Friday, September 4, 2026, Julian Xiao

And no lessons were learned. 

Yesterday's fiasco is repeated today. Who needs reviews posted in the morning? Apparently not me, who found the morning slipping away from him due to the need to walk dogs and get ready for work. Are there any other possible solutions?

Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Meanwhile, a really challenging Friday crossword puzzle made me work double hard for a solution. Literally, it took me about twice as long as usual. Start with 1A: Result of a tense build-up? (JENGATOWER). And with NATIONALTV just a couple of rows below, the NW corner was a real challenge, despite the gimme of NATASHA Lyonne. 

The amazing ETTAJAMES is the link into the NE corner, where SOJOURNER and 28A: Cooking term whose name is composed of two synonyms for "criticize (PANROAST) are excellent entries. I also liked 13D: Adjective that becomes its own synonym after its first letter is dropped (EVILEST). Hah!

GUINEA and Sierra Leone

I know Horace enjoyed the unexpected pairing of DATIVE and LATIN. He's not actually the well-known Roman poet, but he has studied the works of his namesake.

ATARIGAMES is a callback to my youth. We played both of these games on my Atari 800 in the early 80s. That's a long time ago now.

SRILANKA and 46A: Longtime Pixar character who says "I might be old, but I still got a spring in my step!" (SLINKYDOG) round out this chunky and beautifully constructed grid.

How can Saturday top this?!

- Colum

Thursday, September 3, 2026, Zhou Zhang

Turns out I'm not very good at remembering to write these posts in the morning when I'm on service in the hospital! My apologies for the delayed review. We work hard to get these things out early so that people can refer to them if they so please. And I need yet another angry email from Horace like I need another hole in the head!

Just kidding. The emails are more disappointed than angry.

But speaking of holes in the head, the theme today is phrases with the word "hole" in them, but where the word is replaced with the letter O. To add to the complexity, the phrases refer to objects that can be found inside of the corresponding answer which contains the O in the across direction.

Sometimes I think explaining themes is more complex than practicing Neurology.

You see, 2D: Slangy "mouth" found in a 20-Across (PIEO) refers to a "piehole," which can be found inside 20A: Noodle (NOGGIN). Cleverly, 32A: School unit (CLASSROOM) contains both a CUBBYO and a OPUNCH. I particularly like that the two phrases start and end with "hole."

The other two are OCARDS, found in a POKERGAME, and MANO, found in a ROAD.

HYENACUB

For fun clues, we get 5A: She's possessive (HER) - very nice; 72A: Letters found near some bars (LTE) - that's on a cellphone, you see; and the vague 47D: 2, 4, 6 and 8, e.g. (AGES).

I do like me a tricksy Thursday.

- Colum

Wednesday, September 2, 2026, Mac Motz

Many merry manifestations made by Mac Motz!

Doesn't it feel like this should have been a Monday puzzle?

Likely inspired by his own name, Mr. Motz has created a puzzle where every clue has two words that start with the letter M, and four "theme" answers which are made of two word phrases both starting with M. The revealer is helpfully placed at 1A: "Melts in your mouth" candies ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme (MANDMS).

It's an incredible feat of construction, even if it doesn't necessarily translate into the most entertaining of themes. So, hats off to the constructor. I bow in respect.

SAM Cooke

I read an interesting web comic about one mother's reaction to J.K. Rowling and her anti-trans sentiments; to the point - what should a parent do when a child is interested in the Harry Potter series? I bring this up due to 38A, an excellent example of the double M clue and answer. In the end, her point was that we can be honest with our children and point them towards better fiction, and not continue to support the Pottermerch universe.

Meanwhile, I think we can still continue to support MICKEYMANTLE.

Great clue at 39D: Mild-mannered characteristic? (HYPHEN). Very nice.

- Colum

Tuesday, September 1, 2026, Paul Hudes and Margot Kohn

Rabbit, rabbit!

Is what I did not say this morning, at the same time as I did not write this blog post. Delayed in every sense. I blame Washington.

But on the positive side, we have a nicely absurd theme today, where actual URLs are the clues, but the answers are silly puns based on different synonyms for a webpage. Thus, 17A:  https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil? is BURIALSITE, while 26A: https://www.hot-dog.org is SAUSAGELINK.

I applaud the use of the secure version of the websites (https), but also am reminded of the scene in Only Murders In The Building (call back to yesterday!) where the two old guys laboriously type in https and www only to be told by the young woman that it's not necessary.

ADELA Rogers St. Johns

I love the setup of this grid. It's got a great flow from section to section so that the solver is rarely relying on a single letter wide entry into a segment. There are a nice pair of long down answers in the NE and SW corners, including NOSPOILERS and SETHMEYERS. 

