PuzzleDog

Just dropping by to say that I really liked this one. It felt a bit like a Robin Weintraub puzzle to me--first pass made me think I'd never solve it, it strained the little grey cells, but resolved itself with wit and delight. Thanks, Mr. Bratton! And Mr. Fagliano, I think you are doing a fine job filling a very big pair of shoes. I hope Will is continuing to recover!

Did anyone else stop their solve to go watch "Yoda" by Weird Al? Here's the link, which I can't believe hasn't been posted yet. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUMCyAR6U0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUMCyAR6U0</a> I figured out the rebuses pretty quickly, (TR {FIVE} OUNTAIN took me a second), filling them in just with the word spelled correctly one (TEN, ONE, FIVE), and then thought the various revealer answers were quite clever as I solved them. Quick, not over-challenging and quirky enough to be a Sunday morning pleasure. Thanks Mr. Aras, and again, welcome back, Will!

More and more, I have begun to look forward to Wednesdays, rather than just view them as the final day of five-finger exercises before the real puzzle week begins. This puzzle by Rich Katz certainly has raised the bar for Wednesdays. Doubly pleasing to have the RIGHT(s) go off the right side of the grid, and the LEFT(s) go off the left side of the grid. Lots of gentle puns and wordplay, and at least one classic cryptic clue (34D). Thanks very much, Mr. Katz! And I hope Mr. Shortz is continuing to do better!

I got the reversed aspect of the theme answers early on and solved this pretty easily, obviously without understanding the revealer. Understanding the full dynamic of the play makes this puzzle a pretty extraordinary construction. One note: the idea that canine pack structure has ALPHAS (52D) who are the lead dogs (or wolves) was based on some pretty lousy research and has long been discredited, but sadly lingers in popular culture as a description and justification for a particularly boorish, stupid and misogynistic form of male behavior. I rarely criticize cluing, but this trope is one that can be omitted, IMNSHO. Thanks for a great puzzle, Mr. Donaldson!

Oh boy, another excellent, crunchy debut from a teenager. Mr. Matz is clearly already not a hedgehog, but a fox, who knows many things. Along with producing delightful puzzles, Mr. Matz and his fellow young constructors give me hope for the future. It takes flexibility, wit, intelligence and knowledge to make a puzzle like this one. Those are also traits that we desperately need now and will need in the future to counteract and correct the damage done to our nation and our environment by destructive and ignorant policies, and to overcome the tide of the witless, which I hope has already passed its high point. Thanks, Mr. Matz!

Gold star for the theme and execution. I particularly liked the way MALLET was in the shape of a mallet. HEROIZE gave me a bit of a pause (I know it is a real word, but a tad clumsy), but given the constraints of the brilliant (YMMV) construction, I can deal. Thanks Mr. Hasegawa!

I've become a bit of a sudoku addict, and IMNSHO, there are two kinds of "hard" sudokus--those that allow you to solve with incomplete information and those that basically require you to list all the options for almost every square to unlock the puzzle. I prefer those that allow you to solve with incomplete information. Hard crosswords are similar in many ways, I think. This puzzle, for me, was a delight, because of the way a couple of crosses opened up long or at first unknown answers that appeared at first impenetrable. It offered me constant moments of "Oh, that must be....." and the answer was always perfectly logical and often quite witty. Just wonderful. Thanks Rich!

I took a bit longer than usual, but solved this exquisite monster. I would offer that a BASH might be a blast of a party that someone has put on. That was the way I solved it anyway--the B was one of my last fills, and I had an H at first, but I have heard of BOPS as catchy tunes--had to think about it a bit. In fact, I had to think about just about everything in this puzzle. Very few gimmes and some wonderful misdirects ("give a hand" has frequently solved as CLAP, for instance). Lots of folks aren't going to like it for many reasons, most of which have already been discussed, but I found the puzzle to be fair--very tough but a delight to wrestle with. YMMV, as always.

Finished this (had to change END to NET to get the right EFFECT) and thought "oh wow, that's cool!" Didn't notice what was going on while I was solving, but truly a tour-de-force of construction, particularly for a Tuesday. I think this one should go into the "puzzles of the year" file! Thanks, Mr. Curry!

