Monday, January 26, 2026

BEQ 14:37 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:46 (Stella) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:44 (Sophia) [3.61 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 7:23 (Amy) [3.50 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 3:12 (Jim Q) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Erica Hsiung Wojcik’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s recap

Theme: “Three Petes” – each theme answer begins with the last name of a famous Pete

New York Times, 01 26 2026, By Erica Hsiung Wojcik

• 17a [Classic flowering locale adjacent to the White House [baseball star]] – ROSE GARDEN
• 29a [Grammy Award that’s good for laughs? [1960s rock musician]] – BEST COMEDY ALBUM
• 46a [North Carolina educational institution [former “S.N.L.” cast member]] – DAVIDSON COLLEGE
• 60a [Athletic trifectas … or a phonetic hint to the starts of 17-, 29- and 46-Across] – THREEPEATS

I liked this theme a lot! Folks who have read my Monday write-ups before know that I often mention the thin line that “easy” puzzles have to walk when their themes are proper noun/pop culture related, in order to make them accesible to solvers with a wide variety of knowledge bases. I think this puzzle did that well – Pete BEST, Pete ROSE, and Pete DAVIDSON are all super famous, but come from different eras and areas of pop culture. The ROSE GARDEN and BEST COMEDY ALBUM answers are also fun for how they change the meaning of the proper name, and the revealer of THREEPEATS perfectly sums up the joke.

Lots of good fill in the puzzle: BLEEPED, MALIBU, ONE-SIDED, SNOWSHOE. Thinking of all the folks dealing with the winter storm across the US today – stay safe out there, y’all. There was also some fun shorter entries like UBE, SBARRO, and VERTEX (I just think that’s a cool word).

Happy Monday everyone!

Doug Peterson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 1/26/26 by Doug Peterson

I would have slotted this puzzle for some point during March Madness, because the revealer at 62A, [Underdog’s feel-good narrative, and where to find the first words of the answers to the starred clues], is CINDERELLA STORY. That’s because the first word in each theme entry is something, whether an event or an item, that figures heavily in the fairy tale CINDERELLA:

• 17A [*Lead Belly song about a wee-hours train] is MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, since MIDNIGHT is Cinderella’s curfew.
• 28A [*Armless furniture that sits low to the ground] is SLIPPER CHAIR, a term that was new to me although I’ve certainly seen them before. (Not these, although doesn’t it make more sense to call that a SLIPPER CHAIR?) Cinderella loses her glass SLIPPER.
• 39A [*Play area with plastic spheres] is a BALL PIT, and Cinderella catches Prince Charming’s eye at the BALL.
• 47A [*Flavor of many fall lattes] is PUMPKIN SPICE. Fall? Doesn’t Starbucks start doing those in August? (This is a dig at Starbucks, not at the constructor.) Cinderella rides to the BALL in a coach made from a PUMPKIN.

I’m taking a German class where we talk about fairy tales, and boy are the original versions dark. Did you know the stepsisters have their eyeballs eaten out by birds? And this is after each of them has chopped off part of her foot in an unsuccessful attempt to marry the prince by putting on the slipper (they get ratted out by the same bloodthirsty birds).

Anyway, the grid is nice and smooth, leading to a quick Monday solve with, one hopes, no carnivorous pigeons.

Zhouqin Burnikel’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Cover Up” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Phrases that begin with a synonym for “SPY” are placed vertically in the grid.

WSJ • 1/26/26 • Thur • “Cover Up” • Zhouqin Burnikel • solution • 20260126

THEME ANSWERS:

• PLANT LITTER
• AGENT OF CHANGE
• MOLE-RAT
• ASSET MANAGERS
• (revealer) [Thin-skinned apple, and a hint to {the theme answers}] NORTHERN SPY

Cute! Two of these themers were new to me: PLANT LITTER, and the revealer itself, NORTHERN SPY. I like the term PLANT LITTER. How is it possible I’ve never heard it before? Entered PLANT LEAVES and thought it awfully GREEN PAINT-ish.

NORTHERN SPY. Aka GENERIC LOOKING APPLE.

And a NORTHERN SPY apple looks like… well any other apple. I guess that’s what a SPY should do. Blend in. If you told me it identified as a MACINTOSH I wouldn’t ask to see its ID for proof.

Fairly fast solve for me at 3:12. I’ve only broken the 3 minute mark once in my years of solving. I dunno how people do it. I was typing pretty fast and no real hangups to speak of.

