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Courier and Century Gothic, for two / TUES 9-29-26 / Greek goddess of the earth / Where some monster home runs land / Muslim holiday, informally
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Hello, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday of September! Hope you’ve all had a wonderful month. I’ve been loving the turn toward fall weather for the most part, except for the day I went to All Things Go (a music festival) in the DMV this past weekend, and it… rained most of the day, and I was exceptionally cold. But my love for MUNA (and the other singers, of course) trumps all! I also got a ton of sports-watching in this weekend with the WNBA playoffs starting and football and golf and F1 (which I’ve become mildly obsessed with). The big news is that my sister now has a puppy, too! She’s absolutely, incredibly, completely adorable (if slightly evil at times because she’s a pup who just wants to nibble). Her name is Gunner (of Arsenal Gunners fame), and I’m obsessed. Keep reading to see as many pictures as I can reasonably add:)
Anywho, on to the puzzle...
Relative difficulty: On the harder side of medium
THEME: JOIN HANDS (58A: Wedding officiant's directive ... or what both halves of 17-, 25-, 35- and 50-Across do?) — Each half of the theme answers can be combined with “hand” to form a common expression
Theme answers:
- UPPER DECK (17A: Where some monster home runs land)
- HOT MINUTE (25A: Pretty long time, in an idiom)
- SECOND HELPING (35A: Another plateful from the buffet, say)
- LEFT FIELD (50A: Position of Rickey Henderson in M.L.B.)
Karen Lee Orzolek (born November 22, 1978), known professionally as Karen O, is an American singer and songwriter. Known for her dynamic performances and distinctive vocals, she was a key figure in the 2000s garage rock and post-punk revivals, and in the New York music scene. She is also regarded as a style icon. Karen O is the lead vocalist of the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who have released five albums and hit singles like "Maps", "Gold Lion", and "Heads Will Roll"... Her accolades include nominations for eight Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, two Critics' Choice Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. Rolling Stone named her one of the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" in 2023. (Wiki)
• • •
That felt like a decent, if slightly boring, Tuesday theme. I get how each of the theme answers could form expressions such as “upper hand,” “deck hand,” “hot hand,” etc. We’ve just seen this type of theme a thousand and one times before, so it’s lost its novelty for me. I’d say my favorite answer was HOT MINUTE (25A), and SECOND HELPING (35A) was a nice long answer. I liked ELTON (9A: British John) crossing LOO (10D: British john) and KAREN (55A) of rock music fame crossing GREEN DAY (39D: Band with the 6x platinum album "American Idiot") of pop/punk fame. There seemed to be slightly more “?” clues than average. My favorite clue/answer in this puzzle was definitely CAB (24D: What can travel a fare distance?).
But for all of the fun clues, things such as SMALLER (22D: Like subcompacts vis-à-vis compacts) and NEATENED (38D: Made nice?) felt bland. And SEEDED (4D: Numbered in a tournament bracket), especially in a puzzle with NEEDED (13D: Had to have), seemed like too much of a push for easy letters. EXEC (41A: Board appointee, for short) crossing EXED (37D: Crossed (out)) also felt too similar.
ONSITE (12D: Like not-work-from-home days) doesn’t feel like quite the way to describe work that’s not from home. HARD (25D) is a boring way to clue brain-busting. With GAEA (49A: Greek goddess of the earth), I’ve heard (and spelled) it both ways. The spelling didn’t slow me down too much, but I put in “Gaia” at first. I also think ON THE DL (26D: Just between us) could’ve been clued more obviously to show that it was slang. Also, seeing DEEJAY (48D: Spinner of tunes) written out like that is also just weird.
On the other hand, I liked OLD DOG (44D: Subject of a saying about new tricks), and my dog RED (18D) was also in the puzzle! That’s obviously what the constructor intended, even if he clued it as "visibly embarrassed.” I also enjoyed OPPOSITE (3D: Like black and white), and I liked seeing SANAA (29A: Capital of Yemen), which I haven’t seen in a puzzle in a bit. I wasn’t expecting to see GYRATE (49D: Move like Shakira in her "Hips Don't Lie" video) in the puzzle, but it certainly describes how Shakira moves her hips! ENNUI (9D: Ho-hum feeling) is simply a wonderful word.