Very clever construction, and an approach I don't remember seeing before. A delightful Wednesday morning diversion. Thanks, Mr. Schreiber!

Had to run the alphabet to get the R in ARO/ETHER (23D/2A). I understood ARO, but had to come here to understand 2D. Several curse words resulted. Excellent, excellent veiled clue. And TIL the term of art "heteronym clue." Some interesting random pairings in the grid: CHEESEDIP with HAUTECUISINE, SIRS and YESMAAM, LEGIT right next to SACRILEGE, UTTERROT and ALLEGED.... Nifty cluing throughout, and 2D is an early nomination for clue of the year (there isn't such a category, but there should be one). Thanks, Mr. Snyder!

Giddyup! Evidently, some folks were lost in the woods. I know a lot of Frost off by heart, including this poem, so the puzzle was easy, except for that last bit before going (SW corner). I've begun working some easy cryptics (The New Yorker has a tutorial that actually helps make sense of them). After doing even easy cryptics, the wordplay here seems pretty tame. Excellent debut, Me. O'Neill! Don't let the crabs here pinch!

Finished it, and am well pleased with myself and with the puzzle. I was annoyed during the solve by the strategic scattering of people I don't recognize (but probably should), but was able to work my way through. Some spectacular clues and answers, IMNSHO: METALUMLAUT (Umlaut I know from German, but the METAL was, well, metal.) EXTRACHEESE for "Pie preference" Lovely misdirect--I kept mucking about looking for some sort of fruit. SAMETOYOU was worth a chuckle, as clued, and the neighboring "Scale range" starting with "O" from TSO was a devilish misdirect to OCTAVE something.... WEBOFLIES, ANIMALLOVER, GUESSTIMATE... when I go back and look at the puzzle, it seems every long answer had a delightful, difficult, cryptic clue. My last fix was changing TENT (well, it can cast a light shade, right), to TINT, so the unknown EVAN became the still unknown but correct IVAN. Thanks very much to Ms. Kothari, and I should have known that Eric Agard was lurking somewhere in the background. A+, and that is not a BRA(S) size....

It being Thursday, I meandered around the grid a bit, filling in what I knew was right, and waiting for the puzzle to clarify itself, which it did very quickly with THRE[ESC]OMPANY. I thought this was a pretty gentle Thursday, and a good puzzle for folks who are trying to learn how rebuses work. All the long rebus answers were fairly easy, but still with a bit of bite (for instance, HIGHSCHOOL fits in 17A. I also am of the generation that went to Jr. High, instead of MIDDL[ESC]HOOL and had to plumb the memory banks a bit to remember what 7-8-9 grades are called these days). Of course, no rebus puzzle will satisfy the "I hate all rebuses all the time" crowd, but for those who are trying to learn how they work, this puzzle is a good entry point, I think. I am working my way back through the archive and am in June 2015, but may have to go solve the puzzle Deb references, since it looks like a real gem. However, I would say that I don't agree with Deb's assessment of the puzzle as a bit too easy. It wasn't as demanding as many Thursdays, but was fun. For some reason 48A as clued and answered was amusing, and SAUNTERED is always a lovely word to have show up, and probably not easy to fit into a puzzle. So thanks, Mr. Marquez! You have my vote, and I look forward to more of your work.

It was pretty easy, for me, to figure out the IE/EI EI/IE play, but I wasn't entirely certain how to enter the rebuses, so I just put IE in all of them (following the "I before E" rule), figuring if that didn't work, I could come back and tinker until I got the happy music. It worked. If I hadn't have been able to suss it out, I would have come here and read the column. Pretty low stress puzzle. I'd like MOOER of them....

I sailed through until I got to the SE corner, which took me about as long as the rest of the puzzle for some reason. As an example of my confusion, I had FIRSTCLASS for "big ticket purchase" (45A) for a long time. Confusing Steven Vincent's last name with Alfred's also cost me a good amount of soul-searching (49A). All that works with HOGSHEAD, ADESTE and REHANG, by the way.... After I gloriously solved that recalcitrant corner, I had to go up and realize that OLDESTSON gave me ORAS, which could be slang for life phases, for all I know, but that ERAS would make better sense.... which it did. I had a lot of fun with this--I thought the cluing was quite wonderful and a lot of unusual answers. And I am in awe of it being the (partial) product of a high school sophomore! Thanks very much, Grace and Greg!

