Crossword Puzzles

Evan Kalish displays his raw talent.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Waiter, there’s a SPIRAL (43A) in my crossword! In fact, there are four of them. But no need to send it back — I’ve just devoured the whole thing, spirals and all.My compliments to Evan Kalish, the puzzle’s constructor, for serving up a grid that I only wish I could have savored for longer. I was left in quite a state, you might say, after solving it. And now that I’ve nudge-nudged you ad nauseam, let’s dig in, shall we?Today’s ThemeAt first I thought that these spirals must be cinnamon buns, or some kind of funnel cake. Possibly a traditional spanakopita. But the revealer at 36-Across described these whorls as [Popular sushi options], which led me to CALIFORNIA ROLLS.In this puzzle, “California” takes on a more direct meaning: A closer look at each spiral reveals the name of a different Californian city. We have SAN DIEGO, CUPERTINO, LONG BEACH and PASADENA.I had trouble identifying the city names until I located the beginning of each spiral, so I suggest that solvers do the same: They’re at 16A in the top left, 11D in the top right, the L in 47A/37D in the lower left quadrant and the P in 55A/50D in the lower right.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Spencer Leach opens our solving weekend.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — One of the things that really floats my boat when it comes to solving crosswords is the discovery of entries that are making their debuts in the New York Times Crossword. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen certain entries over and over again, so when something new and exciting comes along it catches my attention.Sometimes I try to guess which entries are debuts and, not to brag or anything, I am usually wrong. I chalk that up to the fact that I write only two columns a week now, so I don’t see all the entries anymore. But I was surprised that 13A, for example, was not a debut. (I look these things up on xwordinfo.com.) The entry has appeared only once before, in this puzzle from April, and in the same position, oddly enough. But just the presence of the entry and its rarity was enough to tell me that I was in for a fun solve.Today’s puzzle, constructed by Spencer Leach, is full of lively entries, seven of which are debuts. His puzzle put a smile on my face — a lovely distraction in an uncertain time.What are your thoughts on debut entries? Do you ever wonder whether a word or phrase is new to the Crossword or marvel at how fresh the grid feels?Tricky Clues16A. The [Small scale business?] in today’s puzzle is a DELI, where things are measured on a countertop scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Sarah Sinclair and Paolo Pasco wish you a groovy holiday.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — You may think that I have the wrong holiday based on the photo at the top of this column, but that’s really just a distraction. I’m sure you know what holiday we’re talking about. We’ll get to that in a moment.When she is not creating crosswords, Sarah Sinclair, one of today’s constructors, is often designing knitwear, and she graciously offers free patterns for items such as a New York Times Crossword streak hat. The rest of her puzzle-themed patterns are here. Paolo Pasco, today’s other constructor, is a puzzle editor at LinkedIn and a crossword maker who contributes to The Times, The New Yorker, A.V.C.X., The Atlantic and more. This is his 27th crossword in The Times.By the way, if you are under the impression that crossword constructors are uber-intellectual, ascot-wearing snobs, you couldn’t be further from the truth. To prove this, I am rerunning a photo that Mr. Pasco and Ms. Sinclair sent me when one of their puzzles was published in June. Constructors are a silly, fun-loving, wonderful bunch, and you should never be afraid of a crossword that comes from the likes of these people.Courtesy of Paolo Pasco and Sarah SinclairToday’s ThemeIt isn’t Halloween without the presence of the 1962 Bobby Pickett song “MONSTER MASH.” I’ve heard the song countless times — I may have even sung a verse or two — but I had never seen the video of Mr. Pickett performing it. The mad scientist grimaces and eye-rolling, a nod to the horror film stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, make his performance so much fun.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Josh M. Kaufmann speaks his Crossword debut into existence.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — There is no better evidence for the theory that history repeats itself than in the entertainment industry, where reboots and remakes are churned out as quickly as audiences can digest them. I’m still incredulous at the suggestion that “Mean Girls” needed a 2024 remake — is the version I saw in theaters in 2004 already considered a relic? (And by extension, am I one?)The 1988 film at the heart of today’s crossword, a New York Times debut for Josh M. Kaufmann, has been revisited more than once: A sequel was released this year, and there’s also a Broadway musical based on the original. What should we then call Mr. Kaufmann’s puzzle vis-à-vis the franchise? A spinoff? A reboot? A rebus? Please share your pitches in the comments section.Today’s ThemeThis solution requires a bit of summoning because the [Ghoulish character] at 29-Down answers only to his name. What’s more, we have to SAY IT THREE TIMES (59A) in order for him to appear.One way to address him is directly: BEETLEJUICE (29D). Another is to look at the circled letters in the grid and PUT THEM TOGETHER (17A), which gives us BEAT-ULGE-OOSE. See that? It’s a phonetic rendering of — Ha, nice try. You won’t get me to say it a third time.Tricky Clues14A. Fill-in-the-blank clues tend to be figures of speech, but I failed to imagine the idiomatic sense of [“Throw me ___!”] and tried entering “a rope.” (You don’t know; maybe the constructor wrote this clue while stuck in quicksand.) The correct answer is A BONE — used colloquially to describe a small concession that’s intended to distract from a larger issue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Kathy Lowden shows off her collections.