Cheryl

Loved how those old classic headlines were worked into this -- but I bet younger solvers felt like I do when faced with coming up with the name of a popular group or song from the last few years. With almost everyone getting news on -line in one way or another -- will we ever have such shared headlines again?

Pretty cool, but I admit that I got through it while still puzzling over the ABS to rip. Ms. Rajamani seems to have a really playful approach, and I'll be looking for another from her.

Challenge for the Times: get NYU Langone or some other NY Research center to do functional MRIs on folks doing the NYT Crossword Puzzles. Just to see if the internal connections all go haywire when presented with a confusing challenge that requiring all neural connections to fire simultaneously . . . I can imagine a graphic representation from Monday to Saturday with a jump on rebus Thursdays and then a steep incline to Saturday. Of course, other than the brilliant solvers, on Saturdays, many would be screaming to be let out of the MRI machines . . . and it probably wouldn't be safe to be in all that long.

Always slow to pick up on the theme, I started this late last night, and when I came back to it in the AM most words fell into place. Pearls Before Swine to me is a cartoon strip. A very creative offering. Chop house: tricky fun - - no pork served there.

This for me is one where I knew the word -- except Lychees/Litchis --- before i saw how the spin worked. Fun.

Skiing the hills is fun, but like the writer, MY pop music references are off. Jonas sort of formed itself, then the first name wasn't so hard. Use a song title and I am useless after 2000.

TEXAS. That was the cruelest clue answer! even when the squares were filled, I puzzled about what was going on. because - we are use to one trick per puzzle, I think. Figured out eggs in one basket but stubbornly avoided the 'all' because I wanted a verb in there. Came here for the unraveling.