twoberry

I have a feeling I'm not the only person who wrote in STENOPAD too quickly.

Rebuses never fail to delight me. Whatever day they come on.

Any puzzle that totally fools me -- and in a totally fair way -- gets a thankyou from me. After seeing all three upward SKIs, I thought I was finished. "That's a pretty dull Thursday," I thought. Like many, I was satisfied that Faith Hill had recorded a song called "THIS," that CASHIS meant something and that slim-fitting bottoms were called PENCILS. As happens so often, I am grateful to Deb for bringing me to the party.

Oh, the perils of too many crossing letters. Seeing so many, I quickly filled in HEADWAITER without any doubts. Especially since I had no idea about a cable lead-in to TV and staring at T_U, and we already had an IOTA, I mean, heck, what was there to think about? Luckily, as I near my 86th birthday, I no longer obsess about solving completely correctly. Merry Christmas, everyone!

The rebus square was a nice "tell."

I never liked the song "Mairzy Doats" (a hit song from 1944) until I saw the lyrics spelled out "correctly" -- Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too. Wouldn't you? -- Any puzzle that reminds me of what it took to make me like that song can't be all bad.

An awesome debut, Mr. Neuthaler. All I can say is, today's puzzle is the Home of the Bravo!

My theory is, the longer it takes you to wake up and figure out the gimmick, the more wonderful is the aha moment. Today, it took me a long enough time in order to say, "Ooh! Ooh! That was pretty darn wonderful!"

This was a great Saturday puzzle. I'm not ashamed to admit I couldn't even get started without the first few "tricky clue" answers provided by reading the blog. I think RULINGS was the only place where I even had a guess to offer on my own, but even there, I needed the L in YULE to take a chance and fill it in. For solvers as inexpert as I am, I recommend coming here for a few gimmes, as I did this morning. Because -- it really was a lot of satisfying fun to finish on my own. And that's what this hobby is all about for me. Having fun.

"I love the smell of NATURE in the morning" was my first thought. Boy was I wrong! Easiest rebus puzzle I've seen in a long time. Solvers wary of Thursdays could give this one a try and see what fun they're missing.

The first two themers I happened to solve were BADAPPLES and ROTTENTOMATOES, so naturally I thought the revealer was going to be something like FRUITOFTHELOOM. FUNKYCHICKEN dissuaded me from that theory, and SPOILEDBRATS got me even further off course. (Great puzzle, Gus and Bharati!)

Wow. So many extreme thoughts, up and down. So I'll weigh in with a vote in favor of the puzzle. As per Saturday usual, I needed help from the blog to get me started. And hard as this one was, I needed lots more help of Caitlin's help to keep me going. Yeah, there's an occasional Saturday puzzle that I can solve with no help, and that's always an occasion for joy. Obviously, this was not one of those solvable (for me) days. But none of these entries made me wince. On the contrary, SQUIRCLE and SQUEE made me laugh (and while I wound up with a lot of helpful crosses before solving those two, at least I did fill them in before the free reveal). That's one up-vote from the less-than-expert contingent.

What an interesting setup.

So sorry to learn of your dad's death, Deb. Condolences. And ... you reminded me of how I first came to love crossword puzzles, as I savored the finished diagrams in the daily NYT, having been solved perfectly by my dad. That was back in Margaret Farrar's day. And today's puzzle. Wow. I just want to say how beautiful those theme answers were. What amazing finds!

Back when I dealt craps for a living, a correspondent publicly asked me, "Are you a craps player, Herr Lipton?" My answer was "Nein, I deal." 44A reminded me of that incident. I think my answer was intended to be a homophone of "nine-eyed eel." That was a very long time ago.

A twilight zone puzzle in at least a couple of senses. By which I mean, a StERLING puzzle. Well done!

I thought about giving up on this one, but found the intersection of RUMORMILLS and URALS just in time. The LS square, plus having seen that SORKIN didn't fit at 54D, was all I needed to get started. As Deb advised, do not give up on this one. The reward is immense. Beautiful puzzle, guys!

I'm only commenting because so many have complained this was no fun. If there is one thing this puzzle was, it was FUN. Kind of hard, sure. But the aha moment was great, and I for one didn't mind having to search, search, search. My appreciation is profound. Thanks for an experience loaded with FUN.

Perfect Saturday gem. Just challenging enough. I "eagerly await" your next one, Katie!

One of the best Sundays ever. Thanks, Sam.

What a sad but beautiful comment from the composer! And what a fantastic debut puzzle. Adrianne, you are truly gifted. I'm in awe.

Really great, this puzzle. Unfortunately for me, I solved the entire puzzle without figuring out the gimmick. Immediately after solving, however, I looked again at 48A and the aha moment arrived. All the themers checked out, as I knew they would, 35D was a bonus aha moment.

Everybody seems to be assuming "Rush Delivery" was intended for INDUCE. My vote is for ACID. Somebody please tell me I'm wrong.

Persistence pays off, bigtime. Congrats, Caroline, on a brilliant debut.

Strange how I enjoyed this puzzle, given that I "knew" one of the three Natick squares (I knew osso buco so I had no problem with the letter C), and guessed correctly at the other two (the M of MSN and MGS, and the E of MESCAL/ENCANTO), and I still don't understand the two GOOFOFFS, and oh by the way I spent 20 years working in casinos and I never heard the term riffleshuffles, and the excessive number of pop culture trivia answers. So why did I enjoy the solving experience? I guess because the level of difficulty was so high for a Wednesday. I got through it with no lookups, except for confirming MESCAL/ENCANTO after I was done.

