Thursday, May 14, 2026

BEQ 9:42 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [3.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 9:00 (Gareth) [2.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 17:27 (ZDL) [3.56 avg; 18 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:21 (Eric) [3.30 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) [4.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Zachary David Levy’s Fireball Crossword “Ah, That’s the Spot” – Jenni’s write-up

I finished this one relatively quickly and then stared it for a looong time before I finally asked my husband what he thought. Each theme answer has an X substituting for a string of letters.

Fireball crossword, May 13, 2026, Zachary David Levy, “Ah, That’s the Spot,” solution grid

• 17a [Offering from a help desk] is TX SUPPORT – T{ECH S}UPPORT.
• 24a [Academic field also known as Bohemistics] is CZX STUDIES – CZ{ECH S}TUDIES.
• 36a [Faster than fast] is AT BREAKNXPEED  – AT BREAKN{ECK S}PEED.
• 51a [Designated area for practice swings] is ON DXIRCLE – ON-D{ECK C}IRCLE.

And a revealer which didn’t help me much: 61a [Variables that come into play four times in this puzzle] is X FACTORS.

The Xs stand in for ECHS, ECHS, ECKS, and ECKC. My husband said “Well, they’re all a hard-C sound – ECK” and I finally realized they all sound like X. Duh. Well played, ZDL (no relation)(that I know of).

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that CNN has a show called “United Shades of America.”

Simeon Seigel’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 17m27s

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

Simeon Seigel’s New York Times crossword, 5/14/26, 0514

Today’s theme: WATER (Compound with a caret-shaped molecule, as depicted by this puzzle’s circled letters)

• STANDING (water) MARK
• ON THE (water) CANNONS
• RETAINS (water) WINGS
• RAIN (water) PITCHERS

Took me quite a while to wrap my head around this one, and even when I figured out the molecular angle, I still had a hard time putting all of the pieces together (despite the circles practically begging you to follow them down the prim-rows path).  I will also never know the difference between a SCARP and an escarpment.

Cracking: I HEART RADIO

Slacking: NEEDED ASAP, something about the awkward marriage of past tense and abbreviation

Sidetracking: TITO

Faren Roth’s Universal Crossword “Teacher! Teacher!” — Eric’s Review

Faren Roth’s Universal Crossword “Teacher! Teacher” — 5/14/26 (Click to Enlarge)

There’s some serious finking going on here:

• 17A [He shot an apple off the head of his 19-Across] WILLIAM TELL I expect that many people, like me, know about the Swiss national hero mainly from the last part of Rossini’s William Tell overture. Or maybe not; the shooting-an-apple-off-the-son’s-head story is pretty iconic, too.
• 28A [It’s smaller than the Quaffle and Bludgers] GOLDEN SNITCH The clue and answer have all the hallmarks of Harry Potter. Not my thing, though I appreciate J.K. Rowling having inspired so many kids to pick up a book. I also appreciate the gentle crossings on this one.
• 49A [Burrowing rodent that’s surprisingly not hairless] NAKED MOLE RAT Also not my thing.
• 53A [Ones seeking brownie points, maybe … and a phonetic hint to the ends of 17-, 28- and 49-Across] TATTLE TALES Yep, “tell,” “snitch” and “rat” are all synonyms for “tattle” and they’re found in this puzzle at the tail (“tale”) of the theme answers.

As seems to be almost the norm anymore, the theme doesn’t really help one solve the puzzle, but it does tie everything together. Except for the possible Potter answer, the theme answers are all kind of fun.

