Xword Junkie

This puzzle's theme was MAGNI(F)ICENT. . . . . . . . . . (random EMU reference here) . . . . . . . FINAWESOME!

Brilliant! Thursday "Puzzle of the Year" material. Loved it. Not a theme I've seen before, as far as I can recall. Got it with no assistance, but took almost 30 minutes. Many presidents have been born outside the continental U.S. For example, Michael Higgins, the current Irish president, was born in Limerick. It's a big world, after all. ;-)

Solved this one unaided in about three quarters of an hour, hating almost every minute of the experience. Let's stop there.

A morass of arcane trivia and bad fill, which I managed to solve unaided in about 40 minutes. Hope others liked this one a lot more than I did. Beep! Beep!

Kudos to whoever chose "You’ll need all of your powers of perception to get through Brandon Koppy’s latest Sunday puzzle" as the column's subtitle. The Doors took their name from The Doors of Perception, an Aldous Huxley title itself taken from Blake's "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". Apparently, mescaline played a role in all of this.

Well, someone has likely posted a better version already, but ... Waiting for Godot / Death of a Salesman

You know you are getting old when ... the caption for a photo of Laurel and Hardy needs to include "a comedy duo".

ELEVENTY appears, quite unfacetiously, at the very start of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring: Chapter 1: A Long-Expected Party When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/19/books/chapters/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/19/books/chapters/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring.html</a>

Solved this unaided, but quite a workout. Took me almost twice as long as yesterday's puzzle. Perhaps the two most challenging back-to-back puzzles in a long time. Much appreciated! As a mathematician, I got SCALENE quickly. But was then completely misdirected by "Combinations with numbers and sets" for BANDS. Well played there. Excellent Saturday puzzle!

Very solid puzzle. Thank goodness BABUR filled itself in, since that was an unknown for me. COSEC is typically just CSC nowadays, but the former is still used. Liked "Gathering of moles" for INTEL. Better than average Sunday puzzle.

Perhaps this has been noted already, but AS OF last week I have experienced a noticeable delay between my filling the last box in the puzzle and the acknowledgement that I've correctly completed the puzzle. The delay is long enough that I find myself scanning the grid looking for some box I've forgotten to fill. I solve online using Chrome. About the puzzle---it seemed fine for a Monday. I solved in 6:39 +/- 0:02.

Late to post, since this puzzle nearly killed me. You solved a Friday Crossword in 1:47:19. Finally got it on my own, but the triple of THATTRACKS, IOWEYOUONE and BLANKETHOG almost did me in. Had to take a break and return, and still I needed to spend more time on that one portion of the grid than the rest combined. Thanks, Evan and Joel, for an excellent workout!

Haven't posted since two of my posts were removed several weeks ago. Returning simply to say---I got Wordle on the first try today!

The seven long, punny themers were cute, but tightly constrained the rest of the grid, forcing a lot of three-letter entries. Of these, KIL and GDS were pretty bad. Is KIL supposed to be an abbreviation for kilometer? "Embarassing mistake?" for TYPO was cute, with the intentional misspelling of embarrassing. PICKACARD and OLIVETREE were nice, symmetrically placed, long entries, as were COASTAL and DURANGO.

Took me almost 30 minutes, which made it especially challenging for a Wednesday. Unusual theme, to say the least. SEEPY/BELLLAP took quite some time for me to see. Given the constraints of the complex theme, the fill was OK---though OPERAARIA and SEEPY seemed a bit desperate.

Disappointing offering for a Saturday. Seemed very straightforward, with a lot of dull fill and clunky (or much too direct) cluing ("Roquefort, e.g."). Hard to enjoy stuff like ISAID, IHEARIT ("You're not just imagining that tone"), IHADNOIDEA, RARESTAMP. "Shortening for a city that omits 'onto'" for TOR. C'mon. A rare day when I felt the editorial team dropped the ball.

Brutal! "You solved a Saturday Crossword in 1:22:51." Without assistance. Feel exhausted, but didn't think I'd manage this one at all. Most challenging Saturday puzzle (for me) in a very long time---so, nice work Byron and Joel!

Interesting that the author's name and the titles of her first six novels accommodate the symmetry required in the grid. JAZZ pairs with SULA, THEBLUESTEYE pairs with TONIMORRISON, TARBABY pairs with BELOVED, and SONGOFSOLOMON has thirteen letters, allowing it to "pair with itself" as a central thematic entry. Given the constraints imposed by the thematic entries, the remaining fill is a bit bland, though LANAI, MARTYR and MISHAP are interesting words. Congrats on the debut!

