Jack McCullough

Re: 16A Do you know the difference between a hippo and a ZIPPO? A hippo is really heavy, but a ZIPPO is a little lighter.

You may know this one already, but my favorite Roger Ebert story isn't about the movies. He was watching a movie one night, decided it was a waste of his time, and wandered into a folk club that was having an open mic night. Knowing nothing about the performer, he happened upon a mailman who was playing guitar and singing his own compositions. Yes, that is how the world learned about John Prine. <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/features/john-prine-american-legend" target="_blank">https://www.rogerebert.com/features/john-prine-american-legend</a>

Re: 63A The year was 1979, I was a third year student at the University of Michigan Law School, and as I walked around the campus I would regularly practice the BONES, commonly used in Irish music. One day I had an on-campus interview with Legal Aid of Western Michigan, and after we spent some time talking about the law and other things, they asked me what I liked to do outside of work. I told them that I played music, including guitar, pennywhistle, and the BONES. "BONES? What's that?" Well, I happened to have them in my pocket, so I took them out and started playing. It wasn't the only factor, but having the most unusual interview they had ever seen was maybe one factor in getting that job. 46 years later, not in Michigan anymore, but still loving my Legal Aid job. Thank!

Thank you, Deb! It's been a pleasure and a revelation. See you on Facebook? As for today, one can't help wondering if "War and Peace" would have been as popular if he had kept the original title, "War, What Is It Good For?" (Absolutely nothing!) Regarding 22A, years ago I was working on a public assistance case in which my client refused to obtain a Social Security card, reasoning that the universal numbering system was somehow the Mark of the Beast. (Yes, there are many peculiar ideas out there.) You can imagine how tickled I was to learn that in such a case our state would simply assign an SSN-formatted identification number, starting with, I kid you not, 666.

Fun Monday puzzle. Good to keep one's mind off bad things happening today. I don't want to brag,, but yesterday I got the lipstick company without any crosses. Other people might not think it's obscure, but the only place I've ever heard of it is here. All honor to Martin Luther King today. The work is not done.

I don't get the dislikes here. It took me a while, but "answers ending in J" is a perfectly clever theme, especially when coupled with the 72A revealer. By coincidence, at our book group meeting tonight (51 years and still going strong!) we're reading Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux, a novel based on George Orwell's time in the service of the BRITISHRAJ. When my son was at the University of Montana he played in an alt-bluegrass band called Baba Ganoush, so that had me for a little while. It's hard to think of 58A without a fond memory of Molly Ivins, whose belittling sobriquet for George W. Bush was SHRUB. Fun Tuesday! Thanks!

May I be the first NPR listener here to say, "Welcome back, Will!"

Wait, are all you guys just trying to prove the stereotype about BMW owners? Good, challenging puzzle. The top half started out as more challenging than the usual Wednesday for me, but things started falling into place and I came in a few minutes below my average. Surely I'm not the only solver for whom Pluto is the only dwarf planet I know, right?

I feel for the editors having to come up with a title for this one, with no theme for guidance. No PB for me, but well below my Sunday average. Never got stuck, just cruised along, one clue to the next. As the mayor of our least populous capital city, I'm not worried about losing that title to Pierre, since they have about six thousand on us. Still, you might not even need to go to school to learn that Pierre is the capita of South Dakota. <a href="https://youtu.be/Y8j565lLvJU?si=1Crhjb8Fj2ZEH7Vq" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Y8j565lLvJU?si=1Crhjb8Fj2ZEH7Vq</a>

Wow, this was great! The dashed clues didn't seem to fit initially, so I just passed them by until I had more information,, but when I realized the bidirectional nature of the theme I was very impressed. Not sure where I first saw it, but I loved the CAMPFIRES/SANSERIF intersection. Immediately got misdirected by denim and sonnet, but LORCA set me straight. Well done!

Ambrose Bierce deserves to be better known today than he is. Here is his comment on 32D: DIE -n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew: A cube of cheese no larger than a die May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

Great puzzle today! I suppose we're more likely to recall the items we had trouble with, but the Spanish province and the French disc jockey didn't make me think this was U.S.-centric. Loved [Supreme leader?] (nice veiled capital!) and CAROUSEs/EEsY had me shaking my head for a while. Oh, and here in Vermont we're less likely to talk about the ship of THESEUS than my grandfather's axe. It's been in the family for generations and we've only replaced three handles and two heads.