Other stuff:

• 22A [“Felt cute, might ___ later” (Instagram caption)] DELETE That’s new to me, but then, I just created an Instagram account the other day. I’ve already forgotten what I was trying to read that prompted me to invite Meta deeper into my life.
• 36A [Blueberry pie ___ mode] À LA My husband and I split a slice of cherry pie à la mode (with a healthy pile of whipped cream, too) after dinner this evening. I didn’t need it, but it was so tempting.
• 40A [Pet that barks] DOG Easiest Crossword Clue Ever?
• 54A [“The Breakfast Club” setting] DETENTION I haven’t seen that Brat Pack classic since it came out; I wonder how well it’s aged.
• 8D [Portmanteau meaning “fuse”] MELD I hadn’t realized “meld” was formed from “melt” and “weld” (maybe; my dictionary isn’t sure).
• 11D [Late-night Grindr message, often] BOOTY CALL Sometimes I feel like I’m missing out on the current hook-up culture and others I’m glad I’ve been de facto married for decades.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1885 “All Toyed Up” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1885 “All Toyed Up” — 5/14/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I often find that themes don’t help me much in solving a puzzle, but for once, I used the theme to get me through a couple of places where I’d gotten bogged down. I could have paid more attention to the title, with the Long I to OY vowel change of “All Tied Up” becoming “All Toyed Up.” That might have allowed me to snap to the theme a little quicker:

• 18A [Robot date, perhaps?] DROID FRUIT
• 27A [Top brass?] ALLOYED COMMAND
• 42A [Mayweather standing behind third?] FLOYD OUT TO LEFT I don’t watch baseball; is “Flied out to left” a common phrase? (Though now that I think about it, a right-handed batter is more likely to hit to left field than to right field.) And “Floyd Mayweather” is at most vaguely familiar-sounding.
• 55A [Sigmund’s money?] FREUD DOUGH I used the “fried” to “Freud” change to fill in some gaps in FLOYD OUT TO LEFT.

This kind of vowel-sound theme will never be my favorite, but it’s OK.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Granny in Glastonbury] NANA I never thought of NANA as a particularly British or English term; that’s what we called my maternal grandmother (whose birthday was yesterday).
• 10A [One to grow on?] STEM I had the M from 13D META and inexplicably tried ATOM for a while. That caused a bit of trouble all out of proportion to the number of letters involved.
• 14A [Rock climber Honnold] ALEX Rock climbers? Really? I’m sure Mr. Honnold is well-known in that arena, but he seems a bit obscure to me.
• 22A [Insurance company with a purple heart logo] AETNA I’m fortunate to have good health insurance through my former employer, the State of Texas. You don’t get much choice of coverage, so I consequently don’t pay any attention to the private market in health insurance. I made a lucky guess here and confirmed it with META.
• 48A [Pianist/comedian Victor] BORGE One for the old folks, I guess.
• 61A [ASEAN’s domain] ASIA The acronym for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was vaguely familiar, but I needed a few crosses to get the answer.
• 5D [“Euphoria” actress Sweeney] SYDNEY She’s one of those people about whom things appear in my social media feeds and I ask “Who?”
• 29D [“Close (to the Edit)” new wave band] ART OF NOISE I vaguely remember that band’s name, but the song title isn’t familiar.
• 54D [Humdrum] FLAT Not BLAH.

Sam Brody’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

LA Times 14 May 26

“Wood names” is a common enough crossword well, although usually we get the shorter ones like “oak”. Sam Brody’s puzzle uses WOODCUT as his central explanatory answer to hide some quite ambitious tree varieties, split between three entries: HIC/KOR/Y, MA/HOG/ANY, C/HER/RY and CHE/EST/NUT. How well this all works depends on your ability to accept KOR and EST in the name of said ambitions…

Elsewhere:

• [Novice gamers, informally], NEWBS. Is that real? Or is it pretty exclusively NOOBS for that definition?
• [Taylor-Joy of “The Northman”], ANYA. Seems to be replacing Seton as the go-to Anya…
• [Mexican sandwich], TORTA. Not something I come across here, but it looks pretty sandwich-y. Often crosswords are pretty all-encompassing in naming things sandwiches.
• [Part of P.R.], RICO. Clearly wanting us to immediately write RATA?
  [Easy part of a sky in a jigsaw puzzle, maybe], CLOUD. I had no idea where this clue was going… I was imagining some jigsaw jargon…
• [___ Moore, canned stew brand], DINTY. Also something not seen down here, and it looked like it was going to be a pun on DEMI in some way?

Gareth