heironymous

Sorry. But this was just a bad puzzle. Too many Naticks and bad clueing. The modern interpretation was anything but modern and didn’t even reference the most famous line of the poem. So you were completely guessing at what the author was doing

But wait… there’s more! If you look at the letters that are rebused with the U in puzzle order, it spells out… Star Wars. I’m sure I’m not the first one to notice

Wow, what a satisfying puzzle to finish. And very few obscure proper names Outstanding debut

My computer career/math background/chocolate chip cookie eating paid big dividends on this puzzle as I was well aware of the Bang ! Convergence. So the northeast corner revealed the whole SHEBANG I play a lot of fantasy sports so all I needed was the Y in YAHOO My only real problem was Jeb! As I have blocked that whole election cycle from memory

For the longest time I stuck to tent as the camp covering and OHdear as its neighbor. This lead me to coed for the traditional Scottish New Year’s Day gift which didn’t seem likely, but you know those Scots… A fine Friday puzzle it was

One of the few themes I haven’t gotten until reading the article.

I think that was likely more difficult to construct than fun to solve. I appreciate how the non dipped answers form alternative words. I didn’t notice chips and salsa but it’s clever. OTOH, simulcastED seems tortured No one wants Car boy in their puzzle. And actors say, “I’m on” Baseball players say “I’m up”

Northwest took a while to crack. My first guesses of mamaS and ratS did not serve me well SCHUSS took a while, especially since I had rEseT MODE (Hey, I can make a term a thing) Really the clue fits “on tilt” better, but that didn’t fit. I had TASER, but what really cracked the NW was ARTS which in retrospect should have been obvious. Good puzzle over all Nice and crunchy

I love the smell of rebuses (rebii?) in the morning.

The huge difference between Tuesday and Friday/Saturday is I know most of the culture clues :) Pyramus and Thisbe were the OG Romeo and Juliet.

I thought this was really tough for a Monday. Til I realize it wasn’t Monday. That’s what Monday holidays will do to me. Still took me longer than the average Tuesday. But who doesn’t enjoy a little Escher and badassery

I also liked I SURELY DO as theme-related even if it’s a plus-six :)

Fun little romp. Was going smashingly well until I hit the bottom Took me far too long staring at the corner of TIGERNUT and NOCAP Apparently I am one of the Olds now

Zzzzfuywuy wasn’t very zzfuy. Zwu he?

What does it say about me that SNAPCRACKLEPOP revealed all Probably that I’ve spent too much of my life watching TV. My one nit is that BCCing someone doesn’t add them to the thread. Because they don’t get future messages…

Never met a tech bro wearing a vest (and I’m as techie as they come) Abra was naticky crossed with ram. Bam seems to work just as well.

Loved it. Got the revealer first and it opened up the rest. Far better than overly obscure trivia And paired clues with no hints

Liked this one a lot Lots of fun expressions Really all clicked together Nothing particularly obscure Good clean wordplay

Loved the rebuses and the theme combo. South east felt like natick city to me

Hmmm… East of Eden Paradise South Park Playground North Dallas Forty Team with no chance of winning the Super Bowl? I’ll work on it

I’m just here for the rebus angst. My misspent childhood eating candy solved this puzzle for me Knowing OTIS Reading and SHE devil was enough for the candy id And gave me 13 free squares. :)

My nit to pick (I called “Shenanigans”) was the computer storage clue RAM is not storage Hard drive space is storage. RAM is active data space which goes byebye if your computer loses power /exits soapbox

I admit to not catching the ROLE REVERSAL in the theme answers. I did enjoy the USA vs USB (Is that Canada after the Olympic Hockey? I jest) Definitely a breezy fun Monday

Amusing. I used the trick to get all the answers. Made for a fast solve. I love the forward and back gimmick too Did get stuck on ARP SHORT I cross. And came here to find out what TOAT mean I’m sitting there thinking TOAT’s McGoats…

Another fun romp Had largo instead of LENTO for a while Still glancing a little sideways at AAHSAT I started off at 1 across with DENIM And then stared at one down trying to fit in BRAID So it’s going to be like that… Ten across gave me the trick But I’d never heard of a STRAPHANGER before

My personal pot Portuguese natick kept this from being a personal best. But it was a fun romp around the bases

Very happy with the PLAYDATES YOGAMATS cross that opened up the southwest for me. I knew Memphis was by the river so west seemed likely as part of WSW so WASABI …. SCUBA….. and WINBY…. filled easily but the rest of the NW took me a while. Oh, and I was unhappy when nohitters didn’t fit. It fit the first time when I accidentally spelled it with three t’s :)

Literally less than a third of my average time for a Saturday. Wednesday took more than twice as long Maybe I was just on the right wavelength today, and it has been a hard week at work, but it felt… easy? I mean, it has some lovely long vertical answers. There were very few obscure proper names and they were all short. I think we’re all familiar with spam and action items :)

Gimick was pretty easy I prefer it when the substitute answer makes sense (Unless you want to tell me that comeredass means something) Northwest was hard for me. I was thinking Indian god. I had ahoy and why ask and… it took a while…

The Northwest was fun as I tried out various ring wearers from Gandalf to Samwise Not on the harder side of Saturdays and therefore more fun for me.

Are the Nazca lines in Peru really that obscure? (Apparently obscure enough for my spellchecker not to know them ;) Between Cuzco, Macchu Pichu (really all of Sacred Valley) and the dood, Peru really is an interesting visit if you get the chance. I highly recommend.

My firsthand experience came at Chandelier. Which lead me to second HAND instead of MINUTE Which had me try HAND in all the wrong places But of course, that did not compute The northeast was built for me. West-northwest… not so much For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the first names of Abbott and Costello

Jolly good fun Needed one lookup on the author/japanese company natick Usually I would have letter by lettered but I was highly unsure about my messed up Texas in the NE that I had purely from crosses. The NW took longer than it should have because I had cheAT as a curve beater for a while. I love it when the theme breaks open a section of the puzzle as happened for me in the SW. Gotta say, I look forward to Thursdays

I don’t think so… I enjoyed the trees theme, but had a personal natick at the ACTIN TUN cross. Actually had to run the alphabet which feels embarrassing. Now I have going back to Cali, to Cali, to Cali stuck in my head Way to early for this…

Very tight theme. Enjoyed it greatly. I agree that the bottom right had some unknown names stacked (EZER is completely new to me.) But as mentioned, the cross clues sorted them out. I also agree that HES and SUER aren’t really great, but UGH was a fantastic answer. Over all, a top-flight puzzle

I like gimmicks. This one fell flat. Like others, I felt it would have been OR Nurse (and stops) I also would have been good if the “or” changed to an “and” to make the answer make sense. But using the first letter of the clue in the answer is extremely meh.