Michael Weiland

This was a fun solve. I seemed frustrating at first, yet I ended in just about my average Thursday time. It's a nice touch that the three wormhole clues are all celestial objects: STAR, COMET and NOVA.

Add me to the list of people who struggled with this one, with the NW finishing last. It took me longer than my Saturday or Sunday average solving time.

Dolly Parton was asked if she was bothered by "dumb blonde" jokes. She replied "No, because I know I'm not dumb... and I know I'm not blonde." :-)

From my Unix coding days, not only was an exclamation point a "bang," also an asterisk was a "splat." Likewise: period = "dot," hyphen = "dash," number-sign = "hash," ampersand = "and." The Bell Labs folks tried to name a # an "octothorpe" -- it has 8 prongs -- but, seriously? I suppose an advantage of these is they can be said aloud in a single syllable.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now.

As I heard it at the time -- I was volunteering at my college radio station in 1980 -- AC/DC was uncertain as to whether they should disband after the death of Bon Scott. Their consensus was, if any of the others had died, Scott would want to continue on. So they kept going. Back in Black was their next album; they were "back" (recording/touring again) "in black" (while mourning).

Walking on an icy sidewalk: if you don't C#, you may B♭.

Monarch pupae are not wrapped in a COCOON... rather, a chrysalis. Moths have coccons, not butterflies.

My mnemonic for the colors of the spectrum has always been just, "Roy G. Biv," as if it were a person's name.

One of these days, I will remember how to spell Ado Edebiri's name without looking it up.

This was the kind of puzzle where the crosses seemed to lead to an answer that doesn't seem to fit the starred clue... but since there's a star in the clue, so just roll with it. Then once the revealer is in place, aha! Fun one.

This fun puzzle reminded me of a question ages ago to the "Straight Dope," a beloved know-it-all column in the Chicago Reader from the days before the Internet. People would write in with baffling questions, and "Cecil Adams" would answer them. Once someone asked if he could supply all the 2-letter Scrabble words. Cecil's reply: "Oh no, me no do it. If so, it do me in."

This is my favorite kind of theme puzzle: where the revealer/theme helps me complete clues I hadn't gotten to yet. I am saddened by the loss of the author's neighbor Isa. May their memory be a blessing.

I found this one delightfully tough. Practically nothing filled in on the first pass through, but things slowly fell into place. This took me about 50% longer than my average Saturday.

Maybe it's just me, but I found this to be on the tough side for a Tuesday. My completion time was closer to Wednesday/Thursday. YMMV!

I had not noticed until I read the column that the NE and NW corners are isolated from the rest of the puzzle. Rules are made to be broken, I suppose, and this was plenty enjoyable.

Whenever I hear a sports report that mentions the University of Connecticut, I think they are referring to the Klondike territory.

Like some others, I was momentarily thinking the duplicated letters would lead to "double blind." But the puzzle title and TTHHUUMMBB 22A got me going in the right direction. Then the last few "digits" fell into place easily. And it brought my streak to 1,600 days.

The fact that some of the streets in the oldest part of Chicago are named for US presidents is a reminder of how young a city Chicago is. The USA was on its 7th president by the time Chicago was founded.

I'm surprised 44D wasn't clued as "code for 55 Down".

This page's URL is missing the "-09" before the "13". It should be "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2024-09-13.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2024-09-13.html</a>"

This was a new Saturday PB for me. It solved quicker than a typical Wednesday for me. I'm curious if others have a similar experience? TIL that BASE is a acronym!

This was fun. But I think Tuesday and Wednesday could have switched places this week.

Deb, what a beautiful, loving tribute to your late father. So saddened by your loss.

51D/66A was kind of a Natick for me... made a guess on the crossing letter that turned out to be correct. Of course I had no idea what that letter stands for until I followed the link in the column...

The shaded squares for the flipped birds definitely made this easier for me.

The Dutch word for glove is similar to German, "handschoen." We lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years when my daughters were school age. Our 4-year-old told us this joke: "In wat voor schoenen stopt Sinterklaas niet cadeautjes in? Handschoenen!" ("In what kind of shoes does Santa not put gifts in? Gloves!") It's hilarious in Dutch from a 4-year-old.... We came up with an English analog: "What kind of nuts don't grow on trees? Doughnuts!"

It's been more than 25 years since the US minted quarters with an eagle on the reverse. Since 1999, it's been states, territories, national parks, American women and more. Of course, there are still a kajillion eagle-backed quarters from 1998 and earlier.

I found this a challenge; it took me quite a bit over my Friday average (or even Saturday average). Among my false starts: 13A: echoes 25A: alum 48A: inductee 8D: aces I'm pleased that at least I didn't have to look anything up. A very impressive puzzle, especially for a high schooler! Kudos.

The "T-Rex" clue that had been proposed for 13D would surely have been Friday-worthy. Thanks at least sharing that.

This column's URL should be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2025-07-03.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2025-07-03.html</a> -- on the Wordplay page it is missing the "2025-".

This one made me smile. I mostly had the starred clues answered from the crosses, but once the revealer popped up: aha!

Cool that this covered the "big 4" US sports leagues. I was thinking that the Guardians probably haven't been in crosswords much, since the moniker is relatively new; the constructor confirms that. A quarter of a century is a long time for any creative work to incubate!

Chicago's epic and untitled 5-story Picasso sculpture is fabricated in Cor-Ten steel. And the building behind it, the Richard J. Daley Center, is clad in Cor-Ten. Yes, the coating may be "rust," but it does not flake off and provides a tough maintenance-free coating that never needs painting. The Daley Center has been standing since 1965; the Picasso, since 1967.

This page's URL should be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2026-01-06.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2026-01-06.html</a> -- but this has a 2025 after "-puzzle". I know, ya don't write checks any more, so you have to put last year's date somewhere...

There were too many spaces for just "TEHRAN" (or even "TEHeRAN"), but since the clue was city + country, TEHRANIRAN was apt. There was no country in the Little Mermaid clue.