Wednesday, February 26, 2025 - We long for more crosswords by Dan Caprera 😁

John Kugelman, cybersecurity expert and crossword constructor extraordinaire, has outdone himself with an extremely punny Sunday opus. INAILEDIT shows up in the grid, and may also have reflected his feelings when he got the last answer to slip into the grid. We liked this crossword a lot, for all the reasons covered in today's podcast. Enjoy! We love feedback! Send us a text... Contact Info: We love listener mail! Drop us a line, crosswordpodcast@icloud.com. Also, we're on FaceBook, so...

15 Jan 202422min

An easier than usual Saturday crossword (for at least one of our cohosts, no prizes for guessing who!), which means that -- according to the Law of Conservation of Crossword Difficulty -- Sunday is going to be a toughie! This puzzle did have some fine moments, though, including 13D, Caped crusader?, TORERO; 14D, First garment, perhaps, ONESIE; and one of the finer "bail out" excuses of recent times, 7D, "That's why you get the big bucks and not me", ABOVEMYPAYGRADE. Show no...

14 Jan 202414min

A lively Friday crossword by Hemant Mehta, with a fusillade of clever and/or educational clues guaranteed to delight the diligent solver. We cover most of them in today's episode, along with a fascinating fact for Fun Fact Friday, plus a bonus: listener mail! For all that and more, download, listen up, and ... enjoy! Show notes imagery: Where's Waldo?, mentioned in today's puzzle as having been banned (!) We love feedback! Send us a text... Contact Info: We love listener mail! Drop us a line...

13 Jan 202420min

Today's puzzle, by Damon Gulczynski, has an ingenious and well-disguised theme: and thanks to the revealer's position in the bottom-right, we are kept in suspense / befuddlement, until the very end -- just the way we like it! A few clues that didn't make it into the episode but are worthy of note include 26D, Groups of hands, CREWS (brilliant!); 41D, Instrument notary featured in George Michael's 1984 hit, "Careless Whisper", SAX (wait, a SAX can whisper? 😀); some very sage advice, 12D, Good...

12 Jan 20247min

There was one TYPEO in today's grid, but that was by design and quite amusing (20A, What's tolerated by every body?), as we can count on one hand (without resorting to any phalanges chicanery) the number of genuine TYPEOs in the NYTimes Crossword. Some real gems lay lurking in the grid, from subtle clues such as 61D, Its ways are numbered, RTE (lovely!), to the minor head scratcher (for some of us), 12D, One of the Astaires, ADELE (no, not that one); and one that we mentioned in the ep...

11 Jan 202415min

This is Adam Wagner's 18th crossword, and it was a doozy, with 4 debut answers, including both cohosts' favorite, 6D, Exploded, WENTKABOOM. The grid was replete with many other less explosive but still notable clues/answers, such as 24D, "The Way" in Chinese Pinyin, DAO; 9D, New Jersey city named for its most famous former resident, EDISON; and 1D, Bully in "Back to the Future", BIFF. A fine, fine crossword, and we are looking forward to Adam Wagner's 19th, which based on his prio...

10 Jan 202418min

TEDLASSO might've been shutout at the Golden Globes, but he won big by appearing in today's NYTimes crossword, thanks to Nate Cardin, constructor and (by his own account) TEDLASSO fan. We suspect that Nate Cardin might also have liked rodeos, as today's theme definitely implies: you can almost smell the PETRICHOR (see yesterday's episode for the deets on that) from here. Show note imagery: Being a rodeo clown is tougher than it looks! We love feedback! Send us a text... Contact Info: We love...

8 Jan 202413min

A superb Sunday crossword by Michael Schlossberg, meeting the cruciverbal RDA for: old-timey clues -- 5A, "Yikes!", EGAD, and 19A, "Sounds 'bout right to me", IRECKONSO; birds that Mike has never heard of -- 3D, Bird also known as a lapwing, PEWIT, and 84D, Bittern, e.g., HERON; and a word that neither of the cohosts had heard of -- 2D, Petrichor, n.: The pleasant _________ of rainfall on dry soil, AROMA (but to be clear, the word we were unfamiliar with was Petrichor, we nose, er, ...

8 Jan 202421min