Sue

I have very little interest in entering the conversation about how easy the puzzles have become. But I do have an observation. I sometimes do weekend puzzles from the archives and almost invariably find them easier than the current puzzles. There is a fairly obvious explanation – I am 87 years old. The proper names and contemporary cultural references have become elusive. I still like them, even if they are not from my generation. And I love it when there is trivia from the 50s and 60s.

Ozlem Tureci deserves to be better known. She did the mRNA research that led to our quickly developed COVID vaccines in 2020.

Coincidentally, I tried the word HIED in the Monday Spelling Bee. It was not accepted, but it was totally on my mind when I read the clue for 29 across.

I really like it when I learn something while I’m having fun. Ain’t it grand to be a nerd?

About 20 years ago, my husband and I happened to be in India during the festival of Holi. A pack of young boys delighted themselves in covering my elderly, dignified husband in face paint. I filled in HOLI and had a happy memory in today’s puzzle.

One of my favorite treats on my April 1 birthday is the Times puzzle. Thanks for the present! It was fun.

Brutal. Do you agree, emus?

I am a geezer but not a fogy. Just sayin’.

It was impressive that every ID was a stand-alone word, not merely part of a longer word. I love it when someone notices a particularity in words and can turn that into a symmetrical puzzle!

I am so excited to see ETUI. All these years I’ve had that great word in my vocabulary, and I haven’t been able to use it for a long time!

I thought this was a fairly ho-hum theme until I reached the revealer, which made me laugh out loud. A clever Tuesday.

I just love me a good ole Sunday rebus!

I am looking for something really easy on Thursday.

Too easy? Too hard? Who cares? This was really fun.

If you like audiobooks, you may want to know that Toni Morrison reads her own novels. She reads as well as she writes.

What? No Silent Generation? I am speaking up.

Approaching my 86th birthday, I get slower all the time in my solving. Pop culture is ever further away. But I love this kind of theme. It has no age restrictions!

Oh, my. I will never hear the happy music again in quite the same way. If you don’t know what I mean, read the constructor’s comments.

There has been two periods in my life when a big book was especially satisfying. The first was when I was a teenager, with languid summer days and a rocking chair on the porch. I discovered Dickens and the big Russian novels. The second period is now, at age 85, with the audio paired to my hearing aids.

I have Macular Degeneration, and the highlighting is difficult for me to see on every single puzzle. I have learned to zoom in on a section, and that also worked just fine with this clever puzzle. I took it ring by ring, and pretty soon it was all filled in.

It was fun to suss out the picture clue the paired answer. Much of the fill was really, really tough. The northwest corner and the entire southeast took a loooong time.

I didn’t find it too easy. I’m not as good as some of you folks. But I did know this meaning of. CAREER and filled it in immediately. Different strokes.

56 down Just 56 down Just 56 down

This was a really clever Monday theme. Four career paths for a dog! Who knew? Thanks, Katie Byl and Jeff Chen.

A couple of really fun days in a row. Yes, I loved the Pig Latin, but the emus ate my commendation. So here I am to say it again.

Cool math things I learned today: ONE state name has a single syllable Almost TWO BILLION people subscribe to Islam Almost TWO BILLION people use GMail

This was an unusual puzzle in that it really made a difference to check the puzzle title first.

A perfect Friday puzzle! The long answers were creative and in the vernacular. And the puzzle was relatively free of proper names.

Exactly right for a Sunday puzzle. I picked up the theme with GLIBNESS: “Mixed Blessing.” After that the puzzle went much more smoothly. I won’t say that it went faster because I hate the emphasis on speed. Thank you, newbie!

A fun and fast Thursday. I was sorry when it was over.

Since AS EQUALS was a fine answer to 62D, the rebus was called for. Until that moment I was swimming around. Great puzzle and Thursday fun.

I really do think I need to go to the drugstore and learn the names of nail polishes.

I loved the clue for AIOLI (12 down).

It has been a very long time since I’ve heard the phrase BANG-UP. My father (b. 1903) used to say it all the time. It was high praise.

I actually didn’t see the instructions before I did the puzzle. I had no real problem figuring out what was going on. The one big glitch was MODEL AS. Without help on the cross clues, I inserted MODEL TS. That was my big fly specking task.

The killer was the crossing of NOE with YEET. I never know contemporary slang, and this time cross clue failed me. Maybe I need to spend more time with my grandchildren. It was a fun puzzle anyway.

@Barry Ancona It is always good to remember that the commenters here are not representative of the puzzle solving population at large. I think the visual hints were a good idea.

I loved the puzzle and I figured out the theme fairly quickly. It was SMOOCHED that provided my entry point. Brilliant concept. I filled in the phases of the moon, top to bottom, and the center was complete. Then came the hard part. Alleys left and right were difficult and took a long time to complete. Some of that fill was Saturday worthy. The southwest corner was especially Naticky.

The aha moment made me laugh out loud. Until I got to the revealer, I sure was scratching my head. This was brilliant.