WAVEDat? WAVEDto? WAVEDHI! Those Greco-Roman gods were big on sister-wives.... I wandered through the grid, finding toeholds here and there that expanded until the puzzle was done. The K in KENS was the last to fall--like some others I had PILLS for a while, until MORTALS became irresistible. It was a delight to solve, and I was sad when I finished, in the same way I'm sad when I finish a great book. Thanks Mr. Bunch, and I look forward to more of your work!

Another excellent (semi-) debut. Like many others, I put IDS in 39A, and twisted myself in knots for a good long while before I gave it up for OKS, after which the SE relented fairly quickly. "Pass on a wing and a prayer" (54A) was a particularly delicious clue, but the whole puzzle was a winner, IMNSHO. Great debut, Ms. Lynch--thanks for your perseverance--you created a gem. And thanks as always to the estimable Mr. Chen, both for his contributions to this puzzle and to his continuing generosity to the puzzling community by helping to develop new stars.

Had to come and praise the dev team for the graphics. I almost missed them as I was headed to Wordle after completing today's puzzle.

Clever, and I didn't have a hard time sussing out what was going on, even though I am terribly color-blind. It was pretty obvious to me at the RED line. I figured it wasn't a rebus puzzle because rebuses would have made the down entries nonsensical. YMMV. Thanks Mr. Wagner!

I haven't had much to say of late (I agreed that many of the recent late-week puzzles seemed a bit easy, but didn't feel like I had anything to add to that discussion), but I had to drop by and say this was a lovely, somewhat stiff puzzle. Last fill was the 'M" in AMONRA/RAMI, with a bit of a grin and the thought, "well of course." Thanks much to Ms. Liang and Ms. Iverson!

Welcome back, Will! I hope you are fully recovered, and back playing ping-pong (ahem, table tennis) as well as coming up with new and devious ways to challenge us! I was one of those who just used "f" throughout.

Standard process for solving a puzzle where the play is unclear at the start... Just keep filling in stuff I knew, keep track of the theme clues and wait until the little grey cells kick in, the lights go on, all becomes clear and my metaphors become mixed... Probably had about a quarter of the grid filled in, and I think it was TREX/K that clued me in.... Not knowing my actresses, I had SL/KIM for 18D "Skinny/dip" for quite a while. I just filled in both letters without the slash in the rebuses, since both letters were used in the crossing answers, and I figured that either the software would cut me a break (which it did) or I could go back and put in the slashes if I didn't get the happy music. I thought this was a very interesting and imaginative puzzle, and a good challenge after Friday and Saturday's puzzles, which I thought were fine, but a bit easy. Thanks Mr. Niederman, and thanks to the editors!

Shagadelic, baby! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItCANGTHPz8" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItCANGTHPz8</a> I'll just leave it at that. Folks have already highlighted most of the gems in what was, for me, a relatively easy, but delightful Friday.

Two scoops of alphabet soup in this double pangram! The NW was impenetrable at first, and BOOBOOS (6A) was a bit of a gimme and opened up the whole NE, which then opened the south side. STAR for 5D and ARESO (24A) held me up until I decided to give in to SORBET (I knew that amuse bouche was never going to fit, no matter how I tried to reduce it....) and DIDSO. After that, the NE relented pretty nicely. Very nice, witty puzzle with just enough crunch to make for an enjoyable Saturday. Thanks much to the constructors!

Rebecca Goldstein is an ICON of puzzle-constructing. I thought this puzzle was POINTBLANK brilliant, but it was anything but direct. CREEPYCRAWLerS to CREEPYCRAWLeES to CREEPYCRAWLIES--I stuck to ENOLe to the bitter end. Thanks much Ms. Goldstein, for another fabulous test.

I thought this puzzle was marvelous. Having the rebuses in the squares above the circled squares was a very nice touch of deviltry--has something like this been done before. Great misdirect, great use of the rebuses in the answers, and a Dad joke pun at the end. Thanks Mr. Kwong, for a nice bit of sleight of puzzle!

