Saturday, August 15 2026, Blake Slonecker

Hello all!  Rounding out my week of blogging is a real cracker of a Saturday crossword, with a clean supersymmetric grid bisected both horizontally and vertically by stacks of long answers, and content that came THIS close to breaking me in two separate places.

A bit of a soccer theme was detected, with French soccer star Kylian MBAPPE making his NYT crossword debut (as far as I can recall), and reference made to ENGland's national team the Three Lions.  It reminded me that I did enjoy this year's FIFA World Cup, despite the off-the-charts corruption of its organizing body and (ahem) other related entities...

Back to the crossword!  A fantastic new word was added to my vocabulary today : AESOPICA ("Fabulous collection")!  I needed all the crossers to make any sense of it.  It didn't help that I originally had OPENED in 1A ("Began") instead of DAWNED.  I'd also never heard of OSAKA being referred to as "Japan's kitchen"... But my real near-nemesis was the NE corner, where I blithely wrote in ORAGEL as a "Toothache care option" and then wondering how the devil "7/" could be GUL.  The penny finally dropped with ORAJEL and JUL - phew!  

I loved the factoid about the Statue of Liberty's second TOE being longer than its first one.  I'm looking at an image right now and yes, so it is - and also, there's only one foot exposed so the singular reference in the clue makes sense.   

HOLLA as "Say 'Hey', say" was new to me, though I liked the terse symmetry of the clue. And I smiled at the clever and oh-so-familiar "Oil wells?" (PORES).  

Much else to say .. e.g. my take on bullfighting, unfamiliarity with the TEXASTWOSTEP, ETCETERA.. But I have a vacation to pack for, so you're own your own.  I now leave you in Horace's more-than-capable hands..

-philbo

Friday, August 14 2026, Zhou Zhang

A nice solid Friday themeless today, with an interesting layout (more long Down answers than Across), great cluing - and, a mere Q and a V away from pangram-dom, which would have been two NYT puzzles in a row.  I assume Ms. Zhang was aware how close she was, and I imagine it might have been tough to resist the temptation to force those two missing letters in there..  

With no theme to describe today, I'll go scattershot around the grid, highlighting the points of special interest - starting with the beautiful IRIDESCE at 35D ("Shimmer colorfully").  Not that it's the clue of the year or anything - I just find the word so evocative.   Two great C/APs side by side on the right - CONFABULATE ("Shoot the breeze") and OCCAMSRAZOR ("Philosophy of 'Keep things simple', in a sense").  Occam's Razor is a great tool to have in one's philosophical belt, I think - if we all embraced it, about a million conspiracy theories would vanish overnight.

AYCARAMBA carries the indelible whiff of The Simpsons, and right below it, BREAKUPSEX is about as lascivious as these crosswords ever get.  Speaking of Simpson, IMEANCOMEON was a phrase often used when discussing the guilt/innocence of O.J. back in the mid '90s.  I liked the brisk imperative "Scratch that!" (ITCH), and "Guard for some time?" is a clever QMC for RENTACOP.

"Huddling, as teammates" (INCLOSE) and "Good places for a deep dive into research?" (SEALABS) seemed a bit contrived to me.  And is THATSMYJAM a generational thing?

Well, that concludes my "drunkard's walk" (look it up!  It's related to how stars shine, amazingly) around the Friday grid.  Hope you enjoyed the solve as much as I did!

-philbo

Thursday, August 13 2026, Killian Olson

A delightful puzzle today, with a clever theme that was opaque to me until the revealer made it all make sense in the end.  Going through the Across clues, we encounter four in italics, straightforward enough except their (evident) answers either don't match the crossers, or don't fit the available squares:

• 17A "Mafia members, e.g." should be MOBSTERS but it's LOBSTERS
• 26A "Alimony recipients, say" should be EXSPOUSES (too long!) but it's ESPOUSES
• 41A "Drinks at a pub" should be ALES (too short!) but it's AXLES
• 53A "11th of a noted 12" should be AQUARIUS but it's AQUARIUM

I had all this written in by the time I encountered the revealer "Evaluating, as an opponent", whose answer SIZINGUP makes the above make sense - the 'M' in MOBSTERS is 'sized up' to 'L' to make LOBSTERS, and so on.  Very neat, and the idea to include XS and XL as 'sizes' is downright brilliant!

The very first letter of the grid is a 'Z' (say it with me : ZED) and of course, that gets the ol' antennae quivering - and sure enough, the crossword is a pangram!!  Always impressive and I didn't find it forced at all.

No big snags to report here, aside from some initial theme-related confusion.  I had a false start with ZIPPO at 1D for '0' (it's ZILCH) but other than that, everything flowed nicely.

Elsewhere in the news:  We've all seen the RICOLA commercials, right?  Is that really yodeling? .. I got a kick out of the clue for PBJ ("Sandwich that may be a bit crunchy.." <-- emphasis on MAY, for those of us in the smooth-PB camp). This, by the way, joins BRRS ("Verbalized shivers") as the Vowelless Answers o' the Day.  And there's EKE again, this time clued as "Pull (out), as a narrow victory"!  We need some sort of bureau of standards to weigh in on this word, finally.

Signing off till tomorrow..

-philbo

Wednesday, August 12 2026, Adrienne Baik

Today's puzzle is right up my alley as an old computer nerd, AND as a licenced operator of automobiles.  The dual theme is revealed by the central grid-spanning answer INTERNETTRAFFIC, and the theme answers, reading top to bottom, tell a little driving story, couched in IT terms:

Went for a GOOGLEDRIVE ...
Drove at excessive NETWORKSPEEDS...
Caused a COMPUTERCRASH...
And now there's a SERVERDELAY

Fun!  There's such a thing as PACKETCOLLISION in network-speak, which would also have been apt!  PRINTERJAM perhaps less so, though most printers *are* networked these days. 

