Liz B

What fun to find a Wednesday rebus! Enjoyed it a lot.

That was hard. That was really hard. I was a little surprised when I managed to finish it. That is all.

This felt tough! I'd never encountered HUNDO at all, and hesitated on it. BARB before BURN, TSK before TUT (I usually choose wrong on that one) and a bunch of other things that I had to fill in from the crosses. But it was a good challenge.

Well, CUMBERBATCH wouldn't fit, so I had to settle for INE.

I wish the animation had not filled in the bridging letters automatically. I wish it had given me time to go back and look at the bonus clues again after I filled in the rest of the puzzle and figured it out on my own. Other than that, I enjoyed the puzzle.

HORNBILL took me a little longer because it's not exactly like the other ones, right? It's not a BILL playing a HORN. Or am I missing something? (I frequently do). Still, I liked the puzzle a lot; I like the variety of doing something slightly different, even if it was easier than I was expecting for a Thursday. And the drawings were fun.

I really liked the way the STAR exploded bigger and bigger. It would have been fun if the solved puzzle had been animated--bright orange flames or something similar. The symmetry of STARBURST and MAKEITPOP was also very nice.

That was cute! But I felt like it helped to be old, to know some of those names. Still, I'll take what I can get.

Surfacing from obscure lurking to say nice job, Kit! (I actually kinda sorta know Kit). I didn't figure out what was going on with the three theme entries until I read the column. But I liked seeing MACGYVERED and the (non-architectural) example of LESS IS MORE.

What a delightful animation upon finishing! Made things even more fun. Enjoyed it.

Very nice! It's fun to have an early-week puzzle with a visual element. What an interesting clue for Amelia EARHART.

Very nice! This (mostly) solved smoothly for me, with a couple of misdirects (like LARD as a first guess instead of GHEE). I really liked the clues for the long answers--the care taken in constructing them was evident. Part of me wishes it had been a little harder to complete, but I shouldn't complain--it was fun.

I had the most trouble in the top half of the puzzle, specifically in the NW corner. Not knowing any Nintendo characters didn't help. WWI reminded me that back in the dark ages (1980s) when we were teaching students to do library research, looking for magazine articles in the good old Readers' Guide--we taught them that if they were looking up articles about World War I that were published in the 1910s and 1920s and 1930s, they had to look under the subject heading "European War, 1914-1918." You could see their minds being blown.

Wow, that was a fast solve for something that seemed daunting at first. I had enough of the Downs to get toeholds in the long Across entries, so they mostly filled in quickly. Although for some reason I had thought Vermont might be the unicameral state, at least I hadn't put it in. Conclusion: fun to do, but it went by too fast.

What a neat facet of the English language! These were fun to figure out. Good puzzle.

Thanks for the explanation of the triangle and circle shapes. I would not have figured out the extra layer (CHIPS and SALSA) on my own. At least I figured out the double dips before I finished the puzzle!

I continue to be impressed by all the very young people making very good crossword puzzles! Nice job, Jackson! I got I COULD EAT A HORSE very quickly, which set me up for a pleasant solve. Don't know that I've ever seen a TIARA with cameos on it, but I suppose you could do that. Overall, I thought this was a nice debut.

Deb -- typo in column -- derby, not debut in 54A. I enjoyed seeing the olive pop up at the end, and didn't notice the swizzle stick. But the puzzle was fun. Didn't know the EB White quote, and was wondering what a MARTINI was an ELIXIR OF for a while.

[Juvenile rebuttal] held me up for a while because there are so many of them! ARE SO, AM NOT, AM TOO, IS NOT, etc etc. And I didn't know the English town or the fantasy sports or the voice coach in and of themselves. I finally just picked a rebuttal and worked out crosses around it, and it all worked out. And that was an interesting PETER LORRE fact.

We'll miss you, Deb! I hope to find your writing in other venues.

Breezy and fun, but it went by too fast and didn't feel like a proper Saturday challenge.

Well, that was a challenge! I have come to feel some amount of fear when I see Sam's byline, and this one lived up to my expectations. Luckily, I got a toehold in the south was was able to work upwards--but the NE corner was a real BEAR, and not a small cute CUB. One nit I had was that LAMB STEAK is not exactly parallel with chop and shank. But yes, I know it's a Saturday puzzle. And it was a worthy one.

This was a tough one for me! Lots of tough things in it. But I really like the challenge. Please keep having tough Saturday puzzles!

I was so delighted that I figured out the trick while solving the puzzle (frequently I don't on puzzles like this) and used it to finish off the theme answers. (I saw it with MAD AS HELL). It was enough of a challenge to keep me entertained but not enough to frustrate me.

Wow! Once I caught on--which was basically working out from the center and then dealing with the bottom half first--it went smoothly. It was easier for me to figure out the rebuses that ended words rather than the ones that started words, so my pizza was lopsided for a while. But once I got going, it was a lot of fun. And I love the way the pizza looked when I was done. I'm hoping to have pizza for dinner tomorrow night. But it will not have green peppers on it.

Enjoyed this one, especially all the Js, Qs, Xs, etc. Also the constructor's notes--I'm always curious about how a puzzle came to be. I've been out of the country a lot this fall and not keeping up with things--but it's good to get caught up (sort of) and back to puzzling.

I was on the right wavelength tonight! I saw Zhouqin's byline and the clue for 16A and thought, YEAR OF THE DRAGON and it fit so I was off to a good start. That didn't stop me from having problems in other areas--like COMICON for MEGACON and figuring out how to spell GONG XI FA CAI, but it all worked out nicely. Happy New Year to all!