Misc.:
- I was actually *this* close to seeing KAREN O (55D) live! I went to the inaugural Daisy Chain Festival (put on and headlined by Olivia Rodrigo) in Irvine, California, a few weeks ago, and it was absolutely wonderful (albeit way too hot — see: 95 degrees). The festival was led by women, and Olivia brought out a few different special guests. I saw Sarah McLachlan sing “Angel,” dedicated to Dolly Parton, and sang along with Stevie Nicks to “Landslide.” KAREN O was supposed to join (presumably to sing “Heads Will Roll” by her band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) but couldn't make it at the last minute. So I had to “settle” for seeing Alanis Morissette sing “Ironic,” instead.
- I simply think we don’t need to have DRE (53A: Dad on "Black-ish") in puzzles referring to the character played by Anthony Anderson, who has a whole section in Wikipedia about his “Rape and sexual assault allegations.”
- The puzzle was clairvoyant, with GAS (43D: Pit stop refill), given my newfound love for F1 and all things Oscar Piastri. I still know very few technical terms and miss loads of nuances, and the races can be very boring, but it’s still rather fun. And did I mention how adorable and talented and incredible Oscar Piastri is?
- Also! The wonderful (albeit slightly evil at times, said in a loving way) Max Verstappen also recently took on 100 racers in a Red Bull karting spectacle. He started from the back, and he passed them all within 35 minutes (he passed two-thirds of them in the first 30 seconds; it was hilarious). It was also wildly entertaining with the live radios. Here’s a link to highlights for all.
- I stared at NOONE (16A: Who "wants to be defeated" in "Beat It") for the longest time before realizing it was actually two words NO ONE.
- I miss the good old days in middle school where you could give someone a candy heart that says "I LUV U" (33A: (candy heart message) to tell them you had a crush on them.
- I actually haven’t been reading that much lately, but I have a TV recommendation for absolutely everyone: You must watch “Widow’s Bay” (if you haven’t already). It recently swept at the Emmys, and it’s absolutely brilliant. I made a cocktail from the show for an Emmys watch party, and then the actor who won for best supporting actress shouted out the cocktail in her speech. I felt seen.
Alright, if you’re still with me, here’s my sister’s amazing puppy, Gunner:
And that's all from me! Have a great (and hopefully not too cold) October.
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60 comments:
Easy and easier than yesterday’s for me.
No costly erasures and KAREN was it for WOES.
A very well done classic theme with very little junk, liked it.
I second @Clare’s recommendation on “Widow’s Bay”.
easy fun Tuesday puzzle - lots of great references to people we love and the conceit is brilliant - boring? that's no a fair assessment. have a good day
Yeah..... thanks Clare for your write up! Enjoyed this puzzle. I found it easy-medium (8 minutes on a Tuesday). 22 three letter answers makes it feel pretty gluey. But the theme is very dense, with both halves of each of 4 entries going with HAND. I had all the themers before the revealer, and was really trying to figure out the theme... baseball? (LEFT field... SECOND base....), but I couldn't think of it. Great theme, okay puzzle, *** winning Tuesday! Thanks, Hanh!
@Clare, you're right. Gunner is adorbs!
Easy. As is usual for me on a Tuesday, solved without reading the theme clues.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
My 5A urge was an itch before it was a PROD.
At 14A, I had DOdo before DOPE for the nincompoop.
GAiA before GAEA at 49A (I think the former is preferred).
WOEs:
Rock singer KAREN O at 55A.
Didn't recognize the GREENDAY album at 39D.
I hate "XED" [out] when it appears in a puzzle, but I hate "EXED" (37D) even more.
Cute early week theme and well filled. Loved the revealer - the themers all work but are not exactly earth shattering. A few additional baseball references following up on yesterday’s grid.