Fun one today, and well below my average. It would have been faster except I was stuck on alphabet for 1D. (I had heard of PADIDDLE as a word used in some families to denote a car with one headlight out, but never as a game). I also started with tiNA, but LOLCAT corrected that one pretty quickly. Among the many things to admire about DOLLYPARTON is her Imagination Library, which has distributed over 232 million free books to children since 1995. As she says, "You can never get enough books into the hands of enough children." <a href="https://imaginationlibrary.com" target="_blank">https://imaginationlibrary.com</a>/

Since our book group, in existence since 1975, rotates book selection, I am always interested if Nobel Prize season coincides with my turn. I don't always choose something by the new literature honoree but I at least see if there is an appropriate choice. I suspect the Nobel is what let many readers, myself included, to such authors as Olga Tokarczuk, Orhan Pamuk, Naguib Mahfouz, and Jose Saramago. If Toni Morrison's Nobel or today's puzzle have the same effect among our fellow solvers, so much the better. Thank you!

Beat my Friday average, but I didn't find it easy. I confidently filled in ISLANDERS for 17A, and then I quickly deleted it. Wait, Bahrain is an island? Yes, as it turns out. Also, since so many of us are thinking of it on the day after Thanksgiving, if another constructor wants to use VENUSFLYTRAP as a seed, WKRPINCINCINNATI works as a spanner and DRJOHNNYFEVER, LESNESSMAN, and HERBTARLECK all fit. "As god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

Murse: It's European! Fun, easy (twenty minutes faster than my average, but I'm not complaining). It wouldn't have fit in this grid, but did anyone else think of William Shatner for 78D? <a href="https://youtu.be/BdUMICxLXhM?si=Ru3CxZzKZbRtdWWX" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/BdUMICxLXhM?si=Ru3CxZzKZbRtdWWX</a> Oh, yeah, and glad to see that I wasn't the only one who couldn't see what the MUTE button graphic was supposed to be. Thanks!

Well, we were wondering where today's Puzzle would go after Rebus Wednesday, weren't we? Five minutes slower than my Thursday average, with nothing filled in on my first pass until 21A. Still, persistence paid off. After I got the revealer I was pretty sure Dickens had to be in there somewhere, and my own personal--what's the opposite of a favorite?--Bleak House, wouldn't fit, so I was on my way. Favorite clue of the day? Has to be [Joey of children's lit]. Got it right away, but I loved the ambiguity and the veiled capital. Thanks!

This was fun. I thought I'd skip over the long ones and the circles for a while, then I filled in trANSPLANT for 23A. Not correct, but enough to get me started on the theme. I also spent some time trying to figure out how to fit Nina Nimone into 1D--a nickname I wasn't aware of, perhaps, until ARETHA came to me. Beat my Thursday average, fun trick. Thanks!

I must say that this was a good, Saturday-level challenge, with some obscure and unknown (to me) proper names (NORA, VAL), some fun wordplay (TIL that TheBahamas and ABCISLANDS have the same number of letters), and overall appropriate level of difficulty. No complaints here. Congrats on hitting for the cycle!

Kind of disappointing for the OREOphiles among us, eh? Seriously, this was fun and an amazing feat of construction. Thank you!

Even though I saw the theme quickly enough, and got BOND right away, I learned today that INTROCLASS and Dalmatians have the same number of letters. 35A should have been easy for any veteran solver, used to filling in RUR or CAPEK as the situation arises. Nice touch for 12D--the clue comes pre-loaded with the expected complaint! I found it a bit challenging for a Wednesday, but definitely a good one.

Fun rebus puzzle today, and one in which I actually used the revealer. I liked the two four-letter canal locales, the rhyme at 43D and 44D, and the callback at 31A to today's Mini. In other words, it wasn't just the rebuses today. Thanks!

Don't you love that ANAPEST is not an anapest? Fun puzzle today. I just sat down with it and chugged along. Never stuck, although it took several passes to complete it. Got most of the themers without truly getting the theme, and I still think THE first name in country music is Hank, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Oh, and congratulations on the double cycle!

Challenging for a Tuesday. Barely beat my average. I particularly enjoyed the clue for ERIE. There's more than one London in the world! Thanks!

