Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Jonesin’ 5:35 (Erin) rate it
LAT untimed (Jenni) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 8:14 (Eric) [3.39 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 3:59 (Amy) [3.69 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (Eric) [2.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ 5:14 (Jim Q) [3.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Letters and Numbers” — a few examples. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 4/7/26

Hello lovelies! It’s time for a refresher on Roman numerals, as this week’s puzzle involves substituting the numeral equivalent of four letters in some phrases.

• 19a. [Elvis/U2 mashup, maybe?] THE KING AND ONE. “The King and I,” with Elvis being The King and the U2 hit “One,” substituting the number one for the Roman numeral I.
• 33a. [Do equations and receive a perfect score?] SOLVE FOR TEN. Solve for X, and X is the Roman numeral for ten.
• 40a. [Squishy place to see Benjamin Franklin?] SOFT HUNDRED. Soft C sound, C=100.
• 51a. [Army of skeletons?] BONEY THOUSAND. This was a stretch for me. First, bony>>>boney. Second, Boney M is a 1970s German funk/disco group. Have I heard “Rasputin” before today? Yes. Would I have been able to come up with the band’s name without crossings? No.

Other things:

• 57a. [Finnish DJ best known for 1999’s “Sandstorm”] DARUDE. Can I name another of Darude’s songs? No. Does “Sandstorm” slap? Absolutely.
• 6d. [Cod cousin] LING. It’s mainly found in the north Atlantic off Europe, and it has a mouth full of sharp teeth. Fun!

Until next week!

Aidan Deshong’s Universal Crossword “Comeback Players” — Eric’s Review

Aidan Deshong’s Universal Crossword “Comeback Players” — 4/7/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on with the circled letters until I read the revealer, and even then, I didn’t use the theme to finish the puzzle. Maybe because it’s a sports theme and I don’t much care for pro sports:

• 6D [President during the Panic of 1857] JAMES BUCHANAN Baseball’s Chicago Cubs I used to be pretty good on even the obscure 19th century U.S. presidents, but for a while here, “James” only brought James K. Polk to mind. He was a bit earlier than Buchanan.
• 12D [Business that makes a lot of dough?] PIZZA JOINT Basketball’s Utah Jazz The team used to be in New Orleans, where that name made a lot more sense. But I’ve been told that in the 1930s and ’40s, jazz acts going from the west coast to Kansas City, Missouri (which had a strong jazz scene) often stopped and played in Salt Lake City, so maybe the Jazz name is not entirely inappropriate for a team that shares a city with the Church of the Latter-day Saints.
• 25D [Uncontrollable person] LOOSE CANNON Basketball’s Las Vegas Aces When I worked for the Texas Legislature, there were always a few legislators to whom that name applied.
• 27D [Allies, or a theme hint] TEAMS UP
• 44D [App’s customers] USER BASE Ice hockey’s Buffalo Sabres

Despite the sports focus, I like that this theme reimagines the verbal phrase “teams up” by recasting “teams” as a noun and using “up” literally. That’s the kind of thing that never occurs to me, which is probably why I don’t do more puzzle construction. I also like that there’s some variety to the sports represented here and that one of the teams is made up of women. And I like that the theme answer clues aren’t all straightforward.

Other stuff:

• 1A [“Interested in coming along?”] WANNA JOIN Not WANNA COME, which admittedly is a loaded question.
• 15A [“… banjo on my knee” folk song] OH SUSANNA It never thrills me to see that song in a puzzle; Stephen Foster’s original minstrel-y lyrics should make anyone cringe now.
• 19A [“I’ll have what ___ having”] SHE’S R.I.P, Rob Reiner.
• 23A [Nickname of two Spice Girls] MEL That’d be Melanie Brown McPhee, a/k/a Scary Spice and Melanie Chisholm, a/k/a Sporty Spice. Crosswords have taught me more about that quintet than I ever wanted to know.
• 33A [Oxford’s 2015 Word of the Year, for one] EMOJI 😂
• 47A [Track star ___ Ali] NIA That’s a new name to me. She appears to specialize in the 60-meter and 100-meter hurdles.
• 58A [Singer Pat] BENATAR A gimme for someone who watched a lot of MTV in its early years.
• 64A [One who’s in it to win it] CONTENDER Sports fans: How accurate is that clue? To me, a “contender” would be an athlete who or team that has a chance of winning; I would think that all the participants have the goal of winning.
• 69A [Paris Olympics river] SEINE Does “Olympics” add anything to the clue (besides more sports)?
• 4D [Trail mix bits] NUTS Not OATS.
• 9D [Rocket-launching org.] NASA/11D [Pollution-monitoring org.] EPA Well, at least one of those clues is still accurate.
• 48D [Spotted lynx] BOBCAT Not OCELOT (wrong genus, genius).
• 62D [Celebrity chef Burrell] ANNE Another name new to me.
• 63D [Portland college that Steve Jobs briefly attended] REED I may have heard of that school before, but if I did, I didn’t know that Jobs had been a student there.

