Friday, October 2, 2026, Joe Marquez

Steady does it, was my feeling on finishing today's puzzle. No great bursts of solving, but a even-keeled pace of figuring things out, leading to a solve time just slightly slower than my typical for a themeless. I really enjoyed the easy-going nature of many of the answers today, leading to a grid filled with colloquialisms.

The seeds for this puzzle must have been the two grid-spanning answers, WHENCANYOUSTART and LETMESAYMYPIECE. Two great 15-letter entries, with somewhat opposing tones of voice! Other fun answers in the same style include IFEELGREAT and 14A: Sugar substitute? (SWEETIEPIE). That's a great QMC.

3D: Written posts? (EPILOGUES) evaded me until I had almost all the crosses. The clue is nicely misleading, I wasn't certain where I was being asked to go. 

SOFIA

What are we to make of 23A: Whose fault your mistake might be (NOONES)? Are we being facetious? After all, it's already recognized that the mistake was yours! I chuckled when I put the answer in.

Epictetus is, as is typical, pithy when he says that WEALTH comes from needing little. Hah!

Overall, I found this puzzle to be entertaining and smooth, with good entry into the areas that are more cut off (like the NW and SE sections). 

- Colum

Thursday, October 1, 2026, Jill Singer

Rabbit, rabbit!

Happy October all. And yes, I've managed to do it - solve the puzzle the night before and have the review ready to go first thing. I'm so proud of myself.

Well, you know we all enjoy a good rebus puzzle here at HAFDTNYTCPFCAAPTF (that's getting a little unwieldy even in acronym form). I particularly like it when the squares are unpredictable, adding a little flair to the solving process. Today I figured out only one of the three squares prior to being forced by crosses to get it.

Our revealer comes at 55A: Obstacles ... or a hint to three squares in this puzzle (STUMBLINGBLOCKS). And indeed, in three squares we have a synonym for stumbling! Thus PLEDGEO[FALL]EGIANCE, PAY[SLIP]SERVICE, and MAGNETICS[TRIP]E. I like the first two better than the last one, because the hidden word crosses multiple words from the original phrase. But they're all excellent entries, and you wouldn't get the first one in a standard 15 x 15 grid without the rebus!

Some great clues here on our tricksy Thursday, as well. 16A: Features of gathering clouds? (AEIOU) is outstanding. 38A: It's just a state of mind, to some (AGE) is pretty good advice for most of us, I'm sure. I even get one of my all-time favorite composers mentioned at 41D: French composer who refused the Legion of Honour in 1920 (RAVEL). Apparently he declined all state honors from the French government.

A fun Thursday, if a touch too easy.

- Colum

Wednesday, September 30, 2026, Joel Woodford

My apologies for the late review today. I mean every day to get in the habit of solving the night before and having the review ready to go, and then forget! Habits can be hard to form, it turns out.

Today's theme is a winner in my book! We start with noting that each of the theme answers (written in italics) ends with an exclamation point. In standard clue parlance, this means that the clue is instructing the solver to imagine doing the clue to the answer. Thus, the clue "Beat it!" might lead to the answer "drum."

But none of the clues have "it" in them. But actually they do! The "it" is hidden inside of the clue word. For example:

17A: Market! (EXAMPAPER) - should be reinterpreted as "Mark it!"

24A: Ticket! (CHECKBOX) - should be reinterpreted as "Tick it!"

Very nicely done. I especially like SURPRISEPARTY in the middle of the grid.

Any puzzle that finds room for GIBBOUS is impressive, if you ask me. And the symmetric answer has PANACHE. What flair! And then to have 24D: Collection of dishes? (CUISINE) cross over FOODIE is well done.

Also, we often have SULU, but how often do we get

SCOTTY

- Colum

Tuesday, September 29, 2026, Hanh Huynh

This sort of theme used to be quite common - common phrases which can then be split into two other common phrases by the addition of a shared word across the puzzle. I had heard that the NYT Crossword team had tried to move away from these themes, unless there was a great revealer. Well, I think this puzzle has one.

58A: Wedding officiant's directive ... or what both halves of 17-, 25-, 35- and 50-Across do? (JOINHANDS). Thus, if we add "hand" to the front and back of the theme answers, we get new common phrases. 17A: Where some monster home runs land (UPPERDECK) gives us "upper hand" and "deckhand." Nice call back to yesterday's puzzle, by the way!

Explaining 5D

Fun to have 9A and 10D crossing each other: similarly clued, but with a key difference. 9A: British John (ELTON) has a capital letter, while 10D: British john (LOO) does not. Later in the week these would have both been clued "John in England" and you wouldn't have the giveaway of the capital letter. Interesting how these sorts of things work!

