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) 

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 

 

Monday, September 21, 2026, Alexander Liebeskind

0:04:05

An ODE to the FORTIES, or, more to the point, "the four Ts." Four theme answers are strings of four words each, and all the words start with the letter T. In cases like these, Colum often likes to rank the entries, so today I will do the same.

TOOTIREDTOTHINK (Mentally pooped) - This is my favorite because it is where I am right now.
TOTELLTHETRUTH (If I'm being honest ...) - Even though the TV show of the same name debuted in the decade after the forties, this one is still very much alive.
TEACHTOTHETEST (Deliberately give instruction in a way that targets an exam) - This one needed too much of a clue, and who wants to think about taking a test?
TAKESTWOTOTANGO ("A fight requires more than one person") - Again, the clue is a bit forced, and the expression often includes a fifth word, "it."

So there's the ranking, what else? I liked TROPE (Familiar narrative device), USEME ("I'm available to help"), and even RADIOAD (Commercial that may come with a jingle). But what did you think about "Any Olympian" as a clue for ATHLETE? Don't they have skeet shooting in the Summer Olympics? Can we call someone who fires a gun an ATHLETE? Oh, what do I know, I'm just sitting here on the couch.

- Horace 

Sunday, September 20, 2026, Tracy Gray

RISE TO THE POWER

This puzzle answers the question "How can math be entered into the crossword solving experience?" Five answers include a BASE and an associated EXPONENT that must be put together to make the proper answer. For example, SWEETTWO works with FOUR to make "sweet sixteen" (March Madness tournament round), and WHENIMFOUR and THREE working out to "When I'm Sixty-Four" (Beatles classic with the lyric "Will you still need me / Will you still feed me"). My favorite of the theme answers was the unexpected NINEARMEDBANDIT and ZERO adding up to "One-armed bandit."

I liked learning about TONETAGS (Online forum qualifiers such as /j ("joking") or /s ("sarcastic")), and RICOCHET (It's off the wall!) was nice. I don't use the term TOPFLIGHT nor its clue "A-one" very much. TAKEARAINCHECK (Reschedule, so to speak) was good, and I like the expression ITSFORTHEBIRDS, but is "Don't pay any mind to this" the right clue for it? "Tables," on the other hand, was perfect for PUTSASIDE.

Tricky clues included "Things that drivers sometimes leave behind?" (TEES), and "Sped or bled ... or led" (RAN). 

I liked this one.

- Horace 

Saturday, September 19, 2026, Hannah Slovut-Einertson

0:20:53

You know it's a Saturday because you have learned there's something called a GUITALELE (Instrument also known as a ukitar), and that Siva SAMOA is a (traditional dance named for its country of origin). And speaking of learning things, who knew that a sawtooth shark is actually just called a SAWSHARK? Or that there's a narrative device called RETCON? It's short for "retroactive continuity," and I'm guessing it comes from tweaks to the timelines of franchises like Star Wars or X-Men. 

Interesting to find the full TEEHEEHEE ([Giggle]) in the grid instead of just a "tee" or a "hee." Speaking of, there are a lot of "spoken" answers today: GODHELPME (Request for assistance from a higher-up?), IMEANYEAH ("Sure ... that's true ..."), LIGHTENUP ("Just relax!"), LETS ("I'm in!"), SHAPEUP ("Behave!"), ORELSE (Intimidating words),  SMARTMOVE ("That's good thinking"), and ILLSHUTUP (End of a rant, perhaps). And are the answers TALKSENSE and OSCARSPEECH related to all this somehow? I suppose I'm the reviewer, I should be able to DECODE it for you, but, again, speaking of talking - I am sitting in a room full of people who are all talking, and it's hard to concentrate on writing this, so I may MISS things. Like how SETS is equivalent to "Goes down." 

I'm either an EMPTYSUIT or a PEON full of HOTAIR, but I hope you get the GIST.

- Horace 

 

 

Friday, September 18, 2026, Ryan Mathiason

D.N.F.

The NW was my undoing today. I stared at it for five minutes and then decided that I had to get on with my life. I like it, though, with its IQS (Brightness measures, in brief), ITSHOT (Server's warning at a restaurant), and TREERING (Element of a dating profile?). Cute. I don't think HORDE is just right for "Mass," and I was never going to get TED (Sci-fi writer Chiang) or TRAE (Four-time N.B.A. All-Star Young), but that's the way it goes sometimes.

