Click
HERE to download a printable PDF of this puzzle.
And don’t miss Kosman and Picciotto’s crossword blog,
Word Salad.
ACROSS
1 Nursery rhyme about Mckey, Mnne and Mortmer? (5,5,4)
9 Device for crushing grapes—or where you might read about one? (4,5)
10 Masked fighter appearing in Biarritz or Rome (5)
11 Actor’s blowfish eggs seen all around (3,4)
12 Internet pioneer concealing love for antiperspirant, maybe (7)
13 Swim with hot, skimpy bathing suits—they’re found in Kauai and Maui (10)
16 Adequate exhibition (4)
18 Geometric figure, once reconfigured (4)
19 Metal freak goes insane where knickknacks can be bought (4,6)
22 Outside, one butcher carves organs (7)
23 Gave a hand to process lead and tin (5,2)
25 10:10 in the morning is an agreed-upon beginning (5)
26 Potassium mineral Sadat put together for an armed conflict (6,3)
27 Tune out summary in essential and risky investment (7,7)
DOWN
1 Stood tall and lived amid bustle, for the most part (7)
2 Musical genre label demoting chief to the bottom (1,3,1)
3 Heroic acts of former pilots after a crash (8)
4 Subject, for example, in a story (5)
5 Sadly, lost again and longing for the past (9)
6 Store stocking Israeli author and Austrian composer (6)
7 Comedians listen and cheat (4,5)
8 Wolf’s blunder (6)
14 Skewer Kansas over green meat filler recently in the news (4,5)
15 Pig eats casing for liverwurst (a crude container) (3,6)
17 Los Angeles is captivated by the French temptress, a 1960s luminary (4,4)
18 Warning: stop resisting “@”! (6)
20 Shoot nurse and nearly get angry (7)
21 License for each New England university (6)
23 Redo Richard’s letters in Greek (5)
24 Namely, what to do with a broken-down car (2,3)
SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3254
ACROSS 1 “seams” 4 D(E + B)ATING 8 AE(ROBE)S (sea rev.) 9 BELU + GAS (blue anag.) 11 anag. 12 anag. 13 rev. 14 F[alse] 17 HIS + TRIO + NIC[e] 19 O + PEN 22 alternate letters 23 2 defs. 24 T(SARI)NA (ant rev.) 25 N(IRV)ANA 26 anag. 27 SH + EDS
DOWN 1 STATE + OFT + HEART 2 anag. (&lit.) 3 & 23 “subweight rein” 4 DESPE + RADO (speed anag., road anag.) 5 & 21 pun 6 TE(LEVIS)E 7 NI + GE + RIA (rev.) 10 2 defs. 15 SHI(POW)NER 16 pun 18 hidden 20 PET(NAM)E (man rev.)
Joshua Kosman and Henri PicciottoJoshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto are The Nation’s puzzlers. To read more about Kosman, click here. To read more about Picciotto, click here. Kosman and Picciotto explain what they’re up to in “Solving The Nation’s Cryptic Crosswords” (also available as a PDF). Check out The Nation’s Current Issue page each week for the latest puzzle.