I'm afraid I don't get or agree with all the griping. There were a few clues that took some thought for me, like LUSAKA and IVNPAVLOV (I wasn't certain of his first name), and one I just didn't know (I would have gotten PEALE more easily if it had been clued with "Norman Vincent ___________"), but really, I consider everything in the puzzle to be well within the cultural context of the puzzle. I was delayed a little bit because I was looking for a trick to fit in my misspelling of WILLY--forgot that he spelled it with a Y--and although I never heard of EARLAPS it made perfect sense. Still, Lee ATWATER, EARTHA Kitt, AKITA for the thousandth time? How are the not at the fingertips of most solvers? Almost exactly halfway between my Tuesday best and average, some real effort was involved, but ultimately a reasonably challenging Tuesday in my view. Thanks!

Deb, I'm so sorry for your loss. Such nice memories. Fun puzzle today. Never heard of EDNAMODE, but there were clearly no other options. The other themers added up, almost like a non-rebus rebus. The first one I got was MOBSCENE__ and that seemed so right that I just decided to see what happened. Thanks!

Challenging puzzle for a Tuesday. One second over my average. Is it time for a refresher on what a Natick is? It doesn't mean just any challenging cross. This is from the source: NATICK PRINCIPLE — "If you include a proper noun in your grid that you cannot reasonably expect more than 1/4 of the solving public to have heard of, you must cross that noun with reasonably common words and phrases or very common names." Rex Parker Thus, the bottom left, which includes mostly pretty common common nouns, doesn't fit. I didn't know APPA, but MAIN, DESI, MAD, and APE were very straightforward. Not a Natick to be found.

This was fun. I was moving right along, even had a sense of how the theme worked, but when I got SHINED I couldn't tell why the answer was missing the AND, so my biggest holdup was converting sealed to SHIELD. You'll rue the day you croshed me, Trebek! Thanks!

Wow, this was great. Very tough, took me almost ten minutes longer than my Saturday average, but worth it. I really, really wanted CHOCULA, but I had too many mistakes in that section to allow it--fry instead of ROE, elbow instead of PTRAP--so the Count had to wait. I also started out with BierHAll, then BierHAUS, before I could get that one and get a toehold in the bottom right. Challenges like this, and time to do them, are what Saturdays are for, right?

I found myself entering and then deleting an unusual number of answers with this one. For instance, I had ado before DIN, sats before PSAT, end before AIM. Still, they all fell in line with a few appropriate crosses. Overall, right in my average solving time. I was actually expecting more positive comments on the level of difficulty, but what do I know? Nothing that was a pure Natick for me, but there were definitely challenges there. Thanks, and congratulations!

This was fun. Not as hard as most Thursdays, and it can be disappointing not to get a rebus, but the theme was clever. I filled in RAINbows before I realized I needed an anagram, which is also what told me that nIl was wrong for [zip]. Come clever cluing. I've heard of SHEA butter, but I wasn't sure of the spelling. (I also have no idea if SHEA is the obscure name of the plant it comes from, or something else.) An eponym, maybe?) Not quite a PB, but well below average. Thanks!

Great puzzle, with a first pass that was almost all blank squares, to some true (NOTCRICKET) and false (binoculars) gimmes, to some real challenges. Got stuck for kind of a long time, remembering the Crossword's fondness for psychedelics, on LSD, but we're obviously talking about a different kind of blotter today. I was very surprised to see Caitlin tell us that the U.S. has only one BIMETALLIC coin. I would consider the sandwich coins we've had since the 1960's BIMETALLIC, but apparently that term is reserved for coins with a central core surrounded by a ring of a different metal, like the bimetallic subway tokens New York was using for a while. Speaking of coins, and of SQUIRCLES, when my wife and i were on vacation on Aruba we came across the rounded corner square 50 cent coins. Since people always complain that our dollar coins are too hard to distinguish from quarters I immediately thought that making our dollar coins square would have helped with acceptance. Oh, well. Thanks for a great Saturday puzzle!

Many years ago I borrowed my father's BACKSAW and miter box to do some woodwork at my house. When I was done I told him that I could bring them back to him, and he replied, "Oh no, you can't". Now that I'm approaching or past his age at the time, I can relate to the sentiment. Fun puzzle.

A bit of a challenge today. Those long empty runs are always daunting at first, but I'm also probably not at 100%, having gotten home from the ER at 1:00 this morning. Nothing too serious, but the fibula fracture will slow me down for a bit. Started out with HALFASSIT for 58A, wanted HELLscapes for 31d, and slush for 16A (but do they actually put a label on it?). Started with MPH for 1A, then I realized the H would have to go if I wanted to fit SABLE into 3D. Oops. Overall fun. Not a fast time, but worth it. Thanks!

