Erma

This was fun and clever and I enjoyed learning about Pittsburgh. My own town has a history of adding and dropping letters at the end as well. The town was incorporated in 1881 as Spokan Falls. In 1883, the "e" was added to the end because the mayor thought it looked more sophisticated or something. The "Falls" was dropped in 1891, and here we are.

Count me among the ones who enjoyed this puzzle. Caught on to the trick fairly early, and even noticed the missing letters spelled out posterior synonyms. I don't normally figure out that layer of the theme without reading the Wordplay column. I found the trivia gettable from the crossings, and I even came in 12 minutes under my Thursday average! I guess my mind is floating down the same gutter as Dan's.

There's a meme out there that says the real Krebs Cycle is learn the Krebs Cycle <-->forget the Krebs Cycle. I've memorized and forgotten it three times in the course of my education. I'm thankful not to have to again.

This puzzle was tough but fair. It took several passes and the southeast was the last to fill in. I finally was able to get XYLEM thanks to having taken APBIO many many years ago. Congrats on your retirement, Deb! Thanks for helping me learn how to solve crosswords. In 2020 I decided to give up social media for Lent, so when shutdown hit I needed a new diversion. Between anxiously scanning the NYT COVID dashboard and reading about global impacts and vaccine development, I started daily solving, first with autocheck on every day, to now mostly solving without lookups. A lot of that progress was thanks to the wordplay column and Deb's articles on learning to solve. So, thanks for helping me get through that scary time and develop a new hobby and skill, and best of wishes on your next endeavors!

I enjoyed this one; it was tough but fun. Had final boss before BOSS LEVEL. Thought maybe CARRIE'S NOW EIGHT was some saying I'd never heard of until I read the column >headslap<. Clutched my pearls a bit at 19D. And found my error reading the column when I realized Oz was an abbreviation for an AMT and not a wizard putting on an AcT.

This band geek will let Sam off the hook for saying a sax belongs in the horn section. Though it is brass like a horn, it's played with a reed, which makes it a woodwind. The flute, also a woodwind, is made of silver (unless you're James Galway) and does not have a reed, so figure that one out!

I really enjoyed the theme and finished 15 minutes faster than my average. Would have finished faster if I didn't always mix up the surnames of Marissa TOmei and Mel TORME!

I enjoyed this puzzle a lot and finished well under my Friday average. I had Oxford shoe before ETON COLLAR (that's a thing, right?). Like others, I also liked the STONEHENGE clue, which brings up images of an 8" replica as part of a Spinal Tap stage set. I also enjoyed seeing SALISH in the puzzle. Our minor league baseball team is the Indians, which I feel a little weird about but they work closely with the Spokane Tribe and their home jerseys and a lot of their fan merch is in Salish which is cool. We also have a Salish school which was unfortunately the target of a hate crime during the T45 years; hopefully we don't have a repeat of that. Finally, I'm not sure if I'm understanding the T-Rex clue? Is it because GLAM ROCKERs are all dinosaurs?

Sam, I feel there is a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of Weird Al fans and They Might Be Guants fans. I saw Weird Al a couple of times when he played at our county fair in the 90s, and I'm looking forward to catching him again this summer, but I've yet to see TMBG live!

I had the actor and movie wrong when I confidently entered imwALKINhere. Admittedly haven't seen either. Getting that corrected took some time, otherwise a fun and challenging rebus Sunday. Now time to look up whether Taxi Driver or Midnight Cowboy are streaming anywhere!