Wednesday, November 4 2026, Peggy Sue Marlin

Today's crossword is all about the revealer at 56A.  The three similar-looking theme clues point the way : "56A on a store/elevator/interstate".  Not much to go on!  So one approach here would be to go straight to 56A, work out the answer and then, armed with that, revisit the first clues.  Or...just blunder down the grid so that by the time the revealer is exposed, so is most everything else and it's just a matter of looking back and seeing how it makes sense.   And so it was for me.  "That spells trouble!" reveals ITSNOTAGOODSIGN, and I'd already worked out the other answers...

• SORRYWERECLOSED - bad sign on a store;
• OUTOFSERVICE - bad sign on an elevator; and
• EXPECTDELAYS - bad sign on an interstate

Very clever!  Honestly I'm so impressed with Ms. Marlin, and every setter really, for the inexhaustibility of the themes they come up with.

Some nice fresh takes elsewhere in the grid.  "Sensationally detailed" is an excellent clue for LURID.  Never thought of giraffes as having MANES, but of course they do! I also liked the PC key clues side by side (CTRL and ESC) but only because I was solving with pen+paper today.  Clues like that are too "gimme" when you're doing the puzzles online.

"Sourdough starter" (ESS, of course) made me smile.  It was a sliver of a silver lining during the pandemic, that my spouse became a dab hand at making sourdough bread..HAIM ("Rock band founded by three sisters) was new to me.  I must give them a listen!  Intersecting this clue was HERA ("Divine protector in 'Argonautica'"), which was also unknown to me.  And intersecting that was another Argonautica clue, a "Magical ally" this time - MEDEA, also outside my sphere of knowledge. This is the scenario most dreaded at the NYT Xword Tournament.  Evidently, I need to brush up on my classics!

As I write this, the US midterm results are rolling in.  Maybe there's hope for you people after all.  But leave us not prematurely count our chickens ....

-philbo

Tuesday, November 3 2026, Victor Schmitt

The five long clues in today's crossword are all similarly constructed, as pairs of names, some famous and some not-so-famous.  It was not immediately clear what they had in common - e.g. 18A "Michael Jordan and Anatole France?", the latter not primarily known for his basketball skills.  But with a slight perspective change, the similarity between the last names jumped right out, and sure enough, the answer is COUNTRYBOYS.   I find this quite cute, and there are four others:

• "Faith Hill and Sally Field?" = LANDLADIES
• "Jenny Slate and Emma Stone?" = MATERIALGIRLS
• "John Snow and Robert Frost?" = WEATHERMEN
• "Sabrina Carpenter and Anita Baker?" = CAREERWOMEN

The relative obscurity of a few of these people turns out to be immaterial.  I liked this concept for its pleasant "aha" factor.    (Would "Jon Snow" have been more recognizable, though?)

Pretty easy going elsewhere.  I liked the QMCs "Merger site?" (ALTAR) and "Candy wrappers?" (PINATAS).  JURYRIG ("Set up as MacGyver might") has its roots in the world of sailing, and reminded me of a recent puzzle whose theme answers all had nautical origins - looking back, it was Wednesday, Sept 6, in which setter Dario Salvucci packed in six (!) such clues.  

GENUS makes its second consecutive Tuesday appearance, this time as "Homo, for humans" .. I did appreciate the absurd improbability of having "M_SS_SS_PP_" on aWheel of Fortune board and still having to buy ANI.  I mean, geez..  And KODAK, the erstwhile maker of Instamatic cameras - classic example of a company whose sector dominance is swept away by the winds of progress.  There's a street not far from where I live here in Toronto called Photography Drive, on which, up until about 15 years ago, was a Kodak plant.  C'est la vie ...  

-philbo

Monday, November 2 2026, Max Schlenker

Well, it's almost Monday and having put a serious dent in our cache of leftover Hallowe'en candy today, I am fighting off a sugar crash.  Fortunately, today's crossword didn't put up much of a fight, even for a Monday.  

