Saturday, May 9, 2026

LAT 3:45 (Stella) [3.05 avg; 10 ratings] rate it
Newsday 26:31 (pannonica) [3.70 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:34 (Amy) [4.35 avg; 17 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:06 (Adam S) [1.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today untimed (ZEB) [2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ untimed (pannonica) [1.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it

Katie Hoody’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 5/9/26 – no. 0509

This constructor’s Boswords Spring Themeless League puzzle (with Stormy division clues) kicked my butt so I approached this one with trepidation. Whew! This one took a little more than half as long as that Boswords puzzle. Felt like a typical Saturday NYT rather than a killer.

Fave fill: ALCHEMISTS, KINDA SORTA MAYBE, SCARY MOVIE, MAKEUP GAME, STRAWBERRY SHAKE, ROOFTOP BAR, ARI SHAPIRO, WENT ON TOUR. Not keen on arbitrary YOU’RE EARLY, plural ARFS, the ESTER-ARIL one-two crosswordese punch, LEO I (both a pope and a Roman emperor at the same time?).

Five more things, including some great clues:

• 52D. [Won land], KOREA. Won is a noun here, the unit of currency in South KOREA.
• 60D. [Certification program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, in brief], LEED. Does this still exist?
• 34A. [Like something no money can buy], FREE. If someone else bought it to give it to you, then “like something no money can buy” doesn’t really apply, does it?
• 51A. [Great find in the candy aisle, by the sound of it], SKOR. “Score!”
• 65A. [Postponed court date?], MAKEUP GAME. Not a courtroom but a tennis, basketball, volleyball, etc., court.

3.75 stars from me.

Jack Scherban’s Universal Crossword “Universal Freestyle 222” – Adam S’s write-up

Jack Scherban’s Universal Crossword “Universal Freestyle 222” – 5/9/26

As far as I can tell, this is Jack’s first Universal themeless and also their first themeless in a publication covered by Fiend. So congratulations on that, Jack! If, like me, you enjoyed this and would like more, you can find 11 themelesses on their blog Blockheads.

Lots of good fill in this. My favorites were REAL MATURE, KARAOKE BAR, SWIPES LEFT, SHAPE UP, WE DONE HERE?, I HATE TO ASK, AND I MEAN IT, and TIN FOIL HAT. The shorter fill was generally clean with only one answer (AGRI) that caused me to raise even half an eyebrow.

Having talked last weekend about how amazingly consistent the difficulty level of Universal themelesses is, this one played relatively hard for me (45 seconds slower than any of my previous 10). I think that was mainly a me thing caused in good part by not knowing LOFI HIP-HOP (embarrassed to admit that my first instinct to seeing [Genre for many study playlists] was “classical” – good job it didn’t quite fit!) and struggling more than I should have done to see the ends of WE DONE HERE? and I HATE TO ASK.

If I have one nit, it’s that I like to see a bit more wordplay and interesting trivia in the clues than we got today. But the quality of the grid, both in terms of the 12 10-letter entries and the shorter fill, more than made up for it.

A few notes:

• 17A KARAOKE BAR [Place to sing smash hits while smashed] This clue did have wordplay, but something about “smashed” felt a little off compared to any karaoke place I’ve ever been to.
• 18A ADAM [Actor Scott of “Severance”] There’s something that feels deeply embarrassing about needing three crosses to see your own name. Although less embarrassing than failing to set a new NYT personal best by failing to type one’s own great-grandfather’s name correctly. Not that I’ve ever done that, oh no!
• 29A GRIT [Sandpaper grade]. Stubbornly held on to “fine” here for far too long. I learned afterward that the process of starting coarse and then using progressively finer sandpaper is called “going through the grits.”
• 27D ECO WARRIOR [One fighting to save the world?] Not sure if this really needs its question mark.
• 60D TNT [This blows!] Nice clue!

Sarah Sinclair & Erik Agard’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 5/9/26 by Sarah Sinclair & Erik Agard

This puzzle felt about as hard as the 2026 ACPT A final, so I was surprised to finish in under 4 minutes (although I suppose my 4:26 time, which is still longer than Erik took to do it on the big board, was on paper and thus inherently slower than I’d do on a computer). It was hard in a good way! A lot of the difficulty came, at least for me, in that the NW corner was the toughest part of the solve.

