Thursday, April 16, 2026

BEQ untimed; DNF (Eric) [3.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [2.33 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) [2.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 14:28 (ZDL) [3.93 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:40 (Eric) [2.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 5:51 (Emily) [2.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WSJ 9:46 (Jim Q) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

David Karp’s Fireball Crossword “Crank It Up” – Jenni’s write-up

Either I’m missing something or the theme is underwhelming. I’m open to either explanation and I trust you to tell me which it is. The revealer starts at 50a [With 80-Across, be more forthcoming than you probably should…or a hint to the answers to the asterisked clues in the puzzle] and the answer is SAY THE QUIET PART/OUT LOUD. Far as I can tell, each answer has a word sort of synonymous with “quiet” and it’s replaced with a word that is – not.

Fireball, April 15, 2026, David Karp, “Crank It Up,” solution grid

• 1a [*With 11-Across, Christmas carol originally written in German] is FIGHT/NIGHT. Silent Night.
• 22a [*Instances where a central bank successfully tames inflation without a recession] is CRASH LANDING. Soft landing.
• 45d [*Take a little nap] is RATTLE OFF. Nod off.
• 49d [*Do some deep breathing to regain composure, maybe] is DRILL DOWN. Quiet down.
• 77a [*Postpone a decision until the next morning] is CHEER ON. Sleep on.

Looking at that list, I see that the substitute words are all loud things, so…I guess that’s it.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that “OFT did their harvest to the sickle yield” is part of Thomas Grey’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” Also never heard of Swedish hockey player MATS Sundin.

Jack Scherban’s Universal Crossword “I Hate This Crossword” — Eric’s Review

Jack Scherban’s Universal Crossword “I Hate this Puzzle” — 4/16/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I have to admire the audacity needed to give your puzzle a title like this. But as it turned out, I liked this well enough.

The theme is in the clues, which all follow a pattern:

• 18A [This sucks!] HAND VACUUM
• 29A [This bites!] SNAPPING TURTLE
• 44A [This blows!] AIR CONDITIONER
• 55A [This stinks!] GARBAGE CAN

There’s a fair amount of flexibility with a theme like this. HAND VACUUM isn’t working out? Maybe a DRINKING STRAW, BENDY STRAW or METAL STRAW works better in that slot. But there’s nothing wrong with the answers that are in the grid.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Hundred ___ Wood (setting for “Winnie-the-Pooh”)] ACRE An easy one for me; we visited Ashdown Forest (south of London), the inspiration for the Pooh setting, about 20 years ago.
• 14A [Horseshoe-shaped letter] CEE I’m not sure why I expected this to be a Greek letter.
• 32A [Name hidden in “late riser”] TERI Who is this Teri and she known for sleeping in?
• 38A [Apt letters to be missing from in___ation] DENT That blank is a gap, not a depression. That doesn’t seem too “apt” to me.
• 47A [Channel with famous “unplugged” performances] MTV I watched a lot of those performance 35 or 40 years ago; I wonder how familiar they are to younger solvers.
• 2D [Independent shared-living collective] COMMUNE This was unexpectedly difficult for me to get.
• 6D [True friends, slangily] REAL ONES I hadn’t heard this before, but it makes sense.
• 7D [Masculine vibe in “Barbie”] KENERGY Cute portmanteau. That’s twice this week a crossword puzzle has reminded me that I still haven’t seen that movie.
• 12D [Dance popular in the early 2010s] DOUGIE I’ve heard of it and maybe have looked at what kind of moves it involves. But I’m a horrible dancer and consequently have little interest in it.
• 41D [Apple avatar that tracks your facial expressions] ANIMOJI I hadn’t hear of that, either.
• 51D [Ski lift with letter-shaped parts] T-BAR I read somewhere that surface ski lifts are making a comeback because they’re much cheaper to install than a chairlift or a gondola. But I still don’t think I’ve seen an operational T-bar in 25 or more years.

Rafael Musa and Sala Wanetick’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 14:28

Difficulty: Breezy (<8m)  |  Easy-ish (8-9m30s)  |  Working on it (9m30s-11m)  |  Rough going (11+m)

Rafael Musa and Sala Wanetick’s New York Times crossword, 4/16/26, 0416

Today’s theme: DOWN / TO A T (With 65-Across, with extreme precision … or a hint to reading 15 of this puzzle’s answers)

• 15 vertical answers in the grid that end in a black “T” square become new words when you add the letter t

Rough going is right.  One of my slowest Thursday solves in years.  I take minor umbrage with 11A (Rx for a root canal) for PAIN MED, a procedure which by definition removes the nerve and generally leaves the tooth insensate.  A root canal is the solution to — and generally not the reason for — tooth pain.

Cracking: I GOTTA

Slacking:cluing POP DIVA as (Performer known for her runs) — I was looking for a specific artist, since the clue specifies “her” and not “their”..  and is range the defining characteristic of a POP DIVA?  Also, this seems like a veiled jab at Mariah Carey (I have nothing against that last point, just making conversation.)