I found some old MADLIB pads while cleaning out my old family home recently. They're really not all that funny. At least not when you read them forty-five years or so after they were filled in. Sigh. 

 

Two of the stutter-step thirteens went in off the clues - UNITEDNATIONS (Country club?) (the question mark gave away too much today) (see also: "Ones catching the rays, perhaps?" (ORCAS)) and GOALLINESTAND (Defensive effort in the red zone) (what else could it be?). SPLITDECISION (Not everyone agrees on this) was the best of the lot. 

 

Can't spend too much more time on this, as I have to get going, but I'll be back tomorrow, when hopefully we can have a more leisurely chat.

 

- Horace 

Thursday, September 17, 2026, Enrique Henestroza Anguiano

0:10:42

Today the em dashes found across the entire top row of Down answers are explained by the revealer, INFINITESCROLL, telling us that we should imagine the puzzle as being able to scroll such that the bottom row becomes the top, over and over again. That would have been a fun visual component to add after solving, like yesterday's Utah drawing, they could have made the puzzle scroll. Ah well, maybe it's more complicated than I realize. Many things are, it turns out.

So how was the solving experience? For me, it was more fraught than usual - dashes are never my favorite trick device - but in the end, it took me a little less time than yesterday's, and there were some clever clues to enjoy along the way. "Promising places?" (ALTARS) was clever, HOCK (Pawn) was tricky, and my favorite was "Inspired stuff" (AIR). Hah!

I am not really sure why MACS is equivalent to "Buds," and the EVO tournament is new to me. How'd you enjoy it?

- Horace 

Wednesday, September 16, 2026, Peter Gorman

0:12:20

Tricksy Wednesday! I didn't see it coming, and even once I came to the revealer - "State whose outline can be made by connecting the seven particular squares in this puzzle" ([UT]AH), I didn't use that information to place what was then for me the only remaining rebus square in the NE. I blame the fact that I was out at a show last night until about 11:00 and then walked most of the four or five miles back to my house. But we've all got our reasons. La chose terrible sur cette terre, c'est que chacun a ses raisons, as Jean Renoir put it. Sigh.

Anywhoo, it's a pretty nifty feat to have the state abbreviation rebus squares positioned as the corners of the featured state - one that can be drawn with all straight lines. (I don't think it's a coincidence that the answers in the Mini today use only letters that can be made with straight lines.) 

In addition to the rebus and the cool drawing, there were plenty of quality entries. TOPPLE, with it's confusing clue "Fall or fell" was tricky, PROTOTYPES (Early models) is strong, "The remotest of remote jobs? (ASTRONA[UT], was fun, and NECTARINES (Fruits named after a mythical drink) was interesting. I have never heard of a BASENJI (Small hound that doesn't bark), but it's nice to find out about, and I have heard that for some anyway, folding a fitted sheet is not an ORDEAL. 

If you were here on Sunday, I mentioned that I liked the clue "Chilling" for the answer ATEASE. Today that same clue appears, for an answer in almost the same spot in the grid, but this time it clues ONICE. Nice.

Lots to like today. Really solid Wednesday. What'd you think?

- Horace 

Tuesday, September 15, 2026, Nate Cardin

0:03:27

A thick theme today of six "blank-R-something" answers that rely heavily on television shows, some very old. I never watched, but have have heard of HRPUFNSTUF, and I watched and remember JREWING, but I needed several crosses for "Many characters on 'The Pitt'" (ERDOCTORS). So it goes.

 

The C/AP "The 'R' in R.I." (RHODE) got me wondering about the etymology of that name. From the RI.gov website I can tell you that RHODE Island "was named by Dutch explorer Adrian Block. He named it 'Roodt Eylandt' meaning 'red island' in reference to the red clay that lined the shore. The name was later anglicized when the region came under British rule." Interesting! At least for those readers not native to the Ocean State. :)

In other clue-related trivia, Paddington, who comes from deepest PERU, was inspired by the only bear native to South America, the Andean, or spectacled bear. Strangely, Paddington doesn't retain the spectacled look, but has a more general teddy bear coloring.