• 15A [Generational tendency to delay speaking on video recordings] is MILLENNIAL PAUSE, which I must have heard in the real world at some point and forgotten the meaning of.
• 17A [Something taken by a teller?] is DRAMATIC LICENSE. This clue definitely had me fooled for a while into thinking it was some kind of pun related to bank tellers, but it’s about storytellers.
• 34A [Place that has rooms and a board] is CONDO. If you have a couple of hours you want to waste, search for “HOA” on Reddit to see some wild stories about CONDO boards.
• 48A [When one might find a blowout sale?] is HAIR APPOINTMENT. I guess? I think this clue, if modified slightly, would have been very clever for something like HAIR SALON, but I don’t think of the APPOINTMENT as the setting for a “sale,” so this one didn’t quite land for me.
• 52A [Headspring?] is RINGLET. Great clue that I totally missed while solving.
• 2D [Source of a good self-image] is MIRROR. Nice clue.
• 9D [French dips?] is PLIES. Very clever — even my balletomane self didn’t realize this was a clue about dance until I had the crossings.
• 22D [Popular tablet] is ASPIRIN. The clue definitely leads you in the direction of iPads and the like, which is a nice misdirect.
• 29D [Pair o’ graphs?] is AXES, a clue that did not fool me but that did make me laugh.
• 45D [King of Prussia attraction] is MALL. As someone originally from southeastern Pennsylvania, I felt seen by this clue;

Rafael Musa’s USA Today Crossword “Get It? (Freestyle)” – Zachary Edward-Brown’s write-up

Rafael Musa’s USA Today Crossword “Get It? (Freestyle)” – 5/9/26

We’ve got a freestyle puzzle from Rafael Musa today with plenty of juicy long fill. Of course, I loved seeing the spoken phrases today: THERE THERE, DO YOU SEE MY POINT, SAY WHAT NOW, I APOLOGIZE and the 6-letter I’M SORE. In addition we get STINGRAYS, COACHELLA, POWER COUPLE, SNAPSTORIES, and SPICY TUNA.

It’s a wonderful array of long fill nicely spread out through the puzzle.

Other notes:

• 22A [“Despicable Me” villain] GRU Loved seeing this in the puzzle. Generally, I thought the short fill in this puzzle was mostly just solid, like it was there to carry the long stuff, and it didn’t really pop out too much during the solve. But I’m definitely here for putting GRU in more puzzles, and he was thoughtfully crossed today for people unfamiliar with him.
• 43A [Spicy stew used as a hot dog topping] CHILI Mmm… I love a fun food angle.
• 24D [Ephemeral social media updates] SNAPSTORIES Loved this long answer, and paired with a perfectly worded clue!
• 39D [Like a 19-year-old college graduate] YOUNG and 60A [“Kids these days”] I’M OLD Fun seeing these two together, so close to each other in the grid!
• 33D [Color of envelopes gifted on Chinese New Year] RED Favorite clue in the puzzle! I like how the clue pumps up the common answer RED with a new angle, something fun I wasn’t expecting. Nice!

4.5 stars

Matthew Sewell’s Newsday crossword, Saturday Stumper — pannonica’s write-up

Newsday • 5/9/26 • Saturday Stumper • Sewell • solution • 20260509

Pretty tough offering today. I had footholds in all the sections of the grid, but had a lot of trouble bleeding them into each other.

Biggest holdup may have been in the northeast, where I was so sure that 11d [What the detectives in the novel Three Bags Full are] was SHEEP, and complementarily 24a [Bellyaches] was CRAMPS that I refused for a long time to entertain alternatives. Alas, the correct answers are OVINE and WHINES.

• 1a [Ruffle] ABASH. Resisted this for most of the solve, because 23-down’s clue contains abase, which definitely means something different but is visually strongly similar. 23d [Abased oneself] ATE DIRT.
• 14a [What’s redundant to follow with “Desert”] GOBI. Same of course is true for Sahara, although the latter has the same meaning as our desert, whereas GOBI “comes from the Mongolian word Gov’, (Говь) -dryland-, used to refer to all of the waterless regions in the Mongolian Plateau; the cognate Chinese term gēbì (戈壁) is used to refer to rocky, semi-deserts such as the Gobi itself rather than sandy deserts.” (Wikipedia)
  
• 19a [Hamlet’s dagger] BODKIN. Dredging this up from memory was instrumental to furthering my solve.
• 22a [Pacific Rim’s Fifth Avenue] GINZA, the famed shopping district of Tokyo.
• 25a [Soft numbers] EASY LISTENING. I suspected something like this answer early on, but couldn’t get enough crossings to piece it together. Additionally, the letters I had from the incorrect CRAMPS wouldn’t play nicely.
  