SECOND HELPING
Clare summarizes the fill nicely. GO PLACES, OPPOSITE, GYRATE, NEATENED are all wonderful. Some short gluey things here and there but we have a dense theme. Didn’t know KAREN - don’t like GREEN DAY.
All TORE UP Over You
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve - first dry morning in a week or so. Cute pup Clare - your sister will have her hands full.
OLD DOGs
Also had GAIA before GAEA. But speaking of spelling, isn’t it ANYHOO, not ANYWHO?
Isn't the OLDDOG the *object* of the saying? The subject is "you."
I will never see the word GYRATE without thinking of the ending of Ogden Nash’s “Tale of Custard the Dragon.”
The pirate gaped at Belinda’s dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn’t hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.
Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.
Another reason to like Claire- we love MUNA in our house! This puzzle was ok for a Tuesday but I take exception to cluing GAEA as the “Greek” Goddess of the Earth when GAEA is the latinized spelling. Hate to go there but whatevs. Also HOT MINUTE is frequently used by many to describe a short period of time and may be a more current interpretation of the phrase. IMHO.
Good write up Clare and I agree! Gunner (and Red) are adorable and I see are already cuddling.
Yes! Widows Bay is SO good, and I love it, but…possibly not for people who can’t handle some “absurdity” (with a teensy bit of VERY low level horror) in their shows. I’m ALMOST done with Season one but I am making myself only watch ONE episode per evening.
Hey All !
Was gliding through puz at a good clip, had everything but the SE solved in roughly 7 minutes, and then the ole brain decided to shut off! Just a blank stare at that corner. Unsure why it took me a bit to get. One+ minute to finally fill that corner. TEAM, thinking the clue was an individual bike, KAREN O an unknown, BAH a BAH (😁), and GYRATE and GAEA surprisingly tough to ferret. Weird how that happens.
Nice puz overall. A two-part, go-with-a-word type puz, that yes, we've seen many times before, but still a valid Theme. This one done well.
Interesting mid section of fill, SANAA, ON THE DL, LUV, CURT, ATM, EXEC, EXED, UPC, NAVI. All viable fill, taken together looks like a mess, though. 😁
You get a HAND from me, Hanh.
Hope y'all have a great Tuesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
“Subject” = “topic” in this case. So no.
I do feel like GAEA should be listed as a variant, so you don't have to guess GAIA/GAEA.
GREEN DAY may be my favorite band after Simon and Garfunkel. One of my few regrets in life is going to Woodstock '94 but not seeing their set. I think at the time we were at the other stage, where we watched the Allman Brothers (who were great, by the way).
HAND up for GAiA instead of GAEA, and didn’t know GREENDAY or KAREN, so the SE was a woe for me. Also a little DOPEy this morning so never parsed NOONE correctly even tho I filled it correctly. Has been a while since we had this type of theme and it was pretty well done, so good exercise for a cloudy Tuesday morning.
Random thoughts:
• Nice to see ARM in the hand puzzle.
• Pair of crossword terms illustrated today. First, NOONE is a “dook”, a two-word answer that reads like a nonsensical single word. Second, ON THE _ _, which could be QT or DL, is a “kealoa”, where two answers could legitimately fill the slot and you have to wait for crosses.
• Another possible answer: FULLBACK, but it wouldn’t fit in this grid.
• Lovely cross of EXED and EXEC.
• Elegant that no other answer in the grid goes with “hand”. Honorable mention to wannabe RED, which goes with “handed”.
Hanh's grids are uber-polished, with hardly a whisper of junk answers. He hits my sweet spot, because he has a penchant for wordplay themes based on language quirks.
And you did it again today, Hanh, with an engaging solve and marvelous theme finds. Thank you, sir, for another splendid solve!
Subject = topic in this case, not sentence analysis : )
Solid theme, solid themers, solid revealer. This is one of those puzzles that I didn't love solving but loved having solved it. When looking back at the game and admiring the filled grid was where the satisfaction came.