Welp… That does it for me. Gotta go dig myself out of this snowstorm!

3 stars.

Natan Last’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 1/26/26 – Natan Last

I think a great many of us had the same blind spots on this one, with three of them stacked in the NW corner.

I’d heard of 12a. [2025 dark comedy in which Dylan O’Brien plays the brothers Roman and Rocky], TWINLESS, thanks to my job, but still needed crossings to assemble it. 15a. [Short-story collection by Banu Mushtaq that won the 2025 International Booker Prize], HEART LAMP, and 17a. [English painter John], OPIE? Both new to me, along with 53a. [Grammy-winning singer Kali], UCHIS. The latter is a stage name, Kali Uchis; she’s Colombian and and American and her Grammy is for a dance recording.

Other tough bits:

9d. [“He Was Despised” from Handel’s “Messiah,” for one], ALTO SOLO. Meh. Is that a little green-painty or not in musical circles?

11d. [What “horse” is to “animal,” semantically], HYPONYM. Per Wikipedia, a hypernym is an umbrella term (such as animal or mammal), while a hyponym is a word for something within a hypernym’s category. Can’t imagine needing to really know these terms, though. Maybe they’re used in the study and writing of poetry?

Fave fill: “IS THIS THING ON?”, ILLINOIS and MICHIGAN clue pair, SET DESIGN.

Three stars from me. The stack of names/titles in the opening corner is a bit much.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1856 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1856 — 1/26/26 (Click to Embiggen)

This is the first BEQ themeless puzzle I’ve done in a while that seemed to live up to Brendan’s “Hard” label. I was moving along fine until all I had left was the SW corner, where a combination of vague clueing and proper names brought my solving to a halt. But it was a nice reminder to try some stuff that might work and see if it gives you something to build on. And also, when you have almost no idea what an answer might be, something that has crossword-friendly letters — vowels and common consonants — might be worth putting in the grid.

Stuff that caught my eye:

• 14A [1912 Nobel Peace Prize winner] ELIHU ROOT All I really remember about Root was that he served as Secretary of State under one of the early-20th century presidents (Theodore Roosevelt, actually). He won the award for “for bringing about better understanding between the countries of North and South America and initiating important arbitration agreements between the United States and other countries.” It’s depressing to see how the Trump administration is doing everything it can to isolate us from the rest of the world (except for the parts we’re stealing for their mineral wealth).
• 17A [Feature of a piñata?] TILDE Well, “little Spanish squiggle” didn’t fit.
• 20A [Billie Eilish won seven of them in 2025] AMAS “American Music Awards,” which are based on airplay and sales and are determined by popular vote. (The point of such awards escapes me; they just reflect what the market already rewards.) I tried Video Music Awards first.
• 23A [Last Theorem composer] FERMAT I’ve heard of that theorem but don’t know what it is (and I don’t much care; if it wasn’t relevant to me before, I doubt it is now).
• 28A [Real-life author in the 2024 play “Giant”] Roald DAHL I’m not sure why his books weren’t part of my childhood reading. I don’t recognize the play, which I assume takes its title from Dahl’s 1982 novel The BFG. (The year explains why I never read that one; that’s when I graduated college.)
• 38A [Deciduous tree] ASPEN Did I mention vague clues? There are lots of aspens where I live, which is fine with me. They’re handsome trees year round, and the sound they make in a gentle breeze is relaxing.
• 40A [Emulated] WAS LIKE Should I be thankful that this wasn’t clued as a snippet of Gen Y conversation?
• 52A [Computer-data format that was replaced by UTF-8] ASCII I vaguely know what these terms mean, but not well enough that I didn’t put ASCII in and take it out before I got some crosses to work.
• 53A [Used one’s kitchen, in more ways than one] ATE AT HOME The “more ways than one” presumably refers to cooking and eating. It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in a house with an eat-in kitchen.
• 56A [Get tired] FLAG Not SLOW.
• 2D [Kulwicki of the NASCAR Hall of Fame] ALAN I lost interest in auto racing of any kind when I was about 12 and didn’t know that name.
• 3D [Law enacted against syndicates] RICO The application of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt  Organizations Act against entities that traditionally aren’t thought of as “organized crime” is a great example of prosecutorial creativity.
• 

  Stoning of Saint Stephen — Jacopo & Domenico Tintoretto

  4D [Second team to win the Super Bowl in its home stadium] THE RAMS Wake me when the NFL season is over.