In keeping with my need of a brain jumpstart, the theme is electrical in nature, the four theme answers ending with items necessary to illuminate a room : EMOTIONALOUTLET, CHICKENWIRE, TULIPBULB and STAYCURRENT, all leading to the humourous revealer IVESEENTHELIGHT.  All very straightforwardly clued, though the electricians among us might have expected others; e.g. CONTEXTSWITCH, HAIRPLUG and oh, I dunno, BLUESBREAKER..  Yes yes yes, it's a 15x15 grid, I know, I know...

I have to say, reviewing the rest of the grid, nothing noteworthy is really jumping out at me.  KIRBY was unknown to me in a Nintendo context.  SLC as "Capital of Utah, in brief" gave me a few moments of pause.  And right off the bat, 1A "Gender-neutral pronoun" (THEY):  I have no issue with gender neutrality, or gender fluidity for that matter, but can we as a species not have done better than co-opting an existing word that already has a (plural) meaning?  It's a little nitpick of mine.

I do think it's cool that a Boy Scout can get a merit badge in Nuclear Science.  In my day, when a kid had a meltdown, it meant a whole other thing..

OK I'll stop now.  "See" ya tomorrow!

-philbo

Sunday, November 1 2026, Kevin Curry and Zhou Zhang

Greetings everybody!  It's been a looong time since I last had the pen on this Blog thing.  Thanks Horace+Frannie+Colum for crushing it in the meantime!  

Today's puzzle was so much fun. We're presented with an unusual-looking grid, with clusters of black squares in the interior and several entries partially highlighted in grey.  Also, sprinkled throughout are several circled letters.  So ignoring all this, and the self-referential clue at 1A ("This puzzle's subject"), I just worked my way around the (quite gentle) grid in a clockwise spiral, encountering no real roadblocks along the way until the very bottom right corner, where 122A "Its famous holes are formed by propionibacteria" and 108D "'Smile!'" intersect in their last square, which happens to be circled, and is filled with the six-letter ending to SWISSCHEESE and SAYCHEESE.  That was an interesting development, given the circled squares already encountered were all filled with single letters..  

Moving along (and moving the narrative along) .. the grid got filled in and I hadn't really consulted the "theme" clues (the ones with the partially greyed answers), so it was at that point that I was able to sit back, inspect everything and appreciate the cleverness of the construction:  I already had CHEESE in the lower right; and the answer to 1A turned out to be LABRAT.  Now finally looking at those theme clues - each only cluing the un-greyed part of its answer, with the greyed part being an additional word, completely unclued, which results in a perfectly legal phrase.  For example -

• 30A "Appetizers, entree or dessert" : OBSTACLECOURSE
  
• 67D "Many a shipwreck site" : BARRIERREEF

The greyed words have something in common - they're all impediments to progress - and sure enough, if you treat them as such and view the whole grid as a maze, there's only one way to navigate from top left to bottom right - to get the LABRAT to the CHEESE (which explains the odd placement of black squares).  Collecting the circled letters along the way, they spell out WHOMOVEDMYCHEESE, the title of a best-selling motivational book.  So many layers to this puzzle!

I've gone on long enough here.  My one blip was filling in BURMESE and not SIAMESE for "Feline with distinctive blue eyes".  I looked it up - Burmese cats' eyes are yellow. Oh also!  There I am, as the answer to 53D "Pride of Punxatawney"!!

Not getting the Terseness Award for this review, I fear.  But I hope you enjoyed this puzzle as much as I did!

Cheerio and Happy All Saints' Day!

-philbo

Saturday, October 31, 2026, Erik Agard and Brendan Emmett Quigley

Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you're all getting your spook on. We are planning on seeing our daughter perform in a dance show called "Bloodbath" tonight. The name is on point, but we'll see how scary it is.

But what wasn't spooky was the crossword puzzle. I had high hopes for this week that we'd have multiple themes or themelesses dedicated to the season. Instead, it was only two. I see this as a failure of imagination. 