It's not that remarkable that GREENDAY's American Idiot has gone platinum six times over. Do albums do that any more? Has streaming removed the meaning of the term? A quick Google search tells me that it's still in use, but now refers to a combination of downloads, physical album purchases, and streaming. A sogn/video has to be streamed 1,500 times in order to match a purchase of an LP/CD. The most recent album to go platinum was Cardi B's "Am I the Drama?"

- Colum

Monday, September 28, 2026, Helen Chen

Take me out to the ballgame ...

Ms. Chen is inviting us to enjoy the upcoming playoffs, with a LEADOFF / HOMERUN. The theme has us reinterpreting the first word in four common phrases as slang for a dinger. Thus, BOMBSHELL, TATERTOTS, BLASTZONE, and JACKFRUIT. It's a fun idea, and it's supplemented by non-theme entries such as 43D: Like the score going into extra innings (ALLTIED), 63A: San Francisco ballplayer (GIANT), and 17A: Solid baseball hit (LINER).

I note that my interpretation of 37D: Complete series (BOXSET) was biased by all the baseball lingo. I couldn't fit "three/five/seven games" into the space allotted, however.

Greta GARBO

I've always been amused by the saying "Time flies like an ARROW; fruit flies like a BANANA." The play on different meanings of the word "flies" is great. I am reminded of the great Groucho Marx saying: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

Otherwise, it's a smooth and enjoyable Monday puzzle. I realized as I was solving that I was moving down the West side of the grid, which is unusual. When I solve quickly, I tend to move from NW to SE. But this grid has the diagonal line of black squares blocking that flow.

- Colum

Sunday, September 27, 2026, Adam Wagner

THE FULL 12 ROUNDS

Hey, everyone! Fun to be back on such an interesting Sunday puzzle. I've been solving and not reading the blog much, which means I've got a lot to catch up on. Philbo's biking, Horace and Frannie are redoing their bathroom, and the world's only getting more and more crazy. There's a Nor'Easter hitting NYC even as I'm solving and typing. But the crossword is always a nice escape!

Today, we have six oval shapes, each with 12 letters in them, with helpful arrows and start and stop points placed within. I suppose that the "12" in the puzzle title refers to the number of letters in each encircled answer? Also, nicely, each of the circles has at least one answer which is bounded by the circle, so that it's six letters long. This the answer that gets the clue for the circle.

That made a lot of sense.

But if you look at 28A: ... outdoor festivals)(Bathrooms at ... - you'll see what I mean. The answer to this particular clue is PORTAPOTTIES, only it comes as ES|PORT over ITTOPA. 

I see this is not helping.

Anyhoo, clever that all across answers still make sense as acceptable crossword entries, whether they are words on their own as in SORTER and PECT|IN, or parts of larger answers, like DRAGRACES.

SAMIN Nosrat

To finish out the theme, there are two revealers, one at 49A (CORIOLIS effect - note that the three answers in the Northern "Hemisphere" of the puzzle go clockwise, while the three answers in the Southern "hemisphere" go counter-clockwise), and the other at 85A (LOOPBACK). 

That's a lot of explanation for a Sunday theme. There are a couple of clues which are clever, including 92D: Shaders of gray? (AGEISTS), and 39A: Baby who's up all night? (OWLET).

See you all tomorrow!

Saturday, September 26, 2026, Brian Callahan

0:21:48

Today Horace and Frances are doing a joint review and they found a GENDERGAP in their solving approach. (And in their approach to writing the review!) You might think think Frannie's approach was more SHAPELY, but Horace has more TALON. (Frannie's joke!) When Frannie complained about SIDEBANGS and WEREGOOD, Horace said, GETAGRIP! (TEEHEEHEE.)

There was some talk during the solve, but no TRADEDEAL was reached. They both remembered that Tim Tebow existed, for example, but were not able to come up with the act of TEBOWING itself. Was it something to do with taking a knee? 

Frannie enjoyed the QMCs "Watch party?" (SENTINEL) "Gag reflexes?" (HAHAS), and "A bit corrupt, perhaps? (DATAROT), and the non-QMC "Camp distribution" (RATIONS). Horace's favorites were "Critical response concerning a piece of fiction?" (YOULIEDTOME), "Real page-turner?" (SPEEDREADER) (even though he's not one), and "It's in the eye of the beholder" (RETINA). Hah!

We wouldn't say this puzzle went to ELEVEN, but it wasn't PHONED in either. 

- Horace (and Frances)