And for the overall win, you get 39D: Pulled down a pair? (PANTSED). Hah!

Fun Tuesday.

- Colum

Monday, August 31, 2026, Christopher Youngs

I wonder sometimes, as I solve another crossword puzzle, how much of an individual constructor's personality is encompassed within the clues. I know that the editors have a varying degree of input into the cluing, as they ensure that the level of difficulty is standardized to the day of the week the puzzle is published on. But does Mr. Youngs enjoy modern music so that ATONAL led to IGOR being clued by Stravinsky? Or is that simply association by closeness in this primate's brain?

After all, I was also tickled by coming across 28A: Role for Selena Gomez on "Only Murders in the Building" (MABEL) just after watching two episodes of the latest season last night. Considering the season in particular came out over a year ago, this is more of a coincidence than me and the constructor being on the same wavelength.

Andrea Bocelli singing to ELMO

Today's theme is cute: SPREADTHEWORD is taken to note that the first word of the other three theme answers are spreadable condiments. BUTTERFINGERS, JELLYFISH, and HONEYMOON are the phrases in question. I enjoy the odd candy bar of the same name as the first; we had run-ins with the second when we were at the Delaware Beaches this summer; and I very much enjoyed my third in Hawaii back in 1996. Which makes this year my 30th anniversary!

In any case, a smooth and enjoyable Monday puzzle.

- Colum

Sunday, August 30, 2026, Daniel Grinberg

WRITTEN IN THE STARS

Hey folks! Can you believe the summer is almost over? I'm enjoying the last weekend in August sitting on our screened porch in Albany, taking a break from the city. I wouldn't say it's been the most relaxing summer I've ever had because of reasons, but we enjoy what we can when we can.

Speaking of which, how about enjoying the NYT crossword? The Sunday edition is always a bit of an outlier for a number of reasons: it can accommodate more and longer theme answers, which allows for more absurdity, which I like. But it is also larger, which can make the solve a bit of a slog sometimes, and it may be tilted towards an early-week level of difficulty.

Sadly, today's puzzle is not one for absurdity. The theme is revealed at 69A: Ones making periodic appearances ... or the link between the capitalized clues and their answers (RECURRINGCHARACTERS). In essence, the connection is that the names of the individuals in the clue and the associated answer are made up of combinations of the same limited set of letters. This sort of theme is interesting but not intellectually stimulating. Knowing that Martin Sheen and HENRIMATISSE use all of and only A, E, H, I, M, N, R, S, and T makes me say, "OHREALLY?" And that's it.

POLOCOATS - something I've never heard of

In the rest of the fill, I liked the clue 61A: Four to two, e.g. (SQUARE) - not odds, not ratio, not a moment in time. 15D: Stout figure? (BREWER) is a cute QMC. 

Having FUNNYGIRL and GIGI in the same grid, along with ARIA and SOLI all scratched my music itch. 

So it's a fine Sunday, not the best, but I did get to solve it sitting on my porch in nice weather, so I'm happy.

- Colum

Saturday, August 29, 2026, Rafael Musa and Kate Chin Park

Although I entered the answer to 1 Across as easy as ABCS, most of the rest of my solve was SORANDOM. I can't count the number of times I had to run the alphabet to generate ideas for what an answer might be. Fortunately, the system worked, and aside from the occasional USERERROR, I figured out the twisty or tricky answers, which very often elicited a pleasing 'aha' moment. My last entry was at the cross between CHENG ("Romanization of the common Chinese surname 程") and "Work, as a joke." My brain, it PARSES 'work' as a noun not a verb, and it continues to do so for the entire puzzle. I only made sense of it after the puzzle was complete. 

Other misinterpretation PITTs I fell into include "Ones giving a toast at an outdoor party?" (PATIOHEATERS) - even with the question mark, it took me a bit to arrive at the correct meaning of toast. Another such was "Stepped-on instrument" for SCALE. I was thinking musical rather than gravitational. Another problem was simply not understanding the clue, as in "Green day star, for short" for STPAT. Derp.

I enjoyed the pairing of SUSHIBOAT and ALIENSHIP. C/AP-wise, I liked "Court session, perhaps" for TENNISLESSON, "Naturally concluded" for RANITSCOURSE, "Depicts stylishly" for PAINTS, "It goes on top" for SHIRT, and the tricky-for-me, "Nearly 90" for BPLUS. 

The grid-spanning BULLINACHINASHOP was excellent. Fill-wise, I also enjoyed LOGARITHM, MOHAIR, ERSTWHILE, and the amusing - and slightly OUTRE - BIGASS for "Humongous, slangily." Ha. 

It's the end of my week here at HAFDTNYTCPFCAWCFPT-F, so "A word in closing": THUS.

~Frannie.