LAT 3:21 (Stella) 
[4.25 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Newsday tk (pannonica) 
[3.67 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:31 (Amy) 
[4.08 avg; 13 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Matthew) 
[3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Matthew) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WSJ tk (pannonica) [2.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Boaz Moser’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 3/21/26 – no. 0321
Pretty grid with the swirl of 11- to 13-letter entries in the center.
Fave fill: SLEUTHS, SPLIT SECOND, TOOK THE “L” (that’s eating the loss, not taking a train), BEOWULF, quaint old YE GODS, SECURITY LEAK, INTERNET TROLL (you know who you are), SWEET AND SOUR, SNOWED IN (please no more of that in the second half of March!).
Sixmore things:
- 1A. [Parts of a story structure?], I-BEAMS. Iron beams demarcating each story of a skyscraper being constructed.
- 24A. [Chucks, slangily], YEETS. That’s Gen Z-ish slang for throwing, hurling, heaving something. Tricky to use slangy “chucks” in the clue. I think of “Chucks” as Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers rather than a verb.
- 31A. [Brady bunch?: Abbr.], TDS. Tom Brady, a bunch of touchdowns.
- New to me: 32A. [Athletic activity spun off from parkour], FREERUNNING. Here’s a Red Bull page with a video to give you a taste of what freerunning is.
- 11D. [Word with paper or humor], TOILET. Okay! Let’s have it, your best joke in the potty humor vein.
- 53D. [Amazon affiliate on TV], XENA. Xena the Warrior Princess, an Amazon of sorts. Nothing to do with Bezos.
Four stars from me. How’d you like it?
Kyle Dolan’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 3/21/26 by Kyle Dolan
I was surprised when I finished this puzzle and looked at the stats to find out it has only 68 words — it felt like more, which I think is because, although there are only a handful of 3- and 4-letter entries, there are also only two 10-letter entries and nothing longer than a 10. Everything else is in that middle range.
- 19A [Headgear that sparked a riot in 1922 New York City] is STRAW HAT. This is almost a cool TIL clue, but it begs the question: Why? I guess there’s no way to write the clue that doesn’t force the solver to go look things up after the fact; there’s a lot going on here!
- 31A [Bucket brigade?] is NBA. I didn’t notice this clue while solving, but it’s a good one.
- 12D [Granita kin] is ITALIAN ICE. Excuse me, that’s pronounced WOOD-er ICE.
- I enjoyed the 2×2 block of Ls created by the adjacent entries of LL BEAN and LLANOS at 23D and 24D.
- Didn’t notice the pairing of the clues [Bring out] and [Go out] for ELICIT and FALL ASLEEP, respectively, at 26D and 27D, but it’s nice.
- 39D [Do stuff?] is MOUSSE. My favorite clue in the puzzle.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Easy but fun. Some nice clues like ARMORED CAR, ENLIST and ROLES. Plus a couple of my favorite novels (Lord of the Rings and Dune)!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Loved the clue for XENA. Took me a few seconds to understand the what “doughy” meant with ARMORED CARS.
Another Saturday where the LAT is significantly more challenging than the NYT
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
This was headed for a PR until I hit the bottom right corner—argh
It’s understandable that there appears to be some kind of mandate to make the NYT puzzles easier to allow the Games subscriber base to expand, but it’s becoming typical that I’m finishing the Saturday puzzle in less than half my average Saturday time. Is it possible for the difficulty to be dialed back not quite so much?
LAT: Stella, thank you for the link about the Straw Hat Riot! I can’t imagine such a thing happening today.
From The New York Times, September 16, 1922, “City Has Wild Night of Straw Hat Riots”:
“A favorite practice of the gangsters was to arm themselves with sticks, some with nails at the tip, and compel men wearing straw hats to run a gauntlet. Sometimes the hoodlums would hide in doorways and dash out, ten or twelve strong, to attack one or two men. Along Christopher Street, on the lower west side, the attackers lined up along the surface car tracks and yanked straw hats off the heads of passengers as the cars passed.”
When I bought a straw some years ago at The Hat Shop in NYC, Linda Pagan suggested September 30 as the last day for a straw.
NYT: Nice puzzle, but kinda easy for a Saturday.
Stumper: I spent about half an hour getting half the puzzle filled in, then finally gave up. Several of the clues/answers are incomprehensible to me. I don’t know why I waste my time on this *** puzzle.
Puzzle: Newsday; Rating: 3.5 stars
This was a toughie. I had to rely on the check button heavily to “finish”. Hopefully Pannonica will weigh in.
Been at the Stumper for quite a while, and I still have 9 empty squares in the NW. Time to watch some basketball and come back later – maybe fresh eyes will help!
Finished, but it was a bear (thank you, Tom Izzo, for clearing my head).
Generally fair, but no – DIES are not “machines.”
Still don’t get “Square button” for STOP – does this have something to do with the portable credit card device?
I was thinking DVD/VCR/music devices — usually, two parallel vertical lines are “pause” and a solid square is “stop.”
Yes, I agree on “dies” are not machines.
Your idea on STOP makes sense – thanks!
You’re welcome! :)
Yes, a toughie! It took several passes between my husband and myself, plus looking up 2D’s answer.
Because we need at least one hard as hell puzzle each week!
Do you solve Tim Croce’s Club 72 puzzles. They regularly work me over even though the current one fell easier than the rest
https://club72.wordpress.com
I do! Love the challenge.
I’m finding I solve six or seven puzzles a week (Fireball, TNY, Club72, MondayTNY, TuesdayTNY, FriNYT, and SatNYT). Others I start and lose interest pretty quickly. I do solve the FriWSJ to do the meta. BTW, I see a lot of this week’s meta but I’ve reached a roadblock. I’m one theme answer short
I’m with you, Seth. While I wouldn’t call it “hard as hell,” The Atlantic has a full-size Sunday themeless edited by Kelsey Dixon that usually offers up a decent challenge. I would put it at about NYT Friday/TNY Tuesday difficulty level.
https://www.theatlantic.com/games/daily-crossword/archive/
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 1.5 stars
WSJ: This one was a slog. Too many answers were a stretch.
Where is the March 21 WSJ puzzle? The link at WSJ on this page is inactive.
You can always solve (or print) on the WSJ site:
https://www.wsj.com/news/puzzle
WSJ – the puzzle we found and struggled through for this date was titled “Futile Position” and was a real slog imo. Why no solution?