Ann

Love the animation! Quite the hole in one too, even for minigolf.

Caught on to the notion of the numbers but I filled them in with rebuses at first, and then saw the trick so had to change it to get my gold star. Blown away by the construction! How do they do that? I can’t help but see STU for the name of five popes though! (I know it’s Sixtus but it jumps out at me as Stu).

Great debut and interesting history to “throw shade.” The 18th century use came from “umbrage” with the idea that a displeased person had a shadow around them. Congrats to Mr. D’Alfonso

Sadly, they no longer make the Nabisco chocolate wafers used for icebox cake. It’s a sign of the end of civilization. Just two ingredients: Nabisco chocolate wafers and whipped cream. Layer the wafers with whipped cream and cover the whole log with whipped cream. Put in the fridge and the whipped cream softens the wafers and they become like cake. We used to love this. It was probably invented (different wafers maybe) during icebox days but lived well into refrigerator days.

Impressive that the constructor stared this at just 14, and then returned to it 8 years later! Some of it was hard for me but congrats on your accomplishment! I enjoyed the play on water signs and adding the Naiad in there.

Deb, the umlauts were added to make them look European. (Which they clearly thought was very cool, as I do.) “I can remember it like it was yesterday,” Neil told Vanity Fair in 2009. “We were drinking Löwenbräu, and when we decided to call ourselves Mötley Crüe, we put some umlauts in there because we thought it made us look European. We had no idea that it was a pronunciation thing.” They quickly found out. “When we finally went to Germany, the crowds were chanting, ‘Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!’ We couldn’t figure out why they were doing that.” (I edited for the emus.) <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/why-rock-bands-love-umlaut-punctuation" target="_blank">https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/why-rock-bands-love-umlaut-punctuation</a>

I believe it’s fine to say OCTOPI, or even OCTOPODES. OCTOPUSES is correct but sounds awkward to me. I think it’s lovely when we get new words from a mistake. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-many-plurals-of-octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes#:~:text=The" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-many-plurals-of-octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes#:~:text=The</a>%20current%20champion%20in%20the,octopi%2C%20octopuses%2C%20and%20octopodes.

Fun, challenging Tuesday. I had CHEETOS fora long time for orange crackers, thinking the entire time they aren’t crackers, but then what are they, so maybe they are. Also had DRAWL for some time instead of TWANG. Tx for a great puzzle!

Personal best for a Fri, not a single lookup. Not that I think it was easy, I was just on the right wavelength somehow with Mr Mehta. Love the long fills.

This morning I made a comment on Spelling Bee complaining that ZOOT wasn’t accepted. Glad to see it is in the crossword! The EGO/GEO CENTRIST entry is just terrific!

Just a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T for this puzzle and 13D <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A134hShx_gw" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A134hShx_gw</a>

Hard for me, for a Tues, but great puzzle! I really liked the UGG UGH combo and GUESSSO, whose placement made more UGGs.

OMG if you zoom in on the finished puzzle, just make it big, and watch the animation the ball is not plain yellow. It has little dots on it, like a golfball!

Interesting about UPS drivers. ELKS sounds a little funny to me but it is valid. The plural can be ELKS or ELK and I’m used to the latter. Gold star for me, which is unusual for a Friday, but still a good brain teaser. Nice puzzle.

Fun puzzle and thanks to John Rippe for a worthy cause. LikeJeff, I greatly admire people who work at saving our incredible planet. I have to say though, I found 74A kind of cute within this puzzle and absolutely loved the clue!

Fabulous puzzle! As fabulous as a Thursday,so an extra treat for the week! Til thanatophobe. 56D and 66A made me laugh. Thanks to Jesse Goldberg, and I also hope to see many more puzzles from this author!

Fun! Loved the cartoon punches! POW! Also liked ESTOP and AESOP parallel with each other.

I had 69A as THE NORTHEAST, biased as I live in MA, so until I read the column I thought maybe the sites were all in the Northeast of some area, so the Everglades are Northeast of the Keys for example. But that would be silly since everything is northeast of something I suppose. After reading the column my mind was blown. Just amazing. Before I read it I did notice the sites were situated on the grid according to their true geographic location. A tour de force from Simeon Seigel!

Aretha Franklin’s nickname was ReRe, also Aunt Re. I liked the theme. Somehow I flew through this puzzle although I’m not sure why. Just on the right wavelength I suppose.

You can fly your Lear Jet up to Nova Scotia today! Fun puzzle, I had SOLAR ECLIPSE for awhile until I caught on! Happy Eclipse! 🌚🌝🌒 Emus are so vain.

