Wednesday, 11/15

NYS 4:02
NYT 3:56
CS 3:37
LAT 3:25

(post updated at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday)

Ideally, I'd write something catchy here to lure you into clicking the "Read more" link, but I'm not in the mood. So without further ado:

David Benkof's Wednesday NYT crossword throws a curveball—a Thursday rebus a day early! Two [STRIKE]s and two [SPARE]s bowled on the LANE (69-Across). You know what? I honestly don't think I've ever seen an episode of THE A-TEAM. Some of the fill's a tad depressing: AIR [STRIKE] plus ARMING, FLINT (the depressed town in Michigan where the auto industry flaked out on the residents), MAO—not to mention HUTU (it was Hutu extremists who massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda).

Timothy Powell's Sun puzzle, "Lisplessness," transforms the TH sound into a lisp-free sibilant S, yielding such entries as CRYSTAL MESS—[What a bull in a china shop might leave behind?]. I'm picturing a bull on meth stampeding (as much as a single bull is able to stampede) away from shards of Waterford. I liked seeing LASSI somewhere other than an Indian restaurant's menu (joining the oh-so-tasty SAMOSA that's popped up in a couple of recent crosswords).

Updated:

Who doesn't like a theme that involves the letter Q? Only one of the Qs' crossings uses a U in Jack McInturff's LA Times puzzle. In Spanish, what is the theme. (That's a statement, not a question.)