Monday, April 6, 2026

BEQ 13:10 (Eric) [3.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT 2:04 (Stella) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:31 (Sophia) [3.25 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 4:48 (Amy) [3.86 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.60 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 4:34 (Jim Q) rate it

John Ewbank’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Recap

Theme: APP ENDS – each theme answer ends with the name of a popular app

New York Times, 04 06 2026, By John Ewbank

• 17a [Gotham City SOS] – BAT SIGNAL
• 28a [Dissension cause, in Greek myth] – APPLE OF DISCORD
• 47a [“Take it easy, will you?!”] – CUT ME SOME SLACK
• 63a [Poker tell, perhaps] – EYE TWITCH
• 37a [Tacks on … or, when parsed as two words, what 17-, 28-, 47- and 63-Across all have?] – APPENDS

Quick recap tonight as I just got off a cross-country flight where luckily I did not have to fight with anyone over the ARMRESTS. This theme worked for me! APPENDS –> APP ENDS is a fun re-parse. All of these apps are pretty common these days, at least among relatively-online folks, and even if you don’t use them you’ve probably heard of them by now. The phrases themselves are also all interesting – BAT SIGNAL and CUT ME SOME SLACK were the highlights for me.

Fill highlights: POP CULTURE, MASTER YODA, MALL RAT, I’LL LIVE, LEMUR

Clue highlights: [Go live on the internet, say] for STREAM – this felt somewhat theme-adjacent to me!

Trouble spots: The top right corner was the trickiest for me because I could not parse [Sound at the beginning and end of a meditation, perhaps] to be BONG. At first I thought it might be “gong”, and then later I had “In Style” for the magazine instead of GQ STYLE, which didn’t help things.

New to me: That Finland and Sweden only joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Happy Monday all!

Jodi Davenport’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 4/6/26 by Jodi Davenport

This theme is slightly more complicated than usual for a Monday. The revealer at 59A [Zones of air that bring less chilly weather, or what 17-, 23-, 38-, and 49-Across all have] is WARM FRONTS, because each theme answer includes an item of clothing up FRONT that helps keep you WARM. However, the word isn’t seen as an actual word in the phrase, but rather part of one or more words:

• 17A [Manhattan thoroughfare known for ritzy residences] is PARK AVENUE, and the first five letters in the entry spell PARKA. (Interestingly, as those “ritzy residences” become more dated relative to those in other locations, and also have more co-op restrictions, they’re getting harder to sell. Feel free to have schadenfreude over that.)
• 23A [Endure a book just to write a scathing review, perhaps] is HATE-READ, and the first three letters in the entry are HAT.
• 38A [Personal stakes] is VESTED INTEREST. This is the entry that made the theme clear to me, as VEST is pretty easy to spot.
• 49A [Brian De Palma crime classic starring Al Pacino] is SCARFACE, leading to SCARF. This is the most elegant theme entry IMO, since SCARF uses both halves of the compound word and is also the majority of the theme entry.

I have two quibbles with the editing (not the construction) here. First, this puzzle seems inappropriate for early April, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. I, for one, am deeply tired of cold weather and am ready for shorts and a T-shirt. This puzzle would’ve made a lot more sense two months ago! Second, I think circled squares would have been really helpful for beginning solvers, especially with a hidden word as short as HAT.

The fill is pretty good, especially the longer Downs like STIRRED UP, POWER USER, and especially OSCAR SNUB.

Kareem Ayas’s New Yorker crossword, “Overdrive”–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 4/6/26 – “Overdrive”

Today’s themed puzzle goes with the “Future” issue of the magazine. The theme revealer is 64a. [Futuristic vehicle that can be found three times in this puzzle], HOVERCAR.

• 20a/22a. [Key ingredient in tiramisu / –], MAS(car)PONE. The hover CAR is hidden in the black squares between MAS and PONE. Correction from commenter PJ: “The cars aren’t hidden in the black squares. They are “hovering” above the black squares in SCARIEST, CAROBS, and CAROLE.”
• 36a/38a/ [Be born again / –], REINcarNATE.
• 54a/56a. [Hand bone / –], METAcarPAL.

If you solved Downs only, you’d be hard pressed to spot the theme entries, since MAS, PONE, REIN, NATE, META, and PAL are all legit entries by themselves.