Adryel W. Robles Ojeda’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Adryel W. Robles Ojeda’s New York Times Crossword — 4/7/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I felt like I was moving through the grid fairly quickly here, despite that extra column. But I managed to get waylaid by an answer that’s an unlikely-looking variation of a sports phrase I know only from crosswords, and that detour was compounded by my inadvertently overtyping a correct letter with one that was not correct. I ended up with a less-than-stellar Tuesday time, even by my slowpoke solving.

The revealer makes it all make sense:

• 18A [It has wheels but doesn’t go anywhere] EXERCISE BIKE
• 26A [Combo meal, usually] FAST FOOD
• 35A [Resort with a signature piña colada, perhaps] BEACH HOTEL I had ___C_HOTEL and ignorantly plugged in FANCY. What can I say? Beach vacations aren’t really my thing and neither are piña coladas.
• [Sharp or flat location on a piano, usually] BLACK KEY In our old house, we had a 100-year-old upright piano in the bedroom. One night I got light-headed returning to bed and fell, hitting my head on the edge of the keyboard compartment. (We also had frequent flyer miles at the ER nearest us.)
• [Old-time restraint for a prisoner … or what can go after the respective halves of 18-, 26-, 35- and 49-Across] BALL AND CHAIN

Thus we have exercise ball, bike chain, fast ball, etc. Basic and one hopes easily understood by beginning solvers, which an early-week theme should be.

The “ball and chain” revealer puts me off a bit. The United States historically had (and still has) a horribly unfair criminal justice system. Some states have used chain gangs within the last few decades. The alternative to the clue used here is hardly much better: One dictionary I consulted defines it as a “crippling encumbrance,” but the only way I know of it used in that sense is as an equivalent for the equally offensive “little woman.”

Other stuff:

• 11A [Initials often seen next to THC] CBD Recreational marijuana is legal where I live, so the initials for tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol ought to be easy for me. Instead, I had a trifecta of top-row blanks. I blame Spelling Bee, which did not accept “cannabinol” about a week ago. (My rule for mathematic, medical and other scientific terms in Spelling Bee is that if I can think of it, it should be allowed.)
• 34A [One who shouldn’t proceed on thin ice] SKATER Cute clue.
• 57A [Lawyer: Abbr.] ATT Will there ever come a day when I accept this without a Y on the end? Probably not. Going to law school may not have been my best move, but it worked out eventually.
• 65A [What an underage person usually gets at a bar?] CARDED Cute clue, and timely for me, as earlier today, my friend David and I were texting about (not) visiting bars when we were teenagers and the drinking age was 18.
• 2D [Casual musical project] MIXTAPE This needs an “of the past,” no? Isn’t it all just Spotify playlists now?
• 4D [Try to make sense of a passage one didn’t understand the first time] REREAD Another timely one for me. I’m halfway through Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. He’s finally introduced the character of Herr Naphta, and I got lost in the first philosophical dialogue between Naphta and Ludovico Settembrini because it goes on for several pages after identifying each speaker only once. (“Wait: Who said that?”)
• 38D [Resentment] UMBRAGE A nice, underused word, that one.
• 42D [Blow the match] TAKE AN L This was my major setback, because I knew 63A HENNA had to be correct. I’ve encountered “take the L” but ANL? No. Sorry.
• 43D [Famous figure known for off-the-cuff performances?] HOUDINI I just now figured this one out: Getting the (hand)cuffs and other bits of bondage was most of Houdini’s schtick. (For a great and detailed description of how an escape artist pulls off their act, you can’t beat Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Plus, it’s just a damned good novel.)