Working through the across leg of the journey, I found it fairly challenging for a Tuesday, but most of the downs came to the rescue. The one glaring exception for me was throwing down *net* instead of EDU for 1D. That gummed up the works in the NE for more than just a HOTMINUTE. Other than BET at 31A, nothing would fall. I figured my "T" from *net* would start 17A with *top* something or other for where Homeruns go... couldn't get anything to work. Finally, finally, ACID came to me followed by GOPLACES and things started to click.
Very much enjoyed the "British John" wordplay and the continuation of a bit of the baseball vibe from yesterday. The themers and the revealer are all great words and make for a nice looking filled grid.
Some nice in-the-language stuff with GOPLACES, IFEVER and ONTHEDL. I remember seeing a comment here a couple of days ago talking about the puzzles getting a bit too heavy with this everyday type speak. Total respect but I think I'm going to like it forever and will likely keep pointing it out. Ya like what ya like. 😊
I misread the clue at 55D to read "ARchy" joint for a floor installer, so I was thinking we were talking some kind of construction term that I didn't know...So until I parsed the revealer to get the "K", I was scratching my head there.
Looking at the grid, there is a lot of the fill that is just plain pleasing to my eye. That whole SW with DIVAN, OVERT, DERIVE, very nice stuff.
This one made for an interesting romp, Hanh. Thank you!
GOPLACES
What Republicans use
To tie their shoes
Conversation overheard in Eleventh Century Spain:
Was that El Cid?
No.
It sure looked like him.
It wasn't him.
It sure looked like him.
It was ACID, but not El Cid.
Oh, OK.
Egotism: IFEVER
Digital DL: EID
Mining for laughs can be LODES of fun.
YOKE crossing OXO: Typo-ridden wife of John Lennon.
In case you haven't seen this: Enfants. Sorry, I meant "On FONTS:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ck-NPqf2c8
Just between us, that player who hit the TATER yesterday is now ONTHEDisabledList.
I tend to get teary when I hear beautiful music, so when I saw KAREN O perform, I really TOREUP bad.
Those Republicans have figured a way to monetize everything. You can even buy GOPLACES for your shoes.
I once tried to steal a hotel rollaway bed, but I was COT RED HANDed.
Thanks for a well-constructed puzzle, Hanh Huynh.
This is the kind of puzzle solvers, especially us amateurs, like more than constructors do. I appreciated the decent fill with easy clues, and tried hard to suss the revealer/ missing word but couldn't. In retrospect, HELPING should have been the Aha point, but I had to wait for a pleasant reveal at the end.
Loved the pix, and always enjoy hearing how your life is going.! Rural oldster here, enjoy nostalgically hearing about youthful city life.
Nice one, Hang. Hope to see more from you
Let's go Gunner(s)!
Agreed, also implies a sense of urgency to me
Hey Clare, Gunner looks adorable (or ADORBS, if we want to APE some NYT “modern slang”, which somehow never seems to be very modern). I’m assuming that you have already volunteered to puppy-sit when need be.
I couldn’t remember if the snake was an ADDER or an adler (and SANAA is the name of a place, so no help there), I really could have used an indication in the clue for 26D that there is an abbreviation in the answer (ON THE DL).
I was a little surprised by the “Chief god of Valhalla” clue for ODIN, as it never occurred to me that gods had a hierarchy. It seems kind of unfair, that you go through everything that is necessary to achieve the vaulted god status in the first place, then when you have finished doing all of your god stuff for the day, some other bigwig god can call you into his or her office and give you even more god stuff to do. Pretty sad when even the gods can’t catch a break.
The revealer 58A filled in too quickly, IYKYKITLTFIOBM! ( if you know you know it's too late to figure it out by myself!)
Clare,
Glad you’re enjyoing F-1. If you can, check out videos from say, the mid 60s to the late 70s. The racing was much better. Especially in the 60s, just about every team was competitive. Ad you know, these days there are really 4 competivr teams. And two of those barely qualify as such.
Gunner looks like a peach!
I wasn’t too sure of the theme but the fill was excellent.🎈🎈🎊🎊
The same joke in successive comments! What are the odds?
Can someone explain “PADS” as “Always at the pharmacy?”