Tried, but couldn't muster much ARDENCY for this puzzle. Solved it without help, but felt that the theme offered little bang for the buck. HITON, OSH, NOTSO, ADOUT, ADREP, SOFTA, TONOW, SONOF are pretty unfortunate. At least KNURL and ASYLA are *words*, and SLIER is a variant. I suppose SITREPS are things, though my first guess was SITREVS (which I took to mean "situation reviews"). Sorry, but not a fan of this one. The pictorial element didn't compensate for a middling theme and some awful fill. Hope others enjoyed this.

I cannot truly express how much I disliked this puzzle. The "theme" was awful, and the puzzle was full of obscure dreck. How on earth this got published is beyond my comprehension. I almost solved this unaided. When I filled in the M in SMOOVE (whatever that is), I was informed that something was amiss. Turned out that I had typed CASH instead of CAST, although at that point I really no longer cared.

Who uses a nail to hold up a poster? Not someone I'd SUBLEASE to. Nice theme, but this didn't feel like a Monday puzzle to me. Just a few too many Tuesday-ish elements: URDU, SATEEN, EFFACE, MISO, BALI, ASUS, IPSO, SQIN, HAIFA, OSSO, BESO, UMAMI. Then again, the theme---once you see it---basically fills in 24 squares for free. Congrats on the debut!

This one made me work! Especially the SW corner, since I couldn't recall the completion of ALOO___. The entry DOTOAT just looks so odd, but fits the clue perfectly. And, as a mathematician, I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to get NONREAL from "Like i, say". Not familiar with THREENAGER, STRUGGLEBUS or RENTROLL, but all seemed sensible enough from the clues. "Place for a mind or a ball" was a clever clue for GUTTER. (I wonder if "Where a mind or a ball shouldn't go" would have been a bit better.) "Ride arranged on one's own" for KITCAR was also very clever, as was "Producer of black-and-white footage?" for PANDACAM. Really enjoyed this one. Took more than 45 minutes, but solved it without help. Terrific Saturday puzzle.

My first reaction was hopelessness, since none of the proper nouns were clicking and I don’t allow myself any lookups. But, in the end, I solved this one unaided, though it took about 45 minutes. INDUS and OCEANIA popped into my head, and soon the NW was done. ADASTRA and YORICK got me going, and soon the SE fell too. But it took me a long time to get started with the SW-center-NE portion of the grid. NUMETAL and its clue echoed a very recent Connections. Had it not, that entry would have been yet another unknown. But with that one in place, things started to yield, including all the names that were ciphers before. Didn’t know GALBA, and PANTSED is certainly odd, but the crosses led me to both. A very challenging puzzle for me, which is what I expect on a Saturday.

Didn't know SPITSGAME, REIKI, SHAKSHUKA or HADNOCHILL, but, LETSFACEIT, THATSONME. Nonetheless, solved this puzzle unaided---but only because I (think I) recalled TAKI from earlier this year. This one seemed like an appropriately challenging puzzle for a Saturday. It also seemed quite fair, given that I was able to use crosses to cover for my ignorance of some of the fill. Never had an ELKHOUND, but when my beagle mix got the ZOOMIES, he was certainly thinking "[Get out of my way!]"

This puzzle must have been *very* challenging to construct. That said, I didn't enjoy solving it and found the theme rather underwhelming. Random three letter creatures "attached" to one another with horseshoe magnets, symbolizing ANIMALMAGNETISM. Too little bang for my buck. Especially with fill like TINGS, STEERTO, DOAJIG, LEDTO---and all those short entries needed to accommodate the theme. Solved it unaided, but then spent more (and more enjoyable) time trying to create a thematic entry of my own. Likely I'll find a better one already in the comments, but here goes: "Like Updike's Rabbit tetralogy" --- FOURVOLUME. Stick that in your 18D! (The EMUs better like this comment.)

Well, I suppose DOS + FIRE + OTTO + SEIZE is indeed a (finite, geometric) series (since the ratio of consecutive terms is constant). So the theme and revealer at least make good sense to this mathematician. Lots of nice fill here, and I found this one ABIT challenging for a Wednesday puzzle. And we have both FUSION and FISSION in the same grid!