And why are PEP rallies called that? It's short for "pepper," which has been used since at least 1847 to mean "spirit" or "energy." The first attested use of "PEP rally" is from the "Daily Review" out of Decatur, Illinois in 1915, according to the crossworder's favorite reference, the OED.

And so ends our daily review.

- Horace 

Monday, September 14, 2026, Andrea Carla Michaels and Dena R. Verkuil

0:03:14

Well, Dear Reader, Frannie and I spent the weekend with Colum et uxor, and I unloaded on them about all the things that have been worrying/bothering/upsetting me lately. I won't go into all of it with you (You're welcome), but I imagine that they will now be checking this site for proof of life, so I'll be trying to get the posts up early. :) ( :( )

 

Happily, the puzzle week starts with a fun one. GOBANANAS is the revealer, and it reveals that the word "banana" can precede the first word in all the theme answers:

BOATHOUSE - Crew building
BREADBOX - "Is it bigger than a ____?" (Nice to hear this phrase again)
SPLITDECISION - Close boxing match outcome
and
SLUGFEST (All-out boxing match) (Banana slug ... gross)

SLANG (Word hidden, aptly, in "teen's language") was an interesting find, and IBEFOREE (Lead-in to "except after C") is one of the strangest entries I've seen in a while. And did you notice that EGGS lit up when you were on 62-Down "Things traveling through fallopian tubes" (OVA)? That was a nice little Easter egg. 

Let's see, what else? There's a nice old-timey crossing of EVA Gabor and Dale EVANS, the poetic, long-distance pairing of ERE (Before, in poetry) and ANON (Soon, in poems), and my favorite C/AP today - Pinocchio's are easily exposed (LIES). Hah!

- Horace 

 

Sunday, September 13, 2026, Henry Lin-David and Frank S. David

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

Greetings, Readers! It's Horace, here, back for another week of talking with you about the puzzle. I hope you have all been happy and healthy. Me, I've been busy with a lot of things, primary among them, cleaning out my old family home in preparation for selling it, which will, of course, be traumatic. So let's talk about the puzzle instead.

Today we have a puzzle within a puzzle - a totally walled-off 4x4 square in the very center - and the clues for those eight four-letter words are answers within the grid, which must first be filled in as answers to the original clues. It's not a style of crossword that I particularly like or enjoy, but today's went smoothly enough. Is there a reason for the walled off square? Do the central answers make any sense on their own, or give an extra level to the whole thing? STEM, TAXI, AKIN, YETI, STAY, TAKE, EXIT, MINI.... no. None that I can see. 

So it's a stunt puzzle, and I've already told the story of how Bruce Haight made me appreciate them more... and I do. I appreciate the fact that it's a technical feat, but I am writing about the solving experience - mine in particular - and when appreciation comes after the fact and not during the solve, well, ... I've said plenty already. 

There were some cleverly ambiguous clues, like "Pole, e.g." (SLAV), "Chilling" (ATEASE), and "Over" (ATOP). It's interesting to think about an OAR as a "Nautical lever." I like the idea of MONKMODE (Distraction-limiting lifestyle trend), and I'm storing away the fact that VIRGO is the "Largest zodiac constellation." 

See you tomorrow!

- Horace 

Saturday, September 12 2026, Adam Wagner and Michael Lieberman

Well, Saturday's here, it's been a long busy week and I seem to have tackled today's puzzle with a case of the "meh"s.  I didn't find it that hard, there weren't really any "aha" moments, and I didn't find myself staring at a blank corner of the grid waiting for inspiration to come.  Basically I felt it fell short of the typical Saturday-puzzle level of difficulty.

That aside, there were plenty of enjoyable clues, especially down in the SW corner, with the terse 57A "Stat" (ASAP), 60A "Acquire by default?" (REPO), 30A "Rolls out the green carpet?" (SODS) and of course 42A "'Schitt's Creek' matriarch" (MOIRA - played by the incomparable Canadian SCTV alum Catherine O'Hara).

I also liked the callback-type clues 4D "Wraps in the Mideast" and 24D "Wrap in South Asia" (PITAS and SARI, respectively).  This type of clue pair always tickles me.  

