Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Jonesin’ untimed (Jenni) [3.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT 3:41 (Erin) [2.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
NYT 6:42 (Eric) [2.79 avg; 14 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 6:59 (Eric) [4.13 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:36 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [2.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ untimed (Jim Q) [3.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “Free Solo” — it’s another themeless puzzle – Jenni’s write-up

I have to confess: I didn’t do Matt’s puzzles until I started blogging them. Clearly I was missing out. This one has an eye-catching grid and some fun fill including four 15-letter entries I don’t remember seeing before. It’s got a distinct STEM flavor, which is just fine with me.

Jonesin’, May 5, 2026, Matt Jones, “Free Solo” – another themeless puzzle, solution grid

• 13a [Peak on a graph (not necessarily the highest)] is the RELATIVE MAXIMUM.
• 17a [Able to donate particular particles, like rubidium and cesium] is ELECTROPOSITIVE.
• 48a [Divest, maybe] is SELL THE BUSINESS.
• 54a [Resembled, in a way] is TASTED SIMILAR TO.
• Part of the STEM flavor is scifi: 2d [Georges who created “A Trip to the Moon”(1902)] is MELIES and 34d [“The Time Machine” author] is H.G. WELLS. We also have 30a [Suffix with chlor-] for IDE, 36a [Ohm creation] for LAW and 49d [“Good” cholesterol], HDL.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: never heard of Bill NIGHY, who appeared in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”

I did accurately remember this image from the MELIES film.

When the moon hits your eye…no, the other way around.

Max Schlenker’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Max Schlenker’s New York Times Crossword — 5/5/26 (Click to Enlarge)

Five common phrases for referring to something easy get reimagined is punny clues:

• 18A [It’s a piece of cake] LADYFINGER
• 27A [It’s child’s play] SIMON SAYS
• 42A [It’s a no-brainer] HEADLESS HORSEMAN I like this one, for some reason.
• 52A [It’s a breeze] TRADE WIND
• 67A [It’s a walk in the park] NATURE HIKE

The grid has one more column than usual, which might slow some people down a little. The theme should be fairly apparent to most solvers, though I didn’t really see how the theme answers were connected until I was done.

Other stuff:

• 5A [It’s perfect for some musicians] PITCH Nothing came to mind until I had a few crosses.
• 17A [Where Boise is] IDAHO A gimme even if I hadn’t, earlier today, seen some pictures taken by my cousin on a recent visit to the Gem State’s capital.
• 22A [Alaska politico Palin] SARAH By coincidence, the aforementioned cousin grew up in Anchorage.
• 35A [Ones always blowing off steam?] KETTLES Tuesday-level wordplay.
• 46A [2016 Ariana Grande love song] INTO YOU I got that from the crosses, which is good because I don’t recognize the title.
• 61A [Intermittently offered fast-food pork sandwich] MCRIB It’s only from crossword puzzles that I know about McDonald’s here today, gone tomorrow sandwich.
• 4D [International competition in math, science and other disciplines] OLYMPIAD I’ll take their word for it.
• 31D [Figure in a school pep rally] TEAM MASCOT If there’s a gene for the “Rah, rah” spirit, I was born without it.

Larry Snyder’s Universal Crossword “Hidden Nuggets” — Eric’s Review

Larry Snyder’s Universal Crossword “Hidden Nuggets” — 5/5/26 (Click to Enlarge)

Anyone who’s seen my solving times over the last few years knows I’m not the fastest Fiend on the block. I’m okay with that. But I felt like I was solving quickly as I went through this grid, so I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t finish in under 5 minutes. Ah, well. I still have something to aspire to.

What’s even more unusual for me than solving relatively quickly is that I grasped the theme well before I finished the puzzle. Circled letters hold the words you might see at the top of your computer screen when using your word processing software of choice:

• 20A [Did a half-hearted job] PHONED IT IN I was surprised to learn that this phrase is almost 100 years old — I’d have guessed it was a much more recent coinage. There appears to be some uncertainty as to whether it originated in journalism or the theater. I’m going go with the journalism origin.

• 26A [“Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” singer] STEVIE WONDER Mr. Wonder made the New York Times‘ recent list of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters. Congratulations, sir. (Yes, I know that the NYT list is not definitive, but the article prompted me to devote a lot of mental energy to thinking about who should have been on that list and why. If you’re interested in voting in the Times‘ reader poll, it’s open until 11:59 PM tonight, May 5 (EDT, maybe?).)
• 43A [Pitcher who made his MLB debut at age 42] SATCHEL PAIGE That’s a bit of sports trivia I should have known. He’s still the oldest person to be a Major League Baseball rookie.
• 53A [What those in the know can order from … or what 20-, 26- or 43-Across has?] SECRET MENU I don’t eat fast food very often, so I don’t think I’ve ever ordered off a secret menu.

