Guy Quay

Aloha, Hola! Thanks to Sam for the Greek palindrome which was truly good clean prose. I think this was one of the cleverest Monday puzzles I've seen. Palindrome themes always bring to mind "Bob" by Weird Al: <a href="https://youtu.be/gAfIikFnvuI" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/gAfIikFnvuI</a> Later, et. al.

That's it. From now on, I am doing the Saturday crossword first, and saving Connections and Wordle to assuage my deflated puzzler ego!

Clearly this was the most enlightening puzzle ever. Gene Louise De Vera made us one with everything!

The six longest across answers (18A, 21A, 33A, 37A, 46A and 52A read like a MARVEL trailer!

The puzzle has 17 possible solutions (16 single letter solutions and one rebus solution). That arguably makes it the easiest NYT crossword ever. The rebus solution is the only true solution, however. If you didn't get it prior to the happy music, you were generously given a time and credit for, in essence, a partial solution. Such was my lot. But I feel the circle squares and the clues referencing them was ample suggestion for the rebus solution. If this had been the only accepted solution however, the complaints would have been a quantum leap above the "too easy" gripes. So kudos to Daniel and Will and team for a superlative cruciverbal achievement.

I see several comments from solvers who "got the theme" but not a single post that put the theme into words. Deb did a great job of explaining the mechanics of theme but never succinctly described it. The best I could come up with is "PEICES OF IEGHT". Any other suggestions?

Great puzzle. Clever theme. What took me the longest time to figure out was that a 27D party had nothing to do with classical music.

How many words are in today's puzzle?