Adam

60 squares devoted to this questionable theme and no clever wordplay gimmick? Very disappointing, especially for a Thursday, at least in my opinion. I will, however, offer my congrats to the constructor on the debut, and kudos to all who did enjoy it. Can’t please everyone 100% of the time!

No problems with this one until the west edge. I’ve never heard of a duck BLIND, which is not the puzzle’s fault of course, but I still feel for a Tuesday puzzle a more conventional clue should have been given there, especially considering it is crossing the obscure LIPO and non-word BLEH.

Eight spanners is truly an impressive feat of construction, especially because it wasn’t bogged down with a bunch of forced fill. Some fun misdirections in the clues too. Excellent work!

Wow this was pretty terrible. Obtuse theme with a very ugly fill. There is no indication of which words will be missing letters and some of them have cutesy “?” clues causing further confusion. I’ve been a professional musician for over 20 years and have never heard it called a HALF TONE. It is a semitone of half-step. And that was one of the theme entries! This seems like a case of the constructor creating a puzzle for their own amusement rather than the solver’s.

A perfect example of how to densely fill a grid with satisfying long entries without resorting to a dozen obscure names and acronyms. I can tell a lot of care went into this puzzle and it was a joy to solve!

A rebus for Star Wars day! I’m so happy! Fantastic puzzle as well, a joy to solve from beginning to end. Rebus lovers, make your voices heard today as our favorites are becoming far too rare!

Every time I see a crossword by Adam Aaronson I think of the classic Simpsons gag where Selma is trying to spread the word about Marge being pregnant so she pulls out the phone book and dials the first number, A AARONSON and starts to tell him. Then there is a fade to show elapsed time and, exhausted, she says, “…just thought you’d like to know, Mr. Zukowski,” hangs up and says, “There! Aaronson and Zukowski are the two biggest gossips in town, soon everyone will know!” A brilliant bit, much like this puzzle. And I enjoyed all the extra”X”s sand “Q”s!

I try to find something positive to say even when a puzzle comes up that I don’t care for, but I can’t do that today. This is a bad puzzle with clunky fill, awful clues and no cleverness at all. Also, CRAPPER? Really? Hard to believe better options weren’t available.

Wow, this has to be one of the best puzzles in recent memory! What a stellar feat of construction with the phrases, rebuses and pangram all working together beautifully. Nothing too cute, great clueing and an absolute joy to solve!

Good to see a lot of people enjoyed this one, alas it just wasn’t for me. Just didn’t enjoy grokking out old headlines. Still, I was going along fine until the double-themer in the SE corner which felt very out of place given the other headlines are all well-known historical events, but I don’t even know what HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR is referring to. Using up so much space on that headline paired with some very obscure clueing in the crosses made the whole SE section a slog.

Perfect challenge level for a Wednesday and a great palate cleanser after today’s brutal (and IMO unfair) Connections puzzle.

Great Saturday puzzle! Had a nice hearty laugh at ‘Gag order?’ for TMI.

Fantastic rebus puzzle! The first clue made me think something was up because I immediately thought MUTANTS (and, of course, it’s a Thursday). I liked that the revealer was in the middle since I got the trick with half the puzzle still to solve. Getting ten rebus squares in without compromising the fill was also very impressive!

Happy Spring! Seasons don’t fear the rebus. Seriously though, to those anti-rebus folk, this is a pretty mild one to get your feet wet with, so give it a shot! I personally love them and try to make this opinion known amongst the inevitable gripes whenever they appear. Keep ‘em coming, very fun puzzle today!

Wonderful work, that was a blast!

Got about halfway though and just hit an absolute wall, confounded by the theme. I had ORS from the crossings but no idea how to interpret it. Got frustrated, took a break, came back an hour later and finished it up pretty much immediately, only struggling with the naticks at 7A. Theme was suddenly crystal clear. Sometimes your brain just isn’t the right gear, I guess!

Two Schrodinger squares, inconsistent theming with the Pig Latin and some very questionable (and downright wrong) clues. Not the worst but also far from the best.

Just came to see people getting fussy over the usage of ALRIGHT and was certainly not disappointed. Stay pedantic my friends! (For what it’s worth, I enjoyed the puzzle but was a bit taken aback by that particular entry)

Did Wednesday and Thursday get switched this week? Yesterday’s puzzle was more gimmicky like a Thursday and today’s was more straightforward. No bother though, both puzzles were great!

Anyone else experience a dramatic spike in difficulty for the NE/E side of the puzzle? I was cruising along easily thinking I had a new Friday record in the bag until I got to the north/east side and hit a major brick wall. Turned a 7 minute solve into 17. Not that I’m complaining about that section, Fridays should be somewhat difficult, so if anything I think the rest of the clues should’ve been a little tougher. I just found it to be a very jarring shift. Still a fun solve, though.

