Wednesday, April 22, 2026

AV Club 6:06 (Amy) [2.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 4:35 (Gareth) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 5:09 (Amy) [3.93 avg; 21 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 4:52 (Jim Q) [4.50 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (pannonica) [3.60 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today 11:05 (Emily) [1.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 6:09 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Zachary Edward-Brown & Jude White’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Not Quite on Top of Things”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 4/22/26 – “Not Quite on Top of Things”

This week’s AVCX themed puzzle is a 17/17 with hidden words spaced out in those circled squares. The revealer is 73a. [Unaware of one’s surroundings, as it were … and a hint to this puzzle’s theme], LOST IN THE SAUCE. Does this mean too drunk to know where you are, or is it an idiomatic sauce in a new phrase that I don’t know? The sauces are SOY in CHESS OLYMPIADS, PESTO in “I HOPE SO TOO,” RAGU in DRAGS UP, and MOLE in MOLTEN LAVA. I guess the classic French sauces are hostile to a theme like this–how do you space out HOLLANDAISE within a phrase?

Fave fill: GELATO, new-to-me (when I learned it in another recent puzzle) portmanteau GAYMER, SPECTRE, HOTHEAD, PRECALC. I’m not loving ARDENCY because don’t we use ardor?

Got some work to finish before it’s NYT time, so I’ll sign off here with 3.5 stars.

Hoang-Kim Vu’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 4/22/26 – no. 0422

This is a creative theme, with REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE being taken to heart in three ways in the puzzle:

• CAN is used as an answer four times. As a verb meaning to fire, 35A. [Ax]. As a hardware store noun, 37A. [Paint container]. As the modal verb, 42D. [Is able to]. Last, as slang noun for toilet, 59D. [John].
• The answers with circled letters contain synonyms that work with the same clue: ENCOURAGED contains URGED, DAUBS has DABS, and INSTRUCTOR has TUTOR.
• Four other answers have their last halves shaded, and the second halves contain the first half scrambled: PULL-UP, REAPPEAR, SHEESH, and TEAMMATE.

The CAN repeats threw me off, and when I filled in the second CAN I quickly deleted it because I already had a solidly crossed CAN in place. I did think about recyclable cans, put that second CAN back in, and then didn’t fight the third and fourth CANs.

I feel like this one should’ve run closer to Earth Day. Say, on Earth Day, April 1. Whoops, that was April Fools Day. The 22nd is indeed Earth Day.

Fave fill: The fairly uncommon LOUCHE, the Scottish CELTIC / GAELIC combo, Jane GOODALL.

Clue that stumped me for a bit: 10D. [Dish traditionally flavored with Saigon cinnamon], PHO. I’m not much of a pho person so what do I know? I was thinking of cinnamon buns and trying to summon up a three-letter Vietnamese food.

4.5 stars for me. I liked the surprise factor, and in a Wednesday puzzle!

Gary Larson and Amy Ensz’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Having the Means” — Eric’s Review

Gary Larson and Amy Ensz’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Having the Means” — 4/22/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I usually notice who constructed whatever puzzle I’m about to solve. I didn’t with this one, and halfway through, I looked up to see who it was. I wasn’t at all surprised to see Mr. Larson and Ms Ensz’s names, as the theme feels very much like other themes I’ve seen recently from that pair. Take some familiar compound nouns and clue them wackily as descriptions of insults:

• 17A [Insult regarding one’s Marxist leanings?] RED ZINGER This one didn’t sound familiar, but I guessed correctly that it’s a variety of tea.
• 26A [Insult regarding one’s stature?] SHORT CUT
• 36A [Insult regarding one’s male pattern baldness?] HAIRLINE CRACK This is my favorite of the theme answers, despite its reminding me of how sparse my own hair is getting.
• 52A [Insult regarding one’s physique?] BODY SLAM
• 62A [Insult regarding one’s family?] BLOODSHOT

These are all nice theme answers. The wackiness of the punny pairings didn’t amuse me too much, but neither did it make me groan.

Other stuff:

• 1A [A young one is called a squeaker] BOAR I didn’t know this, but it makes sense. I continue to be amused by the number of words English has for farm animals of specific ages and sexes. I guess you name what’s important to you.
• 5A [1980s band with an exclamation point] WHAM! Absolute gimme, thanks to too much MTV back then. George Michael always creeped me out slightly.
• 22A [She took silver to Yamaguchi’s gold in the 1992 Winter Games] Midori ITO Tough call: Clue ITO to an Olympic figure skater from 30+ years ago or the judge in the O.J. Simpson murder trial which is, practically speaking, no more recent? (How was I TO know?)
• 66A [Oscar-winning composer Morricone] ENNIO After being nominated five times and receiving an honorary Oscar in 2006, Morricone finally won a competitive Oscar for The Hateful Eight (2015). I can’t say that any particular melody comes to mind when I think of Morricone’s work, but maybe that’s a good thing. A movie score that’s highly memorable might be a score that overwhelms the movie.
• 67A [Benjamin Disraeli, e.g.] EARL/68A [Albert or Victoria, e.g.] LAKE These two together feel a little like a class in 19th century history of the United Kingdom. Disraeli was prime minister during Victoria’s reign; Prince Albert was her consort. I would have guessed that Lake Albert was in Canada, but of the three lakes by that name listed in Wikipedia, one’s in Africa on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one’s in South Australia and one’s in New South Wales.
• 24D [Friends and acquaintances] KITH I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that word except in “kith and kin,” which for too many years I assumed was a redundancy along the lines of “null and void” or “over and done.”
• 49D [Flipped] RESOLD It took me too long to think of the real estate meaning of “flip.”
• 53D [“Tiny Alice” playwright] Edward ALBEE I made a lucky or semi-educated guess here; the only Albee plays I know at all are Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Ballad of the Sad Café.

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker crossword — Jim Q’s write-up

Apologies for a late write-up!

New Yorker • 4/22/26 • Wed • Patrick Berry • solution • 20260422

FAVE ENTRIES:

• DOG STAR. Without a space, it’s a band.
• STOPPED  BY
• REACHES OUT
• MAGNA CARTA
• ICE CRYSTALS
• BEAN DIP
• SLEPT IN
• ERIE CANAL
• DUNE BUGGY
• BACKSPACE
• PULL DATE

Can’t remember seeing Berry’s name as a byline since I started blogging Wednesdays. The grid is Berry-esque for sure- the lack of crud seems to be a Wednesday New Yorker standard, but Patrick Berry was creating crud-free grids before crud-free grids were a thing.

NOTES:

• [When a perishable item should be removed from shelves] PULL DATE. This might be a new term for me, but that’s probably because the PULL DATE on the shelves in my house is never.
• [Singer of the “Dawson’s Creek” theme song “I Don’t Want to Wait”] PAULA COLE. I know the song! Name is new to me though.
• [“Lucky Jim” author Kingsley] AMIS. I wonder if he has a lot of French friends? They would be known as AMIS AMIS.
• [Young ne’er-do-wells] PUNKS. I love how proper “ne’er-do-well sounds vis-a-vis PUNKS.
• [Like wearing Crocs to a funeral, say] TACKY. My nephew did this once. I was relieved. He made my Converse look fancy.

Surprising number of names considering how smooth the solve was!

3.5 stars from me

Olivia Mitra Framke & Will Eisenberg’s USA Today Crossword, “That’s So OP!” — Emily’s write-up

Gotcha!

USA Today, April 22, 2026, “That’s So OP!” by Olivia Mitra Framke & Will Eisenber

Theme: each themer has O–P–

Themers:

• 18a. [D.C. fixer on “Scandal”], OLIVIAPOPE
• 37a. [Broadway musician’s workplace], ORCHESTRAPIT
• 57a. [Old Fashioned garnish],ORANGEPEEL

A mix of themers in with today’s set of OLIVIAPOPE, ORCHESTRAPIT, and ORANGEPEEL. It’s been too long since I’ve watched it so I couldn’t think of OLIVIAPOPE though the actress came to mind right away. ORCHESTRAPIT took me a few crossings and for ORANGEPEEL I first thought of maraschino cherry instead. Had I been thinking more of the title and possible theme, these should have filled easier.

Favorite fill: ALOOGOBI, MOMENTOS, and NAPKINMATH

Stumpers: OPENFACE (kept thinking about a melt so ended up needing crossings), FREEMIUM (needed crossings) and AWGEE (“oh gee” came to mind)

A longer solve today though lots of fresh fill and great cluing. My favorite part is the grid design–its like a sunburst with a ring (or an “o”) in the center too.

4.0 stars

~Emily

Zhouqin Burnikel’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

Is it bad that when confronted with CALM plus [With 64-across, Chill!”] my first thought was “your tits”, not down. Anyway, there are four long down answers that have calm in their centre. I don’t know if it’s related to all of them being -CAL answers, but none of the theme entries really stood out for me. We have:

1. [Neighbour spot for fresh produce], LOCALMARKET
2. [Genre with symphonies and sonatas], CLASSICALMUSIC
3. [Make-or-break point], CRITICALMOMENT
4. [Accessories favoured by serious gamers], OPTICALMICE

We have a two-fer of text abbreviations I swear I’ve never encountered: TTFN which appears to be ta-ta for now? And OMW pretending to be “on my way”…

Gareth