Wednesday, May 20, 2026

AV Club untimed (Amy) [3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 3:52 (Gareth) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:03 (Amy) [3.08 avg; 12 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 3:27 (Jim Q) [4.17 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
USA Today 7:26 (Emily) [2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ 6:31 (Eric) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Kathleen Duncan’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 5/20/26 – no. 0520

Late to the puzzle because of (a) work and (b) watching a movie while working. My arrow keys were all off kilter (or my approach to them), and I also kept entering wrong letters and leaving them there, so I don’t think the puzzle was as hard as my solving time suggests.

The theme revealer is ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?, 58A. [Condescending rhetorical question … or what you might say about 16-, 26- and 44-Across?]. Those entries are OFF-YEAR ELECTION, SOUP OF THE DAY, and VISUAL EFFECT. Off-cycle elections are special elections, the soup of the day is a restaurant special, and visual effects are special effects.

Fave fill: TIKI BAR, HATERADE, “RECKON SO,” “IT FIGURES, MOLASSES, CAT CAFE.

I’m more familiar with “run point” than 32D. [Be in charge, informally], TAKE POINT, but that has been used as a movie title so I suppose it passes muster. Never heard of SAGE OIL, 48A. [“Essential” product used as an anti-acne treatment], but tea tree oil, yes. “YES, DAD” isn’t really a stand-alone phrase but certainly we’ve seen such fill before.

3.5 stars from me.

Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Look Both Ways” — Eric’s Review

Gary Larson’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Look Both Ways” — 5/20/26 (Click to Enlarge)

Common compound nouns get reimagined as verb phrases, with each verb being more or less synomous with “look”:

• 17A [See music groups in timepiece accessories?] WATCH BANDS
• 40A [See baby goats in a 2001 action film?] SPY KIDS
• 62A [See a houndstooth pattern in random samplings?] SPOT CHECKS
• 10D [See warm-up acts in surprising situations?] EYE OPENERS
• 30D [See sports scores in scenic outlooks?] VIEW POINTS

I guess the “look[ing] both ways” is that the second half of each theme clue is a straight-forward clueing of the answer, e.g. WATCHBANDS are timepiece accessories.

Other stuff:

• 15A [Dean’s “Rebel Without a Cause” co-star] Sal MINEO, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for that role (he lost to Jack Lemmon for Mister Roberts).
• 43A [Hepburn’s “The Lion in Winter” co-star] Peter O’TOOLE, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for that role (he lost to Cliff Robertson for Charly).
• 65A [Absolute bottom] NADIR Neat little word, that. I keep thinking we’ve reached that point and then something (or someone) takes us a little lower.

Wendy Brandes & Barbara Lin’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Deep Breaths”–Amy’s recap

AV Club Classic crossword solution, 5/20/26 – “Deep Breaths” – Brandes & Lin

Theme revealer in this 16×16 puzzle: 68a. [“You need to cool off,” or a hint to this puzzle’s theme answers], TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH. In the theme entries, the letters IT drop down a notch to the next row. ATT(IT)UDE ADJUSTMENT, with the IT below the TU. SKINNY MARGAR(IT)A, LIM(IT)ED RELEASES. Lively batch of themers, I like it.

Fave fill: MASCARA, CUE STICK, WRESTED, MAMMOGRAM. I like the “TAP, TAP” on a microphone, too.

Fave clue: 35d. [Heart of a hero, perhaps?], SALAMI. A hero aka sub aka hoagie, nice mislead!

Four stars from me.

Caitlin Reid’s New Yorker crossword — Jim Q’s write-up

New Yorker • 5/20/26 • Wed • Caitlin Reid • solution • 20260520

HIGHLIGHTS:

• KERMIT THE FROG
• “HELLO, STRANGER!”
• KNEE BEND
• EYELINER
• HANGOVER
• EVEN ODDS
• “STEP ON IT!”
• “IS THAT SO?”
• SOFTY
• “ANYONE?” (“…Bueller… Bueller…?” vibes)

When RBI, DEA, CAMO, VEEPS, and ECO are the only abbreviations, shortenings, or SLANGy bits in the entire grid; when PERUSE is about as erudite as the vocabulary gets; and when DRAKE, DAVIS, and KERMIT THE FROG are essentially the only proper nouns… how can you not be impressed by the construction?

And this level of smoothness somehow happens week after week in The New Yorker.

The grid was so fluid that huge sections practically filled themselves in. In fact, I never even bothered checking the clues for KERMIT THE FROG or HANGOVER—the crossings and letter patterns made them inevitable.