Pretty smooth solving for such a low word count, perfect puzzle to jump around the grid and let things fill in gradually rather than hitting each section one at a time. Very impressive construction by someone who is clearly an expert designer, well done!

A lot of “you know it or you don’t” entries in this puzzle. Not much fun. I just started looking things up by the end because there was no way to figure out the answers with the clues or crosses. Some pretty bad fill here as well. HAHA and HAR in the same puzzle? Gimme a break.

Great puzzle! Did Wednesday come early this week?

Impressive feat of construction, and the shading along with the center revealer made the gimmick apparent quickly enough. I enjoyed it, but knew as I was solving that it would lead to some gripes. Oh well. Thursdays aren’t for everyone but it’s the day I always look forward to the most and this was a great one!

Fun idea and well-constructed, but the clues for the most part were pretty straight-forward and unimaginative so it was a breezy solve. Or maybe I'm just extra sharp this morning because I breezed through the Bee too! Bottom across word of the Mini; um, what? 😂 Beautiful Strands today ☺️

Very fun and enjoyable theme that should keep the rebus haters at bay for the week. We are opening a production of HADESTOWN tonight so the appearance from HERMES was a very pleasant surprise! Congrats on an awesome debut!

Disappointed in myself for not suspecting the Schrodinger when it became clear all the attractions weren’t in the SOUTHEAST like I had entered, then read the column and it made so much more sense. Great work!

Anyone else get stuck on LUTES for the strings attached clue? I figured it had to be IMS and when I remembered LSU is the Tigers, not Wildcats I ran the alphabet until the light bulb went off. Good Saturday challenge.

Fun theme, had a good laugh at NAILEDTHEDISMOMENT even though I got hung up in the SW corner at the end for a minute because I put LANDED instead of NAILED. Bravo!

Perfectly constructed with not a square wasted and a nice, strong theme. Well done, Mr. Bodily!

A perfect Saturday! Bravo to the constructors!

What a master class in crossword creativity! I love how you can solve the puzzle completely normally and that the "theme" is an extra bonus upon completion. Amazing work!

Okay I absolutely LOVED this one! As a professional musician and gamer, ON KEY KONG may be my favorite entry in a NYT puzzle ever!

Top-notch clueing today, very satisfying and entertaining solve!

Magnificent! I can’t imagine this puzzle’s gimmick was easy to pull off but this puzzle makes it look totally natural. Didn’t need to get to the end of the puzzle to reveal the themer so it aided in a lot of the solving and there were some great clues thrown in too. A recent favorite!

Smooth and seamless solving got me a new PB of 3:12! Woo hoo!

Now that was a proper Saturday challenge, NE corner had me stymied for a good while and I did eventually cave and google PTRAP to get it going, whIch helped me to finally get the “Count out for breakfast”. Or at least I thought, misinterpreting “out” as asleep and putting DRACULA but that was not working with the crossing clues and eventually I finally thought of his tasty doppelgänger. So yeah, good puzzle!

Perfect Saturday challenge! NE corner took a bit of extra brainpower but I got there without too much trouble. Bravo!

Breezed through this in just over ten minutes. Being a lifelong gamer and Nintendo fan helped, but some of the clues I found questionable. I always associated power ballads with hair metal bands, songs like “I’ll Be There for You” by Bon Jovi, for example. Celine had huge ballads, but they were mostly pop. I know she did at least one Jim Steinman tune (“It’s All Coming Back to Me”), which I guess would count, but I never considered her a “big name” in power ballads. Are deer and reindeer the same thing? I figured out the reference easily enough but it got my suspicions up. And the clue for SOONEST makes no sense whatsoever.

Was going crazy trying to find my mistake when I realized I never even read the clue for 67-across. INUIT appears so much in crosswords I didn't even question crossing it with IRAN. Felt silly when I finally figured it out 😂

Two stellar debuts in a row! Six spanners is always an impressive feat and the solve was smooth but still challenging. NYT is crushing it this week!

Great Saturday puzzle, to me it seemed like a warm welcome in the NW corner to get the solving going that got more difficult as it went along, following a “U” shaped path and finishing up in the NE corner. Not sure if that was the intent, but it had a nice effect for me!

Perfect Friday challenge, clever clues and almost no proper names or obscurities. Excellent work, Mr. McDermott!

Tricky but fair and well-constructed. I had no idea the Denver Broncos had such a loyal fan base!

Just under 8 minutes to solve, after setting a new PB 6:15 for Friday yesterday. Why are the puzzles so easy lately?

Finished under 8 minutes, very fast for a Friday especially because I also got hung up on the west edge with ANISE for [Star Cluster?]. (If this wasn’t an intended bit of trickery, it was quite a coincidence!)

3:25! Not a PB, but definitely up there. Super smooth clue flow and appreciate the shout out to Mel Blanc!

Figured out the “theme” after about a half hour of wondering what the heck was going on and nearly filling out the grid, but by then I was too frustrated to appreciate it.