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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

You may not know which way you’re going when you solve Ella Dershowitz’s puzzle.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — Saying anything about today’s puzzle, constructed by Ella Dershowitz, would give away the theme, so the only thing I will urge you all to do is to keep the idiom “robbing Peter to pay Paul” in mind as you solve.Also, I would like to congratulate Ms. Dershowitz in her starring role in New York City in a play called “Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library.”Today’s ThemeANY TAKERS is the answer to the revealer clue at 35A, [“Who’s interested?” … or, phonetically, what four answers in this puzzle are vis-à-vis the answers next to them].That’s all well and good, I hear you saying, but why are some of the clues and their answers not making sense? We’re all pretty sure that [Selecting for a jury] has little to do with IMPALING someone, Deb, or no one would show up for the voir dire.That’s a great question, and the answer has to do with interpreting the revealer correctly.When a clue says that an entry should be read phonetically, solvers need to look for a word in the entry that can be converted into letters. In Ms. Dershowitz’s revealer, for example, the word ANY should be read as N-E.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

Are Matthew Stock and Brooke Husic just being diplomatic?Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Some people scoff at the idea of continuing their education as adults. A friend of mine has such disdain for the phrase “back to school” that he put together a slide show about why it should be abolished.Undaunted, Matthew Stock and Brooke Husic leaned into academia as their inspiration for today’s theme. I was as surprised as anyone to discover how much I loved the curriculum therein — and I believe that you are all capable of graduating with flying colors.Today’s ThemeAny initial ideas?I hope so, because initials are key to each of today’s themed clues. At 16A, the [B.A. in Communications?] is the BRAILLE ALPHABET — that’s what “B.A.” stands for, and “communications” refers to the use of Braille. A closer look at the [M.S. in Biology?] gives us a MICROSCOPE SLIDE. And you could doctor a [Ph.D. in computing?] simply by using a POCKET HARD DRIVE.The puzzle’s witty educational credentials are summarized by an expression at 54A: Something [Not distinguished by large differences] is A MATTER OF DEGREE.A tip for newer solvers: Pay attention to question marks in themed clues. Their presence should make you re-examine the clue’s wording. In today’s puzzle, the question marks in the themed clues hint that those letters, usually associated with academic degrees, stand for something unexpected.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

Barbara Lin finds a creative way to get to the bottom of things.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Generally speaking, you don’t have to wear pants while solving the daily New York Times Crossword. There are no rules that require it or signs that proclaim “No shoes, no shirt, no solving.” So long as you keep your pantsless puzzling to the privacy of your own home — and I would encourage you to — no one will ever be the wiser.Pants may be required, however, in order to solve today’s crossword, which was constructed by Barbara Lin. You don’t actually need to put them on, but they’ll help you figure out the theme. And now that I’ve made my clothing remarks, let’s dive in.Today’s ThemeYou might say that our four themed entries wear the pants in today’s puzzle: At 17-, 27-, 48- and 62-Across, the letter S has been added to the ends of common expressions to transform them into descriptions of bottoms.At 17A, a pair of [Bottoms decorated with characters from the “Odyssey”?] would be LONG STORY SHORTS. At 62A, the [Request to a custom tailor?] is CUT ME SOME SLACKS. For 27A, do you wear [Close-fitting pajamas?] to bed, otherwise known as SLEEP TIGHTS?I could see myself wearing any of these garments, save for the [Offering in Eilish’s clothing brand?] at 48A — BILLIE JEANS are not my color.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