Sidetracking: RIPPLING

Kevin Shustack’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Tines up!” — Jim Q’s write-up

This puzzle is completely forked up.

THEME: Two-word phrases where a fork descriptor is the second word are placed vertically in the grid. The fork-related word is moved to the first position to create wackiness.

WSJ • 4/16/26 • Thurs • “Tines Up!” • Kevin Shustack • solution • 20260416

THEME ANSWERS:

• [Some mealtime programming?] DINNER TV
• [Nervous state before trying to sell one’s movie plot?] PITCH FEVER
• [Health-conscious emperor?] SALAD CAESAR
• [Performing some routine car maintenance?] TUNING AUTO
• [Warehouse machine, and the procedure undergone by phrases at 3-, 8-, 16- and 26-Down] FORKLIFT

Love the revealer and the title: clean, cohesive, and doing a spot-on job. The theme is a nifty idea overall. The odd thing is that the resulting wackiness isn’t always that wacky. Giving a car a tune-up is already a thing, so TUNING AUTO, while not quite in-language, doesn’t feel especially absurd. Same with DINNER TV and SALAD CAESAR. Both sit pretty close to their base meanings. I wasn’t even entirely sure “wackiness” was the goal at first.

Still, a fun puzzle with a solid Thursday-level bite for a WSJ. Plenty of strong clues and entries.

ENTRIES OF NOTE / HANGUPS / MISSTEPS:

• • [Factor in choosing a foundation] SKIN TONE. My brain immediately went to a philanthropist deciding between the Red Cross and NPR.
  • [Like Twister players, typically] ENTWINED. Does anyone else find this game completely gross? My last memory (circa 1987) is the unmistakable aroma of feet rising off that cheap plastic mat.
  • [What people with full plates have] A LOT TO DO. Great entry. Looks delightfully strange as a single grid unit.
  • [Match ender, sometimes] ACE. Think tennis.
  • [Nice way to leave?] AU REVOIR. Clever. “Nice” here referring to the French city.
  • [“Round and Round” glam metal band] RATT. Vaguely remember them. Any die-hard RATT fans still out there?
  • [React like an angry cat] SPIT. Not how I picture it. In my experience, angry cats lead to heavily bandaged hands.
  • That southwest corner gave me pause: LAURENT under HALPERT, crossing GERE (clued via one of his lesser-known films). With MARSHA P. Johnson nearby, that area felt like a potential sticking point. I got through it… but slowly.
  • [Kin of crimson] CERISE. New to me.
  • [Pollution fig.] AQI. Air Quality Index? That checks out.
  • [1986 memoir with a chapter titled “A Fool in Love”] I, TINA. Haven’t read it, but it shows up in crosswords constantly.
  • [Enter one after the other] PILE IN. The clue sounds orderly; the answer… less so.

3 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Marching Band Year 11, #1 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Marching Bands Year 11, #1 — 4/16/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I don’t have the patience for this kind of puzzle today. There’s the usual BEQ factor of a lot stuff I don’t know ([Jar-Jar Binks’ home planet?] I’m not enough of a Star Wars nerd for that one. [“Billion Dollar Babies” singer?] No idea. Etc., etc.) And the stuff that is otherwise a gimme — SOCRATIC, BANANA SLUG, MARCO — is hard to place in the grid without knowing the starting point.

Throw in answers to things that I can suss out eventually and it’s just an exercise in frustration. For example, [Communist Party leader between Nikita and Yuri] (Khrushchev and Andropov, respectively)? That’s a long time ago; I tried ANDREI Gromyko before hitting the correct answer LEONID Brezhnev. In a normal crossword, I’d have tried to verify ANDREI with a crossing word, but that doesn’t work here.

Some days, I’m willing to pick my way through this type of puzzle. Not today. This is as far as I got.

Hope you had more fun with it than I did.

Lekha Karthik & Amie Walker’s USA Today Crossword, “Troop Leaders” — Emily’s write-up

A circle’s round and has no end…

USA Today, April 16, 2026, “Troop Leaders” by Lekha Karthik & Amie Walker

Theme: the first word (“leader”) of each themer is a type of Girl Scout Troop level

Themers:

• 17a. [Short shorts associated with a 1970s TV character], DAISYDUKES
• 39a. [Credits earned for doing nice things], BROWNIEPOINTS
• 62a. [Candy featured in a memorable “Seinfeld” episode], JUNIORMINTS

A fun set of themers with DAISYDUKES, BROWNIEPOINTS, and JUNIORMINTS. The first and third needed crossings for me though other solvers likely got them right away, which was how the second one filled today though. I use that phrase often. With the theme, we get the Girl Scout Troop levels: DAISY, BROWNIE, and JUNIOR.

Favorite fill: SCOOPS, HAIRDO, and MAORI

Stumpers: KELP (thought of “nori”, “wakame”, and “konbu”), LUTES (“lyres” and “harps” came to mind first), and INBETA (needed crossings)

A speedy solve for me today! Loved the grid, great fresh fill, and the cluing just clicked. Enjoyed the themer set and the theme. Hope to see more collabs from this duo!

4.75 stars

~Emily (former Girl Scout)