Theme: GOSSIP GIRL.
Today's constructor, Chloe Revery, has been published in a number of newspapers, including the New York Times and Boston Globe. Today's puzzle is her debut in the Los Angeles Times. Congratulations! RUMOR has it that Chloe is a software engineer from Los Angeles. Of course, that's just HEARSAY. I don't pretend to have INSIDE INFORMATION, but this is the SCUTTLEBUTT.
Today's theme is revealed at 63-Across:
63-Across. Trendy jargon, or what can be found at the starts of 17-, 25-, 38-, and 53-Across: BUZZ WORDS. The starts, or beginnings, of the answers listed are WORDS for BUZZ in the sense of a story that is circulating.
The rest of the theme clues are:
17-Across. Very inexpensive: DIRT CHEAP. DIRT can mean damaging gossip.
25-Across. Pants one may have to wriggle into: SKINNY JEANS. "The SKINNY" suggests "the naked truth," and refers to inside information or the lowdown.
38-Across. Kitchen cloth: DISH TOWEL. DISH can be a verb ("dish the dirt") or a noun ("the latest dish"). It refers to scandalous gossip.
53-Across. Traditional Chinese wedding ritual: TEA CEREMONY. "Spill the TEA" means to share juicy news. It comes from "T" for "truth" and is more recent slang than the others.
Well, that's enough idle chitchat from me. Time to get serious about the rest of the puzzle!
Across:1. Body art, slangily: TATS.
5. Turn into baby food: MASH. I do this for the grandbaby, but his mother insists the new best practice is to give the baby huge hunks of whatever food and let him go at it until he chokes, which he is supposed to learn to manage.
9. "I am half __, half hope": "Persuasion": AGONY. The iconic line, "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope," comes from Captain Frederick Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliot in Chapter 23 of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. DNK but I like it.
14. La __ Tar Pits: BREA. Ice Age animals approached the Tar Pits hoping for a drink of water and became trapped in the sticky goo, leaving behind a trove of fossils of saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, mammoths, and giant ground sloths.
 |
| La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles |
15. Comic-Con, e.g.: EXPO. An expo, or exposition, is a large event where organizations showcase their products and services. Comic-Con is one such event, focusing on comics, gaming, cosplay, anime, and pop culture. Don't believe me? Check it out Oct. 30 - Nov. 1, 2026 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I won't be there, though. Not my thing.
 |
| Someone else at Comic-Con |
16. Engaged for a job: HIRED.
17. [Theme clue]
19. South American mountain range: ANDES.
20. Neck of the woods: AREA.
21. Drag show accessory: WIG. RuPaul's Drag Race is sometimes credited with popularizing "tea" as a word for "gossip."
23. HS diploma equivalent: GED. Didn't finish High School? You can earn a GED (General Educational Development) equivalency credential instead.
24. Subway smooch, e.g.: Abbr.: PDA. Public displays of affection (PDA) are acts of physical intimacy in the view of others.
25. [Theme clue]
30. Stirred up: INCITED. Perhaps with rumors, hearsay, and innuendo?
32. Red wine grape: MERLOT. Everyone's favorite scene from the movie Sideways, 2004:
33. Many a TikToker: TEEN.
34. Orange tubers: YAMS.
37. Delicious: TASTY.
38. [Theme clue]
41. Great Lakes mnemonic: HOMES.
 |
| YooperPhil, how do you remember the lakes? |
44. Hippocratic __: OATH.
45. Jittery: EDGY.
49. Very tops: APEXES. The formal plural of APEX is APICES (AY-puh-seez), but for the hoi polloi, it's OK to say APEXES (AY-pek-siz). It's Latin, doncha know.
51. Like elastic material: TENSILE. Tensile refers to a material's capacity to be stretched, drawn out, or subjected to tension.
53. [Theme clue]
56. Industrial tub: VAT.
57. Secrecy contract, for short: NDA. Non-Disclosure Agreement.
58. Pie __ mode: À LA. Pie à la mode is a classic American dessert featuring a slice of pie (typically apple) served with a scoop of ice cream on top. "À la mode" is French for "in fashion."
59. Skedaddled: FLED.
61. Selling point?: STORE.
63. [Theme clue]
67. Cowpoke's hello: HOWDY.
68. __ Day vitamins: ONE A. Popular brand of multivitamins.
45. Jittery: EDGY.
49. Very tops: APEXES. The formal plural of APEX is APICES (AY-puh-seez), but for the hoi polloi, it's OK to say APEXES (AY-pek-siz). It's Latin, doncha know.
51. Like elastic material: TENSILE. Tensile refers to a material's capacity to be stretched, drawn out, or subjected to tension.
53. [Theme clue]
56. Industrial tub: VAT.
57. Secrecy contract, for short: NDA. Non-Disclosure Agreement.
58. Pie __ mode: À LA. Pie à la mode is a classic American dessert featuring a slice of pie (typically apple) served with a scoop of ice cream on top. "À la mode" is French for "in fashion."
59. Skedaddled: FLED.
61. Selling point?: STORE.
63. [Theme clue]
67. Cowpoke's hello: HOWDY.
68. __ Day vitamins: ONE A. Popular brand of multivitamins.
69. Out on the water: ASEA.
70. "Siddhartha" novelist Hermann: HESSE. Siddhartha: An Indian novel is a 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse about the spiritual journey of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha. The book was written in German, and later published in the United States in 1951. In the book, Siddhartha attained enlightenment, which Hesse was also seeking. The book sparked a lot of interest in Buddhism in the 1960s and 70s.