The circled letters give us EDIT, VIEW and HELP. I’m an Apple user, and those three drop-down menus appear (in that order) in Apple’s Pages software. It’s a solid theme with some interesting answers. STEVIE WONDER was my only gimme in the theme answers, but I expect some of you knew both WONDER and PAIGE.

Other stuff:

• 1A [More than enthusiastic] RABID I plunked that in immediately, not considering whether there’s a five-letter synonym that doesn’t suggest a deadly viral disease.
• 17A [Shock’s partner, at a garage] STRUT I must have gotten this from the crosses, as I don’t remember this clue.
• 18A [Flaw in a plan] KINK Not KNOT. (Guess I’ve been kink-shamed.)
• 32A [Sopranos’ neighbors] ALTOS No connection to the HBO series about a Mafia boss.
• 38A [Blades that can’t be sharpened] GRASS Cute clue.
• 59A [Mayo, but fancier] AIOLI/60A [Balsamic accompaniment, for short] EVOO The latter is “extra-virgin olive oil.” (But you knew that.)
• 3D [B in chemistry?] BORON Cute clue.
• 11D [Side hustle, say] SECOND JOB I considered GIG for a brief moment.
• 30D [Princess who said, “The cold never bothered me anyway”] ELSA From Disney’s Frozen, naturally.
• 33D [Princess who asked, “Would it help if I got out and pushed?”] LEIA Such a smart-aleck she was.
• 41D [“Too ___” (1983 Kajagoogoo hit)] SHY I don’t recognize that title or the band, which is odd because I watched way too much MTV back then. (My husband: “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”)
• 42D [Restlessly, on a score] AGITATO

David Farthing’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Erin’s write-up

Los Angeles Times solution, 5/5/26

Hello lovelies! This week’s LA Times puzzle should have kept the doctor away, but instead I enjoyed this tasty theme.

• 17a. [Total hunk] STUD MUFFIN
• 23a. [Overdo and then some in the oven] BURN TO A CRISP
• 37a. [Advantages for dealmakers] BARGAINING CHIPS
• 48a./59a. [With-59-Across, rhetorical taunt, or question answered by the ends of 17-, 23-, and 37-Across] HOW DO YOU LIKE / THEM APPLES

The ends of the other theme entries contain ways to eat apples: baked in a muffin or a crisp, or dried in chips. Personally I can’t think of the phrase without hearing Matt Damon say it in Good Will Hunting.

Other things:

• • 1a. [Hip-hop trio that covered Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”] RUN-DMC. They have seven studio albums of their own (their third album, “Raising Hell,” made it to number 3 on the Billboard 200). This cover peaked at number four on the Billboard charts, while the original only made it to number 10.

Sam Koperwas & Jeff Chen’s Wall Street Journal crossword “High Class” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: EST is added to common phrases to create maximal wackiness.

WSJ • 5/05/26 • Tue • “Going to Extremes” • Jeff Chen & Sam Koperwas • solution • 20260505

THEME ANSWERS:

• • • [Lumberjack’s boots?] FOREST KICKS. For kicks. 
    • [Team that never gloats after winning?] THE MODEST SQUAD.  The Mod Squad. 
    • [“Is it really wise to be eating that?”?] CAN YOU DIGEST IT? Can you dig it?
    • [Storm chaser and disaster recovery specialist?] TEMPEST JOBS. Temp jobs. 
    • (revealer) [Take full advantage of an opportunity, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme answers] MAKE THE MOST OF IT 

A fun theme with lively entries. At first, I thought the revealer was nudging us to “make the most” of the word IT (which does show up repeatedly), but the real trick is the superlative -EST. That realization neatly ties everything together and gives the theme a satisfying “click.”

The fill, though, felt rougher than expected. There’s a noticeable uptick in partials: OF A, AIM TO (“We ___ please”), ATTA (“___ way!”), and even ARE SO, which (retort or not) still feels like a citizen of Partial Land.

ROK (Republic of Korea) was new to me; I initially had KOR (which, funny enough, is just ROK backwards), then briefly considered SO K before things settled. Not a smooth path.

Add in the usual suspects: ORS, ON IT, OSU, STS, HMM, NO GO, UNIV, ALA, OHO, ELIHU, MMA, FTD, IOUS, ERE, BTW… and the overall solving experience felt a bit more mechanical than the theme deserved.

OTHER THINGS:

• • • Catherine O’HARA. Miss her. Nice to see her today.
    • ALIA Shawkat. New to me, as is Search Party.
    • [Controller of locks] BARRETTE. Clever clue.
    • [Perch part] FIN “Perch” as a fish threw me off; needed every cross and still double-checked it.