This was a lot of fun. Some of the themers fell into place before I knew why, but I eventually saw them all. Very cleverly constructed. Probably more than the usual number of rappers and other pop culture figures I'd never heard of, but that's just something to live with. Beat my average, so Sunday is off to a good start.

This was great. I figured I was on the right wavelength when I filled in AMSCRAY without hesitation, and immediately saw several of the Downs from that starting point. For anyone who hated that clue and answer, consider that they have the perfect pairing of tone and level of colloquial humor that makes it a great late-week clue. It took just a few crosses to come up with KIPLING, which always brings to mind that classic cartoon: Do you like KIPLING? I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never kippled. Just so much to like in this one, but especially the starred clues and answers. I didn't cotton onto the special treatment of the letter T. I just assumed the T's were in the black squares, but imagine how hard it must have been to construct a puzzle and avoid the most frequently used consonant. Also, Deb, thanks for the reminder of Amy's heartbreaking talent. <a href="https://youtu.be/AL-nv-7TIws?si=c9qzaTzq67p3k3Qz" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/AL-nv-7TIws?si=c9qzaTzq67p3k3Qz</a>

I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody... instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Nice start to the week. Count me as another one who was oblivious to the theme. My biggest hangup was 47D; I had trouble figuring out wat kind of [attache] they were talking about. Also, a slight quibble with 15D. I think the natural words are either POPtop or pullTAB, but not the credited response. Thanks for the reminder of happier days in 36A.

Fun variant on the Thursday rebus. I enjoyed it. Not every puzzle, even on Thursday, has to be super hard. I caught onto the trick very quickly, as I did 1D as soon as I knew I needed a cross for the ["Seinfeld" role]. NEWT was the quickest way to confirm ELAINE and we were rolling. We don't always see rebuses that require the letters to be in a set sequence, but it was obviously a key feature here. Favorite clues? Probably 16A or 47A. Thanks!

Although health care is probably the first place I would like us to emulate Canada, I enjoyed thinking through 40A. I knew it couldn't be ONE, because I was aware that years ago Canada had taken the necessary step to popular acceptance of their dollar coin: elimination of the unit note. Thus, I quickly filled in TWO, and then I realized they had probably done the same thing when the introduced the Toonie, which got me to TEN. Of course, aside from realizing that they're different colors, I have no idea what color Canadian bills are. Cash has become increasingly irrelevant, but I still enjoy getting dollar coins (typically in rest area vending machines), and I wish we would eliminate the dollar bill so that people might finally start using what I still call a silver dollar. Good challenge for a Wednesday. And thanks once again to Jeff Chen for his contributions to crossword culture.

Very tough one for me, more than double my Saturday average. Long list of obscurities: GENOSMITH, IFA, OMSK (are we sure that's not one Dr. Seuss made up?), BOXFISH. Still, mostly twisted or nonstandard usages. In other words, perfectly acceptable, one might even say cromulent, for a Saturday puzzle. There's always a good sense of accomplishment to solve a hard one. Thanks!

Fun puzzle. Because it was right in the middle of the grid, when I confidently entered posTed in place of SENTTO I steered myself wrong on several clues. I'm surprised to see so many people having trouble with what seem like standard conversational English--ERG, LOPE--and anyone who didn't get NED should commit it to memory, because [___ Rorem] in one form or another has been a common clue for decades. For those wondering about GRANDTOUR, it's not that the Tour de France is THE grand tour, it is that, together with the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana it completes the trio of major stage races known collectively as the Grand Tours. The greatest bicycle racer in history, Eddy Merckx, won elven Grand Tours, a record which still stands almost fifty years after his retirement, along with other accomplishments at all types of events and distances in his career.

Obviously we're all hoping for Will's return, but would he have insisted that 49A start with tabletennis? Good, challenging puzzle, made more difficult by a couple of major typos on my part.

Fun puzzle. Challenging without being unreasonable (although I don't think I'll ever be prepared to do more than guess at the growing number of Taylor Swift clues). As soon as I saw 32D I knew I was going here. Nobody knows what a balm's gonna do. <a href="https://youtu.be/IzowSs9mNOM?si=aS3Sln_r63aIrvNT" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/IzowSs9mNOM?si=aS3Sln_r63aIrvNT</a>