Monday, April 27, 2026

BEQ 16:52 (Eric) [3.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 1:43 (Stella) [2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 3:30ish(Sophia) [3.25 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 6:16 (Amy) [4.00 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (pannonica) [3.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (?) [1.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 4:36 (Jim Q) rate it

Neville Fogarty’s New York Times Crossword — Sophia’s Recap

Theme: VR HEADSET – each theme answer is a two word phrase where the first word starts with V and the second starts with R

New York Times, 04 27 2026, By Neville Fogarty

• 17a [Singer’s recovery period] – VOCAL REST
• 24a [Pumice or basalt] – VOLCANIC ROCK
• 39a [Spinoff of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”] – VANDERPUMP RULES
• 53a [Congressional history] – VOTING RECORD
• 65a [Device worn by a video gamer … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 39- and 53-Across] – VR HEADSET

Very solid Monday theme and puzzle overall! VR HEADSET is a modern entry that makes a great re-parse into “phrases that have V and R at their heads”. I liked the answers that Neville chose here – VOCAL REST was a gimme to me as a former musical theater kid, and VOLCANIC ROCK is a cool phrase with all those C’s. I don’t watch VANDERPUMP RULES, but it’s been on since 2013 (12 seasons!) and the show was very much in the public eye a few years ago during Scandoval, so it was an easy drop-in answer for me. (We’ll see how long it takes Summer House to get mentioned in the NYT…)

Quick takes on the rest of the puzzle:

• PENTATONIX and ANTS ON A LOG are awesome pieces of fill, and they both cross two theme answers! I’ve been a Pentatonix fan ever since their days on the Sing-Off, so I loved seeing their NYT debut here.
• Trouble spots for me were “blat” instead of TOOT for [Short blast from a horn], and “agape” instead of AGASP for [Betraying surprise, in a way]. That last one took me almost 30 seconds to track down at the end of the puzzle.
• My favorite clue today was [“Peanuts” or “Pickles”] for COMIC (although I’ll admit to not being familiar with “Pickles”; on first glance I thought this was related to “Rugrats”). It’s interesting that the puzzle has another comics clue in the opposite corner in the form of [Garfield in the funny pages, e.g.] for CAT.
• [“Our Lips ___ Sealed” (hit by the Go-Go’s)] for ARE – I know someone who for years misheard the lyrics of this song as “I’m A Gray Seal”, and I think about that every time this song is mentioned.

Happy Monday all!

Patti Varol’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 4/27/26 by Patti Varol

Here’s a feel-good puzzle to start your workweek. There’s no revealer, so it’s an old-school theme in which every theme entry starts with HAPPY, or a synonym thereof:

• 20A [Carnival ride with seats shaped like animals] is a MERRY-GO-ROUND.
• 33A [Hard candies with blue raspberry and green apple flavors] is JOLLY RANCHERS.
• 43A [Brand of heavy-duty trash bags] is GLAD FORCEFLEX. Pun intended: This theme entry felt a little forced to me. I’m totally fine with brand names in puzzles if they’re ones you’d likely talk or read about in daily life (JOLLY RANCHERS certainly qualifies). When you have a long and specific brand name that I doubt anyone who doesn’t work for Glad or its holding company ever says out loud in its entirety, it starts to feel like spon-con to me.
• 59A [Golfer played by Adam Sandler] is HAPPY GILMORE. Do I need to see this movie? It’s on a long list of Movies Everyone Else But Me Has Seen.

So: The theme answers were 75% fun-evocative, and 25% evocative in a way I could do without.

The fill was pretty smooth; I didn’t love SLIGO on a Monday, but I was here for the reference to AKIRA Kurosawa (probably my favorite director), and also the nostalgia with Catherine O’HARA (RIP).

Zhouqin Burnikel’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Bouncing Ball” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: The word BALL can be found in common phrases (placed vertically in the grid) forward or backward.

WSJ • 4/27/26 • Mon • “Bouncing Ball” • Zhouqin Burnikel • solution • 20260427

THEME ANSWERS:

• TRIBAL LORE
• VANILLA BEANS
• GLOBAL LEADER
• ALL ABOUT ME

Boing!

This puzzle works nicely as a visual. Once the grid is filled, it does a convincing job of depicting a bouncing BALL. That said, I didn’t experience it that way during the solve. I assumed BALL would appear uniformly in each themer and- thanks to my ongoing (and often counterproductive) quest to break three minutes on a Monday- dropped it in without thinking. Wrong. Then I decided the letters B-A-L-L were being cycled. Also wrong. Not my sharpest effort.

It’s a bit surprising the grid comes in at the standard 78-word max, given the amount of lively fill: I’M SO TIRED!, NAIL SALON (with a clue that notably sidestepped a PEDI reference already sitting in the northeast), I’M DONE!- all solid entries.

NEW TO ME / MISSTEPS / MUSINGS:

• ILLINI [“Fighting” Big Ten team] New to me. I know the Fighting Irish; this one didn’t ring a bell. Presumably Illinois-adjacent, though I wouldn’t be able to pronounce this with any sort of confidence.
• GREG [Texas governor Abbott]I went with FRED first. That felt right until it very much wasn’t.
• RILL [Small stream] Familiar from books and crosswords, but I’ve never heard anyone actually say this word.
• GRIPER [Kvetch] — Someone who complains about crosswordese is, fittingly, a GRIPER.
• PEDI [Tootsie treat?]  The clue gives “yummy” to me while the answer lands closer to “eeew”
• FLAG [Jolly Roger, for one] Took a moment. My brain went to Jolly Rancher first, which didn’t help.

A fun, slightly humbling Monday from C.C. Burnikel.

4 stars

Will Nediger’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 4/27/26 – Nediger

Not too hard, also not too easy. Suitable for a Monday TNY puzzle.

