Jim Murray

It sure must be easy to make puzzles these days. Between text abbreviations and rap musicians who get rich without even knowing how to spell correctly, it must be a no-brainer to put together an insipid puzzle like this. All you need do is come up with some arty-farty, pretentious little trick like this one had, and then fill in the crosswords. If you get stuck, dont worry, just google what youve got and hey, presto! You will find the solution in one of those two categories of ineptitude. If worse comes to worst, theres always some foreign language that no one knows. And its foolproof, because Will Shortz and his band of trend-suckers dont care much, as long as the money keeps coming in. Slackers.

Finally!!! An excellent puzzle, one of the best Ive ever seen! No complaints with this one at all.

This was a very satisfying puzzle! Challenging but worth it. Little bits of trivia, but the crosses revealed them. My only regret is the "UHYES" answer, which is very weak and conspicuous in such a clever puzzle. Well done, Alice Liang and Christina Iverson.

Excellent puzzle! Challenging and ultimately solvable. Some questionable trivia, but enough actual English to permit solving with crosses.

Finally! A puzzle with no cop-out clues. Well done, Adam Vincent!

Very satisfying. I only got 22, 23, 25 across and 10 and 25 down on my first scroll through. Then 24 down and 27 across brought the roof down. Mostly smooth sailing after that. Had Share and Sock for 43 across and down, which made the corner a bit of a snag. But seriously... Age Out? Get real, Buddy.

This was an excellent puzzle, a genuine rarity for the NYT under the Trumpian guidance of Will Shortz. Sadly, it was definitely NOT a Monday puzzle, more like a Wednesday. Is there anything Will Shortz can do right?

Sanaa is closer to south of Mecca than southeast. Another lousy job of editing by Will Shortz, the worst puzzle editor of all time.

Quite satisfying for a Wednesday, with a clever theme - although I never had need for it and when the puzzle was done I suddenly noticed the circled letters and thought, "What are those supposed to be?" One serious gaffe, though: 39 Down is an abbreviation, but theres nothing in the clue to indicate that. Another loss for Joel Fagliano.

I really wanted to admire this puzzle, a very clever theme which must have taken some inspiration. Sadly, sometimes we try to be too clever and the result is a dogs breakfast. Which obviously led to him using some really pathetic answers, like KPOP, INSPO, OPI, and ISSA, and some really pathetic clues like "That sounds fine, go ahead" for ITRUSTYOU, "Part of a dollar sign" for ESS (will we ever see the end of spelled-out letters?!?), and "Ludwig van der ___(noted midcentury architect" for ROHE (Im sure no one outside of the architecture world has ever heard of this guy). It would sure be nice if the NYT could someday find someone who actually knows how to edit a puzzle so we could get back to some quality, rather than the ilk of Shortz and Fagliano.