James Morgan

Hogan, Hale and hearty laughs. Thank you both for a sunny pun-day. My nephrologist left no stone unturned. It’s a side splitter.

A true Baby Boomer here —born and raised on “I Love Lucy”, I confidently entered “nertz”. Of course, crossing NISSAN, I knew the answer had to be NERTS. Lucy and Ethel are vying for the presidency of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League. Both have created mudslinging campaign signs. Lucy’s- “Nertz to Mertz” Ethel’s- “A vote for the red-head is a vote for the dead-head” Ah memories. . . And don’t get be started on SSGTS. 7 minutes above my Tuesday avg. picking apart that one. Anyone going to Norway soon? There’s a fjord in your future.

Now THIS is a Sunday puzzle! I sussed the “shape up” rather quickly, but the “ship out” was a true aha moment. Many thanks Mr. Eaton-Salners (BTW- TEXANS: 30+ million/vegans: 9.6 million) That’ll learn me. . .

First take away “Ooooh—we have a rebus!” Fun Second take away “DOUBLEORNOTHING! Ooooh—some circled squares double the letters and others work with nothing!” Clever Third take away “All circled squares work with double letters OR nothing!” Brilliant One minute+ longer than my Thursday avg. (thanks to a hard-to-find typo—I don’t think Eli ever threw a medal into the Ohio) but worth every second! Thank you guys!

This really was a perfect Wednesday puzzle. Sincerely, a Lamarr-loving boomer.

I always love reading through the comments when I complete a puzzle. Sometimes puzzles just click with certain solvers, and sometimes they don’t. This one was a rough go—but hey, it’s Saturday, and I’m not complaining. It’s been well over two years since had a solve time exceed one hour. This is the crunchiest puzzle I’ve done in a long, long time. I wasted way too much time holding fast to some of my incorrect entries: “shy” for COY “weddingrings” for WEDDING BANDS “noe” for NAE I figured 38A must certainly have something to do with an imminent and dire warning about Covid. STUNT DOGS, LOLCATS, STIHL? All new to me— and lastly, I thought I off to a great start with KABUKI, but I couldn’t come up with any Freudian word that started with a “K”. That flummoxed me for way too long. -and it’s raining Mr. Nast- a tip of the Hatlo hat to you. Definitely a huge challenge for yours truly today!

COCOA BEACH! Years of watching “I Dream of Jeannie” pays off at last. Sweet puzzle! (I’m more partial to the peanut butter variety.) A little more on the Tuesday-ish level, no?

I really thought today would be the day I would lose my streak. I wrestled a long time with the SE corner. It took me a while to admit “own” was incorrect (along with 43D- “soothe” instead of SOLACE) and I am now up on my NANCHERLA bio. But even after hammering all that out , there was no happy music. After flyspecking everything, I had to put the puzzle down and walk away. Okay- let’s try this again. 1A- I have no idea, but 1D is “line” and “Lara” makes sense. Wait a minute. . .“line”? Head slap. SINE! SINE and SARA. Head shake. Sigh of relief.

Fun puzzle definitely, but put me in the boat with the head-scratching ADIN/ADUE/GUNLAP puzzlers. No tennis knowledge, plenty of music knowledge (but never ran across A DUE), and TIL GUNLAP (which I’ll dutifully forget tomorrow) :/

Congratulations Carolyn! I loved the “what it’s not” cross through the middle. The NW really had me in a bind for the longest time. 1D- “sleeper” was my first entry which triggered a major obstacle that took quite some time to unravel. COMEINHOT was new to me and, not being a pub aficionado (I’m more of a cocktail guy), SOURBEERS just sounded like lots of green paint. And I was torn between “olaf” and “sven” (“Frozen” anyone?) NILS wasn’t even on the radar. Thank goodness for IBID and MEH. Those led me to —-FILM and I finally untangleled myself.

Thank you Miss Goldstein for a great Friday puzzle. The solve was a little under my average for a Friday. I think my favorite entry was GOOBSOLETE . There was something about looking up at the grid and seeing GOOB that made me smile. Now, then – about ENOKI. Someday – someday, soon, I promise – I’m going to sit down and make a list of every Indian bread, Vietnamese soup, Thai spice, Chinese eel, Korean fermented substance, and last but not least – but especially: the wide-ranging and inscrutable Japanese fungi kingdom. Ah, those mushrooms! They get me every time. Hunting down that one square that’s denying me happy music. . . that one square where I crossed “creepycrawlees” with “enoke”. SMH

The SW corner really had me thrown for a loop. This is the first puzzle in a long time that I had to put down and move away– which worked out well, because I had a haircut appointment at 9 AM. Returned home a few minutes ago and – as often happens, I looked at the empty squares again and everything fell into place. Whew- this was a toughie. Loved “Dodgers’ foe” BTW.

