Zach

That was absolutely miserable. It's fine to have some clues that do the "not what word you thought the clue meant" thing but this was everywhere and it made it impossible to even cut into them from the other direction. Number, senior, aerial act, server, synthetic oil, NUMBER (saying it twice), plus archaic words like the zen riddle or group of assistants? Come on.

WAY too much of this puzzle needs hints. It makes sense if you already know the solutions but trying to get through it without help is a nightmare. I did it, and it took forever, but wow that was not at all satisfying.

34a is, for the record, inaccurate. That's not who that was.