Monday, March 9, 2026

BEQ 18:27+ (Eric) [3.50 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:52 (Stella) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:19 (Sophia) [3.33 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 6:41 (Amy) [3.42 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (pannonica) [2.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 3:41 (Jim Q) rate it

Christina Iverson and Andrea Carla Michaels’s New York Times crossword — Sophia’s recap

Theme: Each theme answer begins with the last name of a previous winner of the BEST ACTRESS Oscar

New York Times, March 9 2026, By Christina Iverson and Andrea Carla Michaels

• 16a [*Outdoor sport with sticks (1979, 1984)] – FIELD HOCKEY (Sally Field for Norma Rae and Pieces of the Heart)
• 25a [*Period for Fred, Wilma and Pebbles (2016, 2023)] – STONE AGE (Emma Stone for La La Land and Poor Things)
• 35a [*Temporary guest from a canine shelter (1988, 1991)] – FOSTER DOG (Jodie Foster for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs)
• 51a [*Popular fruit dessert (2001)] – BERRY PIE (Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball)
• 60a [Academy Award category … or a hint to the starts of the answers to the starred clues] – BEST ACTRESS

Happy week of the Oscars, everyone! Even as a big movie fan, this theme went over my head until the revealer. All of the answers are solid, and I like that they aren’t too trendy/proper given that the hidden theme is pop-culture related. FOSTER DOG and FIELD HOCKEY are my favorites. I’m really impressed with how many decades of BEST ACTRESS winners are covered here – there are movies from every decade from the 70’s to the 2020’s represented! Emma Stone is actually nominated again this year – It would be funny if she wins and makes this puzzle out-of-date only a week after its publication.

For fun, I went onto Wikipedia and looked up how many other winners could have been in a theme set with a repurposed last name (that wasn’t just referencing a different person with the same name), and I found Loretta Young, Shirley Booth, Geraldine Page, and Helen Hunt (with some others like Smith, Swank, and Madison that could be squeezed in in a pinch). So, there’s not a ton of options, which makes this theme set more impressive! Unfortunate for Cher, though, who will always be excluded from sets like this due to the mononym :)

Favorite clues: [“Coming ___ to a theater near you”] for SOON and [Oscars airer] for ABC – nice theme-tangential tie-ins!

Favorite answers: DORITO, SEE HERE, WRANGLE

New to me: EFREM for [Zimbalist Jr. of “77 Sunset Strip”] – I was completely unfamiliar with this person and needed every cross.

Anyone else planning to watch the Oscars next Sunday? If so, put some of your favorite movies from the last year in the comments! I’m pulling for “Sinners” sweep with an out-of -nowhere Ethan Hawke in “Blue Moon” victory (hey, I can dream!). Happy Monday all!

Zhouqin Burnikel’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 3/9/26 by Zhouqin Burnikel

I knew as soon as I solved 6D [Enjoyed some tteokbokki, say], which is ATE, that I was doing a Zhouqin Burnikel puzzle. Whenever I see a reference to Korean, Japanese, or Chinese food, it’s like her signing the puzzle.

Anyway, I’m surprised that this puzzle didn’t include circled squares, which I think might help beginning solvers understand that the revealer at 50A [Prepare to skate, or what can be found in 3-, 8-, 10-, and 33-Down?], LACE UP, means that the word LACE can be found backwards, or UP (because the theme answers are Downs), in each theme answer. I’ve italicized the backwards LACE below to make it clearer:

• 3D [Business meetings over the phone] is CONFERENCE CALLS.
• 8D [Stillness before a storm] is EERIE CALM.
• 10D [Zodiac cycle in which the Rabbit follows the Tiger] is CHINESE CALENDAR, also a very Zhouqin Burnikel entry.
• 33D [Baby humpback] is a WHALE CALF.

Very smooth Monday grid, with perhaps hiccups at EEO (does that abbreviation actually show up in job ads any more?) and SSA for solvers who aren’t used to these crosswordese-y abbreviations, but also some nice evocative mid-length answers like SILENCE, CICADA, and SEESAW.

