Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Jonesin’ untimed (Jenni) rate it
LAT 4:35 (Erin) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 7:55 (Eric) [2.85 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 4:48 (Amy) [3.94 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Universal 8:51 (Eric) [2.67 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [2.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ 5:29 (Jim Q) rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “From Chill to Ill” — something’s lost in the process. – Jenni’s write-up

It’s changing of the guard time at Team Fiend. I get to play with Matt while Erin hangs out with the LAT crew! I really enjoyed this one. As the title suggests, each theme answer loses the letters CH.

• 17a [Fossil resin that encourages economic activity?] is AMBER OF COMMERCE. Chamber of Commerce
• 33a [Wildcat that gives off fragrant compounds?] is ESTER CHEETAH. I had to figure this one out backwards because I am not the target demo for Chester Cheetah.
• 41a [NFL star Saquon in a Provençal city where Van Gogh painted?] is ARLES BARKLEY. Charles Barkley.
• 57a [Set design around a “Dallas” family?] is EWING THE SCENERY. Chewing the scenery. They certainly did.

Bad puns FTW! The best kind.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: see above re: Charles Cheetah. I also had never heard of EMF and their song album “Schubert Dip.”

Erik Agard and Sarah Sinclair’s Universal Crossword “Directing Movies” — Eric’s Review

This one seemed a little more difficult than I’ve come to expect from Universal puzzles, which is not a bad thing. Maybe it was having the theme in the Down answers (which for me can be difficult to parse). Maybe it was that the titles spelled by in the circled letters run from bottom to top. Maybe there were just a few key entries that I didn’t get quickly.

In a flouting of crossword puzzle convention, there are two two-letter answers, one of which is a revealer:

• 5D [“Songs for Littles” YouTuber] MS RACHEL Cars I’m not surprised that I never heard of that YouTube channel.
• 10D [“That’s not, in fact, news to me”] I’M WELL AWARE WALL-E I started off trying something like I KNEW THAT, which obviously doesn’t fit.
• 12D [2009 Pixar movie, or the direction of five other Pixar movies in this puzzle] UP
• 14D [Warnings about plot giveaways] SPOILER ALERT Elio I passionately hate spoilers.
• 25D [TV presenter who said, “I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being”] LEVAR BURTON Brave I didn’t recognize the quote. I know him primarily as Kunta Kinte in Roots and Geordie LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, though I have heard of his PBS show Reading Rainbow.
• 37D [Admission of fault] MEA CULPA Luca

The theme answers are all pretty nice and would work well in a themeless puzzle. The circled Pixar titles didn’t help much; I recognized them all but have seen only three of these movies. (I highly recommend Up, and WALL-E has its moments. My memory of Cars is that there’s less to it for adults than a lot of other Pixar movies.)

Other stuff:

• 1A [Cooks, like mantou] STEAMS I’d never heard of this Chinese bun/bread. A lot of cooking methods are five-letter words (six with the S): BROIL. ROAST. SAUTÉ.
• 17A [End of a single-sheet, double-sided document] PAGE TWO I had to think about that longer than I should have.
• 19A [“The Dark Knight” ride] BATPOD That’s a name I don’t remember, though I remember the actual vehicle quite well. I would have called it a BATCYCLE or something (assuming I found a picture of the right thing).
• 21A [Link’s comedy partner] RHETT I’ve not heard of these people.
• 30A [Fictional dog named for his color and sound] OLD YELLER That goes way back. I made a minor mistake spelling OLD with an E instead of a D.
• 33A [Vladimir Nabokov bookends?] VEES Cute clue.
• 9D [Request that might get a canned response?] BEER ME Nice clue.