The neatest thing for me was a 4-letter square near the bottom of the grid - 'WH' stacked on top of 'PR', or from the Down perspective, 'WP' beside 'HR', two very unusual letter combinations.  I thought I must have erred with the Across answers, but no - the first one was inside LOWPH ("Acidic") and the other belonged to MOTHRA ("Godzilla adversary").  That's good cluing!!

Also good cluing is 34A "First full word sung in 'The Alphabet Song'", a very inventive way to clue the word AND.  On the flip side, I didn't love BLOCK as a "word with letter or grant".  BLOCK GRANT?  oo-kay..

That's all from me this week.  Wish me luck, bloggerverse.  This time next week I'll be rolling into Quebec City, wrapping up a 5-day, 960-km (sorry, that's "600-mile") bike trip from Toronto for Campfire Circle, a local organization that provides the camping experience for kids with cancer or other serious illness. 

Friday, September 11 2026, Robyn Weintraub

It is always a huge treat for me to see Robyn Weintraub's name at the top of a crossword.  I feel like we're on the same wavelength, and for me, her puzzles just pleasantly flow with great, witty cluing from top to bottom.  On the other hand, it's probably not just me - I bet most of you have the same experience solving a RW offering.

So, no exception in today's Friday themeless.  It being the anniversary of a truly awful event in your history, I was sort of expecting a bit of that to creep into the grid, but it doesn't look like it did.  Instead, it was just one great clue after another.  Nothing too hard, although entering SOLACES instead of SOOTHES at 43A "Comforts" caused a bit of a hiccup.  

My usual MO is to put ticks beside favourite or noteworthy (or questionable) clues as I go along, and now, my paper is festooned with little dots, too many to enumerate here.  Instead, here are a few of my faves:

• 45D "City where Shah Jahan built a monument to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal" - AGRA obviously - I love how elaborately spelled-out the clue is.
• 35A "Expert in worldwide fulfillment and distribution operations?" - SANTA - ha!!  Great QMC
• 42D "Ptolemy III?" - IOTAS - I needed a few crossers for this one
• 50A "Tool for adding sparkle to lackluster prose?" - GLITTERPEN - though I guess the prose doesn't really have to be lackluster..

When I saw "Drives for money?" (TELETHONS), I was hoping at first it'd be GOLFATHONS.  It wouldn't have fit anyway.  And "Fabric related to chambray" (DENIM) was good for me as I didn't know what "chambray" was.

So much for steely analysis of a crossword puzzle! This blog turned out to be little more than a well-deserved paean to Ms. Weintraub.   ("No jury in the land..", etc. etc.)

-philbo

Thursday, September 10 2026, Simeon Seigel

A fun Thursday puzzle with a neat, inventive theme involving a fairly elaborate bit of wordplay.   I've been mulling over how best to describe it.. maybe just dive in:

The five theme clues are easy to spot, being italicized QMCs with certain letters replaced with underscores.  Quick inspection reveals that in each clue, it's multiple instances of the same letter being replaced.  For example, in 51A "Grou_ of _or_oises?", the missing letter is clearly 'P'.  Well, I suppose it could be 'T', though the clue wouldn't make much sense if it was.  And then, via diligence with the crossers, the answer reveals itself as PEASINAPOD.  Which makes sense if you read PEAS as P'S.  The missing letters are the P's in a POD!  which as we all know is the word for a group of porpoises (or other whales)..

So the thought process must have gone something like this (using another actual example):

1. Think of a word that's a homophone of a pluralized letter, like EASE.
2. Think of a common phrase starting with that word plus a qualifier like 'IN' or 'OF', like EASEOFOPERATION.
3. Think of a synonym of, or phrase synonymous with, the end of the phrase, like "Procedure" for OPERATION.
4. Take the E's out of the synonym, leaving "Proc_dur_?" as the clue.

I love this, and I bet the theme answers were fun to come up with.  The other four are:

• "Per_w_nkle?" = EYESOFBLUE
• "Min_sc_ule quantity?" = USEINAPINCH
• "Pla_e for a _ase?" = SEESINCOURT

Having flogged the theme to death, here ... I found the rest of the grid a bit tricky in spots.  On the W side, "New Year's date, concisely" was JANONE, or so I thought, and held on grimly to that belief until ONEONE was forced upon me. A bit lower than that, I had OFFGAS instead of OUTGAS (which I've never heard of) as "Release volatile compounds to the air".  This correction finally shed light on "Portmanteau for a radical environmentalist" as ECOTEUR, another new word for me.  So a little messiness in that area. 