• 30a [Celebrious] NOTED. Celebrious means famous or festive, so it’s like having celebrity and celebrate rolled into one.
• 34a [Tight bunch] BROS, not CREW.
• 36a [Woman of Canadian extraction] NADIA. I was wise to this, the cryptic style hidden-word clue, right off the bat. It isn’t the first time the Stumper has used this type of clue for a woman’s name.
• 38a [Second profession] SAME. Quite a sneaky clue. Don’t you concur?
• 39a [Advances for a short time] SPOTS. Expected I would be deciding between LENDS and LOANS, but no.
• 41a [Bandleader autograph with a pentagram] RINGO. Mr Starr.
• 43a [Fine crack] MOT. Early on, with no crossings, I entertained this as an answer but thought it was probably too far-fetched. Seeing it in the completed puzzle, I can say sure that’s Stumperesque.
• 44a [Unplanned minor meetings] FENDER BENDERS. Oof.
• 47a [Neighborhood beside UCLA] BEL AIR. Not knowing Los Angeles geography, I entertained names like BELMAR and DEL MAR.
• 50a [Sound capital] OLYMPIA. Puget Sound.
• 52a [Assemble for a sequel] RETEAM. Experimented with RECAST and then REFORM. The latter seemed promising, as 53d [Introduction to saving] seemed like it could be ROTH [IRA]. That answer turns out to be AUTO-.
• 56a [Unwritten endorsement] E-SIGNATURE. Another very tough but very good clue.
• 60a [Worshiper in a “gateway to the Guru”] SIKH. I don’t know what the quoted phrase refers to, but I took an educated guess for the answer based on the preliminary -EST suffix I’d filled in for the crossing down entry: 45d Unsurpassingly uninspiring] DRIEST.
• 61a [Swamplike] FETID. 4d [Boglike] SLUDGY.
• 62a [Periods de moustiques intenses] ÉTÉS. Had the S from the obvious plural of 35-down, and just decided to go with the crossword staple. After the crossword was complete I looked up the translation for moustiques (=mosquitos).
• 63a [LFB’s putative Wizard inspiration] TAE. 99 percent?
  
  64a [2024 discovery on Mars’ highest mountain] FROST.
• 1d [Mobile utility] APP. My first fill, which I was a little proud of getting so easily.
• 5d [Brewer’s heat source] HOP KILN. Moderate toughie.
• 6d [Make a mark of] CON, not JOT. ’nother tricky clue.
• 10d [Asphalt Legends, e.g.] RACING GAME. Didn’t actually encounter this clue until late in the solve—somehow I kept overlooking it—but once I did see it, the answer was relatively easy to derive, although my first attempt was the too-long DRIVING GAME. Anyway, getting this one helped resolve my longstanding problems in the northeast of the grid.
• 14d [2020s’ youthful “zero reaction”] GEN-Z STARE. New to me, but gettable.
• 28d [Where Bell was raised] EDINBURGH. I don’t know what kind of misdirection or obscuration this clue was attempting, but the answer was obvious to this solver.
  
• 32d [ __ a primera vista] AMOR, love at first sight.
• 35d [Velvety milk drinks] STEAMERS, New to me. “Steamer (or babycino) is a drink of frothed milk without coffee (hence no caffeine). In the United States it often has flavored syrup added, while in Commonwealth countries it instead often has a dusting of cocoa powder.” (Wikipedia)
• 40d [Diminish delicately] SNIP. oof.
• 42d [Integral to the organization] ON STAFF <head waggle>
• 46d [One losing deliberately] DIETER. Practically a gimme for any seasoned crossword solver.
  