John Dunn’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Say Again?” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Synonyms in common phrases

WSJ • 3/9/26 • Mon • “Say Again?” • John Dunn • solution • 20260308

THEME ANSWERS:

• NULL AND VOID
• ONE AND ONLY
• VIM AND VIGOR
• AID AND ABET
• (revealer) Roget offering, or the last word vis-à-vis the first word of each starred answer SYNONYM

Breezy Monday today! Fairly cut and dry. I do like the grid layout with two vertical and two horizontal themers. Plenty of room for a relatively short central revealer, and it makes for clean fill. I wish the overall theme were a little more exciting… or perhaps just the revealer was a bit of a let down, especially as a singular. Just left me saying “Yup. Those are indeed synonyms!” But I already knew that, so it wasn’t a very strong AHA moment.

OTHER THINGS:

• [“Silas Marner” author George] ELIOT. I was supposed to have read this in 9th grade, back when Cliff’s Notes were naughty. I read the Cliff’s Notes. I remember nothing. Is there a sled ride? No… I think that’s Ethan Frome. I was supposed to have read that one too.
• [Any of 119 on a U.S. quarter’s edge] RIDGE. Fun fact. Why not a nice even 120?
• [Org. with “End Speciesism” T-shirts] PETA. What’s “speciesism”? From AI: Speciesism is the prejudicial belief that humans are superior to other species, justifying the exploitation, consumption, and systemic mistreatment of non-human animals. Coined by Richard Ryder and popularized by Peter Singer, it treats species membership as a basis for moral standing, often compared to racism or sexism. That tracks.
• [Lab entrances?] PET DOORS. Cute Monday-level misdirection.
• [Indirect, as a look] SIDELONG. Entered SIDEEYED, initially, which I SIDE-EYED as an entry.

3 stars from me.

Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 3/9/26 – Gorski

I like the 15s spanning the grid:

• 17a. [Ones giving daring, full-throated performances?], SWORD SWALLOWERS. Fun clue.
• 34a. [New York Times book critic who stepped down in 2017, after more than thirty years in the role], MICHIKO KAKUTANI. Fair play to cross this name with ANDRETTI KATE ORAN OTIS?
• 54a. [Conversation facilitator], SOCIAL LUBRICANT.

Fave fill: 10d. [Connector between a house and a garage], BREEZEWAY. My grandparents had a narrow room with windows on both ends between the garage and the living room. It became Grandpa’s bedroom. What I never quite understood is why you’d want this space and why you’d call it a breezeway. So you could run the car inside the garage without spewing carbon monoxide into the living spaces? Also liked PARTY LINE; my other grandparents shared a phone line with another household, and that setup was also called a party line.

Never heard of 13a. [Polish city where Copernicus was born], TORUN. I wonder if Ms. Gorski has any family roots in Torun. My Jablonski ancestors weren’t from thereabouts, I don’t think.

Also new to me: 51d. [Actress Williams who played Wallis Simpson on “The Crown”], LIA. She can also be seen on Peacock in the Eddie Redmayne series The Day of the Jackal. Not a household name in the US, but plausibly legit for crossword LIA use?

Three stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1868

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1868 — 3/9/26 (Click to Embiggen)

Once again, I’m reminded how much more pop culture BEQ wallows in than I do — or at least, how much wider his pop culture awareness is than mine. Even working the crossings to death, this one took me a while. (AcrossLite folks: How about a timer that stops and starts automatically? How about a clock that keeps running until the grid is correctly filled instead of stopping when you fill the grid?)

Even though 1A is pop culture, it’s 30-year-old pop culture. I’ve seen Stephen Spielberg’s Amistad, not that I remember much about it. That gimme made me overconfident, though I should have known from the grid design — two 15-letter answers, one atop the other, in each half of the grid, plus a fifth spanner in the middle — that this might be challenging.

There are also two sections of nine contiguous blocks, in a strange shape, that suggest that the price of the five spanners was a grid that was difficult to fill without some extra blocks.

Spanners and other stuff:

• 8A [Spell-casters in D&D] CLERICS Almost everything I know about Dungeons and Dragons I learned watching Stranger Things. At some point in solving, I had two or three letters that suggested CLERICS as the answer, but I held off until it was inevitable.
• 15A [John Waters trademark] PENCIL MOUSTACHE Much as I’ve enjoyed John Waters’ work, this was tough for me because (a) I was thinking of some aspect of his movies, not his facial hair and (b) I’ve always called that a “pencil-thin mustache” (thanks, Jimmy Buffet).

