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) 

Friday, September 25, 2026, Rafael Musa

0:15:05

Those NW and SE corners were a struggle, IKIDYOUNOT. The clue "Olympic slalom equipment" is tricky in two ways - wrong sport and wrong season! I though Winter Olympics and skiing, but it's Summer Olympics and CANOE! And because I skipped around so much while solving, "U2 producer Brian" was the absolute last clue I saw, probably about ten minutes in. I didn't know he produced U2, but "producer" plus "Brian" plus "music" plus "three-letters" can only be one answer. Say it with me, ENO. That kind of clue is an easy way to GAMETHESYSTEM in crosswords.

In the opposite corner, I spent an eternity thinking about Hell before TAROT was finally made clear by crosses (The Devil's domain). And "Ptolemaic royal, familiarly" is not how I usually think of CLEOpatra. Likewise, "Poke alternative" was nicely misleading, as I thought only of food until, again, crosses forced my pen.

Some nice long answers today. ASKSNICELY (Says "please," say), ORALHEALTH (Focus for the foul-mouthed?) (gross), and "Invasive plants?" (ENEMYSPIES) were all good. The geographic cluster of AMMAN (World capital once known as Philadelphia) ROME (Forum setting), and SAIGON (Ho Chi Minh City's former name) was fun, with NANTES (Port on the Loire) and ASIA Minor not far away. 

This has been a bit of a crazy week, but Frannie should BERIGHTBACK with you again tomorrow.

- Horace 

Thursday, September 24, 2026, Jeff Stillman

Today's constructor scores big on the chutzpah scale for putting together a set of CRISSCROSSWORDS that celebrate Scrabble. The theme answers spell out points of interest in the game's history - from ATT to ZA - including its original inventor, ALFREDBUTTS, the above mentioned original name of the game, and the bonus score for using all seven letters on one's tray (FIFTYPOINTS), not to mention two highly unusual two-letter entries, one for ZA at 1A and two [BLANK]s at 67A, in proper Thursday-puzzle rebus format, that complete the corresponding Down answers WENT[BLANK] ("Forgot what you intended to say") and LEFT[BLANK] ("Didn't fill in, as a field on an application"). The presence of the letters Z, X, and a copious number of W's made me think the puzzle might, to score extra points, contain all letters, but no. Such a feat would have been tray difficile. :)

Solvers were kept entertained between game-related entries by amusing clue/answer pairs like "Hanger-on" (LEECH), "Ones who have trouble finishing sentences?" (ESCAPEES) and "Hamburger connection?" (UND), and the lovely "Wish undone" for RUE.

Ambiguous clues like "Ring" (4D), "Doctor" (9D), and "Ford or Lincoln" (41A) made me rack my brains for the correct semantic categories, in theses cases TOLL, EDIT, and AUTO, respectively. I was only able to enter some of the exotic fill such as GAEL, EIDETIC, and ORYXES after a process of tile and error. :)

OTOH, some fill scored less well with this solver, including STEPWISE ("From one tone to the next adjacent tone, in music"), RES ("Some scale members"), and INF ("Like Brahms's Symphony No. 3"), but I give them a pass considering the high value of the rest of the puzzle. 

~Frannie.

Wednesday, September 23, 2026, Dana Edwards

0:06:11

The theme today is three things about which one might say THATSFAIRGAME: SPORTSMANSHIP, OPENSEASON, and BALLOONPOP. Weird. SPORTSMANSHIP sort of works. OPENSEASON is a little off. I mean, when it's OPENSEASON the game that you shoot is fair game, or it's fair to shoot game... and BALLOONPOP is fine, I guess. I haven't been to a fair recently, so I can't be sure that's the name for it, but it certainly is what you need to do. So I guess a comment I might make about the theme is, UHNO.

What about the rest of the grid? I noticed the other day that ENBY had made it into the accepted word list in the Spelling Bee, so it was fun to see it in the puzzle again. And I liked that AHYES ran Down right next to the UHNO I used above. That was a nice touch. 

The most interesting clue for me today was "Rural structure seen in a Grant Wood lithograph." If you've heard of Grant Wood, you know "American Gothic," but in that painting there is only a house. But still, you know that it depicts a farmer holding a hay fork, and you think "midwest" and that gets you to SILO, even though you've never seen a lithograph by the artist in your life. That's cool, isn't it?

The Turn starts tomorrow. I'll see you again then.

- Horace 

Tuesday, September 22, 2026, Erik Agard

0:05:20

Today's puzzle comes to us from the reigning champion of the A.C.P.T., Erik Agard. I was in attendance when he won this year's final by more than a minute and a half over the second place finisher. His time in that puzzle, incidentally, was more than a minute faster than my time on his puzzle today, and that final was not a Tuesday-level grid.

But let's get to the puzzle - a tribute to the legendary album SONGSIN THEKEYOFLIFE by STEVIEWONDER. The song SIRDUKE, especially, from that album, makes me smile every time I hear it. Next time it's on, listen during the last runs to hear Stevie shout with joy, and then I'm pretty sure he yells "Down with the love!" just before the final descent. I challenge you to find a more joyful and exuberant moment in pop music.

In other news, how have I missed that TUESDAYS are "popular times for tacos?" Is it simply the alliteration? I suppose I might have paid more attention if I ate tacos with any regularity. Me, I'm more prone to eating foods flipped with a SPATULA. You know, galettes, ployes ... those sorts of things. Also, "Vase with a base" seemed odd for URN. "Vase with a cover" might have been more appropriate, no?

And speaking of ARENAS, you can still get a ticket to see the 50th anniversary tour for this album at Madison Square Garden. The cheapest seat I found on StubHub was $1,089.00 - Oy VEY!, but it might just be worth it.

- Horace