Michael

These crossings were mean. AVON/AVIE? SNEAD/TOSCANINI? RIAN/SCAD? SON/TYNAN? Some of these were weird esoterica I would never get, but even the clues I understood after revealing weren't satisfying. It was much more "ummmm..." than "aha!" At least I have Taylor Swift to thank for getting CASSANDRA. And I learned some new things today.

The Spanish major in me was tripped up with AMIGA. We put NOVIA but the crossings quickly revealed that wasn't it. NERTS/TIMON was tricky too but otherwise this was a fun solve with a clever theme. Happy solving, from the McMurdo Supply Department!

What a beautiful puzzle! LITCHIS and TREACLE were new to me, I had to reveal a few letters, but loved the theme and loved the clues. We should be landing at Palmer Station tonight or tomorrow, it's slow going with all the ice. We parked in one spot for a few hours and watched penguins and seals float by on icebergs. A few whales made some guest appearances, passing just feet from the side of the boat. Neat stuff!

Never heard of USINGTHEOLDBEAN before, learned quite a few new things today! A little ashamed I didn't get NSF until the crossings, as they run the entire Antarctic Program. We're about halfway through the Drake Passage, hopefully reaching Palmer Station on the Antarctic peninsula in a couple days. Looking forward to being on solid ground soon.

As someone who played HEARTS on parents' Windows XP computer, that clue thew me because I think of it as a game where you *don't* take tricks. But I suppose it's not inaccurate. WINDOWTRIM was tricky, especially as it was crossed with PANIN, ANDRE, and DEMISED. Learned some new things today! For those interested, I'm heading back to Antarctica-- this time to Palmer Station on the peninsula. Our boat has decent internet so I'm sure I'll be getting my crossword fill as we cross the Drake Passage!

Uneducated 20-something here, I didn't really watch much Looney Tunes. As a kid, sometimes I'd catch a scene or two on the Boomerang channel, but that was it. This puzzle was a fun way to learn about a cartoon I probably shouldn't have skipped over. Thank you for a fun puzzle! I have a feeling I'm spending the rest of today watching Wile E Coyote on YouTube.

LOVED this!!! I've come to enjoy rebuses when there's some kind of revealer, and I'm a math nerd at heart, so this was right up my alley. It's rare for me to get a Thursday with no lookups but that happened today. So satisfying. Thankful for this brilliant puzzle! Happy Thanksgiving crossworld <3

Another fun one! At first I thought the theme was diva powerhouse songs-- Enough is Enough by Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand, Sorry Not Sorry by Demi Lovato... and I was expecting Piece By Piece from Kelly Clarkson. Then I realized the theme was much simpler and has nothing to do with my Spotify playlist! Either way, well done and thank you for a great puzzle :)

This was fun! ARTIE / ECRU was hard but nothing a little keyboard smashing couldn't fix. 48D was quite clever, loved getting that one. As our summer season ends, South Pole Crossword Club wants to thank you for keeping us entertained at the bottom of the world! Although I haven't been able to post much, we've been solving every week. Crossword Club has made friends out of people that otherwise may not have spent time together-- what a beautiful gift!

A couple of us on the boat just did this one together. Fell for MPH for cheetahs, struggled in the NE corner too, overall a overly lovely puzzle! Always happy to see a Shrek reference too! We land tomorrow allegedly, just one more day on the boat. Maybe by this time tomorrow I'll be writing from solid ground!

So many references I didn't get. Slade? Ned Rorem? Cloris Leachman? Simu Liu? Albert Camus? Lots to google after this. Maybe I'm just uncultured or a clueless millennial (or both?) but the struggle was real. I have never heard "viand" to describe food, and I'm even studying French and connected "viande" as meat. "Usury" was also a new word for me. Maybe I could have worked this out if the crossings were nicer, but I needed lots of reveals to finish.

This one didn't do it for us at crossword club. Great idea but way too forced. We didn't get what was happening until after solving. More of an "oh, that" instead of an "aha!" Also, NOODLEBOWL for Japanese restaurant order? Great fill but how does that clue narrow it down?

I solved the puzzle without understanding how this theme worked. I had to come here to figure out what the heck JUMBOENTREE and EMOTIONALXRAY were trying to do. I like the idea here, but the inconsistent application of the theme didn't work.

This was brilliant! What a fabulous puzzle, one of my favorites in a while. I actually like rebuses when there’s enough hand holding, which is rare with rebuses usually being on Thursdays. But with revealers to help me realize what’s happening and circles to show me where the rebuses go, I was able to solve without any lookups. On a *rebus* puzzle. Thank you for the wonderful early birthday gift. Fun way to spend my last day being 28 :)

SERTA/TARS and INN/HEN tripped me up. Never heard of HORA before, always fun to learn something new. Thanks for a fun puzzle!

I really liked this one! DONOR was what tipped me off, I got the theme pretty early on, and it made the rest of the solving quite enjoyable. I especially loved the clues for SPAY and ALTARS.

I loved the theme! I even figured it out without any reveals. A Thursday puzzle that didn't make me want to throw my computer out the window! But, the crossing of TROUBADOURS and PORTICO was just mean. And me having PRO instead of TRI for 52D meant lots of going in circles.

Did not pick up on the anagrams until I came here. Maybe I should do more cryptics.

Never heard of BARQS or Q*BERT (QSTARBERT??), and AVI/EVIAN was tricky. I liked the theme, *NSYNC was what clued me in, thanks for a good puzzle!

I love a gimmick and I love a Thursday puzzle. I would have enjoyed it more if the wormhole-ing followed a pattern, or if there were some hints as to which wormholes led where. Once I abandoned all hope that I could solve this on my own and revealed clues I was never going to know (PARAMUS, ARLEN, EPPS) I actually really enjoyed the trick. And as an astronomy nerd, loved the celestial terms sprinkled in!

What a fun theme! I appreciate that my "BLANK" rebus entries for 67A were accepted. I struggled with EIDETIC, HOARY, and RES, which all had tricky crossings. I've played piano for 20 years and never heard anyone say STEPWISE before. I had the leading "S" and kept trying to force SEMITONE with no luck. This puzzle made me think of another theme idea- the clue number could represent the number of points the word would earn in Scrabble. OAT would be 3, ZA would be 11, etc. Might be harder to execute with single-digit clue numbers, but I'm sure there's a way to do it. If I had any constructing skill (I do not) I would try it.

I liked this theme! CBSTV and LAV tripped me up, otherwise not too tricky and fun to solve :)

Came here to say TIPINS/GOESIPO was a toughie, and I learned that the triangles and circles spell CHIPS and SALSA. I love when themes have a bonus theme! Well done.

Fun puzzle! I spent a semester in Sevilla but got tripped up by the English spelling of SEVILLE with a second "E." Their oranges really are next-level. First solve from the northern hemisphere in about a year :)

Loved this one! Great theme and clever hiding of the rebuses. RAVEL and LUMET crossed with LUV, and TALESE crossed with TAT and EST were my downfall. Had to use "check puzzle" and keep trying new letters for four squares. But I got all the rebuses thanks to the revealer!

This was so much fun! I know it's going to be a good day when Taylor Swift makes an appearance. I had to reveal one letter, the "T" connecting ROTS and CRAZYSTRAW, but that was it. Pretty darn good for me for a Friday puzzle!

Great puzzle! Bummed that the animation didn't load for me, but loved it all the same. I quite emjoying the cluing of OREO, that was especially clever. We should be docking on station in a few hours, meaning work finally starts and I'll have much less free time. Thank you to everyone that's been interested in some random dude doing crosswords in Antarctica, I'll try my best to keep posting from time to time :)