Victoria Fernandez Grande’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

I haven’t been on a plane over a decade. I don’t think I’ve even been to an airport to pick drop someone off or pick someone up during that time. So I honestly don’t know if all  the airlines in the theme answers are still around:

• 17A [Mentor from the beyond] SPIRIT GUIDE
• 25A [Major charity whose recipients include the Red Cross and Salvation Army] UNITED WAY
• 36A [Wild West way of settling disputes] FRONTIER JUSTICE
• 49A [1972 country hit for Tanya Tucker] DELTA DAWN
• 57A [Early advantage … or a hint to the beginnings of 17-, 25-, 36- and 49-Across] FLYING START

The theme answers work well enough. SPIRIT GUIDE and FRONTIER JUSTICE are kind of fun.

There wasn’t anything here that should have slowed me down, so I’m at a loss to explain my sluggish solving time. Perhaps I’m just in a weird mood having spent the afternoon watching the house across the street burn up. (I don’t know the people, but I’m told everyone’s OK. Still, they lost everything.)

Other stuff:

• 15A [Do some farmwork] PLOW Not SLOP.
• 32A [Offering from an entrepreneurial child’s stand] LEMONADE The grammar of that clue is just fine — “Offering from the stand of a child entrepreneur” — but it didn’t make much sense to me when I read it.
• 43A [Starbucks alternatives from the Golden Arches] MCCAFES It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to McDonald’s. I don’t remember any coffee offerings there other than basic brewed coffee.
• 26D [Steeping container] TEA URN My inability to read a simple clue continued here; I thought it said “sleeping.”
• 33D [Like “The Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live”] ON LATE Not ON LIVE.

I’m contractually required to note the crossing of 57A FLYING START with 57D [Cool, in ’90s slang] FLY. Even by New York Times standards, that’s an unusual duplication. I suppose the slang definition of “fly” somewhat excuses it.

Rena Cohen’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Erin’s write-up

Hello lovelies! Jenni and I swapped puzzles so from now on she’ll be blogging the Jonesin’ and I’ll have the Tuesday LAT. Today’s puzzle by Rena Cohen made me hungry!

• 16a. [Didn’t hold back in competition] PLAYED TO WIN
• 23a. [Field that drives the self-help industry] POP PSYCHOLOGY
• 37a. [Lettuce, tomato, or cucumber, often] SALAD INGREDIENT
• 50a. [Extremely special] ONE IN A MILLION
• 61a. [Deli gadget that’s been used on 16-, 23-, 37-, and 50-Across?] BAGEL SLICER. The other four theme entries have flavors of bagels (pain, poppy, salt, onion) flanking the edges.

Other things:

• 22d. [“Curiously strong” mint] ALTOID. This entry opened up my sinuses.
• 24d. [Covered with colorful blotches] PIED, or piebald. Generally this involves white patches on a pigmented background, and it’s a purrfect excuse to introduce my newest rescue kitty, Peach!

Until next week!

Gene Leganza & Theresa Brady’s Wall Street Journal crossword “How Pedestrian!” — Jim Q’s write up

This puzzle was made for walkin’. That’s just what it’ll do…

THEME: Different types of “walks” can be found in common phrases

THEME ANSWERS:

• SLIM PICKENS. Limp. 
• COMBAT READY. Tread.
• GRAMMAR CHECKERS. March. 
• LAST EPISODE. Step. 
• (revealer) [Aerosmith/Run-D.M.C. song in the Grammy Hall of Fame, and a possible alternate title for today’s puzzle] WALK THIS WAY.

Had no idea Run-D.M.C. collaborated with Run-D.M.C. on that earworm of a tune.

The first three themers were my faves- especially SLIM PICKENS, despite being unfamiliar with the name. That name is fantastic. 10/10.

LAST EPISODE didn’t excite me as much. The phrase itself is definitely thing, but is it an in-language standalone? Also, it’s hiding STEP, which in comparison to LIMP, TREAD, and MARCH is the boring-est way to walk. The Ministry of Silly Walks wouldn’t want someone who merely STEPs!

The fill on this was a bit rough for me. I mean, cute to have ELMER and ELSIE crossing one another, clued similarly. But it did feel somewhat proper-noun-heavy with a lot of the usual suspects: ETNA, REID, ALPE, MAES (oof… plural of that name is tough to swallow), DIOR, MARISA. 

