New York Times crossword June 26 / Constructed by David Levinson Wilk

Product placement? Ad revenue? After seeing the “T Mobile” title of today’s puzzle, you might be forgiven for thinking that Will Shortz had sold out. Of course, Will would never ask a cell phone carrier to sponsor a crossword. But he would use the company’s name as a hint for the theme answers, which are common phrases where the letter T has migrated from its rightful place. (It’s mobile — get it?)

That’s how a “Dance seen in a Lincoln Center performance of ‘Don Giovanni’?” (23 Across) becomes a NEW YORK MINUET, derived from “New York minute.” Others: “‘None of the leading sales people came in today’?” (33 Across) is ALL BEST ARE OFF; “Celebration after a 1964 heavyweight championship?” (40 Across) is a FETE OF CLAY; “Stirrup?” (55 Across) is a COWBOY BOOST; “Decide to sleep in the nude?” (71 Across) is CAST PAJAMAS; “What whitewashers apply?” (81 Across) are IVORY COATS; “Response to the query ‘Does Ms. Garbo fist-bump?’?” (88 Across) is NO GRETA SHAKES; and “Love before war?” (102 Across) is PREMARTIAL SEX.

I was kind of expecting the Ts to be a little more mobile than they were — they only moved one space over in each phrase. But overall I thought the clues and answers were pretty clever.

Higher Education Dept.: You get a virtual college tour in this puzzle, with four schools mentioned. It starts with a “Penn State campus site” in ALTOONA (25 Across); moves on to CAL, which is a “Berkeley campus nickname” (39 Across); then travels to the University of Maine in ORONO, a “College town just off Interstate 95″ (17 Down); and ends with Arizona State University in TEMPE, which is “Home to Sun Devil Stadium” (63 Down).

Hint, Hint Dept.: “When doubled, a number puzzle” is KEN (24 Down), as in KenKen, which of course is featured on the same page as the crossword.

I’m There Dept.: “Didn’t miss” is WAS AT (70 Down) while “Doesn’t miss” is ATTENDS (80 Down).

Capital Offense Dept.: The “1988 Grammy winner for ‘Crying’” is K.D. LANG (1 Across), which I wrote in ALL CAPS — like I do for all my answers — even though the Canadian singer-songwriter lower-cases her name.

Call Them Champs Dept.: “The Mavericks, on scoreboards” are DAL (65 Across), for Dallas. They also won this year’s NBA title a couple of weeks ago.

Frankly, My Dear Dept.: I read “Gone with the Wind” about 15 years ago — all 1,000-something pages of it — and couldn’t put it down. I even took a vacation to Atlanta (and Charleston and Savannah) in part because of the book. Yet somehow I had forgotten that “Scarlett O’Hara’s real first name” is KATIE (59 Across). I had to get a few crossing answers before filling in that one.

Rest In Peace Dept.: “Some cats blow on them” is SAXES (74 Across), which of course brings to mind the death last week of Clarence Clemons. The Big Man, as he was known, played sax with Bruce Springsteen‘s E Street Band for decades, performing signature solos on songs like “Dancing in the Dark.” (That song, incidentally, came out the year after David Bowie’s LET’S DANCE, the “1983 #1 hit with the lyric ‘Put on your red shoes’” (79 Across).

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New York Times crossword June 19 / Constructed by Patrick Berry

My first reaction on solving today’s puzzle — Say What?! — was to ask the same of Will Shortz: What were you thinking? Not to be mean, because I realize these puzzles take at least five times as long to construct as they do to solve, but the theme was just kind of banal. Common phrases are grammatically tweaked to become snippets of dialog: “Stop right where you are, picture holder!” is FREEZE FRAME, or punctuated correctly, “FREEZE, FRAME!” (28 Across).

Others: ”I’ve had enough, retail outlet!” is SHUT UP, SHOP! (23 Across); “You’re in danger, tall hill!” is LOOK OUT, MOUNTAIN! (44 Across); “The chair doesn’t recognize you, steakhouse and chophouse!” is SIT DOWN, RESTAURANTS! (54 Across); “I’d be miserable withou you, tapestry!” is DON’T LEAVE ME, HANGING! (76 Across); “Goodbye, place I used to live!” is FAREWELL, ADDRESS! (85 Across); “Just keep doing what you’re doing, suitcases!” is CARRY ON, BAGS! (104 Across); and “It was all my fault, gun attachment!” is SORRY, SIGHT! (112 Across).

Two I didn’t understand were AMEN, CORNER!, for “I agree completely, dog-eared bit of paper!” (25 Across), and ROGER, BACON!, for “I read you loud and clear, breakfast meat!” (110 Across). After looking up Roger Bacon, I felt a little embarrassed that I had not heard of this English philosopher/friar earlier. (Philadelphia, I might add, was home to both movie star Kevin Bacon and his urban planner father, Edmund Bacon.) As for “Amen corner,” all I can say is, well, Amen to learning new things.

Anyway. I guess my problem is that the fun seemed to lie mostly in devising crafty clues, which is gratifying for the constuctor, and not clever answers, which are gratifying for solvers. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, though, until I get my own Sunday puzzle published. (I’m still working on constructing daily size puzzles (15×15) that are NYT-worthy: Three half-finished grids have been languishing in my computer for way too long because I can’t make them work. Arrggghh.)

No More Nannies Dept.: EYRE (82 Across) wasn’t the governess of screen and literature but “Australia’s Lake ___ National Park.” Apparently, Lake Eyre is Australia’s largest salt lake.

Shameless Plugs Dept.: An “Acronymic weapon” (48 Down) is a TASER, which stands for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle. It also is the title reference to “Tased and Amused,” a poetic recap of the 2010 baseball season by my friend Michael X. Ferraro. (The cover photo — taken by another friend, Steve Falk of the Philadelphia Daily News — shows a Phillies fan getting Tased after running onto the field during a game last season.)