That was tough. I basically worked from the bottom up, and eventually got through the NE corner. So many things I did not know. And Caitlin is right; that 1913 front page has some dreadful stories on it. Not recommended for people who'd like to feel happy at Christmas time.

This one seemed really tough at the start--I had very little early on and really thought that I wasn't going to get anywhere with it--and then it slowly filled in. I got a tiny boost when I got OLIN college, which I only knew because they started to build it when I was still living next door in Wellesley, Mass. I keep looking at BIASCUT in the finished puzzle and thinking that I've massively misspelled BISCUIT. Overall, I think this was an excellent puzzle. Like Deb, if I had paid more attention to the clue, I might have figured out AMONRA a whole lot faster than I actually did.

My favorite kind of weekend puzzle--looked daunting, but solved smoothly and entertainingly. I liked those big stacks, especialy after I got the right vowels in the right places in AYO EDEBIRI's name!

Lots of fun and unexpected things here. It looked impossible at first and then suddenly it was done. I didn't know NERFING but now I do.

What an entertaining collection of gory-adjacent theme words! I enjoyed this one a lot.

I thought this one was going to be a massive fail, but then it was solved. I didn't figure out what kind of "sitting" was being done in 57D until after I had finished. And I didn't notice the two ICEs until I read the notes. This was definitely a Saturday for me.

Another excellent Friday! Lots of good stuff here. It's always a delight to do a puzzle that challenges without being obscure and difficult. Happy weekend, everyone!

I had just done the April bonus puzzle (theme=baseball) so when I saw AT BAT and ON BASE and AL WEST I thought this one was going to be another baseball puzzle. But it was tea! And I'm a tea drinker (ASSAM would be my choice from the ones presented here). Jasin says the T shapes of the black squares were coincidental, but they certainly add to the look of the puzzle. I enjoyed today's Durham-Wordplay lunch, with Wordplayers from Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Connecticut as well. Great fun catching up on the last year and talking puzzles.

Yay for books and LIBRARY/ies! I didn't fall into the UNPIN trap because I looked at 4D and didn't think it would end in an I. I got CALEB somehow from the depths of my attic brain because I've been to his drugstore in New Bern, NC, where he invented Pepsi. Other than that it was pretty straightforward, and gave me lots of nice mental images of sky-related things. And yes, I want to know what that photo in the column is all about.

An easy breezy puzzle; got the trick with John LLEEWWIISS and understood what all those Ns were doing in John Glenn's name. I especially enjoyed the constructor's notes and his explanation of why the 5-letter last names worked better for the puzzle layout. I like the behind-the-scenes information!

TIL about BOSS BATTLE--something completely out of my wheelhouse. And I was happy to suss out MANDALORIAN with a few of the cross words. Nice job, Grace and Greg!

One of those puzzles that seemed impossible at first, then slowly, step by step, inch by inch, it got solved. I was a little surprised (?) to see OH LORD and DEAR GOD in the same puzzle, even if they had very different clues. It was nice to have OSSIE Davis instead of GEENA or BETTE (not that they would have fit the specific clue). And what Steve L said about PIT STOP.

On my laptop, at regular size, the curls in the border of 27A merely looked like stitches. It was easy enough to get the answer without knowing that they were curls, but I had to enlarge the grid to see that they were curls (which I did not think to do while I was solving). In general, though, I do like visual creativity in puzzles.

Entertaining, and it solved smoothly, but I was sort of disappointed that it didn't resist me any more. I want my Saturday puzzles to have more bite to them. But maybe I was just lucky with the particular clues and answers in this one--or some good guesses. I wouldn't spell TEENTSY with the extra T, but I can hear people pronouncing it that way--maybe it's a more regional thing? I hope Christina and Jacob will collaborate on future puzzles!

Before starting the puzzle, I spent a little bit of time trying to find symmetry in the black squares. If I just fold the puzzle this way . . . or that way . . . nope! So finishing the puzzle and seeing the overlay show up was definitely entertaining. Other than that, SALMONBERRY? That's a new one for me.

I had EXTENSIVE before SUBSTANTIAL because I had the last letters in place but hadn't figured out the SUBstack trick yet. But then TONERS told me that was wrong. Figured out the trick with HAYstack. Enjoyed it!

More conversational clues than I like to deal with, but I enjoyed the puzzle anyway. Happily, I knew what a MOLCAJETE was and enjoyed its partnership with MONTESSORI. And there were enough clues that I had to look at two or three times to figure out how to parse them--and that kept me interested.

Excellent puzzle! with a lot of delightful stuff. And POUTINE.

Tough but doable; the X was my last fill. It definitely felt like a Saturday puzzle.

A very cute way to break the rules! (or use the exceptions). I especially liked the symmetry of the theme answers.

The grid looked daunting and was fun to fill, but it went by too fast. The three long entries in the middle solved especially quickly, but I thought all the long entries were enjoyable. So glad Henry was talked out of Dr Doofenshmirtz!

The theme suddenly dawned on me about three-quarters of the way through. I liked the ALPACAS and LLAMAS and the NAS and NES pairs. Nice job, guys!

I was feeling like I wasn't on Hemant's wavelength at all--it felt like I was struggling to fill anything in--and then suddenly it was finished. So I guess I wasn't too far off. I liked things like SPOILED ROTTEN and SHOOK THINGS UP. Nice job! And I agree with Steve L about the graying-out and freezing of the column while I look at comments. Very annoying.