Judith G

Just here to say that I found tehee to be bit of a reach (autocorrect does not recognize it) - I have never seen this version used - the usual spelling is teehee. I knew the word ‘verklempt’, thanks to Barbra Streisand’s wonderful memoir, but who knew ‘plotzed’? Talk among yourselves…

A fun and clever puzzle! Thank you to the creators/editors. I don’t often solve the big Sunday puzzle without a bit of googling, but this one cruised along to the finish line unaided after I (fairly quickly) figured out the deal with the dark blue squares. It was helpful that there were only two main actresses in the English Patient (a fave movie) and as Juliette Binoche was clearly too short, once I made KST work, the other triple letter clues fell nicely into place.

Loved it, clever theme, fairly quick solve for me once I clued in to the rebuses, and learned a new word - ragbag.

Thank you Zhouqin Burnikel for a challenging yet not impossibly cryptic crossword, which I was delighted to solve with no lookups and in a decent sub 30 min time. Lots of fun clues and clever puns. Mas por favor!

Being Canadian, I’ll confess that the phonetic opening words of the U.S. anthem thingy flew right over my noggin, but even though I completely missed the theme of this puzzle (I guess the date might have been a clue 😉), it was a pretty swift solve, and netted my niftiest time ever for a Thursday puzzle. Happy Independence Day to you all to the south.

Very fun puzzle to solve. Thank you Mr Hale. Luckily I twigged/stumbled onto the bear theme fairly early on. Humblebrag: excited to have solved a Wednesday puzzle in sub 10 minutes for the first time today!

Bravo! Wonderful, clever construction!