Jill

Great puzzle! My day started earlier than usual due to an early meeting. As per usual, did the crossword with my morning coffee. Part way through “hmm, some of the fill looks wrong”. Check the crosses. “They look right. Wait is today Thursday? Yes, it’s Thursday. OK. Hmm. No obvious revealer. Carry on but be alert. Is that the same word twice? Yes, it is. Hmm.” Penny drops! Puzzle solved! Day starts with a little endorphin rush. Thank you!

I did not finish this puzzle which is unusual for me but it became a game of trivial pursuit rather than a crossword puzzle. I don’t mind googling the occasional proper noun but the number of lookups I would have to do to solve this puzzle was ridiculous

Excellent crunchy Weds puzzle.

On the one hand, I solved with minimal look-ups in a quick for me Thursday time. Two unfamiliar first names in the SE corner. I could see there was something to do with currencies in the theme answers but I needed to read the column for ALL to be revealed.

Got my Tuesday started with a smile when I understood why there were apparently random “C”s in the circles. This was a fun puzzle. Thanks!

Also a personal best for me but a disappointing Sunday. It would have been a fine mid-week theme. I solved the puzzle without identifying the theme and when I went back to look at the circled letters, I thought “that’s all it is? Where’s the twist?” I look forward to word play on Sundays - something to make me use my brain in a different way. When I started solving NYT Sundays, I considered it a win if I could figure out the twist, even if I couldn’t finish the puzzle.

This was a great puzzle! I was able to solve it without focusing on the theme answers but when it was completed (below my average time), I really appreciated how elegantly it was designed.

Loved the theme clues and answers. So very clever. Had to share them with my car-loving husband who actually laughed. He’s sharing the BUCKET SEATS with a friend who just bought a second-hand convertible.

My fastest solve for a Thursday but I didn’t get the theme until I read the column. And even so, I needed to go back and review the clues and the answers to truly understand the theme.

Great puzzle! Just the right amount of trickiness without pushing into frustration. No look-ups needed except consulting with my sports fan husband on 4 Down.

Tricky … but I figured it out on my own. I had rebuses for some answers but couldn’t see how to work a rebus into others. And then as I was working my way through my completed but not solved puzzle looking for my errors, I saw one word in the circles and the penny dropped. Perhaps because I am familiar with the concept of confirmation bias, I did not see “bias” as a hint until I read WordPlay. Well done to the constructors for a solid Thursday puzzle!

As a non-American, I was proud that I figured out the theme to the rebuses fairly early on. Got tripped up in some of the trivia, particularly the location of the Sloop John B - tried to figure out how to work Nassau into the grid until I realized I was overthinking it

This was a toughy. Even the non- theme clues were hard. But then the penny dropped, I figured out the trick. Even so the north-east corner was the last to fall. Proud of myself for solving without having to read the column. Only look ups were to confirm spellings.

I really enjoyed this puzzle. I knew 29 and 44 across immediately and thought the theme had to do with gay anthems so I was puzzled by 68 across. And then I started on the downs and was thoroughly confused 😀 and then the penny dropped. Great twist!

Truly brilliant!

I just read the creator’s bio. 16?! My respect for Mason’s clever wordplay just increased.

Enjoyed the theme but got stuck on 26A. I had DEvILE which I knew was not a word. It took too long for me to realize 8D was STRIFE instead of STRIvE.

This was a tough one and I DNF with LOOPER and IGUANODON being the Natick that did me in. I had IGUANuDON and LOuPER. But on the bright side, TIL that Hydrox is an Oreo-like cookie and not a laundry detergent, which is what it sounds like.

Having read so many comments about how hard this puzzle was, I had to write that I did not find it particularly hard. I did have trouble with the NE corner in the morning but came back after work and solved it quickly. Nothing like a fresh perspective. Having successfully solved it, it did take me a minute or two to figure out the theme.

This was clever! I had to finish the puzzle and look at the highlighted answers to “see” the hidden word but when I saw it, I was impressed that the constructor came up with the theme and was able to find 3 phrases that contained it. Well done!

Loved it! So clever. I first solved 27A and I took a moment to savour the brilliance of the wordplay. It remains my favourite of the theme answers.

Very clever!

I’m late in submitting this but wanted to say how much I enjoyed this puzzle and the theme wordplay. So much that I printed it out so my parents could enjoy it as well.

GOUP threw me. I couldn’t find it in a dictionary. Finally read WordPlay to discover it was GO UP. 🙄

I had filled all the squares but got the message that something wasn’t right. I double-checked and could find no errors. I also could not see the theme from the revealer. So I went to WordPlay and quickly mis-read the explanation “The “aside” refers to the fact that the cited entries have words for kidding around set to the side, at their ends.” to mean reference to “kids” (i.e. children). I went back to my puzzle and saw that I had WEiNIE cross with LEi and “WEE” could be used to describe a child so I changed the “i” for an “e” and got the happy music. But I couldn’t see anything in the other theme answers to do with children so I had to go back to WordPlay to more carefully read the explanation 😀