• 9D [Christianity’s first martyr] ST. STEPHEN I really should’ve known that one, since he’s presumably where my parents got my middle name.
• 11D [Makeup of a crime ring?] POLICE TAPE Years ago, Halloween came around when our front yard was all dug up. I didn’t want any trick or treaters cutting across the yard from our door to our neighbors’, so I put up caution tape. But what I really wanted to use was police tape.
• 15D [Fail to tip] STIFF That’s just rude. Waiting tables is hard work.
• 24D [1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner] ELIE WIESEL I needed a few crosses to see that answer, and then I misspelled one of the names.
• 26D [“Blue and Sentimental” composer] Count BASIE That title wasn’t immediately familiar, but BASIE seems like a good guess. Note all the commonly-used letters.
• 28D [Patriots quarterback whose nickname is his full name] DRAKE MAYE Not a name I knew, though given that the Pats will be in the Super Bowl on February 8, I  expect I will hear it more in the next few weeks. (No, I don’t live completely under a rock.)
• 41D [___ cheese] STRING Another vague clue.
• 44D [Tolkien extra] DWARF I’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings multiple times, and some of Tolkien’s other works a few times. Sometimes the dwarves are background characters and sometimes they’re main characters.
• 45D [Prepare to drive?] TEE UP Anyone else feel like they’ve seen this clue enough times in the last year or so? Any power it had to misdirect one towards driving an automobile is long gone.

Steve Jopek’s Universal crossword, “Aviator Shades” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 1/26/26 • Mon • “Aviator Shades” • Jopek • solution • 20260126

• 55a^R [Complete success, and a hint to 20-, 31- and 47-Across?] FLYING COLORS. Those answers are all hues modified by bird species. I’m not convinced that ‘complete success’ and ‘flying colors’ works completely—doesn’t seem to pass the substitution test.
• 20a. [Alternative to amber] CANARY YELLOW. Amber in my experience can lean yellow or orange, especially the natural resin itself. But of course we’re dealing with the abstracted color.
• 31a. [Alternative to crimson] CARDINAL RED.
• 47a. [Alternative to teal] PEACOCK BLUE.

An easy, flowing crossword. I finished with one sloppy error, which needed to be hunted up.

• 3d [University in North Carolina] ELON. It seems we’ve been moving away lately from the unfortunately more prominent namesake, perhaps because he’s pretty much radioactive at this point.
• 8d [Italy’s __ Coast] AMALFI. must. resist. urge. to. post. Escher’s lithograph. of. ATRANI yet again.
• 9d [Arizona desert] SONORAN. The aforementioned mistake, where I had SENORAN, thanks to the crossing 16a [More senior] OLDER, for which I’d entered ELDER.
• 10d [Type of hammer] CLAW. 13d [Use a crowbar] PRY.
• 25d [Hothouse flower] ORCHID.
  
• 30d [Solo artist in a band?] ONE MAN. Unexpectedly tricky.
• 40d [Middle of the fifth century, in Roman numerals] CDL. Would a reference to a commercial driver’s license have been better?
• 41d [Minestrone containers] SOUP CANS. Wondering if SOUPÇONS was the original entry here, but making the crossings work proved too difficult.
• 55d [Drescher of “The Nanny”] FRAN. 56d [Cranny’s partner] NOOK.
• 14a [Hallowed] HOLY. Was primed for this entry by solving the New Yorker crossword earlier.
• 19a [1986 Janet Jackson hit] NASTY.
  
• 28a [Navy noncom] CPO, which I’m pretty sure is chief petty officer.
• 38a [Computer operator] USER.
  
• 39a [Glasses, informally] SPECS. I use this term, as well as spectacles.
• 61a [Campfire goody] S’MORE. OKAY (58d), I am finally giving up my resistance to this singular form of s’mores, but am very much not happy about it.
• 64a [Latino food company] GOYA. I would have gone with the great artist Francisco both because he’s one of my favorites and also because I continue to boycott GOYA food products.
• 71a [“Windows to the soul”] EYES. The sentiment may go at least as far back as ancient Roman times, but was popularized by Shakespeare.

Even though this solo piano version is better, I really wanted to share the version by the Thelonious Monk tribute band Sphere on heir 1982 album Four in One because of the (59d) RENÉ Magritte cover art.