Found this one rather challenging, in part due to the many proper nouns that I didn't know, especially in the western portion of the grid. That said, I was able to solve the puzzle unaided, with the help of crossings and with assistance from the theme itself to get PUMPUPTHEJAM---since I knew the grunge group. Some interesting *words* today: ASSAY, ELECTOR (cleverly clued), DOJO (also cleverly clued), SOPOR, IRKSOME, MAYHEM, DESPOT. LOUDOUTS is new to me, despite having followed baseball for about half a century. Quite a nice term, just not one I recall having heard. Very fine construction, though perhaps a bit too heavy on the proper nouns.

Took me two minutes *after* finishing the puzzle to finally see and understand the theme. Considered this to be an added bonus on top of an already fine construction. Seemed much more a Wednesday than a Tuesday offering to me, but I enjoyed this puzzle quite a lot. "A+, e.g." --- EXCELLENTGRADE for this one!

Struck me as bit more challenging than a typical Monday puzzle. Given that each of the themers contains CK, the intersecting verticals are friendly enough, though LICIT and AOKAY seem beefy for a Monday. ANAP made me go EWW, but some nice *words* in the grid too: AXIOM, PLACARD, CAJOLE. Will have to read the comments to see if there are other examples of the --CKAND--LL theme. Haven't found one yet on my own.

ISEEITNOW! Thought that often today. This one was a workout for me. Solved it unaided, but took me just shy of an hour. Didn't know ZADIE, and the the Z was my last entry. Felt that ZIG/ZADIE were just a bit more likely than JIG/JADIE. Entered MARRIED right away for "Joined a union"---and then it took me way too long to recognize the correct SAIDIDO. In retrospect, I'm amazed I solved this one. ORESTEIA, GESTALT, XFACTOR, ELFHATS, DIRK, ALAI. Remarkable all the odd stuff crammed in the dark corners of my brain. Equally remarkable that I can (once in a while) even drag it out when needed. Great Saturday puzzle!

Seemed like a puzzle where the constructors really wanted their theme to work, but, despite their best efforts, it doesn't quite. If the theme were something outstanding then this might be OK. But here, well the theme seems rather pedestrian ... and it doesn't really work. "FOLL" is not "FALL", and they don't sound the same. And "NAUT" isn't "NOT", and they're also not homophones---at least to me. Solved it without assistance or errors in about 40 minutes. Liked some of the entries, especially the vowel-free NLMVPS and the uncommon words MIASMA and MYOPE. But overall ... well, I hope others actually enjoyed this one.

Solved it unaided, but quite the workout for me: "You solved a Saturday Crossword in 1:20:39." The design essentially consists of a main puzzle connecting the NE and SW corners of the grid, with two substantial "mini crosswords" very loosely appended in the NW and the SE. Presumably, our constructor is especially fond of the horizontal and vertical stacks that intersect to form a 3 x 3 block of letters in the very center of the puzzle. In any case, I was doing reasonably well until it came time to solve the mini in the SE corner. The clue for TURMOIL was *completely* useless to me, and I had with CORE rather than BORE, RECESS rather than MOTION, and MEH rather than MID. So, needless to say, it took me a while to sort that corner out. INNOUT crossing ATUL was also tricky. All in all, a very fine Saturday puzzle. "Labor tactic" immediately evoked STRIKE, and LAMAZE only arrived later (with a smile). So many nice *words* here too, with LOGJAM and ABRUPT being two favorites. In summary: NICEONE!

Congratulations to our constructor for having DEED* in the NYT. (No BUTs about it.) A very fine Thursday puzzle. I got the theme quite early and immediately filled in the revealer. And then breezed along until I had to provide STING, TONED and WAS. Normally I can visualize such things, but today I needed to write these on paper before I saw the missing IF, BUT, and IF, respectively. Really liked this one, though it took me almost 30 minutes to finish. I enjoyed the challenge!

Given the thematic entries, the grid design, and the constraints of symmetry, 17A had to be either PUBTRIVIA or HARDTRUTH. And 23A had to be either GRAPHICDETAIL or BANKSTATEMENT. As an experience constructor, Mr. Caprera would have considered the various possible placements for these four entries *before* attempting to fill the the non-thematic portions of the grid. I can only assume that his experience (and, perhaps, his software) suggested that PUBTRIVIA at 17A and GRAPHICDETAIL at 23A was the most promising of the four options he had. Given that, our constructor then needs to fill 6D with something fitting the pattern ??V?H?. What would you put there? I don't have professional software and a word list on hand, but I can't imagine there are many (any?) options other than NAVAHO. So what to do? Discard or reject the puzzle simply because it's NAVAHO (Var.) and not NAVAJO? Maybe folks should consider how challenging it is to construct a puzzle as solid as this one. (That said, if we had WOAH in the grid, well in that case ...)