Combatants in the Titanomachy / TUES 8-26-25 / They spike during the holidays / What you'd expect when you're expecting? / Mother's daughter's daughter, perhaps

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare back for our regularly programmed last Tuesday of August! Hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying these last days of summer. I’ve certainly enjoyed watching my Liverpool win their first two games of the season (we won’t go into detail on how they won and how nail-biting and not fun they were at times — a win is a win!). I discovered some good trails that aren’t too far away from my apartment, so my puppy and I have been on a few hikes lately, and she seems to love the trails. And now I’ve got the U.S. Open tennis to watch (Go, Carlitos and Coco!), with the NFL not far behind (Go, Steelers! But not Aaron Rodgers). 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Kevin Curry

Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe on the harder side of medium)

THEME: ASYMMETRY (66A: Unusual feature of this puzzle … or, when parsed as two words (1,8), another unusual feature of this puzzle — The only A's present in the puzzle form a large letter “A” in a grid that isn’t symmetrical

Theme answers:

• N/A

Word of the Day: V-DAY (48A: Global movement to end violence against women) —

V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls started by author, playwright and activist Eve Ensler. V-Day began on February 14, 1998, when the very first V-Day benefit performance of Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues took place in NYC, raising over $250k for local anti-violence groups. V-Day was formed and became a 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to raise funds and awareness to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence). Through V-Day, activists stage royalty-free benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues "to fund local programs, support safe houses, rape crisis centers, and domestic violence shelters, change laws to protect women and girls, and educate local communities to raise awareness and change social attitudes toward violence against women" during the month of February. The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. (WIki)

• • •

Gimme an A! Gimme another A! And another — well, a bunch more. The reveal of the “A” across the puzzle was clever, and the construction is really quite impressive, even if I ultimately didn’t love the puzzle. The constructor gets points (maybe even an “A”) for there not being any A's other than the ones used to form the A across the puzzle. But this really was a themeless puzzle that the software drew a big A on at the end. (What happened for those who solved on paper, I wonder?) 

I found this to be a slightly harder Tuesday than usual. Maybe it’s that there wasn’t a theme to maybe help you out if you were stuck in a place or two. I may have just had a hard time getting going because I didn’t know LIANE (6D: Former NPR host Hansen) or TATI (14D: Comic actor Jacques) at the top. And then the several long acrosses added a layer of difficulty. Thankfully, I took a COG SCI (24A: Study of the mind, for short) class in college, but that one might’ve tripped some people up. 

Of the long acrosses, the most interesting was SALMONBERRY (60A: Fruit traditionally eaten with the fish it's named for). It’s apparently common in the Pacific Northwest and looks like a quite tasty berry. I will say most recipes that I found for this show the berries used in some sort of dessert, but I’m not from the Pacific Northwest, so who knows. The rest of the long acrosses were just kind of there. ECONOMIST (12A: British weekly on business, politics and culture, with "The") was fine. PROUD PAPAS (16A: Ones taking baby pictures in the delivery room, maybe) was cute. I hated NET EFFECT (20A: Overall impact) with a passion for some reason — it's just so ugly. And PREORDERED (64A: Like goods bought before they hit the shelves) feels somewhat blah. But those sorts of words seem to be the price you pay if you want to work out there being a giant A for your theme of ASYMMETRY in the puzzle. 

There was some crosswordese and a couple answers that I didn’t care for — such as LIE (51A: That's unbelievable!) and WHOA (53A: "That's unbelievable!") clued essentially identically and I’D BET (52D: "My gut says …"). AS PER (7D: In line with) just looks bad. And RELEASE ME (34D: Cry to a captor) feels like a rather tame thing for someone to say who's been tied up. But the fill was fine, if a bit boring. 

I will say I loved the clue for NORM (56D: What you'd expect when you're expecting?). SELF (8D: Beginning of consciousness?) was also funny. I had fun seeing TUFTS (19A: University just north of Harvard) in the puzzle because my cousin went there, and it seems like a great school. BLEAT (39A: What the shepherd heard, perhaps) was cute.

Misc.:

• Where the sidewalk ends is with Shel Silverstein (not the CURB (24D)) 

• Seeing ONE L (25: First-year legal student, informally) in the puzzle takes me back. And it’s to not-very-fond memories of law school! Man alive, I’m glad that’s over with. 
• I like the slight connection that this puzzle constructor’s last name is Curry, and we’ve got TREY (Shot that made its N.B.A. debut in 1979, slangily) in the puzzle, which is the shot that Steph Curry is known for! 
• I would’ve said BLONDEs (44D: Marilyn Monroe or Britney Spears) have more fun. But I dyed my hair red a few years ago and haven’t looked back since. 
• In the Majors (a level up from AAA (40A)) at the Dodgers game last night, V (no, not A) from BTS threw out the first pitch and did quite a good job! You can see the video here. My dad (who actually knows probably very little about this) guesses the pitch was probably around 75 mph. 
• It was nice to have both MOM (61D: Certain parent) and PROUD PAPAS (16A) represented in the puzzle.

And that's all from me! See you in September.