71. Designer Vera known for bridal gowns: WANG. Vera Wang also has a line of casual clothing for sale at Kohl's, which is very much the other end of the spectrum. This wedding gown is not my favorite of the many designs on her website, but it is called Noemi, so I had to choose it for today's illustration.
 |
| Noemi gown by Vera Wang |
72. Refuse to allow: DENY. I deny all those rumors and gossip! Or at least some of them.
Down:
1. Brief "More info soon": TBD. To Be Determined.
2. Daughter of King Minos who helped Theseus escape the labyrinth: ARIADNE. Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus and helped him kill the Minotaur by providing a sword and a ball of thread to navigate the Labyrinth. After fleeing with Theseus, Ariadne was abandoned on the island of Naxos. My father always said Theseus was a jerk. No, wait -- that was Jason of the Argonauts. Maybe all the Greek heroes were jerks.
 |
| Theseus and the Minotaur |
3. Feature of many a rice paddy: TERRACE. A paddy is a flooded field used for growing semiaquatic crops like rice and taro. Paddies are often built into steep hillsides as terraces.
 |
| Rice paddy terraces |
4. Fill up: SATE.
5. Verbal shrug: MEH.
5. Verbal shrug: MEH.
6. Log chopper: AXE.
7. Offspring: SPAWN.
8. Pickup line?: HOP IN.
9. "I've got it!": AHA.
10. Sodas in Shirley Temples: GINGER ALES. A Shirley Temple is a mixed drink made with ginger ale, a splash of grenadine, and a maraschino cherry. It was invented by a restaurant in Hollywood so that the child actress, Shirley Temple, could have a fancy beverage that looked like the old-fashioneds her parents were enjoying.
 |
| Shirley Temple drink |
11. Major trials: ORDEALS.
12. "I __ remind you ... ": NEED NOT. And yet you do ...
13. Ribbon purchase qty.: YDS. Ribbons are purchased by the yard.
18. Playbill list: CAST.
22. Place to raise the bar?: GYM.
12. "I __ remind you ... ": NEED NOT. And yet you do ...
13. Ribbon purchase qty.: YDS. Ribbons are purchased by the yard.
18. Playbill list: CAST.
22. Place to raise the bar?: GYM.
 |
| Raise that bar! |
24. Cherry discard: PIT. Maraschino cherries, like the ones in Shirley Temples, begin as light colored cherries which sit in a chemical soup for 4-6 weeks, erasing their color and flavor, and are then soaked in a solution of sugar syrup, red dye, and almond flavoring for another month. Finally, they are pitted -- but do watch out for the occasional pit or portion thereof that is missed by the fast moving machines.
26. Cipher breakers: KEYS. A cipher is a system of encrypting information, perhaps substituting one letter for another consistently, or rearranging the letters of a text. A key unlocks the encrytped information.
27. State with a potato museum: IDAHO.
28. Ballet leap: JETÉ. A jeté is a ballet leap where a dancer throws one leg into the air and lands on it, transferring weight from one foot to the other.
28. Ballet leap: JETÉ. A jeté is a ballet leap where a dancer throws one leg into the air and lands on it, transferring weight from one foot to the other.
 |
| A grand jeté |
29. Farm pen: STY.
31. Items in recipe boxes: INDEX CARDS. DH's mother kept such a file.
35. NYC subway org.: MTA. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority provides bus, subway, and commuter rail service in Greater New York, and operates multiple toll bridges and tunnels.
36. __ voce: SOTTO. Sotto voce is an Italian phrase meaning "under the voice" or "soft voice," used to describe speaking or singing quietly.
39. "Understood": I SEE.
40. "At what time?": WHEN.
41. Fedora, for one: HAT.
42. Like shoes that show off a pedicure: OPEN TOE.
43. Spots for sheep to sleep: MEADOWS.
46. Not all the same: DIVERSE.
47. Cheer up: GLADDEN.
48. "Are we there __?": YET.
50. Mrs., in Madrid: SRA. Short for señora.
52. Manhattan event with many designers and runway models, for short: NYFW. New York Fashion Week.
54. Arm joint: ELBOW. My mother intended to sit on a bench in my grandchildren's school yard, missed it, landed rather well (all things considered), but fractured her ELBOW. She's staying at my house while adjusting to this situation. When the splint from the ER is upgraded to a longer term solution this afternoon, we'll get a sense of how long this will go on. We've got a rather full house at the moment.
55. __ Loa: world's largest active volcano: MAUNA. On the Big Island of Hawaii. Or rather, half of the Big Island of Hawaii! The islands are formed by volcanoes rising from the ocean floor.
 |
| Mauna Loa eruption |
60. Laundry batch: LOAD.
61. Finger-on-lips sound: SHH. I was a librarian for many years. SHH is part of the professional lexicon.
 |
| Shh! |
62. Hurricane center: EYE.
64. Super chill: ZEN.
65. Zig and __: ZAG.
66. "You can __ that again!": SAY.
Here's the grid:
HOWDY, Solvers!
Did this gossipy puzzle cause you AGONY through a series of solving ORDEALS?
Or did it GLADDEN your spirit with DIVERSE delights?
You NEED NOT tell us, but we still wish you would, in the comments below.
-- NaomiZ
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