Thursday, May 7, 2026

BEQ 8:22 (Eric) [2.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) [2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:22 (ZDL) [3.44 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (Eric) [3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 9:00 (Emily) [2.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
WSJ 11:35/DNF (Jim Q) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Jeremy Venook’s Fireball Crossword “One and One Makes Two” – Jenni’s write-up

I enjoyed the theme of this puzzle – I don’t remember seeing anything quite like it before. Unfortunately some of the fill was less pleasing. Weak fill always makes more of an impression when I run into it in the beginning or the end of solving. I don’t claim that’s fair.

Each theme answer has “and” connecting the first two letters of the clue, followed by a descriptive noun. It’s easier to show you than explain.

Fireball, May 6, 2026, Jeremy Venook, “One and One Makes Two,” solution grid

• 17a [*Paddington] is PANDA BEAR – P AND A BEAR.
• 32a [*Monorail] is MANDOLINE – M AND O LINE.
• 37a [*Courage]is CAN–DO ATTITUDE – C AND O ATTITUDE.
• 46a [*Margaret Thatcher] is MANDATORY – M AND A TORY. This one is my favorite.
• 59a [*Cyprus] is CANDYLAND – C AND Y LAND.

Fun theme! All the answers are solid and in the language, and the Thatcher answer is very funny. Once I caught on the trick, it made solving the puzzle easier.

My biggest beef with the fill is 38d [Unnecessarily harsh], DRACONIC. Really? Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it appears in a dictionary somewhere. Still.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that San Diego has a National Women’s Soccer League team called the WAVE.

John Guzzetta and Jeff Chen’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 6m22s

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

John Guzzetta and Jeff Chen’s New York Times crossword, 5/7/26, 0507

Today’s theme: less is more (or less)

• CARELESS MISTAKE (bad CAREer move)
• WINLESS SEASON (WINter)
• AGELESS BEAUTY (pAGEant queen)
• ENDLESS STRUGGLE (ENDeavor)

Very clever — the phrase, less the fragment, defined by the fragment-less [blank].  Certainly played closer to a Wednesday, though.

Cracking: SORRY SIGHT

Slacking: can never see ALIG in the grid with the appropriate spacing

Sidetracking: the best of ELLIE Kemper

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Flyovers” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: The word SKI must be omitted in themers in order for the clue/answer to match

WSJ • 5/07/26 • Thur • “Flyovers” • Mike Shenk • solution • 20260507

THEME ANSWERS:

• [Firecracker sound] BASKING. Bang!
• [Jury member] PESKIER. Peer.
• [Burger go-with] FRISKIES. Fries. 
• [The Yankees retired his number in 2017] JET SKIER. Jeer. 
• [Shades] HUSKIES. Hues.
• (revealer) [Winter Olympics event, and a hint to five of the Across answers] SKI JUMP. 

Technically, this probably goes down as a DNF for me. When I entered my final letter (the L in the GISELE / PLIED crossing) I wasn’t actually confident in any of it, and I definitely didn’t have the stamina left to go error-hunting.

The root problem was that I confidently entered AM/FM instead of AM/PM for [Clock toggle]. And once I’d convinced myself AM/FM was correct, there was simply no coming back from it. That left me with FLIED for [Exercised]. Naturally, I rationalized this by deciding that someone who completes a set of dumbbell flies has technically FLIED! Which, honestly, feels only slightly weirder than some legitimate crossword fill I’ve encountered.

We’ve seen this theme type fairly often in a Mike Shenk Thursday: skip over a word and reinterpret the phrase. Reliable Thursday material, and it works well enough here. The revealer was especially helpful because once I realized I’d be repeatedly inserting SKI, it gave me a foothold in several tougher areas. That, in turn, helped me through a lot of proper nouns I didn’t know: JEN Psaki, KIM Reynolds, OMAR Khayyám, EUSTACE Tilly (apparently The New Yorker has a mascot?), and ARIEL, Shakespeare’s trickster spirit.