I spotted the HAND part after UPPER and SECOND, but needed the revealer to notice that the last words worked the same way. NEAT. And the theme helped with the baseball player, whom I've never heard of--only two positions work with it, and one of them is too long.
But for those of us who don't listen to pop music, that KAREN/SHAKIRA/GREEN DAY area is tough. At least I've heard of Green Day, so once I had the double E, I went with it; and GYRATE can be inferred from the title, so it was OK.
Like Lewis, I hesitated over QT/DL, but the former seems to have gone the way of Old NORSE.
Don’t beat yourself up. The Allmans stage was where to be.
Torn up before tore up
A brand for a feminine product
One of those after-the-fact themes. Cute but unnecessary. And 22 Terrible Threes, beyond the legal limit. No crunch, no sparkle. Blah.
@jberg. Low-hanging fruit. Surprised it doesn't happen more often. Some bad puns are just screaming to be heard. It is our duty to give them voice.
On the dl disabled list
Like Clare, I found this a tad more challenging than the average Tuesday, which is fine by me. I liked the theme answers which were interesting in themselves. I think I have established my non-sports bona fides here and thus I had to Google, post-solve, HOT hand - I've never heard the phrase and no one here should be surprised. I don't pay attention to sports.
I watched the first episode of "Widow's Bay" after reading a NYTimes interview with Matthew Rhys but didn't continue with it because I found Matthew Rhys' character to be much more menacing than when he was playing a murdering Russian spy in "The Americans" (I loved that show - with the amazing Keri Russell!). I don't need more menace in my life; the current circumstances are enough, thank you very much. AI, aiee!
Hanh Huynh, thanks for a diverting Tuesday crossword.
I’m on the same vibe with Clare… I was a little bored and a lot happy when it was over (because it was over lol). But I totally understand they won’t all be for me. ;)
This is one of my favorite old-school theme types, and I thought the constructor made excellent use of it. I always enjoy going back over the theme entries and admiring how the two words work together as a familiar phrase and also individually with the reveal word. "JOIN HANDS" - terrific....exactly what the theme entries do.
I'll probably be the twelfth responder, but "Always" is a brand of pads.
Always is a brand of sanitary napkins
Easy. I was surprised when I heard the happy music so soon.
Thank you, Hanh :)
Great pics, Clare - thank you for sharing :)
ONTHEDL, “Just between us” in 26 down means ON THE Down Low.
Well, if you're gonna have still another first/last word puztheme, might as well have one with a cool revealer, like this one. sooo ... gotta give this TuesPuz a hand [or two].
staff weeject picks: EID & SMS. No-knows that evidently are doomed to always be no-knows, at our house. btw: Had TORnUP/nID in my solvequest submission, and was none the wiser, until I got to The Blog.
fave stuff included: DEEJAY. OPPOSITE & its clue. GOPLACES. And ... I LUV U sentiments, always.
EXED/EXEC was also ... ex-tra noteworthy.
Thanx for dealin us all these hands, Mr. Huynh dude. And wow ... got two pair, in all of em.
And thanx to Clare darlin, for tempin us so nicely.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
KAREN O. Is she the shorter sister of Sandra Oh? (Sorry about that. Seems that all that @egs and @Liveprof punnery is contagious. I’ll try not to do it again.)
You might be surprised to hear this but, as a guy in his mid-seventies, I’m kind of a fan of GREEN DAY. A couple of my sons were big fans so I was exposed to a lot of their stuff and grew to like it. Might have to see if I can build a playlist on Spotify.
Oh yeah, the puzzle …
I liked it. A solid Tuesday that I solved downs-only and found it to be medium-difficult. The theme was not the most exciting - and I didn’t figure it out until I hit the revealer - but the theme entries themselves were all very good. Toughest part for me was 24D [What can travel a fare distance?]. I entered “bus” and only figured out my error when I didn’t get the congrats. Working without across clues, bASED and sET, had seemed reasonable. But uCID?!? What was I thinking? Well, I wasn’t thinking. This is what happens when you solve late at night after a tough day.
On Tuesday I usually do a single pass on all the down clues, and then decide whether to go full down-clues-only. Here I decided: no. (Especially after yesterday's difficulty.) And it was a just fine puzzle with a good Tuesday theme!