• 47d [Stood for] BORNE. Not sold on this.
• 51d [Roman Empire province with city-states] ASIA. Presumably what we refer to as Asia Minor.
• 54d [Exams with an “open” option] MRIS. Note that the clue doesn’t actually say “open book”. Successful misdirection!
• 57d [Mrs. __ (1996 First Lady bestseller)] IKE. Got this from my (successful) guess of SIKH at 60-across.
• 58d [What the US Open is played on] EDT. Knowing the answer was only three letters long, I knew it wasn’t grass or clay or whatever the synthetic surface that US Open tennis tournament is actually played on, so my mind quickly turned to alternative interpretations.

A solid workout, especially as I haven’t had time to do any crosswords at all for over a week. On to the WSJ 21×21!

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Shifters” — pannonica’s write-up

WSJ • 5/9/26 • Sat • “Shifters” • Shenk • solution • 20260509

For this outing, we get clues describing wackified entries generated via the 63a PROCESS of  (1) starting with compound words whose first part ends in -ER, (2) shifting that suffix to the end of the second part, to (3) make a two-word phrase.

• 23a. [Opponent of adopting the metric system’s liter?] QUART BACKER (quarterback).
• 25a. [Look from an angry helmsman?] AFT GLOWER (afterglow).
• 47a. [Item in a numismatist’s file cabinet?] CENT FOLDER (centerfold). (61a [Rock’s J. __ Band] GEILS.)
• 49a. [Author following a long session autographing books?] NUMB SIGNER (number sign). Oops, I guess they aren’t all originally compound words.
• 78a. [Person  in charge of maintaining the ship’s spars?] MAST MINDER (mastermind).
• 103a. [Brochure advertising shape-enhancing underwear?] BUTT FLYER (butterfly).
• 105a. [Insect staying at a guesthouse?] MOTH BOARDER (motherboard). Interesting juxtaposition with those last two.

So just one of the themers (49a) isn’t quite like the others. That’s an unusual slip, if I can call it that, from Shenk.

Number sign, numbers stations.

• 4d [Missile with multiple warheads] MIRV. Tried ICBM first, but once there was a conflicting crossing answer, I quickly corrected. Turns out that it’s an acronym for “multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle”, so there’s that.
• 15d [Symbolic logician George] BOOLE, of eponymous Boolean logic fame. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking along those lines and had put in TOSH for 15a [Baloney] BOSH; TOOLE seemed like a perfectly reasonable surname for some guy called George. After the grid was completely filled in, I needed to hunt this up to have a correct solution.
• 29d [Hang out] AIR. To dry.
• 33d [Plow puller] MULE.
  
• 35d [“Render __ Caesar”] UNTO. 36d [Caesar if comedy] SID.
• 45d [“You’re going to have to explain this in simpler terms”] I’M LOST. 39a [Triumphant cry] I WON.
• 48d [Angel in Venezuela] FALLS.
• 49d [When doubled, sings] NAMES. Nice, nice.
• 65d [Seizes, in slang] GLOMS ONTO. Fun to see in a grid.
• 73d [Put the pedal to the metal] GUN IT, not SPEED.
• 78d [Really digging] MAD ABOUT. 40d [Flipped] WENT GAGA.
  
  79d [B-boy link] AS IN.
• 89d [Jolting joe, informally] CAF. Do people call it CAF, or is it just decaf and half-caf that are things?
• 1a [Top-notch] PRIMO.
  
• 19a [Like columns with scroll volutes] IONIC. It’s been ages since my art history days, but I still know exactly what an IONIC column looks like. Problem is, I couldn’t summon to my mind’s eye a dOrIC column, so I had to wait. Corinthian and Composite were out of the question, both structurally and in terms of word length.
• 36a [Mena of “American Pie”] SUVARI. I can’t be the only one who regularly confuses Mena SUVARI and Mira Sorvino.
• 44a [Day, to Donatello] GIORNO.
  
• 53d [“Down,” in diner lingo] ON TOAST. I had thought that ‘down’ indicates toasted, as in ‘whiskey down’ (=rye toast).
• 67a [Shady areas] GROVES, not GLADES.
  
• 95a [Basis of some vaccines] RNA. Yes, but.
• 101a [Is really hurtful] CUTS DEEP.
  

I dunno, I wasn’t thrilled with this crossword. Being a Shenk production, it’s always going to be well-crafted, but the theme is kind of blah.