Fave clue: 17a. [Web browser?], SURFER. Person surfing the Web, and not my first guess of SPIDER.

Fave fill: EQUINOX, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color), CASSAVA, BRONZER. Not so keen on plural CAROBS, RESOD, ESTES.

New to me: 42d. [Period marked by personal failure], FLOP ERA. I did learn the “___ era” thing from a RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant a few seasons ago, maybe Mistress Isabelle Brooks. Well before I heard it as a Taylor Swift thing.

3.5 stars from me.

Beth Rubin and Will Nediger’s Universal crossword, “Inside Information” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 4/6/26 • Mon • “Inside Information” • Rubin, Nediger • solution • 20260406

So we’ve got two-word phrases whose junctions contain a hidden word that is fortuitously related to that phrase, which is then recruited into the cluing for said entry.

For clarity and convenience, I’m replacing the parenthetical proxy location with the apt word itself.

• 20a. [ALPHA testing, when checking software] INITIAL PHASE.
• 33a. [TALL characters that can be interpreted as shouting in a text] CAPITAL LETTERS.
• 41a. [ARID region of southern Africa] KALAHARI DESERT. “Kalahari is derived from the Tswana word Kgala, meaning ‘the great thirst’, or Kgalagadi, meaning ‘a waterless place’.” (Wikipedia)
• 54a. [EVIL figure in a film] MOVIE VILLAIN.

Great finds, all.

(Yes, I’ve been absent again.)

The rest of the grid is silken tofu smooth, making for a very swift solve.

• 4d [What parallel lines don’t do] MEET. But they sometimes appear to, thanks to the phenomenon of perspective.
• 11d [NYSE debut] IPO. 24a [Corp. leader’s degree] MBA. 29a [Fiscal exec.] CFO. 58d [No. 2 execs.] VPS.
• 27d [Excited or drunk, informally] TURNT. Which makes this product an exercise in wordplay, among other things.
• 28d [Palindromic word for “dad” in 10-Down] APPA. Not an easy answer to know, but by informing us of the palindromic quality, it becomes much easier. 10d [Seoul’s peninsula] KOREA.
• 37d [Difficult journey] TREK. 68a [Guided excursion] TOUR.
• 43d ]Most simple] EASIEST. Sometimes the easiest things to learn are the most difficult to master.
• 56d [She, in French] ELLE. 58a [Fashion magazine] VOGUE.
• 9a [Japanese  dog breed] AKITA. Just as ENERO is the only Spanish month we see in crosswords, AKITA is the only Japanese dog breed we see. What’s wrong with MARZO, ABRIL, JUNIO, SHIBA, TOSA, KISHU, KAI KEN? {65a [ __-eye (disapproving glance)] SIDE} to MAYO and CHIN.
• 15a [Ripped] TORE. Prudently waited on the last letter, lest it turn out to be N.
• 16a [ __ in (recruited sneakily)] ROPED. Yes, but sometimes it just means coercively.
• 25a [Opposite of most] LEAST, because SOME didn’t fit.
• 39a [“Bone” author Myenne Ng] FAE.
• 61a [1971 Joni Mitchell album, or the color of sadness] BLUE. Clue seems … excessive?

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1876 — Eric’s Review

Bah! I almost had this right, but one little square got in the way. Until then, this was the sort of themeless puzzle I most enjoy — enough gimmes to get me started, but also some answers that took a bit of tugging to sort out. Stuff that I noted while (and after) solving:

• 1A [Last in a series] OMEGA I’m never too proud to take an easy one at 1A.
• 9A [Get nestled, as in a sleeping bag] ZIP UP Not ZIP IN. I should’ve noted the preposition in the clue.
• 14A [Sample the homebrew again] RESIP No, that’s not a word.
• 15A [Org. that studies Alzheimer’s] NIA Not NIH.
• 16A [Center’s teammates, in football] O-LINE If I were more interested in gridiron football, I’d have known that only the team playing offense has a center; the corresponding position on defense is the “nose tackle.” But I just left the first letter off and waited for the cross.
• 19A [Skateboarding trick with goofy and fakie variations] OLLIE Go ahead and prove me wrong: The only skateboarding trick you need to know to solve crossword puzzles is the ollie. At least, thanks to my husband the snowboarder, I know what “goofy” and “fakie” mean here.
• 24A [Places where bean counters might also buy beans] CAPITAL ONE CAFÉS I’d never heard of these spaces — the nearest one to me seems to be about 340 miles away. The answer seemed so goofy that I wondered if Brendan had mistakenly run a themed puzzle today. (But I am intrigued by this Google suggestion: “People also ask: What’s the point of Capital One Café?”)
• 29A [Straight, e.g.] POKER HAND Nice clue, given the way “straight” is often used these days.
• 40A [School where Salman Rushdie’s archive is held] EMORY I had no idea here and wonder if there’s any connection — or did Emory just offer Rushdie a better deal than other universities?
• 46A [Swimming apparel company whose name is also a Norse god] TYR It’s only Monday and I already have a winner for my award for Wordiest Clue of the Week? (What’s wrong with “Norse god”? It’s not as if there’s the ODIN/THOR ambiguity.)
• 47A [Comment of disbelief] WHO EVEN DOES THAT? I can’t say that I’ve heard someone say this, but I know from crosswords that people do say “Who does that?” and similar things. Unfortunately, I had EVER instead of EVEN and didn’t recognize 32D ASSONANCE (though I probably should have).
• 57A [Quad alternative] ATV To me, “quad” is short for “quadriceps.” But I’ve no love for gas-powered off-road vehicles.
• 64A [Actress Fitzgerald of “Pulse”] WILLA I don’t recognize the name of the movie she’s in/show she’s on.
• 2D [Stiller partner] Anne MEARA, the wife of Jerry Stiller and mother of Ben Stiller. Absolute gimme.
• 7D [He played Plato in “Rebel Without a Cause”] Sal MINEO I haven’t seen that James Dean movie in a long time. Maybe it’s time to rewatch it.
• 9D [Stand-up routines you might enjoy on your laptop] ZOOM COMEDY SHOWS Kind of a ho-hum answer for a clue that (to my gutter mind) suggested something else.
• 11D [Kebab side] PILAF Not PITAS.
• 13D [Spa treatments] PEELS Not PEDIS.
• 26D [With one foot in the grave] À LA MORT Not a phrase I remember seeing before.
• 29D [FedEx Cup org.] PGA Huh. I coulda sworn this was association football, not golf.
• 31D [Baby beaver] KIT That’s new to me; I almost put in CUB.
• 33D [Golf score after deducting the player’s handicap] NET Also new to me, but easily inferred.
• 37D [Kathy Hochul’s bailiwick: Abbr.] NYS It took me a bit longer than it should have to remember the governor of New York, which is embarrassing given how few women governors there have been at any particular point in my life.

• 51D [In between shipments] OUT OF I’m giving this a bit of a side-eye. How about you?
• 54D [Pop up on screens?] TV DAD I saw right through that, but I expected a specific character (HOMER Simpson, maybe?), not a generic phrase.
• 61D [“k got u”] O I C Neither phrase was in my vocabulary before I did this puzzle. Neither phrase will be in my vocabulary tomorrow.

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Toggle Switches” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Phrases that hide both the words ON and OFF

WSJ • 4/6/26 • Mon • “Toggle Switches” • Mike Shenk • solution • 20260406

THEME ANSWERS:

• QUESTIONS OF FACT
• COFFEE AND DONUTS
• WISHBONE OFFENSE
• BOX OFFICE POISON

Fun puzzle with a nifty, simple idea. I like how the switches appear “toggled” in the sense that the ON/OFFs appear in alternating orders.

WISHBONE OFFENSE [It involves an inverted-Y formation of the quarterback, fullback and halfbacks] and BOX OFFICE POISON [Stars whose films flop, informally] are both new terms for me. Very helpful clues for both (especially the non-sports person that is me).

At 72 words, this themed grid is in themeless territory. WSJ never seems to shy away from partials- I count three here, all featuring the same indefinite article (A BAT, A TRY, IN A). I’m honestly surprised that flies for a Monday. I supposed the clues are easy enough, but boy that’s an ugly trio imo.

Other highlights include:

• [Water, humorously] ADAM’S ALE close to ON TAP and RAINY
• [Nanny] SHE GOAT. For a second, I thought this was referring to a nanny who might be the Greatest-Of-All-Time at taking care of children.
• and [Like bird wings] FLAPPY. Hell yea. Look me in the eye and tell me it’s not fun to say the word FLAPPY.

3.5 stars from me.