But like yesterday, many of the clues required a bit of thought, eg 63a "Toll unit on some roads". I have very little experience with toll roads, so... huh? And NAVI... that was a while ago.
Thanks for the go-cart race link - lots of fun !
Very nice Tuesday puzzle, a couple of gettable names. Great reveal. Enjoyed the solve! I too liked the clue for CAB. Interesting point , Clare, about DRE, thank you.!
very easy. Didn’t know Karen O. But everything else flowed
Not a Tuesday clue, but not unfair either.
The clue on 17A messed with my mind and left me confused for a moment. It has strong [garden path sentence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence) vibes. Before reading the clue correctly, I genuinely wondered... what's a "monster home"? And what does it mean to "run land"?
A perro viejo no se le enseñan trucos nuevos.
Far be it for me to fess up to some weird peccadillo, but today let's talk about hands. I don't like shaking hands. I don't really like holding hands even with the sweetest girl in the entire world that I'm married to. I'm not even a big fan of applauding. I'm okay with the fist bump. But don't ask me to go palm to palm. I probably will never go back to a Catholic church after discovering they have a peace-be-with-you section of the mass where there's enormous peer pressure to touch strangers' hands nearby. I'm pretty proud of what my hands have done with ukulele and guitar and piano over the years, but arthritis is headed this way and it won't be long before they're not even good for that. The hands in this puzzle were really well hidden and I never would have seen that reveal coming. Nice work from the constructor.
Very lovely Tuesday romp for me.
Piling on after @RooMonster and @egsforbreakfast: What keeps the cult together? GOP LACES.
ENNUI is my #1 favorite word.
❤️ Nincompoop. Cooties. ON THE DL.
Gunkometer--
People: 9
Places: 3
Products: 8
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26 of 78 (33%)
Funny Factor: 2 😕
🔥 Ooh-la-la! 🔥 DOPE.
Uniclues:
1 Wish you'd not hired the heavy metal guy.
2 Why I'm pacing in circles.
3 Reason to go home.
1 RUE HARD DEEJAY
2 SMALLER KNEE
3 GEEN DAY ON SITE (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: How to make soldiers look pretty. GI JOE EYE KIT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Phillyrad1999
. I assumed that hot minute meant a short period of time.
You mentioned the fact that it has 2 opposite meanings, like sanction, which surprised me. However, according to the internet, a long period of time is the most recent meaning!
Springer Spaniels are the BEST!!!
Maybe too late but about GAEA vs. GAiA
GAEA was the usual spelling in English until not all that long ago. So a few decades ago, the spelling would have been unremarkable Now Gaia is more common, including in the Times puzzle channeling
Anoa Bob this is a spelling of convenience but it doesn’t bother me much.
GAIA like much of Ancient Greek arrived in English via Latin
TORnUP and nID ...haven't heard of EID and that tears me up.
@Gary
Thanks for the props, but that wasn't me.
It was @Liveprof.
I was (every once in a while, still am) a punner, but got humbled by both @egs and @Liveprof, so I tend to Iet them do the heavy work. 😁
Roo
Don't go to church in a Missouri Synod Lutheran church either - they have something similar to the Catholic Sign of Peace.
Best part of this Tuesday offering was the reveal. Not only did I not get the theme before the reveal, I didn’t get it immediately upon “getting it.” And this kind of one word “works with both theme words” gimmick is one that a regular solver will salt away for future use after only a few experiences with it. And here I am with over 60 years of solving and I really had to think about it post-solve. I think it was the JOIN of JOIN HANDS that threw me off for a minute. So great job Hannah Huynh! I got a real Aha! I
The theme entries were easy amd they made me keep thinking baseball.
I kept trying to come up with something baseball related - and failed miserably.
Nice to year from you, Clare. I agree wholeheartedly with your opinion on the non-theme fill that was indeed pretty ho-hum, but the fabulous pictures of Gunner; he’s adorable! Great job as always.
on the Down Low.
on the Down Low
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