue wouldn't make much sense if it was.  And then, via diligence with the crossers, the answer reveals itself as PEASINAPOD.  Which makes sense if you read PEAS as P'S.  The missing letters are the P's in a POD!  which as we all know is the word for a group of porpoises (or other whales)..

So the thought process must have gone something like this (using another actual example):

1. Think of a word that's a homophone of a pluralized letter, like EASE.
2. Think of a common phrase starting with that word plus a qualifier like 'IN' or 'OF', like EASEOFOPERATION.
3. Think of a synonym of, or phrase synonymous with, the end of the phrase, like "Procedure" for OPERATION.
4. Take the E's out of the synonym, leaving "Proc_dur_?" as the clue.

I love this, and I bet the theme answers were fun to come up with.  The other four are:

• "Per_w_nkle?" = EYESOFBLUE
• "Min_sc_ule quantity?" = USEINAPINCH
• "Pla_e for a _ase?" = SEESINCOURT

Having flogged the theme to death, here ... I found the rest of the grid a bit tricky in spots.  On the W side, "New Year's date, concisely" was JANONE, or so I thought, and held on grimly to that belief until ONEONE was forced upon me. A bit lower than that, I had OFFGAS instead of OUTGAS (which I've never heard of) as "Release volatile compounds to the air".  This correction finally shed light on "Portmanteau for a radical environmentalist" as ECOTEUR, another new word for me.  So a little messiness in that area. 

"Remote power source" (AAA) was nice and tricky.  I didn't love WICK for "Locale for an old flame".  Why does it have to be "old", other than to make the clue read better?  Also not on my love list was the questionably pluralized TEAS ("Leaves for drinks").  "Bad spelling, perhaps" (CURSE) made me smile.

That's all for now.  Great theme today.  On to the choppy waters of Friday and Saturday!

-philbo