Signed, Clare Carroll, screaming AAAAAAA!!! as Liverpool’s 16-year-old scores a goal in the 11th minute of stoppage time to win the game

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Fish commonly caught in the Upper Midwest / MON 8-25-25 / A smile, perhaps / Greeting between buddies / Banned substances in sports, for short / Salesperson making unsolicited phone contact / Player protecting a QB's blind side, often / When repeated, an old newsboy's cry

Constructor: Ryan Mathiason

Relative difficulty: Medium-ish, when solved Downs-only (though I ultimately failed in this endeavor)

THEME: ON THE LINE (62A: At stake ... or where you may find 17-, 24-, 24-, 38- and 50-Across) — things that you might find "ON THE LINE":

Theme answers:

• LAKE TROUT (17A: Fish commonly caught in the Upper Midwest)
• LEFT TACKLE (24A: Player protecting a QB's blind side, often)
• LAUNDRY (38A: Household chore traditionally done on Mondays)
• COLD CALLER (50A: Salesperson making unsolicited phone contact)

Word of the Day: PEDS (55A: Banned substances in sports, for short) —

Performance-enhancing substances (PESs), also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans.

Many substances, such as anabolic steroids, can be used to improve athletic performance and build muscle, which in most cases is considered cheating by organized athletic organizations. This usage is often referred to as doping. Athletic performance-enhancing substances are sometimes referred to as ergogenic aids. Cognitive performance-enhancing drugs, commonly called nootropics, are sometimes used by students to improve academic performance. Performance-enhancing substances are also used by military personnel to enhance combat performance. (wikipedia)

• • •

Look, I know the perils of Downs-only solving. I know that there is always a chance I just won't be able to put it all together. I do. And when failure happens (not often, but not rarely either), generally I recognize that it's just bad luck. My fault. Just couldn't see the answer(s) from the clue(s) and couldn't infer the Acrosses. It happens. But today ... today I'm mad because I failed on an answer that is singularly terrible: what in the world is a POKER TELL? Let me rephrase. I know precisely what a "tell" is, but how (in the world) is a POKER TELL any different from any other tell!?!?!? It's a tell. The smile is a tell. You'd call it a tell. A POKER TELL!?!?! That is a silly phrase on its face, and it's ridiculous when absolutely nothing in the clue suggests a card-playing context. [A smile, perhaps] ... that's it? Ugh. The wikipedia entry is for "Tell (poker)." Not POKER TELL (a phrase that appears nowhere in said entry). It's a term from poker, but the term is tell, not POKER TELL. POKER FACE, that's a term. POKER TELL, that's a redundancy. Bah and humbug to that answer. (Full disclosure: I also shanked 29D: "___-la-la!" ("OOH"). TRA and SHA were candidates. Never even thought of "OOH," perhaps because it's so often just the two "O"s that make up the first syllable of "Oo-la-la!" ("OO-LA-LA!" has appeared in the NYTXW as an answer 35 times over the years)).

But let's leave my failed Downs-only experiment aside [side note: my wife just walked into my office with the identical Downs-only problem I had, only she also had trouble putting together SPARE TIRE—again, not exactly Monday cluing on that one (34D: Fifth wheel)]. What about the theme? Well, it's not great. Which is to say it's super basic, very loose, and kind of ... arbitrary. LAKE TROUT? Of all the fish in the world that one might catch with a "line," we get LAKE TROUT? Not just trout, but LAKE TROUT? So weird. Especially weird when the second themer is also a two-word "L.T." phrase (LEFT TACKLE). I spent half the puzzle thinking there was some kind of L.T. theme. LEFT TACKLE is not quite as arbitrary as LAKE TROUT, but still, lots of positions on the offensive (and defensive) lines in football. COLD CALLER is yet another awkward, contrived phrase. You get a cold call, or you cold-call someone, but a COLD CALLER ... that is not a phrase I've ever used or heard used. I can imagine what (who) it is, but blargh, pretty ugly. The rest of the grid was fairly ordinary. Mostly 3-4-5s, ho hum 

Aside from the POKER TELL fiasco, the Downs-only experience was close to average—mostly easy, with a few patches I had to work through somewhat slowly. As I said, SPARE TIRE took some thought—I was staring at a whole bunch of empty squares in that one, none of which were easy to infer. Pretty sure I got it, finally, because I inferred the "T" in ATOM, and that "T" helped me see TIRE. Before that, I blanked on what the Ohio University mascot was (again, not exactly Monday fare, Ohio University not being a terribly prominent D1 sports team) (BOBCAT). I had STAGE before STAIR (22D: Part of a flight). INDIA and NEPAL have the same number of letters, so that made 46D: Country holding one side of Mount Everest briefly challenging ... oh, damn, the other country isn't INDIA, it's CHINA! Also five letters! OK, well, glad NEPAL worked out then, didn't have to struggle through the hypothetical scenario of neither NEPAL nor INDIA's working.

My favorite coincidence of the evening was that I was watching the movie While You Were Sleeping (1996) (for my Movie Club) just before solving. During the movie, my wife was wondering aloud what movies Sandra Bullock had won her Oscars for. I could only remember one: The Blind Side (2009). Turns out, she only won the one (she does have two nominations, though, the second being for Gravity (2013)). Anyway, "blind side" ended up being in the puzzle: 24A: Player protecting a QB's blind side, often. I admit, it's not a very eerie or even interesting coincidence. But now maybe you know a little more about Sandra Bullock's career, so that's something. Oh, there was one other coincidence I liked: the fact that IDAHO was adjacent to POKER TELL ... Oh, I've been to Boise, and Sun Valley, and Coeur d'Alene, but I've never been to POKER-TELL-O. I hear it's nice.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️

• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago) (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025)
• Finger Lakes Crossword Competition (Ithaca) (Sat., Oct. 18, 2025)

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📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

Read more...