Agreeing with the masses that this was very hard for a Wednesday. Miraculously, I made no errors. ROPEDIN was easy because of all the crossing letters. Other than that, I was flummoxed about it until googling VOLUNTOLD. Cute word. Never never heard of aperol, but SIR had to be right so I got that one as well. RANOVER gave me EVO, which I still don't understand, but I don't do video game competitions. Heck, I don't even do video games. And while I'm a pet afficionado, and love cats almost as much as I love dogs, I've never heard of REXES. And just one more letter to talk about. The I of CIO. I figured TAICHI was a better way to spell than TAECHI, so I got that letter as well, even though I don't understand how the Congress of Industrial Organizations got into this puzzle. Thank you, Rebecca, for a thoroughly enjoyable workout. Seriously. It was fun. Hard puzzles are fun.

Trying to make the team, the basketball rookie went to the gym to SHOOTSOMEHOOPS, but an onlooker ROLLS his EYES. But the ROOK says, OHC'MON, give me a KUDO, and the onlooker is thrown FOR A LOOP and offers a ROUND OF APPLAUSE. So there's a theme here after all. This puzzle was probably harder to compose than to solve, so appreciation is here given to Mr. Perkins for an outstanding debut. And a whole lot of appreciation goes out to Deb, who will be with us for another month and a half, which is going to fly by terribly fast. Thanks, Deb, for all of your wit, all of your understanding, and so much else.

All I can say is, a hearty "Welcome Back!" I've been solving since well before Kameron first began to grace these pages, but I don't remember ever solving one of his puzzles till now. Maybe that means I'm one of those "improved" solvers. Not sure. But this one seemed easy for a Saturday. So there's that.

This was a tough one, but rewarding once finished. My first foothold was in the southwest corner where I found the first themer. Then came the northeast corner, where the G in OBGYN helped me spot GDAYMATE. After that I sailed along beautifully until the ITY of 53A convinced me the the answer ended in PITY, which convinced me that 31D was PACKUP and the erroneous U told me that 48A ended in UT so that gave me SCOUT. What next? C of HAVE PITY? .VSURE? Finally, the beautiful aha moment of IMSURE and COFHUMANITY and PILOT and, uh, like I said, rewarding once finished. Whew!

Woulda been cute if the answer for 29D had been five letters long (T'NIA) and the crossing word something like WOULDN'T.

I loved this theme!

Checking in a bit late, but I have to join the chorus. Thank you, Deb, for your friendly chatter, for keeping the peace (as in, when snarkiness threatens to sneak into the comments, you diplomatically intercede to remind us all that this is, as somebody said recently, the friendliest place on the Internet), your gift for humor, your wisdom and friendship and so much else. Feel free to come back in the comments once in a while. Otherwise, we'll miss you too much.

I woofed and hooted and bleated with delightful laughter when I got to the revealer as I neared the end of the solve.

About as perfect a puzzle as I can imagine. Great theme, great execution, and how about those great bonuses, such as the brilliant clues at 40A and 48A! Kudos, Zhou and Kevin!

Interesting experience. (Haven't read Sam's column, or the comments, yet.) Had a little trouble getting started at the top of the puzzle, so I worked from the bottom. Everything filled, except for the northeast and northwest corners. Only then did I notice there were no connecting words to the rest of the puzzle. What the heck, I asked myself. Then I started answering the clues, and I soon realized what was going on. I LOVED THIS PUZZLE! Now I'll read what Sam and the rest of you have to say.

I would like to nominate 43D/49A as the Natickiest Natick of all time. Not just because water filter brands are not what I consider general knowledge, but also because kinpira and konpira are both valid entries with respect to Japan. Did anybody here know that? Speaking of Naticks, I just realized I still have an unfilled square at 31A/32D. It's been a long time since I submitted a comment before finishing a puzzle. Cheers, everyone.

Confession time: I needed those (awesomely written) notes to get GOB instead of MOB. I'd been what the heck an ANTEGM was, after successfully guessing at the N and the E. A fuzzy brain, but at least I was awake enough to savor the definition for EAMES.

I should have remembered CHARLIXCX from Kamala's 2024 campaign ("brat summer," etc.) but no, I had to google "crash brat" for the last four letters of her name. MOSS was easy, and then it was google again to confirm MIIS and OSX, which had to be right even before I looked. Definitely an easy Friday, especially if you allow google searches for geezers like me.

Outstanding puzzle, especially for a debut. Thanks, Kevin! The number ether is an oldie but always a goodie.

A most commendable Thursday puzzle. Thanks, Mallory and Zhou, for a delightful workout. Solving the puzzle by starting in the NW corner (what a concept!), I couldn't quite bring myself to write in HIGHFIVE at 16A because the F just didn't make any sense at 4D. How was that for a great decision? 39A cleared everything up and it was smooth sailing after that.

Just because I'm late posting doesn't mean I didn't love this puzzle. Thursdays are always great, but today's gem deserves as much applause as possible. Kudos also to this morning's guest analyst. Wonderful writing, Rian!

Can't believe I solved the whole thing. Rare for a Saturday, when I almost always need help from the blog or from the Internet. As it turns out, I stupidly wrote in RESINED and forgot to change the first vowel. Sigh. Still and all, it's great to find a solvable Saturday puzzle.

They got me good! I don't mind.

Confession time: This one was just a little too tough for me. Even though I saw ISLANDHOPPED and DEADHEAT, I just wasn't smart enough to figure out 36A (PLAYEDTOWIN). Should have done, but didn't. Came to the blog, oh, now I get it, and I did find a few of the themers on my own after that, so ... thanks so much for the help. This was a truly fun puzzle, but VERY HARD, particularly because of the number of popular names I didn't know. RAPP, ANI, HELEN, etc. But, like I said, it was fun to solve, so thank you, MIchael, for your hard work.