Tuesday, December 16, 2025 |

Jonesin’ 6:44 (Erin) rate it
LAT tk (Jenni) rate it
NYT 6:30 (Eric) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (pannonica) rate it
Universal 5:54 (Eric) rate it
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Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “The Freemix” — a themeless puzzle for you. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 12/16/25

Hello lovelies! This week we have a themeless to enjoy, so today’s writeup will be another exciting episode of “Today Erin Learned…”

• 1d. [Surname of three acting brothers] HEMSWORTH. Luke, Chris, and Liam.
• 18a. [“Crying in ___: A Memoir” (2021 Michelle Zauner book) HMART. The author is Korean-American and the lead singer of band Japanese Breakfast.
• 46a. [Harem ___ (Toronto rock band, not to be confused to an Elvis film)] SCAREM. The Elvis film is “Harum Scarum.”
• 65a. [Meme caption once described as “arguably the most loathed Far Side strip ever”] COW TOOLS. I don’t feel like potentially committing copyright infrigement, so here’s a link to the Wikipedia article with the comic in question and an explanation.

And finally, a brief “Today Erin Knew This One Immediately Without Any Crossings”:

• 53d. [Vulcan on “Star Trek: Voyager”] TUVOK.

Until next week!

Shannon Rapp and Will Eisenberg’s Universal Crossword “Slicing and Dicing” — Eric’s Review

Circled letters in the theme answers spell various fruits:

• 16A [Unable to pick up a signal] OUT OF RANGE
• 23A [Theater where you can see all the biggest stars?] PLANETARIUM Cute clue.
• 33A [Shirt with a design] GRAPHIC TEE
• 47A [Deliver a scoreless performance?] PLAY IT BY EAR Another cute clue.
• 55A [Mobile game that involves cutting produce, or a theme hint] FRUIT NINJA I’d not heard of that game.

A typical result for me with one of these games

The fruits are all “sliced” by virtue of their letters being at opposite ends of the theme answers. Pretty nifty, huh? (Sorry to sound cynical, but I feel like I’ve seen this sort of theme a lot in Universal crosswords in recent months.)

I suppose the theme and the circled letters might help if one is having trouble with one of the cleverly clued theme answers. I didn’t have any such trouble and consequently ignored the theme.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Survey option] OTHER Has this become the default clue for “other”?
• 13A [Author’s unique style] VOICE I think of Kurt Vonnegut or Tom Wolfe.
• 14A [Italian “hello”] CIAO It was only from crossword puzzles that I learned that “ciao” can mean both “hello” and “goodbye.” I lived many years thinking it was only used for partings.
• 26A [Snowbird’s summer destination] SUN BELT Doesn’t this clue have it backward?
• 37A [Face coverings] VEILS Not MASKS.
• 2D [Vehicle that might single-handedly cause a lunch rush] TOUR BUS That’s a vivid image.
• 42D [Vice president from 1993-2001] AL GORE Imagine where we might be if this could’ve been clued as “President from 2001–2009.”

Jason Reich’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

It took me much longer than I’d have liked to make sense of this theme and probably twice as long as it took me to fill in the grid:

• 1A [Library acquisition] BOOK
• 18A [Reason to buy a magazine, perhaps] COVER STORY
• 36A [Last stop before security, often] BAG CHECK
• 45A [Turnabout, they say] FAIR PLAY
• 62A [The IBM Simon Personal Communicator is considered the world’s first one] SMARTPHONE
• 71A [After 1-Across, shelf accessories … or what can be placed “around” the halves of 18-, 36-, 45- and 62-Across to make new phrases?] ENDS

As I understand the revealer, the solver is supposed to mentally place BOOK at either end of 18A et al., giving BOOK COVER, STORY BOOK, etc. All of the “new phrases” are commonly known, which is good.

Other stuff:

• 20A [Hockey feints] DEKES I learned that word from crosswords.
• 24A [Person in hot pants?] LIAR Cute clue.
• 40A [Groundbreaking 1988 Japanese animated action film] AKIRA I lost a minute here by inexplicably having AKITA.
• 1D [Genesis or Yes] BAND/6D [Genre for Genesis or Yes, informally] PROG ROCK Progressive rock, including those two bands, was still pretty big when I was in high school.
• 11D [Easily found on the internet, say] GOOGLEABLE
• 27D [Mike in “Breaking Bad,” for example] EX-COP Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmentraut was one of the most interesting characters in a show that was full of interesting characters.
• 37D [Brother to Groucho] CHICO Marx. I learned not long that Leonard Marx pronounced his stage name with a short I, not a long E.
• 41D [One in a box at the theater?] RAISINET Cute clue. That T from AKITA made it hard to see this answer.