What a lovely and well constructed challenge for this sunny day. I’d take a road trip to the malls of Paramus but alas, it’s Sunday. They’re closed- and don’t try pumping your own gasoline. And thanks Caitlin for a little Brubeck in the morning. And for anyone who digs that masterful 5-beat tune, you can graduate to another Brubeck classic in 7/ (not July) <a href="https://youtu.be/lbdEzRfbeH4?si=7GYt6iXfQN661bZ6" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/lbdEzRfbeH4?si=7GYt6iXfQN661bZ6</a>

Hoo Boy! I was staring at the. completed grid (about 2 minutes under my Thu. avg.) and simply couldn’t make any sense of the theme. A perfect instance of when I should “close out” and “walk away” and return a bit later. Thereupon - one of the finest “AHA” moments I’ve had in months. (*acre to nacre finally made me see the light) Deb, I swore I wasn’t going to read Wordplay until I’d figured this baby out. It was only then that I went back and looked at Mr. Kwong’s last Thursday puzzle. You are a genius, sir. More please!!

Wow. I concur with many of you. This was an excellent Saturday puzzle, but it was a tough one! And it certainly didn’t help that I stuck with “out with it!” at 67A for way too long. BTW- The “Ts” in “out with it” and SPIT IT OUT align perfectly- so some of my down answers were working just fine. Cue face palms and Dohs! Some of the best clues I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Thank you Spencer, for an enjoyable Sunday puzzle! A bit of a Natick with sound units and toy brands, but easy enough to run some vowels through the paces. A little easier than a typical Sunday, perhaps? (16 minutes under my average). A terrific theme presentation, though.

Today was quite a challenge! Thank you, Katie. The SW corner proved to be a bear, mainly because I know little to nothing about sports teams. But LSU seem to fit, which gave me LUTES -which come with strings. But something seemed amiss and I couldn’t imagine a Louisiana team having “wildcat” as its mascot. I’m thinking more like pelicans or gators. So- KSU was a rare “lookup”. And the “y” connecting PSILOCYBIN and ZYNGA was, alas, a true Natick for me. Way over my average time, but a lot of fun anyway.

Masterful debut! . . . and snow.

Congratulations on your debut, Mr. Hazen! Persistence does indeed pay off. You have produced a fine, entertaining puzzle. And you’ve included every letter but the Zed! But since that’s the keystone of your surname, I giving your puzzle pangram status.

Slip slidin’ fun! I really got bogged down on when I confidently entered “mile post“ for 64A- which worked perfectly with my 66D answer “lets it slide“ Too clever by half. Once I got that all worked out, I still had a typo somewhere. Finally pieced it together, but shame on me for not knowing ADAMSMITH. I had “Adam Smits” (Jimmy’s brother?) and “ssh” where a different sock stuffer spelling should have been. And the time was ticking away. . . Still and all- 3 minutes under my average. Terrific puzzle and fun graphics.

This was an absolutely brilliant puzzle. i’ve been doing the crossword for many many years, but I have never run across the term “Schrödinger puzzle’. Mr. Siegel, I am in awe. I think my epiphany came once I saw EVERGLADES paralleled with EPCOTCENTER. Talk about an “aha” moment. Unfortunately, 9-across was my stumbling block this morning. I thought “hedging” had something to with gambling, and I put in “otob”— thinking it had something to do with offtrack betting. I vaguely remember seeing the store fronts in Manhattan when I walked around. (Of course, that’s “otb”) That in turn made 12-down “bear” which I thought worked with the clue “consider “– as in “bear” that in mind. I guess that’s one of the caveats of having to use a rebus button. When I didn’t hear the happy music, I spent way too much time thinking I had entered 69-across incorrectly before going back and checking all my other entries. It was a good 20 minute slog. OTOH, I prevailed. Great Sunday morning challenge!

A challenging Saturday puzzle. A tip o’ the hat to Mr. Ezersky. I, too, had to research “stile”, thinking it was some obscure sports feat (sports ain’t my forte). The Z was my final entry. Nitpick- Does a stale salad become a FRESHSALAD when sprayed with “green paint”? That entry seemed arbitrary- I’m not sure I understand the reference.

AUDIOBOOKS, LARGEBILLS (a very fortuitous guess) and ANGELFALLS gave me a solid foundation. THALAMI and GENOSMITH? I’ll try filing this pair away – and then I’ll totally forget about them. I concur on the pointer/DOGNAP and Hill-adjacent POLISCI clues. Nicely done- 2 GAHS (not “dohs” ) I’ll refrain from voicing my misgivings about UH-OH. . . 45 seconds under my average 🙂 Thanks Sam!

Fun theme today! My eyebrows raised a bit when I entered MALT for an ice cream drink. Being of a certain age, I would refer to the drink as a “malted”. A malted contains MALT. I suppose the two words have- over time- simply melded together.

Wow- 15 seconds off my PB. Seemed quite (too?) easy for a Saturday. Now I have some time to kill. More time to enjoy a beautiful morning here in the ne US.

Well, it certainly challenged me. I thought I understood all the homophones: nit, py, cape, rode, cane, etc. But “tray” required an additional “e”. “etray”? Can someone enlighten me? Considerably over my average, btw.