"Remote power source" (AAA) was nice and tricky.  I didn't love WICK for "Locale for an old flame".  Why does it have to be "old", other than to make the clue read better?  Also not on my love list was the questionably pluralized TEAS ("Leaves for drinks").  "Bad spelling, perhaps" (CURSE) made me smile.

That's all for now.  Great theme today.  On to the choppy waters of Friday and Saturday!

-philbo

Wednesday, September 9 2026, Dario Salvucci

Ahoy mateys!  Today's crossword brings a bit of a nautical theme to the party.  Six clues - two across and four down - are italicized - and they clearly have something seaborne in common, each referring to something to with boats, or the water on which they float.  The Across answers were straightforward enough:

• "Unsecured artillery that can slide across the deck" : LOOSECANNON
• "Equatorial ocean area notorious for lack of winds" : THEDOLDRUMS

These are easily recognizable as non-nautical idioms.  Much less straightforward are the Down answers:

• "Stand barefoot in formation along seams of deck planks" : TOETHELINE
• "Drift with the natural flow of currents" : TIDEOVER
• "Bosun's whistled call signaling a shift change" : PIPEDOWN
• "Flattened against the masts in a changing wind" : TAKENABACK

Neat!  I didn't know the seafaring origins of any of these.  Love it when I come out of the other end of a crossword having learned something!  Incidentally, there is a revealer, dead centre in the grid : "Completely lost..." (ATSEA), identifying the literal origins of all these idioms.  I think we could almost get away without it.  What do you think?

What else did I make a note of... A couple of clever QMCs:  "Worker who's behind the Times?"  (EDITOR), and my favourite today for its cheekiness:  "Character in Monsters, Inc." (COMMA).  I liked the inventive cluing for OHIO ("Its three largest cities all have names starting with C").. 

Since when is a bug's ear CUTE?  Do bugs even have ears?  I think they have, like, sensors on their appendages or something.  And the hoary old standby EKED makes another guest appearance today..

On to Thursday!

-philbo

Tuesday, September 8 2026, Sunny Maharjan

At first, I was a bit mystified by Tuesday's puzzle.  One expects a theme on Tuesdays, and theme answers are the long ones, right?  But the grid is devoid of long entries - just one 9-letter and a couple of 8's.  What to do, but to just get down to it...

Easy going for the most part.  As a Canadian born in May, there were a few gimmes for me:  I do my part to make ONTARIO our most populous province; NOVA Scotia was easy, and despite my utter ignorance in most things jewelry-related, I do know my birthstone's an EMERALD.  (I will accept the misspelled LITERS for "Soda bottle units" 😁 )  

I blew through the central 9-letter entry, barely registering that it was the revealer : "CVS rival... something something about the perimeter", for which I had enough crossers to write in WALGREENS.  It was only after completing the puzzle and sitting back that I twigged to what was going on - the grid is entirely rimmed with types of green - a WALL of GREENS if you will:  JADE, PINE, SAGE, the aforementioned EMERALD, FOREST, MINT, LIME, MOSS, SEAFOAM and JUNGLE.  So neat!!  Once again quelling this vague feeling I get sometimes, that one of these days we're going to run out of themes.

With respect to the venerable MARTINI:  I have it on good authority that its preparation must involve stirring and not shaking, so as not to bruise the gin.  "But what if it's a vodka martini?" you ask.  To which I respond, the door's right over there...

Cheerio!

-philbo

Monday, September 7 2026, Jeff Chen and Stephan Prock

Was it just me, or was Monday's crossword extra harmless today?  (Exhibit 1 : "What a hen lays" (EGG).)  A cute hidden-word-type theme, expressed in the Down answers: each of the four long answers contains a music genre, two in the downward direction, two upward (i.e. backwards).  The revealer makes sense of this - "Uplifting tunes?..." (ELEVATORMUSIC), which describes those hidden words, going up and down.  I like the punnish definition here, too, by the way.  Couple of examples:

• 3D "Electric with excitement" = ALLATINGLE (downwards)
• 32D "Dive offering slices" = PIZZAJOINT (upwards)

I mentioned how easy the grid was in general, but that didn't stop me from blundering away.  Right from the get-go, I put in EVADE instead of ELUDE for 1D "Deftly avoid".   65D "Kisses, symbolically" was XXX for a while until it was XES.   Was "'Beats me!'" NOIDEA?  Nope : NOCLUE.  Scribbles abound on my printed copy, here!  