• 17A [“We just dealt with this!”] IT HAPPENED AGAIN A perfectly cromulent clue/answer pair, but one for which I needed a lot of crosses even after getting AGAIN.
• 20A [Those that might be unc] OLDS I’m “old” and not up on Gen Z/Alpha/Whatever slang. “Unc” meant nothing to me until I got the answer, at which point I decided it must mean “uncool.”
• 24A [Lydian ___ (musical scale)] MODE I’ve heard of that but couldn’t remember what it was called. I’d look it up in Wikipedia, but that’s a rabbit hole I don’t have time for now.
• 33A [What Biden and Obama had in office that Trump doesn’t] PET What didn’t Biden and Obama have that Trump doesn’t? Class. Morals. Taste. A cabinet that’s not full of unprofessional sycophants. And on and on.
• 36A [Certain digital promotional times for independent musicians] BAND CAMP FRIDAYS I needed only the last few letters for this one; I’m old-school enough that I don’t stream music but still pay to own it in some form. Bandcamp.com is home to a lot of artists whose work I enjoy.
• 42A [Baklava ingredient] HONEY This is like the second time in a few weeks I’ve solved a puzzle that made me crave baklava. We ate at a Mediterranean restaurant in Moab, Utah last month and I had some for the first time in a long while. Yum.
• 44A [Fisherman’s yelp] GOT ONE I’ve been fishing once in my life. All me and my cousin Rick managed to do was get our lines tangled. I toyed with IT’S MINE here, but not only does that not fit, it’s probably not really how fishing works.
• 55A [Maker of the Max Flying Insect Trap] ZEVO I’ve never heard of the company or its product. That’s what you get for avoiding advertising as much as you can.
• 56A [Phrase emphasizing tech’s most-valuable resource] DATA IS THE NEW OIL I’d heard this before, but it didn’t come instantly to mind. Clive Humby, a British mathematician and data science entrepreneur, gets credit for that one.
• 60A [It’s information is always screened] ONLINE REFERENCE Clever clue. It reminds me of some comments here recently about the trustworthiness of Wikipedia as a resource. I’m with Fiend regular Martin in finding Wikipedia pretty reliable — someone who disagrees with what’s written about whatever is free to change it and cite a better or at least different source.
• 61A [“Heated Rivals” creator Jacob] TIERNEY I’d seen the name before but couldn’t remember it until I had a few crosses. From all that I’ve read about Heated Rivalry, my husband and I would be watching it if we had HBO Max.
• 62A [Magic moments?] ASSISTS Cute clue. “Magic” is presumably “Magic Johnson,” the Los Angeles Lakers star from 30 or so years ago.
• 6D [Nature’s Recipe rival] ALPO Another product I’ve not heard of, and I expected it to be some sort of organic/non-GMO food for human consumption.
• 9D [Subject of the song “Purple Haze,” supposedly] LSD A semi-educated guess that helped me with those top two 15-letter answers. (And no, it’s not “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy.”)
• 13D [___ Anagonye (“The Good Place” character)] CHIDI Not only have I not seen that show, I didn’t really know the premise until just now. That’s a tough name to figure out from the letter pattern.
• 27D [“Bacchus #3” painter de Kooning] ELAINE Some letter in the right place kept me from entering WILLEM. (Happy Day After International Women’s Day!)
• 35D [One-time “Monster Manual” publisher] TSR Whatever.
• 44D [Lucky play, for short] Waiting for GODOT Great clue! I saw the Samuel Beckett classic 30 years  ago, and was surprised by how funny it is. But the only characters I really remember are Vladimir and Estrogan.
• 52D [“High Flying, Adored” singer in “Evita”] CHE Pro tip: The narrator Ernesto “Che” Guevara is the only character in Evita with a three-letter name.
• 53D [Soccer org. that organizes the Champions League] UEFA Not FIFA. I blanked on the European soccer federation’s acronym for a bit, and tried FIFA even though I was pretty sure it was wrong.
• 55D [Potsdam pair] ZWEI I should be better able to count to 10 in German than I am.