Particularly strong easy-Wednesday clue/answer pairings:

• [Protest whose participants don’t stand for something?] SIT-IN
• [“Brick,” for “very cold”] SLANG. As in ‘“Damn. It’s so brick out here, just saw a penguin trying to Uber home.”
• [“Go faster!”] STEP ON IT
• [“It’s been too long!”] “HELLO, STRANGER!”
• [Consigns to Hell] DAMNS
• [Releases, as a new album] DROPS

There’s a deceptive elegance to puzzles like this. Nothing flashy, no overstuffed gimmicks, no tortured fill.  Just an extremely clean, extremely well-clued grid that makes solving feel effortless without ever becoming boring.

This is a five-star puzzle. Easily.

Noelle Griskey’s Universal crossword, “There’s No I in Team” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 5/20/26 • Wed • “There’s No I in Team” • Griskey • solution • 20260520

Really needed the title to understand what the disparate team names had in common. Good job getting one each from the four prominent leagues (and pairing up matching lengths symmetrically as prescribed by crossword convention) with the necessary spelling characteristic. Even so, the theme still somehow feels modest.

• 19a. [1989 NHL champs who hail from Alberta] CALGARY FLAMES.
• 26a. [2023 NBA champs who hail from Colorado] DENVER NUGGETS.
• 42a. [2021 MLB champs who hail from Georgia] ATLANTA BRAVES.
• 50a. [1996 NFL champs who hail from Texas] DALLAS COWBOYS.

• 8d [Kind of help?] SELF. <head waggle> Yes I know there’s a question mark there.
• 9d [Site graphics] WEB ART. Seeing it via acrosses, I wondered how I’d gotten WE BART.
• 28d [Surprise victory] UPSET. It’s in the central vertical spot of the grid, but not quite theme related.
• 30d (24a) [With 24-Across, millennial] GEN | YER. Seems forced.
• 45d [Book in many a hotel room] BIBLE. Conspiracy.
• 51d [Hockey shot sound] SLAP. 1a [Things to swing] BATS. Hm, might have been fun to have a related entry for each of the four major sports comprising the theme teams.
• 52d [Pet parakeet’s home] CAGE. You know I dislike clues like this, even with the “pet” descriptor.
• 53d [Off-Broadway award] OBIE, in which the OB stands for … off-Broadway.
  
• 33a [Bookshelf buildup] DUST. Hey!
• 34a [Yellowstone grazers] BISON.
  
• 65a [Used colored pencils] DREW. Glossed the clue and put in DRAW, result being that when the grid was completely filled I had to hunt up the one incorrect square, and that took a while. ORA looked good as a down entry, yanno.

All in all, a nice crossword.

Steve Jopek’s LA Times crossword – Gareth’s summary

I admire the whimsy of today’s puzzle by Steve Jopek, although it isn’t the neatest of executions. The final answer is HARDPRESSED, but the HARD only applies partially to some of the answers, PRESSED would work just as well to explain many of them.

Of the answers, the central one was the least familiar. I am always astonished by the number of explicitly named sandwiches in America, and most of them sound basically the same – a meat, cheese and a few typical trimmings. I would be HARDPRESSED to differentiate between most of them. Today’s are CUBANSANDWICHES, and I guess they may go in a sandwich press.

As for the rest, a VINYLRECORD is pressed when manufactured. A PANICBUTTON, is a pressable button; I had no idea they could occur on car keys til this puzzle. Pressing is a step in DRYCLEANING.

Others:

• I remain convinced I first encountered [Gin infusion berry], SLOE in a song in primary school music appreciation that referenced “peaches, plums or sloes” and was likely a showtune. I have never been able to source it.
• [Smarties and Nerds], CANDY. I seem to recall American smarties are not the same as the ones made by Nestlé?
• [Marconi medium], RADIO. He played the mamba…

Gareth

Brian Callahan & Shannon Rapp’s USA Today Crossword, “Play With Your Food” — Emily’s write-up

Play ball!

USA Today, May 20, 2026, “Play With Your Food” by Brian Callahan & Shannon Rapp

Theme: each themer ends with the name of a food

Themers:

• 20a. [“A League of Their Own” team], ROCKFORDPEACHES
• 58a. [Social media-famous ball club from Georgia], SAVANAHBANANAS

Today’s themer set is just a pair, though a satifisying one with two ball teams: ROCKFORDPEACHES and SAVANAHBANANAS. Plus the bonus is that the teams both contain fruit.

Favorite fill: MENTOS, SAP, AFFOGATOS, and MOTHS

Stumpers: IDEA (first tried “deal”), YOUSEE (needed crossings), and JEERS (“beers” came to mind first)

A fun puzzle with lots of summer vibes. Loved the gird and the flow of the puzzle. A quicker solve for me today, with great fill and cluing. How’d you all do?

4.5 stars

~Emily