The combination of Wallace Stevens and "shining" brought this to mind.... Nuances of a Theme by Williams BY WALLACE STEVENS It’s a strange courage you give me, ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise toward which you lend no part! I Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze, that reflects neither my face nor any inner part of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing. II Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses you in its own light. Be not chimera of morning, Half-man, half-star. Be not an intelligence, Like a widow’s bird Or an old horse.

A most excellent debut, IMNSHO. Held myself up in the SW with HERALDRY for "grave words" (36D), which in retrospect was absurd, given that HERALDRY is a single word, but I somehow thought the code of heraldry included a bend grave (which it doesn't). I actually laughed when the answer turned out to be HERE LIES. I also got somewhat fixated on (hard) n-PCLASS problems for the mathematical sets (47A).... Made my own life hard. Other than that, everything fell into place with a healthy, but not excessive, application of the little grey cells. The two gridspanners were a delight. Very nice puzzle, Mr. Judge!

Just dropping by to say that the 6 June 2015 (Saturday) puzzle is a stunner. Your emu may vary.

Gold Star for the graphics team! An above average (or under par?) Monday.

First introduced to WINK-DINKs (rhyming riddle answers) in the sixth grade. We used to get a small literary magazine every Friday, and the back page was always a word game of some sort. My mother (who was a great puzzler) and I would play them all weekend. That was a long time ago.

This puzzle seemed very nuanced and playful to me. There was a constant tension between relatively straightforward clues and answers (23A Special OPS, 16A Verso's counterpoint, 57A Big names, as examples for me) and misdirects, word plays and tough answers, often unsignposted (4D, Original plot/EDEN, for instance). And the idiomatic answers really modulated between almost slang (SCREW THAT, RECKON SO, I GOTTA JET and AM I DONE), and more elevated language (I AM AT A LOSS). The overall effect, for me, was a delightful sense of imbalance, of never being able to be quite sure whether an apparently obvious answer was correct. Really enjoyable and playful. Thanks to Ms. Hoody, and to Will as always!

I had DRI_ED (3D) from the outset, and tinkered my way down to the revealer, thinking that the downs were nothing and the acrosses were doubles... And then I saw that some of the downs could also be solved by double letters. So I left about half the rebuses empty and put double letters in half of them. Figuring it was doubles or nothing.... When I finished the puzzle, and none of the bets paid off (nothing, get it?), I realized the full extent of the play. Quite marvelous, IMNSHO. Thanks much to Messrs. Katz, pere et fils!

I told a joke to my orthopedist and he said I was PRETTY LAME.... This puzzle however was not lame at all. A fine collaboration, and a neat constructors' note that gave some insight into their process. Thanks to Ms. Hale and Mr. Hogan!

This is fine. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/arts/this-is-fine-meme-dog-fire.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/arts/this-is-fine-meme-dog-fire.html</a> Got Wordle in two, Connections in four. The crossword? Double my average. This is fine. Time for a nap.

I'll just add my kudos, since Caitlin and the gang have pretty much enumerated the lovely twists, misdirects, puns/clever cluing, etc. in this gem. I didn't have any laugh out loud moments, but I had many "Oh, that was nice" thoughts as I puzzled my way through. The solve was, for me, both demanding and in some peculiar way, gentle. Thanks much, Mr. Sheremeta!

I'm not going to throw (much) gasoline on this fire, but. I solved on my computer, and the theme clues took the form (for example): 17. (C)ar(O)(L) br(A)dy After I solved the puzzle (nice puzzle, Mr. Dittrich and Iverson!), I came here and saw the kvetch torrent, so I checked my app (Android) and the theme clues have (faint) underlines. It was probably a lot easier to solve on the computer, since the themes are really (almost too) heavily sign-posted. Your regular moaning, gnashing of teeth and wailing may resume. It is sad that a technical glitch took a lot of the fun for so many out of what I thought was a very nice puzzle.

For me, this was a delightful, stiff, stiff challenge. Some really devilish misdirects--I had CIDER for 22A and BOTTOMLINES for 17D, for far too long. PLASMA (1A) as a type of TV was just retro (haha) enough that the NE corner held me up until the last. I don't really calibrate Friday and Saturday puzzles as being typically harder or easier, but this one was definitely tough, fair and for me, very rewarding to finish. Plus, any constructor who quotes Wallace Stevens is a hero in my book. Thanks Mr. Williams!