Loved thus puzzle’s theme. Love rainbow trout too. Also love Penguin Books. The founder’s secretary came up with the name, penguins are “flippant yet dignified.”

I got a chuckle out of this puzzle. With SNORTS and DISSES it was sort of like a cheeky student in English class. I think Robert Frost would have gotten a laugh out of it too. .. .. Emus do not think it’s very funny at all.

Wow, how cool! My mythology isn’t what it could be so this sent me down a rabbithole of looking up the Cyclops tale. What I learned from a crossword today!

Loved this! Loved the post it note! Imagine winning the mall. I wonder if you could actually.

Time for some Harry Belafonte, a cure for your troubles, and for the snowy weather today. <a href="https://youtu.be/50JW4aHHm5Q" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/50JW4aHHm5Q</a> Enjoy emus.

My last entry was GOOFF and I thought it was new slang and wondered how it was pronounced, and why it meant rant and rave. It took a few minutes for me to see GO OFF 😆 Congrats on the debut!

Hi, FYI. The NYT is selling comments data. Yesterday I commented in a famous actor in the puzzle and mentioned he had a condition, rhymes with timers. This morning I got emails from the (rhymes with timers) association. It’s a very worthy cause to be sure, but all it did was annoy me and give me the creeps. When are the companies going to accept the fact that targeted ads will never no work no matter how much data they have.

Glad to see I haven’t lost it. No underlines on my iPad. For Moose Antlers I had Rack and wondered what? Pinion didn’t fit. Thanks to Deb for clearing that up. Good theme, once you have it.

You gotta put down the duckie Put down the duckie Put down the duckie if you want to play the saxophone <a href="https://youtu.be/acBixR_JRuM" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/acBixR_JRuM</a>

Gold star for me, took a bit longer due in part to staring at the clues for the books. It sunk in eventually, very well done I think. Shout out to Gilda Radner, crossed with Fandom!

I loved this puzzle. The emus don’t like me at all. Thought 22A was hilarious and I hope to see more from Mr Kugelman! I mentioned 22A and I guess I’m not allowed to. That’s OK. Thanks for the fun puzzle!

Loved this puzzle and it very accurately described what the emus do to my posts. .. .. Take that emus.

While I cannot recall having heard of NERTS it doesn’t seem that farfetched to me. There are probably an infinite number of terms that mean “nonsense” and more a created every minute. Nerts sounds like one of those fabulous old-fashioned terms, like Horsefeathers or Balderdash. We should use them more. Between HalfBaked and WildIdea, I thought it was a funny and cute puzzle. Emus, have a Maitai and chill.

Absolutely loved the fill. It was hard for me but the answers were well worth it. Friday and Saturday puzzles are a struggle for me but it’s a delight when they can be fun even without a theme.

Loved this! Especially 59A and 101A. Sent me down a few rabbit holes about Charlie Chaplin, and also Damascus Steel.

I should get a gold metal for lazying around watching the olympics. Fun puzzle, with Linda Ronstadt and CCR performing! <a href="https://youtu.be/Kp9G0zkorio" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Kp9G0zkorio</a> .. .. The emus really don’t like me.

T-bars seem to be making a comeback. Emus—I almost entered Emus for 61D

Loved this theme! Last night I mentioned the North where it says ALDA, NAAN, NNNN and the variations of ANN every which way and I made a self-admonishing remark that I noticed it. It still has not appeared. I really like this puzzle and constructors but I think the emu moderation has issues.

Congratulations Ella Dershowitz! Fun puzzle for a Weds. my favorite was Sorrento. I had the NE first and didn’t get the theme yet, thinking Fosse? Bob Fosse? Then later I had a Duh! moment.

Abbie Hoffman at 1A! LOL. When the judge at one of his trials asked him what state he was from, Abbie Hoffman said he lived in the state of his mind, or something like that. So this fun puzzle had the potential of going into another state completely! I enjoyed it although I had never heard of Padme and kept thinking it was wrong and I’d have to go back. So when I got my gold star my first thought was, Padme?

HENRYKNOX directly above PENCILBOX is, somehow, my favorite part of this puzzle.

This was really clever, fun puzzle. Loved 47A. For 63A I tried to literally read it backwards, not switching the words, but like in a mirror lol. I did figure out that part but I had to read the column to get the theme.

Loved the grid. I am with Caitlin on the placement of THERE ARE NO WORDS, which is clever. That saying is always a contradiction in itself.