Miscellaneous - I did not know aobut ODESSA's more modern spelling (ODESA, evidently)...Have you ever wondered how VINES find things to climb?   Google it - I found it fascinating!...I suspect YOWZAH is one of those words whose spelling is whatever you need it to be...

See ya tomorrow!

-philbo

Sunday, September 6 2026, John Kugelman

Hi folks!  Philbo here, back from a three-week hiatus from not just crossword blogging but crosswords altogether.  It's been a busy time.  Jumping straight back into it, today's puzzle promised to be a fun one, with six theme clues presented pictorially.  The theme being "Crossover Films", I was looking for movie-related wordplay, and so it was.  Each is an artist's rendition of the silly phrase resulting from two overlapping movie titles.  I found them all pretty funny - I wanted to put my favourite in here, but I can't decide, so here's one at random : A SHOT IN THE DARK, overlapping THE DARK KNIGHT, yields A SHOT IN THE DARK KNIGHT, depicted by a drawing of Batman getting an injection.  Ha!  

If I'd been more on my game, I'd have tried harder to guess the movies from the pictorial clues, but as it was, I just worked around them with the filler clues until the answers were obvious.  Probably cost me a few fun points in doing so, but oh well.

The rest of the grid was fine, more or less.  I found a few points of awkwardness; e.g. YESANDS ("Follows the first rule of improv") - not sure this is a pluralizable phrase.  And UNITER seems a bit clunky as a "sort of person who brings people together".  But I quibble.  There was much to like - a handful of clever QMCs like "Clearing account?" (ALIBI) (my fave!) and "Burn unit?" (KILN) - and also a couple of evocative entries for me:  In 1988 I toured Europe with my then-girlfriend (now my wife of 9-days-away-from-35-years) via EURAIL passes.  More recently, my ACPT friends Horace and Frannie and Colum and I, plus assorted plus-ones and other friends, have made it a bit of a habit to dine on Indian food on Tournament Saturday, which of course features NAAN along with aloo gobi.

SCLERA ("White of the eye") is an excellent word.  As for ANYHOO for "So-o-o, as I was saying...", I like it better as the anagrammatic ANYWHO.  Canadian thing?  Speaking of national identities, are DANES just so naturally polite that they don't need the word "please" in their language?

That's it for this review.  I didn't exactly CRUSHIT, I know, but I'll blog my way back into fighting form.

-philbo

Saturday, September 5, 2026, Fritz Juhnke

Wait, what?

He's learned his lesson? He managed to get his review published in the morning? An old dog can learn new tricks, it turns out.

And what a fun Saturday. Easier for me than Friday's, but very enjoyable. It boasts four grid-spanners, which in time-honored fashion, I will now rank based on how much I personally liked them.

4. 12D: Primary follower (GENERALELECTION). A fine answer, with no trickiness to the clue.

3. 3D: Incident so dramatic it feels like a movie (HOLLYWOODMOMENT). A better phrase, with a clue that essentially gives it away.

2. 17A: Nay sayers (ALLTHOSEAGAINST). A nice clue, using a recognizable idiom in a literal way, and a good answer.

1. 63A: Sarcastic response to boasting (ARENTYOUSPECIAL). Just a great phrase.

LION Dance

I had any number of errors during the solve which slowed me down. I wanted ICEcAstlE instead of ICEPALACE. I had Ette at 62D: Diminishing return? (ECHO). I do like my answer, but it doesn't quite work ("ette" as a diminutive, you see). I had TErn instead of TEAL (which should have been more obvious with the clue).

I very much liked 52D: The sound that concludes "The Sound and the Fury" (LONGE). So good! Also, 16A: What you might hear when you get someone's goat? (BLEAT). Hah! Did you get 46A: Toy popularized by Queen Victoria, familiarly (POM)? Referring to the dog breed, Pomeranian.

Well, this was a fun week. Philbo, take it away!

- Colum

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