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Let’s talk about one of my favorite parts of the English language: collective nouns. These nouns are notorious for grouping animals under winking labels that have some truth to them — a bloat of hippopotamuses, a mischief of mice, a conspiracy of lemurs. My father has jokingly referred to members of his professional field as a “prey” of lawyers. Skeptics may question the need for distinctions among such descriptors, but I see them as essential to the whimsy of language. In fact, I declare that a group of collective nouns is called a “necessity.”Today’s crossword, constructed by Kathy Lowden, proposes a few lesser-known groupings of people, animals and things. She takes a slightly more whimsical approach to naming her collections, but I’d say her taxonomic methods are sound.Today’s ThemeSound! Get it? Because each of Ms. Lowden’s themed entries is a rhyme. They don’t pay me to be this embarrassing, you know — I do it for the love of the game.Each of the rhymes is a witty, rhyming twist on the clue. For instance, a [Whole bunch at a family reunion?] may sound as if it refers to flowers or food, but it’s DOZENS OF COUSINS (17A). A [Large array for a desk?] isn’t stacks of papers, but SCORES OF DRAWERS (25A). If you mention that [Big group in a dog show?], you must be talking about OODLES OF POODLES (46A).I’ll leave the last one for you to discover, or you can click to reveal it below.61. [Massive collection for an alchemist?]OCEANS OF POTIONSWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Michael Lieberman’s latest puzzle is a real trip.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — New York City has been teeming with team spirit for the past few weeks as the Mets, the Yankees and the Liberty moved simultaneously into postseason games. It was a rare convergence, and I shared in the rah-rah revelry like any responsible home-team fan. My sportsmanlike attitude about our losses, however, turned out to be highly unpopular.I understand. It’s unlikely that any sports fan would reduce the stakes of a season to “the friends made along the way.” But there’s a case to be made for striking a balance between fandom and frivolity — which, in a sense, is exactly what Michael Lieberman has done with today’s crossword.Today’s ThemeAmong nursery rhymes, “Mother Goose” stands out as standard fare. Three rhymes in this collection happen to involve similar mishaps: HUMPTY DUMPTY (28A) fell off a wall; JACK AND JILL (17A) fell down a hill; and the LONDON BRIDGE (45A) seems to be in a permanent state of falling down. Each of these tumbling tales can be aptly described using our revealer clue at 59A, [Nickname for the World Series]: FALL CLASSIC.Even as one unfamiliar with the nickname, I appreciated Mr. Lieberman’s humor all the same. And while no clear explanation has emerged for why falling seems to be such a popular theme in nursery rhymes, couldn’t it furnish inspiration for writing one of your own? It’s one jumping-off point, anyway.Tricky Clues19A. I aspire to be the kind of home chef who can season her dishes with psychic precision. For now, though, I prefer to get spice guidance from recipes. [How salt and pepper may be added, in a recipe] is TO TASTE.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Alex Murphy makes his New York Times Crossword debut. Here are your smelling salts.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — Every once in a while, I get mail from solvers whose main question, when you get right down to it, is “Really?”That query covers a lot of topics, but I know what these readers are actually asking. They’re asking, “Is … is that something you can say in The New York Times?”The answer is yes, more or less. The Times may be known as the Gray Lady, but the puzzle editors really don’t mind including certain entries of a sexual nature. Sex is a part of life, the topic has been covered in The Times quite a bit and as long as no one violates newsroom standards, everything is hunky dory. Many of us, for example, survived the great EDIBLE UNDERWEAR scare of 2011 with our dignity intact and our pearls unclutched. And the clue, [Tasteful bedclothes?], was brilliant, which I believe more than made up for the shock factor.Today’s puzzle is Alex Murphy’s debut in The Times, and it’s a good one. There are two areas — in the northeast (the juxtaposition of 18A to 12D) and in the southwest (the entry and a clue that could be used as a 31A in misdirection) — that might cause a raised eyebrow or two. But I think we’ll be OK.Tricky Clues35A. The answer to a question like [Head cold?] is: “Yes it is. I am suffering from BRAIN FREEZE as we speak.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More