But I jest! We continue our run of high-powered collaborations with a themeless by Mr. Agard and Mr. Quigley. And it's a high quality product! We start with 1A: Couldn't get any higher? (RATESATEN). Only Nigel Tufnel's amplifiers go higher (Spinal Tap reference alert). 7D: El Niño feature (TILDE) did not fool me for a second, but that's because I had my Saturday solving hat firmly in place.

Senegalese TWISTS

The trio of middle long answers are excellent. Let's start with the remarkable looking rap group name WRECKXNEFFECT. This was a rap duo from Harlem. Their most popular hit, "Rump shaker" went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. KEEPHOPEALIVE is lovely, but I particularly like 35A: Store with expensive items (TREASURETROVE) - "store" here meaning not "shop" but "collection." 

The two long down answers are also very good. 3D: That's a good one! (TOTALSWEETHEART) is a great example of the exclamation point type clue, where the demonstrative pronoun refers to the answer. 12D: "There's no doubt who's going to win" (ITSNOTEVENCLOSE) is a nice colloquialism.

It's been a fun non-spooky week! I'm handing off to Phil (I think).

- Colum

Friday, October 30, 2026, Robyn Weintraub and Rafael Musa

A Friday Robyn puzzle? With Rafael Musa as well? Yes, please!

Longtime readers of HAFDTNYTCPFCAWCCFP know how much we appreciate Ms. Weintraub's offerings, and today's puzzle certainly does not disappoint. Look at 1D: First name that contains four of the first five letters of the alphabet (CALEB) and then at 2D: Macronutrient group? (AEIOU). Amazing! 

Almost every clue or answer has something to recommend it. 5D: Pieces of writing from the French for "try" (ESSAYS) elevates a standard piece of crosswordese. 18A: Aid in evaluating some calls (SLOWMOTION) is ludicrous in its careful description.

10D: Common fix for a prolbem? (AUTOCORRECT) might have slipped your notice! But the word "problem" was misspelled in the clue. 

40A: Result of keeping a lid on too long? (HATHEAD) - hah!

SHIVA

I love the way SMARTTVS and VNECK look in the grid. Such a great combo of multiple consonants.

Add to all of this the fun long answers we are used to from these constructors, such as BACKSOSOON, KEEPSHONEST, and it's a good solve. 

Almost enough for me to overlook the fact that we're not even trying to be spooky any more. Wonder whether they'll finally break down for Saturday's puzzle?

- Colum

Thursday, October 29, 2026, Sam Ezersky

Apparently not everyone got the memo when it comes to the overarching theme of this Halloweek, I guess. There's nothing remotely spooky about today's puzzle! Unless you think an EXDA shouldn't be in politics, I guess.

Instead, we get an amusing reparsing of phrases where the first word or words can be reinterpreted as verbal hesitation. Thus, the classic comparison of two people who can never get along is instead discussing two paint bases (LIKEOILANDWATER). I particularly liked 55A: It's ... (what am I trying to say?) ... it's what my dentist uses (YOUKNOWTHEDRILL). I chuckled at this one.

I'm not convinced by the use of giant commas in the grid to help us see what's going on. Are they necessary? They certainly helped me see how to solve some of the answers by showing me where word breaks in the phrases occurred. But I could have solved the puzzle without them, and maybe have found the "aha!" moments on my own. Your mileage may vary, I expect. Also, I think the NYT likes putting in visual elements now to spice up the grid, so it's become a trademark.

SALMAN Rushdie

Some fun clues today. 25D: She has a lot of young followers (MOTHERDUCK) is a nice example of this style of direct referent clue. 48A: Paper you can trip on? (LSDTAB) took so many crosses before I understood what we were looking for. But how about 57A: Cause of dog bites (LICE) - no question mark here at all! I love that the clue changes the meaning to ways in which dogs are bit.

It's a fun theme and a strong grid. Keep up the good work, Sam! You might have a future in puzzling. Now we just have to get you to accept more acceptable words in the Spelling Bee.

- Colum