Monday, March 30, 2026

BEQ 15:01 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 2:02 (Stella) rate it
NYT 3:41 (Sophia) [3.04 avg; 12 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 6:11 (Amy) [3.85 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (pannonica) [3.75 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Gary Cee’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Review

Theme: Each theme answer ends with something that could be BACKED UP, in different ways

New York Times, 03 30 2026, By Gary Cee

• 17a [Endless TikTok scrolling or Tetris playing, e.g.] – TIME SINK
• 20a [Wastebasket, jokingly] – CIRCULAR FILE
• 38a [Illegal distribution of narcotics] – DRUG TRAFFIC
• 59a [Where to pick up luggage at an airport] – BAGGAGE CLAIM
• 64a [Went into reverse … or what the ends of 17-, 20-, 38- and 59-Across might be] – BACKED UP

I’m impressed with the number of different meanings of BACKED UP that this puzzle showcases, along with the how each of the theme answers changes the meaning of their “backed up” word. A sink or traffic can be literally backed up, a file can be backed up onto, say, another hard drive or to the cloud, and a claim can be backed up by another person. In terms of the answers themselves, TIME SINK was my favorite. I’m not familiar with the phrase CIRCULAR FILE and needed nearly every cross to get it – is this a joke that other folks have heard before?

I thought all the long fill in today’s puzzle was well-chosen – INSIDE SCOOP, DEAD WEIGHT, LANCELOT, and I liked the shout-out to the ALL-BLACK cast of The Wiz, a show I saw for the first time last month when the touring production was in Seattle. There isn’t a ton to call out about the shorter fill, although I was impressed with the smoothness of the larger corners in the NE/SW sections of the puzzle (although MCI slowed me down a bit). ONE SEED is also appropriate given that we’re in the middle of March Madness now!

Happy Monday all!

Michael B. Berg & Brian Callahan’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 3/30/26 by Michael B. Berg & Brian Callahan

I usually start with the revealer, but I think it will make more sense to use it as a wrap-up:

• 16A [Adrift after a storm, perhaps] is LOST AT SEA.
• 23A [Jodie Comer’s “Killing Eve” co-star] is SANDRA OH, which led to the interesting ????RAOH pattern while I was solving. I knew it couldn’t be PHARAOH because the entry was 8 letters long, but what else could that letter pattern be? OH.
• 30A [Stir-fry vegetable] is a SUGAR SNAP PEA.
• 44A [“Let me explain … “] is HERE’S WHY.

The revealer at 50A [Protection of intellectual property, or a phonetic hint to 16-, 23-, 30-, and 44-Across] is COPYRIGHT, because when you take the RIGHTmost word of each theme entry, you get SEA, OH, PEA, WHY, or, phonetically, C, O, P, Y.

I really enjoyed a lot of the fill in this puzzle: Seldom does one encounter DISCO STU‘s entire name; OPOSSUMS and ESCARGOT are nicely evocative, as is EMO HAIR; SHROOM is a fun word to say out loud. A nice Monday!

Anna Shechtman’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 3/30/26 – Shechtman

A little easier than I expected, though there were a few unknown-to-me answers:

• 10d. [National park in Namibia with a vast salt pan visible from space], ETOSHA.
• 29a. [Minimalist painter Martin], AGNES. Not really any letters other than A that work there, so AGNES gave me the final letter for ETOSHA. A couple of her paintings are reproduced in this 2016 New Yorker article.
• 6d. [Filmmaker Catherine whom J. Hoberman called “France’s foremost provocatrice”], BREILLAT. Never heard of her, have no idea who J. Hoberman is. Apparently an actress in one of her movies went through the same sort of horrors as the woman who starred in Last Tango in Paris.

Fave clue: 34a. [Shot blocker?], LENS CAP. During the peak of March Madness basketball action, the clue misleads nicely.

Fave fill: MR PIBB, FAT ELVIS (though the Elvis sandwich was on toasted bread, and the Fat Elvis sandwich may be a grilled, fattier version that the King himself wasn’t eating), RAGEBAIT, TRAD WIFE, PARASOCIAL (as when fans of Taylor Swift feel like they really know her as a friend when they’ve never communicated directly), RASHOMON (I should watch that sometime), THE JOKER, BARTLEBY (“I would prefer not to”).