Michael Hobin’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up

For some reason I find it amusing when the theme answers go Down instead of Across. I guess it’s the novelty!

Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, April 7, Michael Hobin, solution grid

Theme clues in order of appearance (to me):

• 3d [Yahtzee, craps, et al.] are DICE GAMES.
• 23d [Fruit-filled breakfast treat] is a PRUNE DANISH to which I say 29d: MEH.
• 20d [Portable writing surface] is a CLIPBOARD.
• 9d [Mysterious designs in fields] are CROP CIRCLES.

And the revealer: 24d [On the next level, or what 3-, 9-, 20-, and 23-Down literally have] is A CUT ABOVE. DICE, PRUNE, CLIP, CROP. Nice!

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that ISOPODS are crustaceans. SO SUE ME.

Jamey Smith’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Let’s Table That” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Phrases that you might see at a restaurant? Clued wackily? I think…

THEME ANSWERS:

• [*Like a song with no sharps or flats?] ALL NATURAL.
• [*Like a cheeky field hand?] FARM FRESH. 
• [*Like a bill headed to the Senate?] HOUSE-MADE
• [*Like a prize pig swapped for a blue-ribbon quilt?] FAIR TRADE. 
• (revealer) [Clueless, or where you might encounter the starred answer phrases] OUT TO LUNCH. 

I was a bit OUT TO LUNCH on this one myself. Some typical WSJ Tuesday head-cocking confusion that I’ve quite grown to like in a weird way. When I open up a Tuesday puzzle, there’s a certain giddiness I feel wondering what I’m going to encounter.

In that sense, this one did not disappoint.

I don’t understand the purpose of the puns if they don’t really relate to one another. That is, the way that they’re clued really has nothing to do with the theme. And the revealer itself is a bit wonky: I might encounter the starred phrases AT LUNCH… but saying I encounter something OUT TO LUNCH seems odd to me.

I have yet to come across FAIR TRADE on a menu or anywhere in the restaurant world, where I have spend a considerable amount of time vocationally speaking. Is that a common thing that I’m missing? Maybe I’ll start seeing it all the time now… that happens frequently when I learn a new phrase. But I had to specifically google “FAIR TRADE meaning in restaurants” in order to find the relevance:

From Google AI

Fair trade in the restaurant industry means sourcing ingredients—such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, and produce—through supply chains that guarantee farmers and workers ethical pay, safe working conditions, and a minimum price for their goods, protecting them from market crashes. It promotes sustainability, child labor prohibition, and social premiums for community investment.

And I think I see the word HOMEMADE far more commonly than HOUSE–MADE.

Actually, I think I’m more likely to find these phrases in a grocery store. My mind’s eye sees the words FARM FRESH in big green cursive writing on the wall in the produce section. And ALL NATURAL in red letters by the butcher.

If anyone is OUT TO LUNCH today and sees all four of these phrases on the same menu, I would love to see it!

Fill was just fine. Side-eye to X IN :)

2.25 stars from me today.

Paolo Pasco’s New Yorker crossword–Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 4/7/26 – Pasco

Amy here, filling in for pannonica today.

Term that’s new to me: 19a. [“Offense” committed by a movie that campaigns its lead for a supporting award], CATEGORY FRAUD. Can’t think of an example off the top of my head.

Fave fill: POLE-DANCES, ROLLER RINK, DROVE HOME, THE HUDSON, HYBRID VEHICLE (glad to have one, and not rack up many miles, given current gas prices), DATA BREACH, MOLE RATS (are they all “naked”?), DROP STITCH, OPEN SECRET, MILLER LITE.

ALL TOO TRUE gets a half million Google hits, but the more familiar “all too real” gets seven times as many. I’d have filled in REAL if it weren’t in the clue.

9a. [Proceed effortlessly], COAST. I filled in *LIDE, thinking glide or slide. Oops.

Clue that amused me: 36a. [“___ Health and Training” (guide to virility and well-being written by Walt Whitman)], MANLY. 1800s manosphere!

Four stars from me.