Tuesday, 1/23

NYS 3:48
NYT 3:23
LAT 3:01
CS 2:41
Onion tba
Tausig tba

(post updated at 9 a.m. Tuesday)

I liked the theme entries in Jack McInturff's Sun puzzle, "Doublet Is Doubled," in which double-T becomes a busty double-D. Oddly enough, this puzzle and Timothy Powell's NYT crossword have a few words in common; SWAMI, ALMA, and EEL(ERS). Must be a conspiracy on the part of the swami to market himself more effectively. In the NYT, THE gets wedged into the middle of various compound words, transforming the first part into a verb: PAN THE CAKE, for example. Both of these crosswords seemed to have a surfeit of creaky crossword fill (EPEE and ELON and ACHER, ELAL and ALOE and RESAW), despite the smattering of letters like Q, Z, and X in them. Oh, well. The NYT includes CUTEY, which isn't the usual spelling but has both dictionary and comic book credibility. (Of course, CUTIE outpolls CUTEY more than 20-to-1 at Google.)

Updated:

Doug Peterson's LA Times puzzle could be called a healthy challenge—or at least, that word could describe the theme. The fill's good, and includes a handful of Scrabbly letters. XENA pops up here and in Harvey Estes' CrosSynergy puzzle today.