It also bailed me out on entries I simply found difficult: USNA crossing PSU, AVONLEA (which I incorrectly assumed was two words), and FANCIER for [Enthusiast]. I suppose someone who “fancies” something is technically a FANCIER, but cluing it as a noun instead of the much more natural adjective version felt awkward to me.

There was plenty to like in the fill: FOLIAGE [Leaves up in the air?], LASIK [Procedure to improve your looks?], WEBCASTS [Some streams], and GET BACK AT [Retaliate against] were all standout entries. But I spent so much of the solve feeling unsteady that I never fully relaxed into enjoying them.

I’m also not sure the segmented layout helped matters. The puzzle really feels like two separate halves connected by narrow passageways, which made getting stuck feel even stickier.

Still, despite the rocky path… and despite never quite reaching the finish line… I ended with that particular kind of crossword satisfaction that comes from surviving the struggle more than conquering it.

3.5 stars

Sala Wanetick’s Universal Crossword “Three of a Kind” — Eric’s Review

Sala Wanetick’s Universal Crossword “Three of a Kind” — 5/7/26 (Click to Enlarge)

The title is one of those that fits but doesn’t provide much of a hint to the theme. And the theme answers are unrelated except for the connection revealed by the revealer, so like many themed puzzles, I solved this one as if it were themeless. I think I zoomed through the grid at lightning speed, but I’ll never know because I forgot to pause the timer when I stepped away from my computer for about 20 minutes.

Anyway, here’s our theme:

• 20A [*Seller of Gruyere or Camembert] CHEESEMONGER I’m bound by the Monty Python Fan Code to include you-know-what. (And if you don’t know, watch the clip.)
• 36A [*Unhappy circus performer] SAD CLOWN
• 41A [*Left-leaning person, typically] DEMOCRAT I’m not as optimistic about the Democrats’ chances this fall as I was a few months ago, but there’s still time. $6 a gallon gas might help, though I feel for people who can’t really afford that but have few options for avoiding using their cars.
• 56A [Performance group starring a bald trio … or what you mightcall the trio of answers to the starred clues?] BLUE MAN GROUP

I knew that the performance art guys are not a single group but a collection of troupes. But I hadn’t realized that they always appear onstage as a trio. Wikipedia says that any particular Blue Man Group performance may involve seven to nine performers over the course of the evening (another thing I didn’t know). My late friend Margaret once tried to get us to go see a Blue Man Group performance with her, but we weren’t interested. N0w, I wish we had gone, if only because we enjoyed her company. (Value your loved ones, people! They’re not here for long.)

Other stuff:

• 5A [Canned meat with agochujang flavor] SPAM I knew that SPAM is a popular dish in Hawaii, but not recognizing “gochujang” (which sounded Chinese or Korean), I hesitated to put in SPAM until I had a cross or two.
• 32A [Emmy winner Gordon-Levitt] JOSEPH I blanked on his first name, though I’ve enjoyed him in lots of things. I’d not heard of Create Together, for which he’s won two Emmys for Outstanding Original Interactive Program (as opposed to Outstanding Unorginal Interactive Program?)
• 37A [“The Kite Runner” protagonist] AMIR I should have remembered this from another crossword I did about a week ago. Is that book worth adding to my list?
• 47A [Aspiring atty.’s exam] LSAT The worst test-taking experience I ever had was the Law School Admission Test.
• 48A [“SNL” alum Aykroyd] DAN/60A [“SNL” alum Fey] FEY There are more seasons of SNL that I haven’t watched than ones that I have watched, but these two alumni were gimmes.
• 8D [Broadway in Nashville, e.g.] MAIN DRAG I’ve only been to Nashville once, attending a conference in a hotel near the Vanderbilt campus. I probably spent some time on Broadway, but I don’t remember it.
• 10D [Bad smell] ODOR Hey, there, pannonica!
• 26D [Backstreet Boys member Dorough] HOWIE I had no idea here and wasn’t sure whether I was looking for a first or last name.
• 27D [Fine-tunes] HONES In my former life, a biennial job task was reviewing résumés from newly-minted attorneys who thought they wanted to work for the legislature. If I had a dollar for every time I read that someone had honed their writing skills . . .
• 50D [Sneaky grin] SMIRK I associate smirking more with smugness than sneakiness. How about you?