3.25 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1874 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1874 — 3/30/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I ran out of patience trying to find my mistake — it was one of those that’s hard to see because all the words were valid crossword answers, but three of them were not the right answers.

There were sticky spots all over this grid for me, with lots of things I haven’t encountered before.

Stuff that grabbed my eye:

• 1A [Blondie hit with the lyric “Fab Five Freddie told me everybody’s fly”] RAPTURE I listed to my Blondie LPs a lot back in the 1980s and recognized the lyrics but couldn’t come up with the name of the song until I had two or three letters in place. It was never one of my favorites.
• 8A [Party favors container] GRAB BAG Not TOTE BAG. Not SWAG BAG. Not GIFT BAG. That might be a new personal record for incorrect answers.
• 19A [Philosophical argument that belief in God is the most rational choice] PASCAL’S WAGER I don’t remember hearing about this before, but I know almost nothing about the 17th century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian Blaise Pascal. Wikipedia summarizes Pascal’s argument along the lines “If God doesn’t exist, believing in her just means you’ve denied yourself some earthly pleasures; if God does exist, believing in her helps ensure your eternal happiness.” I’m not swayed.
• 

  Halle Berry at the 2002 Academy Awards

  
  23A [Fashion designer Elie] SAAB A gimme even though I don’t pay much attention to couture. Saab designed a dress that Halle Berry wore to the Oscars in 2002 that has stuck in my mind ever since.
• 27A [One with AED training] EMT I got this immediately but questioned if the clue is correct. The whole point of an automated external defibrillator is that any reasonably competent adult can use them safely; I’d expect emergency medical services to carry more complicated defibrillators. 
• 29A [Team in the Citrus Series] Tampa Bay RAYS The other team in this Florida-centric baseball rivalry is the Miami Marlins.
• 35A [Genre for Mos Def and KRS-ONE] CONSCIOUS HIP-HOP I’m not a big rap fan. I’ve heard of both artists, but I didn’t know the name of this subgenre, which is also called “socially conscious hip-hop” and “political hip-hop.”
• 44A [Fast bucks?] DEER Cute clue. There were five or six deer around the houses across the street from us yesterday.
• 48A [Improving one’s own phyiscal attractiveness] LOOKSMAXXING A welcome gimme, thanks to recent New York Times articles about extreme things like limb-lengthening surgeries to increase one’s height. 
• 54A [“It’s Too Late Now” memoirist] A.A. MILNE I needed a lot of crosses to come up with the author better known for Winnie-the Pooh.
• 58A [Conspicuous blunder] CLANGER Not CRINGER; that’s apparently a Master of the Universe character.
• 61A [Maridos’ mates] ESPOSAS My Spanish is pretty bad, but I’m surprised that I didn’t recognize the Spanish word for “husband.”
• 6D [Bike lane?] RAIL TRAIL I’m not sure why that clue has a question mark; it seems pretty straightforward. I’ve ridden some very nice bike paths that used to be railroad lines. They tend to have fairly gentle climbs.
• 20D [Motivational writing?] WHYDUNIT Cute clue. I’d not heard of this genre.
• 24D [Jazz saxophonist Shepp] ARCHIE I don’t listen to a lot of jazz and hadn’t heard of the 88-year-old avant-garde pioneer. I see from Wikipedia that he played some sessions for John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (which I have), but his work didn’t make it onto the final album. 
• 47D [Yellow flower] OXLIP Not OXEYE. I think I’ve made that mistake before.
• 49D [2018 Literature Nobelist Tokarczuk] OLGA I saw a similar clue recently and guessed “Olga” as a likely name. I was a bit more certain today.
• 55D [Cricket superstar Moeen ___] ALI Definitely not someone I’d heard of, hence my satisfaction with ARI. (Though obviously MIC doesn’t make much sense for 56D [Bow ties alternative, briefly].)