Final tally:

• • Theme: 4 stars
  • Fill: 2 stars
  • Overall: 3 stars

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker Crossword — Eric’s Review

Patrick Berry’s New Yorker Crossword — 5/5/26 (Click to Enlarge)

There are a handful of constructors working today who I’m convinced couldn’t make a bad crossword puzzle even if they wanted to do. At the top of my list, there’s Patrick Berry. (If you’re an aspiring crossword puzzle constructor, you could do much worse than drop $10 for Berry’s Crossword Constructor’s Handbook.)

This one was a lot of fun, though maybe a bit easier than I expect from a Tuesday New Yorker puzzle. On the other hand, it didn’t feel quite like a Wednesday “Beginner-Friendly” puzzle, so Tuesday must be the right day for this.

The grid has quadruple-stacked nine-letter words in the northeast and southwest, and four groups of four contiguous black squares (a/k/a blocks), which sound like a recipe for a disconnected grid. But I thought the puzzle flowed nicely.

Stuff:

• 1A [Handle clumsily] PAW AT Unless a puzzle is supposed to be easy, it’s rare for me to be able to drop in the first word without hesitation unless it’s a proper noun that could only be one thing.
• 6A [Tense moments in tennis] SET POINTS I used to pay a little attention to professional tennis, back when Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer were at their peaks, but I didn’t remember this term.
• 16A [Bowlful often topped with Gruyère] ONION SOUP Part of me wants FRENCH at the beginning of that answer. Most of me just wants a tasty bowl of soup with a big gob of melty, buttery cheese on top of it. Maybe tomorrow.
• 20A [Maker of Butterscotch Krimpets] TASTYKAKE I try not to eat too much highly-processed food and don’t recognize this brand or the particular cake. They look like Twinkies to me. And I don’t know if they’re sold in Texas or Colorado, the only places I’ve lived in the last 50+ years.
• 21A [Reprobate] DIRTY DOG Cool! A new word for that guy in Washington!
• 23A [___ student] MED I must’ve had at least one letter, because otherwise I’d have dropped in LAW. Like they say, write what you know. (And what I know is that I am quite glad that my law school days were long ago.)
• 25A [Nearly perfect games for pitchers] ONE-HITTERS My baseball-loving friend Margaret once explained to me the difference between a no-hit game and a perfect game. I think it’s got something to do with whether the pitcher walks a batter? (Yes, I could look it up. But I’d rather one of the Fiend faithful explain it to me.)
• 30A [Ease the severity of, as a policy] DECLAW A deftly-written or edited clue to avoid the wrath of certain pet lovers.
• 43A [Discharges from military service] MUSTERS OUT
• 58A [Company that trademarked the phrase “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”] LIFE ALERT I remember those ubiquitous TV ads from the 1980s but tried LIFE SAVER first. From what I remember of my otherwise not-to-useful class on intellectual property law, the trademark on the candy might not prevent someone from trademarking the same name for a medical alert device.
• 59aA [“Inside Out” emotion whose head bursts into flames] ANGER If you’ve seen the latest  Pixar movie, Hoppers, let me know in the comments whether you recommend it. We’ve enjoyed many Pixar movies, but not all of them.
• 

  1934 Dobro–style tenor guitar

  62A [Metal inset that amplifies sound on a Dobro guitar] RESONATOR Speaking (as I was) of trademark law, you cannot assume that when you read the album credits for whatever you’re listening to that the person playing “Dobro” is actually playing a Gibson/Epiphone guitar. (Oops. There are no “album credits” anymore. OK, boomer.) In any case, I’ve always liked the sound of a resonator guitar. And they just look so damned cool.

• 3D [Lottery winners’ exclamation] WE’RE RICH If you’re bored enough to read Chapter 466 of the Texas Government Code, the State Lottery Act, you can see what I used to write before I retired. What I learned drafting the original State Lottery Act was enough to keep me from ever spending a nickel on that. (If you play the lottery and can afford to do it, that’s fine.)
• 5D [He’s an animal in bed] TEDDY Yep, I thought about sex.
• 6D [Not stern enough with] SOFT ON Not EASY ON.
• 13D [Car designer Preston or comedian Chris] TUCKER The first half of that clue should’ve been a gimme. Tucker: The Man and His Dream is a pretty good movie.
• 22D [Feel-good film’s opposite] DOWNER I’ll almost always choose a depressing movie over a feel-good one.
• 40D [“2666” author Bolaño] ROBERTO I thought Natan Last had cornered the market on “Authors You Haven’t Heard Of But Should Know,” at least in New Yorker puzzles.