Laura

I simply loved this puzzle. Fun fill. Fabulous cluing. Just the right sort of Friday for me. Had to read almost every clue multiple times, and it felt like savoring a fine meal. Unlike a more typical Friday, I had very little on the first pass, but eventually made progress in the northeast and then that success spread through the center. The last bit for me was 58-Across, but I was ELATEd, not IRKED. THEMS THE FACTS of my solve. Thanks for taking the time to bake this one to perfection, Julian!

Very clever—111 Across made me laugh out loud

Delightful theme, Kevin—thanks for a lovely start to the day!

I know people are in at least two camps on crosswords that add puzzling elements that make them non-traditional crosswords. I’m in the camp that loves finding one like this that’s doing something quite out of the ordinary, and I don’t read solving notes in advance, so I worked it without the awareness that it was going to be trickier than usual. Though there was a LOT of having to keep track of things, my feelings about that were ultimately outweighed by the ahas (including SMOKEEFECTS and I WAS FRAMED). I had the same wish expressed by other commenters that the clue highlighting was bi-directional. I also think I would have found it more fun to have the frames that showed up around the I WAS FRAMED letters at the end be visible from the beginning. Having that art museum aesthetic would have added a nice visual element, while also making it easier to keep track of where I was inserting things, and—having put the idea of frames in my mind—might have enabled me to use that great phrase as an actual cross-check of those tricky squares during the solving process, and simultaneously eliminating the not fun job of hunting for the letters that I’d entered in pencil format or left blank in order to figure out what they were supposed to spell. Thanks, David and editors, for a good challenge!

The 3-letter downs at the top and bottom were especially helpful today, making this a quicker solve for me than recent Saturdays, and I thought the long entries were a particularly fun bunch. I mostly came here, though, to say how much I enjoyed and admired the clue for 54-Across. Thanks for a pleasant start to the weekend!

Loved this one. Had almost nothing through the top 11 rows on my first pass, but gained some traction in the bottom four rows and slowly worked my way up, finally finishing in the northwest and top center, with the answer for the delightful “Drive around the office?” being the last of many aha moments. Thanks, Jacob!