DIVAS IVLIVS
San Francisco
In my defense, sometimes earrings do need to be rescued.
Someday many years from now, a Wordplay column few of us will be here to read will begin, "Today's puzzle is by Bryan Cheong, whose first puzzle was published way back in 2025 when he was just 14."
Within a ten minute walk of every MUNI line and I still put BART in first.
The puzzles aren't getting easier, I'm getting smarter. Yes, that must be it.
I appreciate having a new type of rebus to dislike.
You open a case with a statement, not an argument.
@Spmm If you can tell me how to put the fireplace above my TV I'm willing to give it try.
Are party hats and balloons associated with SQUARE DANCEs and BOX SOCIALs? Are there really gatherings called CELL RECEPTIONS or is it just a play on words (uniquely, among the themed answers)?
Chewy for a Wednesday. Good stuff.
Thank you, Deb, and best wishes! I started puzzling as a distraction from the pandemic and I doubt it would have been any more than that for me without your joyful, inspiring columns. It won't be the same without you, but you got me hooked and I won't be quitting anytime soon!
Yes, this puzzle was too easy and lacked a certain something, that's why it took me so long.
My car is parked on NOE and I am drinking a PERSIMMON smoothie, does this still count as an unassisted solve?
Also still singular if you instead add an A at the beginning.
Down answers need to all be real words or phrases as written (just not the right answers to their clues) for this to work.
Great Tuesday puzzle. Made me work for the happy music!
A new record for me! (Slowest Saturday solve.). But no look-ups. I'll take it.
@SP Dracula isn't a bat, he's a vampire who can take the form of a bat. For him, eating a bat is no more cannibalistic than drinking human blood. And anyway there are bats that eat other bats--including a species of vampire bat.
@sue I believe reporters use it to indicate the end of a story when they submit it to their editors.
Perfect Wednesday puzzle.
@Jon <a href="mailto:nytgames@nytimes.com">nytgames@nytimes.com</a> will change your blue square to gold if you ask.
Polyphemus was not "the" cyclops, he was one of many cyclopes. But he probably did yell something like "I can't see" when he was poked in the eye by No Man/wily Odysseus. Too bad the constructor couldn't get that one "I" into "Poseidon," Polyphemus' father.
An allele can be dominant, but not a gene.
My golden-doodle resents being reduced to a caricature. But I thought it was a great puzzle.
Crediting my dog with the co-solve as walking him cleared the mental logjam.
Spent forever trying to fix answers that were correct (MAUD, NOCAP, AIT). Turns out I was DOUBLECROSSED by "DOUBLECROSSEs." Going to blame my high school German for thinking that HAsST was correct.
Nice puzzle, impressive debut. Self-driving cars have been a constant presence in my neighborhood for years and I assure you they are vastly less dangerous than human drivers, Deb.
Resisted the urge to pick up Suetonius' "Lives of the Caesars" literally sitting next to me. Ground out GALBA the hard way FTW.
Has the letter "F" been used like that before in a Times puzzle? Not complaining.
Just barely doable--my favorite kind of Saturday puzzle.
Love the early week themed puzzles, keep them coming!
"...eats crisps while using..." would have been jollier.
The constructor's "Bicfoot" story is like the Simpsons episode where Chief Wiggum installs Flanders's new toilet next to the refrigerator because it was too heavy to lug upstairs.
EviCT looked so at home at 9A that I hesitated to [Boot] it.
Really wanted 35D to be BRAUHAUS.
Got hung up trying to squeeze CHICKEN NOODLE into 23D.
@Richard Hoping this inspires an Italian restaurant to create a dessert called cennoli (which apparently means "nod to them").
Another Monday banger.
Another clever early week puzzle, thank you!
Faster than my Sunday average but only because my first guess at an acceptable rebus format was correct. Least enjoyable crossword activity is cycling through alternative rebus formats to get the happy music.
If there was even one more answer that I had to get solely from crosses and guesses, I doubt I could have finished it unassisted. Which is to say, a perfect Saturday puzzle.
Themed Monday-Wednesday puzzles always appreciated, keep them coming.
FOLLICLES ON ONE'S bACk felt too right to be wrong.
@Marshall Walthew Put my life on hold while reading Coming into the Country. Could not put it down.
@Brad. The constructor says it has “perfect vowel-consonant symmetry." I don't know what that is supposed to mean, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they alternate.
Clung to fOOTIES for way too long but finally got the happy music and was able to 32A high above Baffin Bay.
A real struggle, don't know anything about Wicked. But bought Icelandic Krona yesterday, that helped me figure out the starred clue trick.
Isn't "frog" as a demonym considered derogatory?
Never realized before that "word with an 'i' followed by the same word but with an 'o' " constructions are so common in English. Do other languages have something similar?