OTHER THINGS:

• [Caveat ___] EMPTOR. New to me. “Let the buyer beware.” Way more fun than “As is.”
• [Early ISP that mailed quite a few CDs] AOL. Now there’s a nostalgic clue… remember how many CDs AOL used to send us in the mail?
• [Grizzlies’ grp.] NBA. I’m always stunned by my own lack of sports knowledge. I had no clue the Grizzlies were a basketball team. Montana? Colorado? (googles) Nope! Memphis. Huh. Didn’t see that coming.
• [Martin Luther King Jr. fought it] RACISM. Clued thoughtfully, but I don’t love seeing RACISM in the puzzle.

A lack of longer words in the fill kept it from sparkling for me.

2.5 stars

Erik Agard’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

Congrats to Erik on winning the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this month!

Erik’s got two intersecting answers that were entirely unknown to me, and yet that didn’t frustrate me. 32a. [Abolitionist who said, “A people, to be free, must necessarily be their own rulers”], MARTIN DELANY, and 24d. [Chewy Hawaiian dessert], BUTTER MOCHI. BUTTER-something seemed logical enough, and the crossings did the heavy lifting. There’s also 7d. [Product for styling baby hairs], EDGE CONTROL. Mainly a Black hair thing, as seen in this page. I knew about baby hairs, but not that there are products labeled “edge control.”

Fave fill: COUNT CARDS, ELLIOT PAGE, CAME TO TERMS, STATE SECRETS, “ACTUAL SIZE,” CHEAT SHEET (nice symmetry with COUNT CARDS), BRIOCHE, PAPER TOWELS, HONDURAS.

The difficulty level was right on target. A smattering of question-mark clues, including this: 58a. [Diamonds in the sky?], KITES. 4.25 stars from me.

Erik Agard’s New Yorker Crossword — Eric’s Bonus Review

There was a bit of miscommunication among the Fiends today. But since I unnecessarily wrote this, I figure I might as well post it.

Is this puzzle 12D TOO EASY for a Tuesday New Yorker puzzle? Not really, though it kind of pushed that line.

But there’s plenty to like and learn here:

• 4A [“To God,” in French] ADIEU I understand why people use “adieu” as a Wordle starting word, but it’s not really that good.
• 13A [Make some calculations before a deal?] COUNT CARDS Nice little misdirection.
• 17A [Actor in “Inception” and “The Umbrella Academy] ELLIOT PAGE One L and two T’s? I can never remember.
• 30A [Clairvoyance or clairaudience: Abbr.] ESP “Clairaudience” is new to me; it’s “the supposed faculty of perceiving, as if by hearing, what is inaudible.”
• 32A [Abolitionist who said, “A people, to be free, must necessarily be their own rulers”] MARTIN DELANY That’s a name I don’t recognize, though I probably should. Wikipedia says he was among the first three Black men admitted to Harvard Medical School in 1850, but protests from white students led to his dismissal. He was also an officer in the Union army during the Civil War.
• 38A [Lead-in from the Greek for “rose”] RHODO As in “rhododendron,” I guess.
• 40A [A used one can be repurposed as a deodorizing sachet] TEA BAG I’d think you’d want to let it dry out thoroughly before reusing it that way.
• 7D [Product for styling baby hairs] EDGE CONTROL  I’d never heard of that product.
• 21D [Restroom items that shouldn’t be flushed] PAPER TOWELS That’s the subject of the most interesting TEDx talk I’ve ever seen. (I’ve followed this guy’s advice for years and it really works.)
• 24D [Chewy Hawaiian dessert] BUTTER MOCHI I know what mochi is, though I’ve never eaten it. I hadn’t heard of this variation, though.
• 40D [Garment thought to be named for the vivid colors in which rowers wore it] BLAZER I didn’t know this, either.