Will Nediger’s USA Today Crossword, “Am I Missing Something?” — Emily’s write-up

A quirky, satisfying puzzle today.

USA Today, May 07, 2026, “Am I Missing Something?” by Will Nediger

Theme: each themer begin with “am I” with one of the letters missing

Themers:

• 19a. [“Make yourself at home,” in Spanish], MICASAESSUCASA
• 33a. [Ability to critically evaluate technologies like ChatGPT], AILITERACY
• 54a. [Talk radio source], AMSTATION

Today’s themer set includes MICASAESSUCASA, AILITERACY, and AMSTATION. The first was an insta-fill but I needed crossings for the next two themers. An intriguing theme and title hint today too.

Favorite fill: KDRAMAS, HOUSEMATE, and AMUSE

Stumpers: CHALET (this always evades me), REDESIGN (needed crossings), and BEY (new to me)

A lovely puzzle with a smooth solve for me today, with great flow and nice grid design. Lots of fresh fill and fun cluing!

4.0 stars

~Emily

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1885 “Breakfast Box” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1885 “Breakfast Box”

The day’s getting away from me. I’ve gotta run now, but maybe I’ll be back later. Or not.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Here, we get some doughnuts strewn throughout the grid and a way to transport them:

• [Treat #1] BOSTON CREAM My little brother’s favorite dessert was Boston Cream Pie. The day after we scattered his ashes in the Atlantic at St. Augustine Beach, my husband and I went to a doughnut shop near our hotel. In Kurt’s memory, I ordered a Boston Cream doughnut. The things we will do for our loved ones.
• 41A [With 45-Across, visual representation of a breakfast box (grab one!)] OOOOOO/45A [See 41-Across] OOOOOO
• [Treat #2] HONEY-GLAZED
• [Treat #3] APPLE CIDER That’s the only one in this box that I’m interested in.
• [Treat #4] MAPLE BACON

It wasn’t until I started writing this up that I realized the first two and last two theme answers are donut types or toppings. That makes the title and the “visual representation” make a hell of a lot more sense. The 12 O’s represent a dozen doughnuts. Cute.

Other stuff:

• 11A [Word with bonding and connector] MALE “Bonding” immediately made me think of the correct answer, but it took a bit before “male connector” made sense.
• 20A [Afghan rights grp.] SPCA No animals were harmed in the writing of this clever clue.
• 23A [___ Moss (Josh Brolin’s “No Country for Old Men” character)] LLEWELYN A gimme, though I couldn’t remember how to spell it. I remember the Coen Brothers adaption more clearly than the Cormac McCarthy novel. The movie’s quite good, but then, it stars Tommy Lee Jones.
• 30A [French-speaking vampire] LESTAT My husband has read all of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Once was enough for me.
• 35A [Something up your sleeve] ARM PATCH Seems like green paint.
• 48A [“International Players Anthem (I Choose You)” rappers] UGK Both song and artist are new to me.
• 53A [With 55-Down, “Beautiful Things” singer] BENSON 55D [See 53-Across] BOONE Mr. Boone and his song are also new to me.
• 60A [Small half-Tibetan, half-French dog] LHASAPOO This cutesy naming trend for dog crossbreeds that are half poodle has gone on long enough.
• 8D [Fare often served with hash browns] OMELET This delayed my understanding of the theme, because I thought it was a broader (and likely healthier) breakfast menu than just doughnuts.
• 36D [Resilient insect] ROACH When I lived in Texas, we sometimes got palmetto bugs (a/k/a Florida woods cockroaches) in the house. They’re huge and nasty-looking. Ain’t gonna miss them.