Sweet Decapitation Dept.: “What you might get by moving a head?” (27 Across) is PEZ, the iconic candy dispenser.

Questions or comments? Leave them here, visit my Facebook page or tweet me @crosswordkathy.

New York Times crossword June 12 / Constructed by C.W. Stewart

Today’s crossword was another puzzle in which the title was a homophone for the theme. “Pullet,” defined as a hen that is less than a year old, can also be heard as “pull it” — which is something you can do to all of today’s theme answers (conveniently identified by the asterisked clues).

What are these things you can pull? SALTWATER TAFFY (“*Boardwalk offering,” 23 Across); RELIEF PITCHER (“*Diamond substitute,” 38 Across); PUPPET STRINGS (“*Handy things for a toy?” 64 Across); PRACTICAL JOKE (“*Staple of ‘Candid Camera,’” 93 Across); LITTLE RED WAGON (“*Radio Flyer, e.g.,” 114 Across); ALL NIGHTER (“*Certain study session,” 3 Down); ONE’S LEG (“*Something to stand on,” 51 Down); and GUN TRIGGER (“*It may be found near a barrel,” 75 Down).

Honestly, I’ve never heard a bird referred to as a pullet; maybe I’m not on enough farms. But I have heard of it in the context of the “Pullet Surprise,” an aural play on the Pulitzer Prizes that is both a Looney Toons cartoon and an apparently short-lived, not-so-illustrious journalism award. (Announced in 1997 by Emory University, the Pullet Surprises appear to have been given out only once, in 1998, as far as I can tell.) “Pullet Surprise” can also be found in several book titles on Amazon.

Philly Shout-Out Dept.: ULEE (“1997 Peter Fonda title role,” 118 Across) is a pretty standard entry in grids these days, but its timing this week is perfect for promoting the City of Brotherly Love. Ulee (pronounced YOO-lee) is short for “Ulysses” — and this Thursday is when literary Philadelphians gather read aloud James Joyce’s classic of the same name. The day is called Bloomsday, after the main character Leopold Bloom, and it’s held each year on June 16, the same date the book takes place (in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904). Why do it in Philadelphia? Because the Rosenbach Museum has a complete manuscript of “Ulysses.”

Double-Up Dept.: “Believe in it” was the clue for both 7 Down — CREED — and 24 Down — TENET.

Synchronicity Dept.: The clue for “# # #” yielded the musical symbol SHARPS (68 Across). It’s also known telephonically as the “pound” sign and as the “hashtag” on Twitter. Another section of today’s NYT features an article on the hashtag’s “inventor.”

Too Much NASCAR Dept.: “Place for a pickup?” (47 Across) is not NAPA, as in the auto store that has spare parts for a truck, but NAPE, as in neck. My husband was watching the NASCAR race at Pocono on TV today and I think some exhaust fumes mysteriously traveled through our flat-screen and into my brain. I corrected my answer after solving the crossing word SHORTIE (“Shrimp,” 13 Down).

Questions or comments? Leave them here, visit my Facebook page or tweet me @crosswordkathy.

New York Times crossword June 5 / Constructed by Yaakov Bendavid

Today’s puzzle was all about the title. “Cagey Answers” was so aurally clever that it pretty much saved an otherwise unremarkable grid. “Cagey,” though, doesn’t refer to birds or evasiveness but to the letters K and G; the theme answers tweak common phrases by replacing a G with a K to create funny new meanings.

“How organized philosophers deal with ideas?” is ONE THINK AT A TIME (24 Across); “Highway S-curve?” is KINK OF THE ROAD (30 Across); “Countess bankrupts St. Louis N.H.L. team?” is LADY SINKS THE BLUES (51 Across); “Warning before driving past the town dump?” is THIS MAY STINK A LITTLE (67 Across); “Wayne Gretzky?” is THE LORD OF THE RINKS (85 Across); “Being too large to fail?” is the BIG BANK THEORY (103 Across); and a “Singles bar pickup strategy?” is A WINK AND A PRAYER (116 Across).

Blast from the Past Dept.: “Onetime Robin Williams co-star” is PAM DAWBER (110 Across) from that old TV show “Mork & Mindy.” Holy crap, whatever happened to her? According to IMDB, Pam is married to actor Mark Harmon (“NCIS”) and her last film credit was a movie called “I’ll Remember April” in 2000 with then-child star Haley Joel Osment (“I see dead people!”). More importantly, do I dare admit I owned a pair of those rainbow suspenders that Mork wore? (I was about 10 at the time … )

Blast from the Past II Dept.: Did anyone else notice that neighboring answers 72- and 71 Down are EVERT and LLOYD? As in former women’s tennis star Chris Evert-Lloyd? Despite this being the weekend of the French Open finals, the clues had nothing to do with tennis: 72 Down was “Turn outward” for EVERT and 71 Down was “Frank ___, two-time Oscar-winning director” for LLOYD. (Then again, Evert has been divorced and remarried a couple of times since her Evert-Lloyd days.) One more tennis-related clue: “Score right before a win, maybe” is AD IN (80 Across).

Down the Rabbit Hole Dept.: Will Shortz went for the adolescent romp instead of the childhood classic by using “Words on an ‘Animal House’ cake float” to clue the words EAT ME (59 Across).

Can You Hear Me Now? Dept: “Digital communicaton?: Abbr.” is ASL, for American Sign Language, which uses digits — fingers — to communicate (58 Across).

Just a Cool Answer Dept.: “Playbook figures” are X’S AND O’S (36 Across).

Questions or comments? Leave them here, visit my Facebook page or tweet me @crosswordkathy.