Fave fill: The WESTING Game (that’s up next on my library ebook wait list, never read it), “WHAT DAY IS IT?” (my husband asked if today was Friday), ETHICAL / DILEMMA, PEEP-TOE SHOE ([Fashion item with a small digital display?] refers to the little window for the toes), CHARLATAN, timely ANTIPOPE (what with the Pentagon menacing the Pope), EVIL EMPIRE, “COME TO PAPA,” SMART MONEY.

New to me: Shortening a hot minute or a hot second to HOT SEC, tax AVOISION (how on earth is that word needed when “avoid” and “evade” are so close in meaning?).

Do people say “WATER IS WET,” or do they ask “Is water wet?”?

Overall, lots of fresh fill. Four stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1882 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1882 — 4/27/26 (Click to Enlarge)

This was one of those BEQ themeless puzzles where I needed my chisel. It was also a good reminder to read every clue, because if you skip around too much, you might miss a gimme that will unlock a whole section of the grid.

Highlights and such:

• 1A [How dudes talk] BROSPEAK My first thought was BRO CODE, but that’s more a set of conventions governing behavior, isn’t it?
• 14A [The Captain’s partner] Toni TENNILLE Were the 1970s the apex of soft rock? This is the clue I most regret not having seen early on. I probably already had the T from 1D BTU, but even without it, TENNILLE was a complete gimme. (If the names don’t mean anything to you, you can find them on YouTube. I’m not interested in giving myself an earworm of any of their songs.)
• 15A [Looked at with rage] GLARED I take issue with that clue. I glare at people more often than I should, but my anger is rarely as intense as “rage.”
• 16A [Some calling strikes] UNION MEN Yep, I too thought first of baseball.
• 17A [“Carmen Saeculare” writer] HORACE My knowledge of classic literature is woefully inadequate, and I didn’t know that title. But at least I’ve heard of the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, which made the answer gettable with a few letters in place.
• 19A [“Jesus Christ Superstar” director] Norman JEWISON A gimme. My friend Matt mentioned the song “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (from that musical) just last week. That’s almost prompted me to dig out the 1970 recording of the original London cast (which I know almost every word of).
• 20A [Money order?] VENMO REQUEST Nice clue. Nice answer that gives the puzzle a more contemporary feel. I have to admit that Venmo makes it convenient to pay people for services and stuff.
• 31A [Goal-oriented player] KEEPER I tried STRIKER first, which fortunately is too long.
• 35A [In a serious way] SOBERLY Not STERNLY.
• 37A [Cy Young candidate] ACE I know that the Cy Young Award goes to baseball pitchers, but I couldn’t think of a three-letter answer other than MVP (which didn’t seem quite right). (Bonus sports trivia: Roger Clemens won the Cy Young Award a record seven times. There are three or four guys still playing who might have a chance of topping that, but none has won more than twice so far.)
• 38A [They have a lot of hammers] PIANOS I put that in early on and took it out for a while when the crosses weren’t working. It’s tough to know when an answer you’re sure is correct is in fact wrong, but having a bad answer in the grid can be worse than having nothing at all.
• 44A [Liquid that adds a tart sugary flavor] APPLE ESSENCE I’d not heard of this before. The perfect apple, in my opinion, is a crisp Granny Smith that’s not too tart.
• 

  The flag of Chad

  50A [Country whose flag is nearly identical to Romania’s] CHAD I couldn’t picture either country’s flag, but I know there are only 10 countries with four-letter names. Unfortunately, the A from 39D AREA MAP had me trying IRAN first.

• 

  The flag of Romania

  51A [Pompom holder] SKI CAP If you ski or snowboard, please consider wearing a helmet.

• 56A [They never have a cow] VEGANS Not STEERS (which fits the clue in two ways!)
• 2D [Model Alexis] REN Not a name I know.
• 3D [Deli order] ONION BAGEL There’s so many thing that one could order in a deli that the clue is not particularly helpful. You just have to wait for a few letters.
• 5D [Steering system component] PINION Not TIE ROD.
• 6D [“The Magnificent Seven” film scorer Bernstein] ELMER The first answer I got and knew was undeniably correct.
• 9D [Does, as hair after a shower] BLOWS DRY Not BLOW-DRYS (which should probably be BLOW-DRIES anyway). Blow dryers are awkward for me to use; I consider myself lucky that my rapidly-disappearing hair dries quickly on its own.
• 19D [Recess classic] JUMP ROPE I read the clue too quickly and was certain it said “recent,” not “recess.” That might have cost me a minute or two.
• 21D [Beethoven piece that references his “The Creatures of Prometheus”] EROICA I don’t know Beethoven’s Third Symphony all that well, and “The Creatures of Prometheus” not at all. But I know how few Beethoven pieces have actual names, and EROICA is pretty grid-friendly. (When in doubt, always try the common crossword answers first.)
• 22D [Viewers] EYEBALLS Not AUDIENCE.
• 23D [“50ft ___” (PJ Harvey single)] QUEENIE I have a vague idea of who Polly Jean Harvey is and what sort of music she makes, but I couldn’t name a single song by her. I kinda like the song.
• 27D [Carrier to Keflavik] ICELAND AIR/23D [From Keflavik] NORDIC I didn’t know that airport, but the name just looks Icelandic, doesn’t it?
• 29D [Spin around] GYRATE Not ROTATE.
• 41D [Ragdoll on one’s legs] LAP CAT I’m not a pet person and didn’t recognize “ragdoll” as a cat breed.
• 47D [Wedding invitation enclosure] RSVP Not SASE.
• 48D [Store that sells approximately two million meatballs a day] IKEA I’ve not been in an IKEA store in close to 20 years. That’s not long enough.