Elsewhere, I tip my hat to the inventive cluing of the pedestrian words ONE ("Only number to appear twice in the Fibonacci sequence") and THE ("Hot French beverage").  Another short one - RUG ("Throw, for instance") - actually threw (SWIDT(*)) me for a moment:  I thought it was RIG, which would have also made sense.  And CTRLC ("PC 'copy' shortcut) was downright vowellessly cheeky, if you ask me.

I had to look up ARO to make sense of why it means "feeling little to no amorous attraction".  Learn something new every day!

That's all I got.  See you tomorrow!

-philbo

(*) See What I Did There

Tuesday, August 11 2026, Wade Bednar

Today's crossword is of the "embedded word" variety, with the longer answers containing theme words, tied together with the standard revealer down near the bottom of the grid.  And the theme?  Chinese dynasties - to wit:

• FLAMINGLIPS (psychedelic rock band)
• HANSZIMMER (German film composer)
• WUTANGCLAN (Hip-hop group)

...all revealed by SONGDYNASTY - apparently the first Chinese government to establish a permanent navy.  Nice factoid!  There's cleverness here that I didn't get right away - at first I thought, ho hum, embedded dynasty names - but lo! the substrates are all musically connected, and the revealer dynasty is SONG - aha!  So I take back my "ho hum".  

Outside the theme - I liked the hyperbolic clue for DOI ("Abso-freaking-lutely!") ... interesting intersection of ELMO and ELM in the NE corner ... "People hold complicated positions on it" was a great clue for TWISTERMAT,  I have vague recollections of playing Twister as a kid, blissfully unaware that it's really more of an adult game.  

I take slight issue with the C/AP "Duck down" = EIDER at 33D.  Yes, "eider down" is a thing, but an EIDER is a type of duck.  I feel like this not an EIDER-or thing.  (Or maybe I just wanted to slip this groaner in, here)

There was an odd moment in the SE corner when it looked like the "big export of Myanmar" was going to be RABIES.  "What the heck?" I thought.  (It's RUBIES.)

All in all a nice puzzle, which would not have been out of place on Monday.

Onwards and upwards!

-philbo

Monday, August 10 2026, Nate Cardin

The notable thing about today's puzzle is that Mr. Cardin has managed to incorporate six theme clues into the grid, including the revealer, which does double duty as a theme answer itself.  Great construction, and I do love me some good recursion!!

It wasn't hard to see what was going on.  As I worked my way down the grid, gentle even for a Monday, I encountered SIDEBYSIDE ("Next to each other, like many washers and dryers"), PLAYBYPLAY ("Detailed, real-time description of events") and then STEPBYSTEP, apparently both a 1990's sitcom title and a New Kids on the Block hit (I knew neither of these) - so it was clear what the pattern was.  Sure enough, the revealer "Many an off-road vehicle..." is of course FOURBYFOUR, which describes the theme perfectly - two four-letter words side by side - and is also pleasingly self-referential.  Big kudos from me!

Not much to report otherwise.  I did not know that Anne Lamott recommends tackling big writing projects BIRDBYBIRD.  Seems kind of weird but I'm sure there's some sort of case-in-point, or metaphor, underlying it.  And "Foggy mental state" (HAZE) made me sad as that's the state of the air in our westernmost province right now.  My brother's there, trying to cope and helping out however he can.  Thoughts and prayers, for what they're worth...

Anyway.  Fun, easy Monday puzzle with a great theme.

-philbo

Sunday, August 9 2026, Erik Agard

Howdy out there in Crossword-land!  Philbo here, back for another week of blogging - and what do I get right out of the gate, but a rare themeless Sunday puzzle authored by Erik Agard, who absolutely slayed at this year's ACPT!  And a chunky puzzle it is, with a paucity of black squares, two grid-spanning double-stacks at top and bottom and a big fat block of intersecting long answers occupying the centre of the grid.  Somewhat intimidating out of the box!

I needn't have worried, though.  Thanks to really fair cluing and nothing terribly obscure, this turned into a pleasant, gentle solve on my sun bench, with family helping out with a clue or two.  At the top of that chunky centre block, LIFESPAN was my way in ("Up to 150 years, for a tortioise" - what else could it have been?).  I worked my way downwards to the very amusing and excellently-clued BEESTING ("Honey boo-boo?" - who can forget that reality show from a decade+ ago?).

Aside from entering AWOKEN instead of ARISEN for "Up for the day", my only real problem was with the very first grid-spanning clue "Swimmer's invitation" (COMEONINTHEWATERSFINE) - I had it ending with WARM, and then NICE, until the crossers finally came to the rescue, one of which was another great QMC - "12 letters?" (XII), and another - AFROMAN - a rapper of whom I've never heard. Much messy scribbling in the NE corner!

I feel like I'm not able to do this puzzle proper justice here - there are just too many satisfying moments, especially in the longer clues, to enumerate.  There's no "trick" or gimmick to explain - just a solid, satisfying experience top to bottom. If you're reading this, I hope you can relate to what I'm saying.

Just one little nit at the bottom.  I'm pretty sure there should be an extra 'D' in "ODS bodkins!" as a bygone oath, although the the search I did on alternate spellings was, admittedly, somewhat cursory (see what I did there?).

Off to enjoy the sunny day, tempered somewhat by the fact that the western end of my country is on fire right now :(   Back atcha tomorrow!

-philbo